The essays in this volume present the first comprehensive account of Fichte’s reception and influence in America, highlighting philosophical issues central to thinkers in the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Este artigo tem como propósito apresentar um estudo sobre o uso de narrativas no ensino de História, procurando destacar as potencialidades deste recurso pedagógico no processo de construção do conhecimento histórico e averiguar como este recurso potencia o desenvolvimento do pensamento histórico em alunos portugueses do 2.º ano de escolaridade. As narrativas produzidas pelos alunos foram submetidas a uma análise de conteúdo indutiva e categorizadas por níveis de progressão de ideias. Os resultados demonstraram que este tipo de recurso pode influenciar (...) a estruturação do pensamento histórico dos alunos, bem como potenciar a sua imaginação. (shrink)

This article focuses on Spinoza’s conception of philosophy. Based on what is stated on On the Improvement of the Understanding and the Theologico-Political Treatise, we propose that Spinoza does not consider philosophy as an already possessed knowledge, but as the pursuit of truth, closely linked to the pursuit of happiness. Philosophy is, according to this conception, a practice that involves the process by which human beings become free of prejudices and errors that prevent them from apprehending truth, and that hinder (...) their thought and their action. This path of self emancipation of error is, according to our proposal, the authentic spirit of philosophy according to Spinoza, what, as we will show, is explicitly expressed in certain passages of his Ethics. (shrink)

Este artículo propone un análisis de los Aforismos sobre religión y deísmo escritos por J. G. Fichte en 1790, poco antes de su conversión a la filosofía kantiana. Sostenemos que este texto no expresa la adhesión de Fichte al determinismo, ni al punto de vista del corazón, ni tampoco se limita a presentar la religión y el deísmo como dos sistemas opuestos. Según nuestra interpretación, Fichte defiende dos tesis. En primer lugar, que la mezcla de ambos sistemas es inaceptable y (...) hay que respetar el límite que existe entre ellos. En segundo lugar, que es imposible sostener ninguno de los dos sistemas, porque necesariamente entran en colisión y dejan al ser humano en una situación de desgarramiento. La conclusión del fragmento es, por lo tanto, la necesidad de buscar una posición superadora, que logre subsanar la escisión. Esa posición superadora será la Doctrina de la ciencia, que modifica los términos del planteo antagónico y logra la reconciliación de la libertad y la filosofía. This article proposes an analysis of the Aphorisms on Religion and Deism written by J. G. Fichte in 1790, shortly before his conversion to the Kantian philosophy. We argue that this text does not express Fichte’s accordance with determinism, or with the point of view of the heart, nor merely present religion and deism as two opposing systems. According to our interpretation, Fichte defends two theses. First, that the mixture of both systems is unacceptable and the limit between them must be respected. Secondly, that it is impossible to affirm neither of them, because they necessarily collide and leave the human being in a situation of scission. The conclusion of the fragment is, therefore, the need to seek a position that overcomes this situation of scission. That position will be the Doctrine of science, which amends the antagonistic terms of the dilemma and achieves the reconciliation between freedom and philosophy. (shrink)

It is a widely accepted idea that German Idealism stands on two pillars: Kant and Spinoza. The aim of this essay is to critically reflect on this way of understanding the history of philosophy through a study of the reception of Spinoza in the early writings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. This analysis will show that each of them builds a different image of Spinoza that is not based on the scholarly study of his works, but rather deeply conditioned by (...) other readings and controversies of the time. Each assigns a central role to that image of Spinoza in the justification of his own system, and in each case that theoretical function is different: Spinoza is viewed as an enemy (Fichte), a possibility and a source of inspiration (Schelling), and a model of true philosophy (Hegel). (shrink)

Milindapañha. Le domande del re Milinda. Translated, with an introduction and notes, by Maria Angela Falà. Astrolabio-Ubaldini Editori, Rome 1982.

This essay concerns political identities as related to the existence of an enemy. Here are four methodological key points as topics for discussion.Even in the natural biological environment, where imitation has its real beginning, we find not only a subject and an object, but also a third element: René Girard calls it "the model of desire."1 The subject desires the object insofar as the model is imagined to want the same object. Therefore, mankind's dependence on the model is, as it (...) always was, the modus operandi of hyper-mimetic beings. It is not solely a distorted compulsion that transforms the model into a "material" obstacle to obtaining the object.As for mimetism, it must be underlined that rivalry... (shrink)

Can a material object refer to the divine without attracting to itself devotion and veneration? And, in particular, can a depiction call to mind a reality that subtracts itself from its materiality? There are thus two problems here: whether the divine (God and what pertains to Him) can be rightly said to be represented by an object and whether, in any case, such an object runs the risk of becoming an idol, a little God, an imitation of God. The paper (...) concentrates on the history of the status of images, depending on religions, and the recurrent idea of taking necessarily away the “others”. People belonging to “other” religions are regarded as guilty, idolater, heretic, far away from the true God and the best practises to adore Him. A central year is the 787 CE, for the Nicea II Council, but also for the reactions about it. With all the Platonic-Augustinian suspicion of fictions, the so-called Libri Carolini apportions to images the sole role of bringing to mind the materiality of what is represented thus denying the power of referring to the supersensible: paradoxically, the more an image is “true” and the greater the similarity between the image and its object, the greater is its freight of falsity, insofar as it increases the deception worked on the spectator. The ideas of the Carolingian court cannot be divorced from an artistic production that tended ever more to disconnect a precise meaning from the images made in stone or with the brush, and in due course increasingly regarded sacred history as a pretext for proposing imagines formosae. (shrink)

Eastern Orthodox theology affirms the liturgy as an anticipatory icon of God's reign that establishes a pattern of relationships by which Christians are called to live in and for the world. Taking at face value an Orthodox theological claim that the liturgy is the sole source for deriving ethical actions, Orthodox theologians typically address the question of female priesthood within the existing visual parameters of the liturgy in which men exercise authority. Given patterns addressed by both aspects of ritual theory (...) and contemporary anthropology, the articulation of anthropologies that likewise limit the authority and capability of women is to be expected. However, these defenses of the exclusion of women from full participation in the liturgy, including sacramental ordination, are the result of a reductionistic view of the priesthood, the liturgy, and human persons. Neither Orthodox personalism, nor its ethical implications, nor a few rarely glimpsed snippets of the Orthodox tradition support such reductionism. Rather, recognition of the unique capabilities of women by the community and their welcome participation within the community encourages the joy that underlies the transformation of a people who live for the life of the world. (shrink)

We intend to point out that in the Gorgias, dialogue devoted to the critique of rhetoric, Socrates' frequent allusions to the body's complexion, and the recurrent use of corporeal metaphors to refer to what, by analogy, happens to the soul, function as a rhetoric tool in order to oppose Gorgias' own rhetoric. Thus, while drawing attention to the way Plato uses the weapons of the adversary precisely to attack him, we emphasize the indispensable role of the body as evidence of (...) the soul in Platonic philosophy. Therefore, our intent is to reinforce the interpretive strand according to which Plato can be understood more as a thinker who departs from the pressing problems of his time in order to lead us into philosophical reflections – in the present dialogue, the political consequences of a _paideia _oriented by sophistic rhetoric –, than as a philosopher solely committed to a transcendent metaphysics. (shrink)

In Ennead III.5 On Love, Plotinus' discussion of erôs is underlined by Plato’s discourse on love in the Symposium and the Phaedrus.[1] Plotinus conceives erôs as a purified power, which directs the soul to the intelligible realm of beauty and the world of the Forms.[2] Modern scholarship considers the Plotinian erôs as an ascending power that is always directed to the higher realm of the Forms and never to the lower perceptible realm. Throughout the Enneads, the soul is described as (...) purely and originally an intelligible entity in all its manifestations and expressions (ex. Ennead IV.8).[3] Plotinus particularly supports a dual aspect theory of the soul, in which the homogenous psychē consists of two interrelated aspects - a higher intelligible part related to Intellect, and a lower perceptible part related to the sensible bodies (Caluori, 2015; Remes, 2007; Stamatellos, 2013; Stern-Gillet, 2009). However, limited attention has been paid to the intelligible aspects of the soul's desire in Plotinus' conception of erôs. In this context, this paper aims to revisit the view that Plotinus completely refuted the desire of the physical bodies, and consequently refuted erôs as a power directed to the lower perceptible realm (Ferwerda, 1965; Friedländer, 1964; Hadot, 1963; Wallis, 1995). It is argued that in light of the soul's intelligibility, desire also has an intelligible aspect when it is directed, along with the power of love, to the earthly realm and thus the true intelligible beauty of the perceptible bodies is recognized. [1] Hereafter, all quotations from Plotinus’ Enneads will solely refer to Armstrong’s (1966-1988) translations. [2] See Bertozzi (2012, 2021); Tatarkiewicz (1980); Wallis (1995); Wiitala (2013), Vasilakis (2021). [3] For Plotinus’ theory of the soul, see his treatises in Ennead IV. Also see Blumenthal (1971) and Caluori (2015). (shrink)

This Teacher Education Project is an intervention research aimed at creating new school roles for educating students as readers and writers as well as citizens. The methodological framework was based on Vygotsky’s discussions of method as praxis, as well as on both the Marxist practical–materialistic–revolutionary activity and Engeström’s extensions of Cultural Historical Activity Theory. The work at school was motivated by students’ limited awareness of reading and writing. The goal was to involve the school as a community in understanding and (...) transforming the ways in which reading and writing were addressed in classrooms. The methodology used for organizing and carrying out the project was devised so as to allow for three activity systems that partially interact with their objects – that is, reading and writing as tools for teaching-learning in different areas in order to constitute students as citizens. However, for this paper, we will focus solely on the Teacher Education Activity System, which we termed Teacher Support Team. Three episodes are discussed in this paper: Two video sessions with the Teacher Support Team, the first of which took place in 2010, and the second in 2011; and a classroom reading class session that was videotaped in 2011 as part of the Teacher Support Team work. The theoretical and practical work developed was targeted at creating a mutual Zone of Proximal Development that supported teachers, coordinators, and the principal, through the appropriation of reading and writing as processes. The results show that the organization of the project as interrelated activity systems enhanced the entire school’s prospects of appropriating the reading and writing teaching-learning processes, by focusing on the same object, in the diverse systems that framed the project. (shrink)

So far, the conceptualization and measurement of parental burnout have been deduced from those of job burnout. As a result, it is unclear whether current measures of parental burnout constitute the best representation of the parental burnout construct/syndrome: the possibility cannot be excluded that some dimensions ought to be added, which would change the structure and definition of parental burnout. In this study, the conceptualization and measurement of parental burnout were approached using an inductive method, in which the parental burnout (...) phenomenon was (re)constructed based solely on the testimonies of burned-out parents. Items extracted from their testimonies were presented to a sample of French-speaking and English-speaking parents (N = 901) and submitted to factor analyses. An identifiable parental burnout syndrome including four dimensions was found (exhaustion in one’s parental role, contrast with previous parental self, feelings of being fed up with one’s parental role and emotional distancing from one’s children). The resulting instrument, the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) presents good validity. Factorial invariance across gender and languages was also found. Finally, the results of this study replicate previous findings that psychological traits of the parents, parenting factors and family functioning account for more variance in parental burnout than sociodemographic factors. (shrink)

The prevailing scientific paradigm is that matter is primary and everything, including consciousness can be derived from the laws governing matter. Although the scientific explanation of consciousness on these lines has not been realized, in this view it is only a matter of time before consciousness will be explained through neurobiological activity in the brain, and nothing else. There is an alternative view that holds that it is fundamentally impossible to explain how subjectivity can arise solely out of material processes—“the (...) hard problem of consciousness”—and instead consciousness should be regarded in itself as a primary force in nature. This view attempts to derive, for example, the laws of physics from models of consciousness, instead of the other way around. While as scientists we can understand and have an intuition for the first paradigm, it is very difficult to understand what “consciousness is primary” might mean since it has no intuitive scientific grounding. Here we show that worlds experienced through virtual reality are such that consciousness is a first order phenomenon. We discuss the Interface Theory of Perception which claims that in physical reality perceptions are not veridical and that we do not see the “truth” but that perception is based on evolutionary payoffs. We show that this theory may provide an accurate description of perception and consciousness within VR, and we put forward an experimental study that could throw light on this. We conclude that VR does offer an experimental frame that provides intuition with respect to the idea that “consciousness is first” and what this might mean regarding the perceived world. However, we do not draw any conclusions about the veracity of this notion with respect to physical reality or question the emergence of consciousness from brain function. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: In times of permanent connectivity, what forms of freedom need to be considered to prevent permanent availability as an unintended consequence? By using the Hegelian perspective on freedom, the paper categorizes three forms of freedom to transfer them to a common, contemporary understanding of freedom relating it to freedom through human-to-human digital communication. The aim is to show that freedom is not only about independence and realizing choices but (...) also about embedding and committing oneself. Design/methodology/approach This mainly conceptual paper derives implications based on the Hegelian theory. This is supplemented by an interdisciplinary approach, whereby categories of other philosophers, ethicists, economists and sociologists are applied. The analysis of the contemporary perspective on freedom is enriched by referencing empirical studies. Findings Digital communication offers new freedom such as working with fewer restrictions from time and space, especially for knowledge workers. It is theoretically possible to work 24 h per day from anywhere, as well as to decide on the final location and timing of one’s work. When solely focusing on these – seemingly advantageous – forms of freedom in times of permanent connectivity, unintended consequences such as the expectation of permanent availability develop. The key message of the paper is that considering one’s temporal and social dependencies is an indispensable part of actual freedom to avoid unintended consequences. Practical implications Organizations need to invest in moral discernment to understand unintended consequences, as well as to cope with them. Originality/value Applying the Hegelian theory on freedom based on digital communication to better understand social dynamics of digital communication is a largely unexplored avenue in the existing scientific literature. The decision to undertake this venture resulted from the identified necessity of understanding freedom better. It is often not clear what is meant by freedom through digital communication. Although freedom is a complex construct, it is often reduced to independence/having a choice and realizing choices. When solely focusing on independence and realizing choices, unintended consequences such as permanent availability often go unnoticed. It is exactly because of these issues that this paper endeavors to examine the meaning of the powerful, yet complex, term of freedom. (shrink)

The paper explains the meaning of law and its political function in Marsilius of Padua’s philosophy. This thinker is interested, above all, in statehood and he points out that law is the ground of civitas (polis or political community). His emphasis on law means that the main question is what makes law, law. It isn’t the content of justice, but the coercive command of the legislator, who has the authority to give law and to punish its transgression, because a law (...) is a command whose disobedience leads to punishment. Therefore such definition of law runs into the question for the law-giver: it is “the whole corporation of citizens or its weightier part (valentior pars)”, that is to say, the rightful representation of the whole community, but never any other part of community, not even priests or doctors. The definition of law, which involves the unity of community and the sole legislator, is the philosophical ground to refute any political power for the Pope or priests to make laws. (shrink)

In paragraph 162 of Cato’s De agricultura there is an inconsistency between the topic announced in the headline - Salsura pernarum ofellae Puteolanae - and the subsequent text, as it is solely concerned with the salsura pernarum. All recent discussions assume that the text deals with two different recipes. In my paper, I suggest that, given Cato’s usus scribendi as well as the form of other recipes, Cato presents one recipe only: The headline specifies its name and alludes to the (...) process of its production (in reversed order) so that neither et nor a comma should be inserted between pernarum and ofellae (as most editors have done ever since Merula’s editio princeps). Finally, I offer an explanation for the inconsistency between the different forms of the title in the rubrica and in the summarium that correspond to this paragraph. (shrink)

In this reply, we wish to defend our original position and address several of the points raised by two excellent responses. The first response questions the relevance of the notion of ‘serious’ within the context of human germline genome modification. We argue that the ‘serious’ factor is relevant and that there is a need for medical and social lenses to delineate the limits of acceptability and initial permissible applications of HGGM. In this way, ‘serious’ acts as a starting point for (...) further discussions and debates on the acceptability of the potential clinical translation of HGGM. Therefore, there is a pressing need to clarify its scope, from a regulatory perspective, so as to prevent individuals from using HGGM for non-therapeutic or enhancement purposes. The second response criticizes the narrow interpretation of the objectivist approach and the apparent bias towards material innovations when discussing the right to benefit from scientific advancements. As an in-depth discussion of the objectivist and constructivist approaches was beyond the scope of our original paper, we chose to focus on one specific objectivist account, one which focuses on biological and scientific facts. We agree, however, with the critique that material innovations should not be the sole focus of the right to benefit from scientific advancements, which also incorporates freedom of scientific research and access to scientific knowledge scientific freedom and knowledge, including the influence of these on ethical thinking and cultures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anthropological Perspectives in Psychiatric NosologyJuan J. López-Ibor Jr. (bio) and María-Inés López-Ibor (bio)KeywordsDSM, etiology, Aristotelian causes, social dramasPsychiatry and clinical psychology, as we learn in this paper, are disciplines in need of an ontological perspective. Very few branches of contemporary learning share this characteristic. Probably only theoretical physic and theology—as the rest have long ago given up trying to define and understand the essence of their object, for example, (...) life in the case of biology or mind in psychology. Consequently, the paper by Pérez-Álvarez, Sass and García-Montes, “The Ontology of Mental Disorders in Constructivist Perspective,” (2008) should be welcomed and indeed included in the reading lists for trainees in psychiatry and clinical psychology.The authors propose an approach to the understanding of mental disorders that is extremely attractive and well articulated, and which also has practical implications for clinicians. It is not just another “philosophical divertimento” devoid of scientific and practical importance. Let us analyze the article in an orderly way.Less DsmThe authors of the target paper disapprove of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-III/IV approach to defining illnesses by starting from the symptoms that are present—on the grounds that this may lead clinicians to assume that their sole role is to identify, fight, and suppress the symptoms by whichever procedure. They propose an alternative that is dear to myself because it follows the path of the so-called “anthropological” psychiatry of Binswanger, von Gebsattel, Erwin Strauss, Zutt, López-Ibor, Sr., and others. In essence, this is a phenomenological approach to the meaning of mental diseases, one that emphasizes how the illness is revealed to the patient him- or herself.The target article’s criticism of DSM should be considered in the context of the abuses committed on its behalf. The DSM is not a textbook of psychiatric disorders, nor does it contain a definition of the diseases. The DSM does not tell what a disease is (Klerman et al. 1984)—something that is impossible with a classification system based on the manifestations of the diseases, the signs and symptoms. The DSM, as its title states, is just a diagnostic and statistical manual, which does not contain anything about the origin of [End Page 259] any disease nor an explanation of why it exists or what it means. The DSM is, in fact, just a tool to determine whether a disease is present, and therefore to facilitate communication between professionals and with other individuals, without saying anything about the disease’s aitia—a key term (associated with notions of essence as well as cause) to be discussed below. In theory, most clinicians should understand these limitations; it may be, however, that this is not really the case for many who read or use the DSM. In the world there are around 200,000 psychiatrists; since 1980 the number of DSM copies sold is in the order of several hundred thousand.The misuse of a classification system is even more noticeable in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 Research Version. The instructions for the use of this version recommend that the first step is to make an inventory of all the symptoms present, and then to construct a diagnosis based on them. This how all computer-assisted systems work. This procedure can, however, only be valid if the clinician has already reached a diagnostic conclusion by other means—a diagnosis then to be confirmed for research purposes. It may be that this is one of the reasons why the ICD-10 Research Version has almost never actually been used for research.Furthermore, the concept of symptoms in psychiatry applies only to organic mental disorders (Schneider 1959), conditions in which the patient’s attitude and way of experiencing the symptoms do not play the kind of role that they play in schizophrenia and other mental disorders. The quotation from the important paper by Sass and Parnas in this context is most appropriate. It is indeed that case that “subjective experience can play an important causal role in the progressive experiential transformations of a developing schizophrenic illness... (shrink)

No cure yet exists for devastating Alzheimer's disease (AD), despite many years and humongous efforts to find efficacious pharmacological treatments. So far, neither designing drugs to disaggregate amyloid plaques nor tackling solely inflammation turned out to be decisive. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and, in particular, extracellular vesicles (EVs) originating from them could be proposed as an alternative, strategic approach to attack the pathology. Indeed, MSC‐EVs—owing to their ability to deliver lipids/proteins/enzymes/microRNAs endowed with anti‐inflammatory, amyloid‐β degrading, and neurotrophic activities—may be exploited (...) as therapeutic tools to restore synaptic function, prevent neuronal death, and slow down memory impairment in AD. Herein the results presented in the most recently published studies on this topic are critically evaluated, providing a strong rationale for possible employment of MSC‐EVs in AD. (shrink)

Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the (...) Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, (...) and consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.

Testimonio que recoge algunas experiencias y reflexiones de la artista visual costarricense María Rapela en Alemania y de cómo se involucró en la gestión cultural, coordinando el Fieber Festival, una plataforma colaborativa y auto-gestionada de mujeres artistas migrantes iberoamericanas en Berlín entre el 2011 y el 2017.

A striking feature of atrocities, as seen in genocides, civil wars or violence against certain racial and ethnic groups, is the attempt to dehumanize – to deny and strip human beings of their humanity. Yet the very nature of dehumanization remains relatively poorly understood. The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary reference source on the subject and an outstanding survey of the key concepts, issues and debates within dehumanization studies. Organized into four parts, the Handbook covers (...) the following key topics: (I) The history of dehumanization from Greek Antiquity to the Twentieth century, contextualizing the oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in the history of the ‘West’. (II) How dehumanization is contemporarily studied with respect to special contexts: as part of social psychology, as part of legal studies or literary studies, and how it connects to the idea of human rights, disability and eugenics, the question of animals, and the issue of moral standing. (III) How to tackle its complex facets, with respect to the perpetrator’s and the target’s perspective, metadehumanization and selfdehumanization, rehumanization, social death, status and interdependence, as well as the fear we show towards robots that become too human for us. (IV) Conceptual and epistemological questions on how to distinguish different forms of dehumanization and neighboring phenomena, on why dehumanization appears so paradoxical, and on its connection to hatred, essentialism, and perception. -- Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, history, psychology, and anthropology this Handbook will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as politics, international relations, criminology, legal studies, literary studies, gender studies, disability studies, or race and ethnic studies, as well as readers from social work, political activism, and public policy --- Table of Contents: Introduction. 1. Mapping dehumanization studies. – Maria Kronfeldner. Part I. Oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in historical contexts. 2. Dehumanization Before the Columbian exchange – Siep Stuurman. 3. 'Humanity' and its Limits in Early Modern European Thought – László Kontler. 4. Enlightenment Humanization and Dehumanization and the Orang-utan – Silvia Sebastiani. 5. Dehumanizing the Exotic in Living Human Exhibitions – Guido Abbattista. 6. Dehumanizing Strategies in Nazi Ideology and their Anthropological Context – Johannes Steizinger. 7. Theorizing the Inhumanity of Human Nature, 1955-1985 – Erika Lorraine Milam. Part II: Further special contexts of dehumanization. 8. The Social Psychology of Dehumanization – Nick Haslam. 9. Dehumanization and the Loss of Moral Standing – Edouard Machery. 10. Dehumanization and the Question of Animals – Alice Crary. 11. Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics – Robert A. Wilson. 12. Dehumanization and Human Rights – Marie-Luisa Frick. 13. Dehumanization by Law – Luigi Corrias. 14. Dehumanisation in Literature and the Figure of the Perpetrator – Andrea Timár. Part III: The complex facets of dehumanization. 15. Dehumanization and Social Death as Fundamentals of Racism – Wulf D. Hund. 16. How Status and Interdependence Explain Different Forms of Dehumanization – Susan T. Fiske. 17. Exploring Metadehumanization and Self-dehumanization from a Target Perspective – Stéphanie Demoulin, Pierre Maurage, Florence Stinglhamber. 18. The Dehumanization and Rehumanization of Refugees – Victoria M. Esses, Stelian Medianu, Alina Sutter. 19. Motivational and Cognitive Underpinnings of Fear of Social Robots that become ‘Too Human for Us’ – Maria Paola Paladino, Jeroen Vaes, Jolanda Jetten. Part IV: Conceptual and epistemological questions regarding dehumanization. 20. Objectification, Inferiorization and Projection in Phenomenological Research on Dehumanization – Sara Heinämaa and James Jardine. 21. Why Dehumanization is Distinct from Objectification – Mari Mikkola. 22. On Hatred and Dehumanization – Thomas Brudholm and Johannes Lang. 23. Dehumanization, the Problem of Humanity, and the Problem of Monstrosity – David Livingstone Smith. 24. Psychological Essentialism and Dehumanization – Maria Kronfeldner. 25. Could Dehumanization Be Perceptual? – Somogy Varga. (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping (...) societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More specifically, our findings (...) identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)