The key concept in Kant’s aesthetics is “aesthetic reflective judgment,” a critique of which is found in Part 1 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). It is a critique inasmuch as Kant unravels previous assumptions regarding aesthetic perception. For Kant, the comparative edge of a “judgment” implicates communicability, which in turn gives it a public face; yet “reflection” points to autonomy, and the “aesthetic” shifts the emphasis away from objective properties to the subjective response evoked by the (...) object. Contrary to the view he had inherited, Kant did not treat aesthetic judgments as confused perceptions or inferior cognitions, but rather put them in a category of their own. For Kant, aesthetic reflective judgments implicated not only the processes involved in understanding the empirical world but also the processes involved in ascribing ideas or meaning to experience (which go beyond what is given in perception/cognition). This “going beyond cognition” may have been referred to by Kant as non-cognitive, but it is conditioned on a way of cognizing the object. Kant describes the features of such judgments in the Analytic of the Beautiful before addressing their possibility in subtle ways throughout the Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgments. Kant’s critique gives rise to three apparent dichotomies: immediate intuition and prior learning; autonomy and communicability; and non-cognitive response and aesthetic ideas. An interpretation of Kant’s theory can be deemed correct to the degree that it succeeds in showing that the contradictions are only apparent. I will argue that the resulting positive account of Kant’s aesthetic theory offers an understanding of aesthetic reflective judgment that is quite different from the standard formalism that the critics of formalism usually target and by which they misrepresent Kant’s aesthetic theory. When I refer to Kant’s formalism, then, I mean something quite different by this than what is meant by “standard formalism.” The latter is the representation given Kant’s formalism by its contemporary critics and is the typical account of formalism found in the art theory and philosophy of art literature, as will be demonstrated. (shrink)

Focusing on a recent wave of international art cinema, Animal Worldsoffers the first sustained analysis of the relations between cinematic time and animal life. Through an aesthetic of extended duration, films such as Bestiaire(2010), The Turin Horse(2011) and A Cow's Life(2012) attend to animal worlds of sentience and perception, while registering the governing of life through biopolitical regimes. Bringing together Gilles Deleuze's writings on cinema and on animals - while drawing on Jacques Derrida, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Nicole Shukin and others - (...) the book argues that these films question the biopolitical reduction of animal life to forms of capital, opening up realms of virtuality, becoming and alternative political futures. (shrink)

A theoretical and empirical exploration of the concept of pedagogy and play in early childhood education... provides an in-depth examination of classical and contemporary theories of play, with a focus on post-developmental perspectives and Vygotskian theory."--Provided by publisher.

This chapter explains how a single scene in the Star Wars saga serves to reflect a popular and problematic contemporary view about people. The scene in question occurs in Return of the Jedi when Jabba the Hutt holds Princess Leia captive in his court on Tatooine. Using the philosophy of Susan Bordo, Jean‐Paul Sartre, and Michel Foucault, the chapter examines how Leia's captivity scene reflects modern society's hatred of fat and its preoccupation with the control of bodies, particularly the female (...) body. In contrast with Jabba and his uncontrolled appetite, Leia operates as a model of control. She becomes flesh's master rather than its slave. She finds her freedom by fighting fat. Fear of the flesh and a desire to control bodies are expressive of a deeper anxiety regarding embodiment that has been culturally conferred upon women more than men due to the cultural association of women with the body. (shrink)

What is the value of history for life? And how, if at all, might historians and their work contribute to human flourishing and well-being? Those are the straightforward, if capacious, questions that the distinguished contributors to this volume were asked to consider. The essays gathered here represent their responses. Each essay considers the value of history for life and its connections to human flourishing from a different standpoint and perspective. The answers are often deeply personal, but collectively they concur in (...) affirming history and the historical craft as tremendous resources for human well-being and of vital importance for our times. (shrink)

The book considers biology in parallel with philosophical structuralism in order to argue that notions of form in the organism are analogous to similar ideas in structuralist philosophy and literary theory. This analogy is then used to shed light on debates among biological scientists from the turn of the 19th century to the present day, including Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Dawkins, Crick, Goodwin, Rosen and West-Eberhard. The book critiques the endorsement of genetic manipulation and bioengineering as keys to solving agricultural and (...) environmental problems, suggesting that alternative models have been marginalized in the promotion of this discourse. Drawing from the work of philosophers including Cassirer, Saussure, Jakobson and Foucault the book ultimately argues that methods based on agroecology, supported by molecular applications (such as marker-assisted selection, MAS), can both advance agricultural development and remain focused on the whole organism. (shrink)

The standard cognitive theory of art claims that art can be insightful while maintaining that imagining is motivationally inert [Walton 1990] even when some epistemic advantage is claimed for it [Currie 1995]. However, if we assume art as art can be insightful, we also assume that the imagining it occasions has a lasting impact on belief. In this chapter, I argue that imagining of the kind occasioned by art can be held non-occurrently [Schellenberg 2013] without delusion and can motivate behaviour (...) [Gendler 2000, 2003, 2006a/b; Langland-Hassan 2016]. As such, certain features of imagination can be appreciated in a new light. (shrink)

Several technological developments, such as self-service technologies and artificial intelligence, are disrupting the retailing industry by changing consumption and purchase habits and the overall retail experience. Although AI represents extraordinary opportunities for businesses, companies must avoid the dangers and risks associated with the adoption of such systems. Integrating perspectives from emerging research on AI, morality of machines, and norm activation, we examine how individuals morally behave toward AI agents and self-service machines. Across three studies, we demonstrate that consumers’ moral concerns (...) and behaviors differ when interacting with technologies versus humans. We show that moral intention is less likely to emerge for AI checkout and self-checkout machines compared with human checkout. In addition, moral intention decreases as people consider the machine less humanlike. We further document that the decline in morality is caused by less guilt displayed toward new technologies. The non-human nature of the interaction evokes a decreased feeling of guilt and ultimately reduces moral behavior. These findings offer insights into how technological developments influence consumer behaviors and provide guidance for businesses and retailers in understanding moral intentions related to the different types of interactions in a shopping environment. (shrink)

Embark on a visual journey of self-discovery. In Beaming, Marilyne Verschueren-the artist behind internet sensation @beamingdesign-presents 100 expansive visuals designed to stimulate your mind and awaken your intuition. Messages of hope, resilience, and joy are incorporated into radiant art, with each image offering the reader an opportunity for deep contemplation and introspection. Powerful imagery is paired with 25 guided exercises for mindfulness, journaling, and breathwork to deepen your interactive experience. Full of warmth and positive energy, Beaming is an exquisite companion (...) and a stirring call to follow your truth. (shrink)

This book draws upon Vygotsky's idea of perezhivanie, emotions and imagination, and introduces the concepts of subjective sense and subjective configuration. These concepts are crucial for explaining and understanding children's development from a cultural-historical perspective. A book which theorises the relations between the social and the individual through a study of a child's perezhivanie, which analyses emotions more holistically, and advances the concepts of subjective sense and subjective configuration, is much needed. This book examines the complexity of human development through (...) a comprehensive elaboration of these concepts, allowing for new insights to be put forward. It doesn't always follow the chronological order of Vygotsky's publications, as many of his works remained in the family archives until the 1980s, when his Selected Works were first published in Russian. There has long been a need for a contemporary book on the scholarly treatment of perezhevanie, emotions, and subjectivity, and as such this book revisits dominant representations of these concepts and then puts forward new ways of conceptualising and using them in empirical research. The chapters cover a broad range of case studies where the concepts of perezhivanie, emotions and imagination and subjective sense and subjective configuration are used to give new empirical and theoretical insights into the study of human development. (shrink)

The arguments of each chapter demonstrate that there is no neutral perspective from which to analyse aesthetic qualities. Such qualities cannot be described as their very perception involves evaluation. In short, the chapters focus on those aspects of a first person perspective that can be considered inter-personal in the sense that they are susceptible of intentional calibration and enculturation. That said, not all chapters approach the theme from the same perspective nor with the same targets in mind. For example, approaching (...) the notion of inter-subjectivity with the intention of defending this possibility against the objection of relativism will yield a different treatment than championing inter-subjectivity in order to reject cultural arrogance, or overly reductive analyses of aesthetic qualities. Yet all chapters converge on the possibility of objectivity grounded in inter-subjectivity. (shrink)

Rights, justice, and power raise many interesting questions. Why do such basic concepts as rights and justice have such differentpoints of concern—equality, proportionality, medium rei? Why are there such different perspectives in philosophy, theology, and law? Why is the notion of power in business ethics so isolated from the general discussion of applied justice in treatises on business contracts, employee relations, and in other related topics? Discussions of power seemed parallel with discussions of justice. The two did not seem to (...) intersect. In this paper I shall argue that rights, power, and justice are interrelated. While natural rights are the basis for justice, rights cannotbe realized nor justice become operative without power. I shall call this relationship and the theory underlying it “Transforming Justice.”One of the basic concerns of this article is to notice the lack of interaction between rights and power in the traditional theories ofjustice. Granted that for many philosophers it is sufficient to determine what is just. But the notion of justice as an active virtue that persons are to exercise in their dealings with others goes further. It touches the realities of life that every person experiences. Life doesnot separate rights from power. Reflection upon the current separation of rights from power both in theory and in action is analogous to the separation of the “sensory” from the “imaginative” in art and in life. The urge to devise a framework of justice that brings out thewholeness of its existential being is the underlying rationale for developing a theory of transforming justice. Another purpose fordeveloping a theory of transforming justice is to suggest a conceptual framework of business ethics and corporate social responsibility that incorporates values, rights, power, and virtue. Authors and teachers approach these issues either from a value perspective or from the view that institutions respond only to those who exercise power. Thus, it isnecessary for a conceptual framework to incorporate the dynamics of power and the qualifying aspects of rights or claims.A natural law approach to justice and rights argues that humans have certain basic rights that others, whether humans or institutions, are required to respect. Natural rights theory places the burden or duty on each individual to respect the rights ofevery other person. In addition, justice is usually defined by natural law theorists as “giving each person his or her due,” what is requiredby natural rights, what is owed, earned, or deserved. But its applications fall short of reality. It raises other questions. How does one person get another to give him what is “his due”? How are duties and claims entailed by natural rights enforced in practice? The notionof transforming justice attempts to answer these questions. (shrink)

This edited collection sets forth a new understanding of aesthetic-moral judgment organised around three key concepts: pleasure, reflection, and accountability. The overarching theme is that art is not merely a representation or expression like any other, but that it promotes shared moral understanding and helps us engage in meaning-making. This volume offers an alternative to brain-centric and realist approaches to aesthetics. It features original essays from a number of leading philosophers of art, aesthetics, ethics, and perception, including Elizabeth Burns Coleman, (...) Garrett Cullity, Cynthia A. Freeland, Ivan Gaskell, Paul Guyer, Jane Kneller, Keith Lehrer, Mohan Matthen, Jennifer A. McMahon, Bence Nanay, Nancy Sherman, and Robert Sinnerbrink. Part I of the book analyses the elements of aesthetic experience— pleasure, preference, and imagination—with the individual conceived as part of a particular cultural context and network of other minds. The chapters in Part II explain how it is possible for cultural learning to impact these elements through consensus building, an impulse to objectivity, emotional expression, and reflection. Finally, the chapters in Part III converge on the role of dissonance, difference, and diversity in promoting cultural understanding and advancement. Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as to scholars in other disciplines interested in issues related to art and cultural exchange. (shrink)

AAA videogames often offer expansive experiences to the millions who engage with the medium, but they are vulnerable to disruption from neoliberal structures. The Corruption of Play explores how neoliberal ideology corrupts play in AAA videogames by creating conditions in which play becomes unbound from leisure, allowing play to be understood, undertaken, and assessed in economic terms, and fundamentally undermining the nature of play. Providing a cutting-edge and innovative approach to this problem, McMahon uses cognitive mapping to make neoliberalism (...) visible in play-space, showcasing a new way of seeing and understanding how play is enabled and how the player forms an understanding of themselves by it. How does the player form their sense of self in the videogame? What level of agency does the player have? How are AAA videogames consumed and what is the extent of the corruption of play? Offering a timely level-up to the existing critical work on videogames, McMahon's revelations that play in AAA videogames does not often occur under ideal conditions due to the influence of neoliberal ideology are a captivating read for communication and media scholars interested in videogames. Understanding that play should be a core activity, and a natural barrier to market and economic logics, McMahon sets the scene for equipping us to understand how the process of neo liberalisation can be resisted. (shrink)

If cultures are always in the making, this book catches one kind of culture on the make. Academics will be familiar with audit in the form of research and teaching assessments - they may not be aware how pervasive practices of 'accountability' are or of the diversity of political regimes under which they flourish. Twelve social anthropologists from across Europe and the Commonwealth chart an influential and controversial cultural phenomenon.

This book treats Hannah Arendt as a distinctly political writer who attempts to carve out a way in which humanity, poised between the Holocaust and the atom bomb, might reclaim its position as the creators of a world fit for human habitation. Marilyn LaFay argues that Arendt tries to bring a humanity into modernity, rejecting the argument that Arendt is an 'antimodernist lover of the Greek polis.' Rather, Arendt tries to politically reconcile the potential of humanity with the demands (...) of the modern condition: she encourages us to locate and use the expressive element of the modern for our political ends. This work identifies the paradox of Arendt's choice of an expressive, existentialist interpretation of politics over that of a politics of vision and imagination, concluding that Arendt's politics leads to little more than political aesthetics. (shrink)

A distinguished philosopher and a practicing minister, Marilyn McCord Adams has written a highly original work on a fundamental dilemma of Christian thought -- ...

Ideals of democratic participation and rational self-government have long informed modern political theory. As a recent elaboration of these ideals, the concept of deliberative democracy is based on the principle that legitimate democracy issues from the public deliberation of citizens. This remarkably fruitful concept has spawned investigations along a number of lines. Areas of inquiry include the nature and value of deliberation, the feasibility and desirability of consensus on contentious issues, the implications of institutional complexity and cultural diversity for democratic (...) decision making, and the significance of voting and majority rule in deliberative arrangements.The anthology opens with four key essays--by Jon Elster, Jürgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, and John Rawls--that helped establish the current inquiry into deliberative models of democracy. The nine essays that follow represent the latest efforts of leading democratic theorists to tackle various problems of deliberative democracy. All the contributions address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens. Although the authors approach the topic of deliberation from different perspectives, they all aim to provide a theoretical basis for a more robust democratic practice.Contributors : James Bohman, Thomas Christiano, Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, David Estlund, Gerald F. Gaus, Jürgen Habermas, James Johnson, Jack Knight, Frank I. Michelman, John Rawls, Henry S. Richardson, Iris Marion Young. (shrink)

Transforming our worldviews -- Transforming the fear of death -- Glimpses beyond death and the physical world -- Cosmologies of life, death, and beyond -- Science of the afterlife -- The practice of dying -- Grief as a doorway to transformation -- Dreaming and the transformation of death -- Transformative art -- Life, death, and the quantum soul -- Healing self and society.

Politics of Reality includes nine essays that examine sexism, the exploitation of women, the gay rights movement and other topics from a feminist perspective. -/- The essays "The Problem That Has No Name" and "A Note On Anger" have been translated into Spanish by Maria Lugones for circulation in la Asociacion Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofia.

Kierkegaard is considered by many to be the father of existentialism because he is believed to have asserted that our interpretations of existence are the expression of absolutely free choices, or choices for which no rational criteria can be given. This paper argues that that view is false. It presents a sketch of Kierkegaard position on the nature of human rationality, and argues that according to Kierkegaard, there are rational criteria for choosing between competing interpretations of existence and that people (...) make such choices only with reference to these criteria. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how increasing understanding and explicit awareness of social consciousness can develop through transformations in worldview. Based on a model that emerged from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies on worldview transformation, we identify five developmental levels of social consciousness: embedded, self-reflexive, engaged, collaborative, and resonant. As a person's worldview transforms, awareness can expand to include each of these levels, leading to enhanced prosocial experiences and behaviours. Increased social consciousness can in turn stimulate further transformations (...) in worldview. We then consider an educational curriculum to facilitate the understanding of worldview and the cultivation of social consciousness as core capacities for twenty-first century students and global citizens. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of conceptualising phenomenology as explanatory for the ongoing dialogue between the phenomenological tradition and cognitive science, especially enactive approaches to cognition. The first half of the paper offers three interlinked arguments: Firstly, that differentiating between phenomenology and the natural sciences by designating one as descriptive and the other as explanatory undermines opportunities for the kind of productive friction that is required for genuine ‘mutual enlightenment’. Secondly, that conceiving of phenomenology as descriptive rather than explanatory risks (...) committing us to what Zahavi (2019) identifies as the error of equating the phenomenological with the phenomenal. Finally, that the erroneous reduction to the descriptive occludes the rich resources that the phenomenological tradition can contribute to investigations of non-human cognition. The second half of the paper then turns to focus specifically on the promising relationship between phenomenology and enactive approaches to cognition. It will suggest that phenomenology must be seen as having explanatory capacities if it is to shed light on the structures of “mind in life” (Thompson, 2007), before drawing on the model of explanation put forward by Louis Sass to explore what this might look like. (shrink)

Background: Brain-dead humans retain many of the physiologic functions of living humans, but they are legally dead and cannot be physically harmed by participation in research. Stakeholder opinions...