In this provocative book, Randall Havas articulates an approach to Nietzsche which demonstrates that the authentic individual need not stand apart from his or her culture in order to resist the demands of conformism. On Havas's reading, the task of the Nietzschean individual is instead to replace the illusion of culture - "herd morality" - with real community, and in this way to avoid nihilism. It is such community that Nietzsche aspires to establish with his readers - (...) a claim that, in the author's view, suggests that Nietzsche's conception of the nature of community and, hence, of individuality must be understood in terms of his theory of reading and interpretation. Nietzsche holds that the category of the individual is itself a historical construct. Havas's interpretation of this view dissolves the threat it appears to pose to individualism. By treating genealogical method as a response to this threat, he shows how Nietzsche's defense of individualism, his conception of history, and his commitment to truth reinforce one another. On this reading, Nietzsche's more properly ethical concerns lie at the heart of his understanding of the will to knowledge. Havas argues that, for Nietzsche, ostensibly epistemological questions can be assessed only in the light of an understanding of the interdependence between individual and community. (shrink)

Meaning, in the sense that interests Nietzsche, is possible only on the basis of what he calls “obedience over a long period of time and in a single direction”. That he considers one's authority as a speaker to be in this way a function of obedience suggests that a better understanding of training more generally might help us understand his conception of the achievement of intelligibility. To that end, I begin an exploration in this article of the notions of authority (...) and obedience in Nietzsche's work through the perspective of the formal obedience training of dogs. I contend that understanding the distinction between predictability and reliability in the context of dog training sheds new light on what we might think of as the normative dimension of the sovereign individual's reliability as described in the Genealogy and helps to make clear why, for Nietzsche, individuality is best understood as a form of mutuality. (shrink)

In Making Sense of Nietzsche, Richard Schacht articulates an interpretative approach to Nietzsche's work that, in his view, defends it from various forms of intellectual misuse and misunderstanding. As Schacht sees it, the latter stem from an overreaction to the apocalyptic tone of Nietzsche's attack on traditional religion, morality, and philosophy. Against such readings, he demands that Nietzsche be taken seriously as a philosopher with defensible views on a variety of matters of the first importance: the nature and history of (...) philosophy, the theory of value, epistemology and the philosophy of science, art, and philosophical anthropology. Obviously, we cannot appreciate Nietzsche's views on these topics if we dismiss him as a crank. Nor can we do so if we embrace him as a purely destructive thinker who seeks to undermine our confidence in the very possibility of rational inquiry. Schacht's Nietzsche therefore defends the viability of philosophical investigation by reinterpreting its character. He understands the conviction that the rationality of such investigation demands our utter detachment from the actual conditions of meaningful inquiry as the expression of our human, all too human hatred of the perspectival nature of experience. His rejection of the traditional ideal of rational detachment, however, does not entail the rejection of the possibility of inquiry per se. On the contrary. According to Schacht, Nietzsche believes we are only now in a position finally to understand how real investigation of the subjects that matter to us is possible at all. (shrink)

David Hume is widely regarded as the greatest English thinker in the history of philosophy. His contributions to a huge range of philosophical debates are as important and influential now as they were in the eighteenth century. This book provides an introduction to the ideas of this hugely significant thinker.

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points (...) that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy model (...) faces binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy model (...) faces binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions AGOSTINO NIFO'S EARLY VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY Various historians of Renaissance philosophy have taken some notice of the prolific author and important philosopher of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Agostino Nifo (1470-1538), x but no one has yet studied his writings in a methodical and exhaustive fashion. 2 He not only published philosophical works in logic, physics, psychology and metaphysics, but he also authored treatises (...) on humanist topics? Recent scholars have tended to concentrate their attention on his psychological doctrines, no doubt because he was one of the major opponents of Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) during the immortality controversy.4 Nifo published his De Immortalitate Animae in 1518 as a reply to the De lmmortalitate Ardmae, On the year of Nifo)s birth, see Bruno Nardi, Saggi sull'aristotelismo padovano dal secolo xav al xvl ('Florence, 1958), p. 284, n. 8. There is contemporary evidence that he died on January 18, 1538. See Bartolommeo Capasso, "Le cronache de li antiqui ri del regno di Napoli di D. Gaspare Fuscolill0," Archivio storico per le province napoletane, I (1876), p. 538. The standard bio-bibliography still remains Pasquale Tuozzi, "Agostino Nifo 9 le sue opere," Atti e memorie della R. Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova, Nuova scrie, XX (Padua, 1904), pp. 63-86. But see also Giuseppr Tommasino, Tra umanisti e filosoft (Maddaloni, 1921), Porte I, pp. 123-147; and Edward P. Mahoney, "A Note on Agostino Nifo," Philological Quarterly (forthcoming). z See Franeeseo Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi; Studi storici su la scuola bolognese e padovana del secolo xvI (Florence, 1868); Carlo Giacon, La seconda scolastica: 1 grandi commentatori di San Tommaso (Milan, 1944); Etienne Gilson, "L'affaire de l'immortalit6 de l'fime ~t Venise at* d6but du xvIe si~ele," in Umanesirno europeo e uraanesimo veneziano, ed. Vittore Branea (Florence, 1963), pp. 31-61; Miehele Giorgiantonio, "Un nostro filosofo dimentieato dcl '400 (Luea Prassicio e Agostino Nifo)," Sophia, XVI (1948), pp. 212-214 and 303-312; Bruno Nardi, Saggi sulraristotelismo padovano dal secolo x]v al xvI (Florence, 1958); idem, Sigieri di Brabante nel pensiero del Rinascimento Italiano (Rome, 1945); Giovanni di NapoH, L'immortalitd delranima nel Rinascimento ('Turin, 1963); John Herman Randall, Jr., The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science (Padua, 1961); Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit, I (Stuttgart, 1964); Eugenio Garin, La cultura [ilosofica del Rinascimento Italiano (Florence, 1961); idem, Storia della filosofia italiana, II (Turin, 1966). See Nifo's De Armorum Literarumque Comparatione Commentariolus (Naples, 1526); De Pulchro et Amore (Rome, 1531); De Re Aulica (Naples, 1534); and Prima Pars Opusculorum (Venice, 1535). The second of these works has been studied by Jules Houdoy, La beaut~ des femmes dans la litt#rature et darts rart du xII" au xvIe si~cle; Analyse du livre de A. Niphus du Beau et de l'amour (Paris, 1876). 4 For recent discussion of the immortality controversy, see Etienne Gilson, "Autour de Pomponazzi, ProbMmatique de l'immortalit~ de l'~me en Italic au d~but du xvIe si~.cle," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litt~raire du moyen dge, Ann6e 1961, pp. 163-179; Giovanni di Napoli, op. cit., especially pp. 227-338; Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964), pp. 72-90; Bruno Nardi, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi (Florence, 1965); Martin Pine, "Pomponazzi and the Problem of 'Double Truth'," Journal ot the History of Ideas, XXIX (1968), pp. 163-176; Harold Shulsky, "Paduan Epistemology and the Doctrine of the One Mind," lournal of the History of Philosophy, VI (1968), pp. 341-361. [451] 452 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (1516) of Pomponazzi, who had argued that personal immortality cannot be philosophically demonstrated, s But while these scholars correctly point out that Nifo abandoned an Averroist interpretation of Aristotle concerning the unity of the intellect and the immortality of the soul for the position which they assume to be Thomistic, they are not precise as to just when Nile made the shift.6 They have not observed that in his first two printed works, namely, the commentary on Averroes' Destructio Destructionum (1497) and the early commentary on the De Anima (1503), Nifo explicitly accepts Averroes as the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Paul Oskar Kristeller 1905–1999Edward P. MahoneyPaul Oskar Kristeller was without doubt one of the most productive and accomplished scholars of this century. He received an excellent education in the classics at the Mommsen-Gymnasium in his native Berlin before going to the University of Heidelberg in 1923. There he pursued studies in a wide range of subjects, including medieval history, German literature, physics, and art history. The philosophy professors who (...) much influenced him both at Heidelberg and at Freiburg and Marburg were Ernst Hoffman, Karl Jaspers, Richard Kroner, and Martin Heidegger. In 1929 he received his doctorate from Heidelberg for his dissertation Der Begriff der Seele in der Ethik des Plotin, which was directed by Hoffman and published at Tübingen the same year. He then went to Berlin, where he engaged in formal studies in classical philology before going to Freiburg to do postgraduate work in philosophy with Heidegger during the years 1931 to 1933. Heidegger approved a study of Marsilio Ficino as Kristeller’s Habili-tationschrift and helped him to secure a fellowship enabling him to do research on Ficino and to begin writing. After visiting Italy during this period and taking into account the changed political scene in Germany, Kristeller decided in 1934 to move to Italy permanently. He taught in Florence in a high school for German Jewish students until he secured in 1935, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, a lectureship in German at the Scuola Superiore and the University of Pisa. He maintained throughout his academic career a personal and warm attachment to the Scuola Superiore. Moreover, he enjoyed throughout his subsequent career a warm and personal friendship with various Italian scholars that was first developed during his Italian stay in the thirties.While still in Italy, Kristeller completed his book on Ficino in 1937; he prepared an Italian version the next year. However, both the German and Italian versions would be published only years later. During this period he also engaged in manuscript studies in the major Italian cities, searching in particular for Ficino manuscripts. The result of these labors was his two-volume work, Supplementum Ficinianum: Marsilii Ficini Philosophi Platonici Opuscula Inedita et Dispersa, which was published by the Scuola Normale in 1937. He considered his “teachers” in manuscript studies to be Giovanni Cardinal Mercati, Monsignor Auguste Pelzer, and Ludwig Bertalot. Giovanni Gentile aided the publication of Kristeller’s Supplementum Ficinianum and subsequently helped him to emigrate to the United States. Kristeller always maintained a loyalty to Gentile and felt gratitude to him for extending him such help.In 1938 Kristeller lost his position at Pisa because of the Fascist anti-Semitic laws, but he was permitted to go to Rome where he assisted Bertalot in manuscript research at the Vatican library. Through the intervention of Roland H. Bainton, Dean P. Lockwood, Dom Anselm Strittmater, O.S.B., and other American [End Page 758] friends Kristeller was able to leave for the United States. He arrived at New York in February 1939 and spent the Spring term at Yale University. He was given an adjunct position at Columbia University for the fall term, holding the rank of Associate until 1948, when he was made an Associate Professor of Philosophy. By that time he had established himself as a major force in the development of Renaissance studies in the United States. His book on Ficino was translated into English as The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino and published in 1943 by the Columbia University Press. The Italian version was published at Florence in 1953; a revised edition, containing a new bibliography that had been brought up to date, appeared in 1988.Kristeller published a large number of articles on a wide range of topics, establishing himself as a major interpreter of the significance of Renaissance humanism as well as a leading authority not only on Ficino and Renaissance Platonism but also on Pietro Pomponazzi and Renaissance Aristotelianism. He developed at Columbia bonds of friendship with Ernest A. Moody and John Herman Randall, Jr., both of whom had strong interests in late-medieval Aristotelianism. With Randall and Ernst Cassirer he prepared what would become a bestseller, the Renaissance Philosophy of Man: Selections... (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

In the popular misconception fostered by blockbuster action movies and best-selling thrillers--not to mention conventional explanations by social scientists--violence is easy under certain conditions, like poverty, racial or ideological hatreds, or family pathologies. Randall Collins challenges this view in Violence, arguing that violent confrontation goes against human physiological hardwiring. It is the exception, not the rule--regardless of the underlying conditions or motivations. -/- Collins gives a comprehensive explanation of violence and its dynamics, drawing upon video footage, cutting-edge forensics, and (...) ethnography to examine violent situations up close as they actually happen--and his conclusions will surprise you. Violence comes neither easily nor automatically. Antagonists are by nature tense and fearful, and their confrontational anxieties put up a powerful emotional barrier against violence. Collins guides readers into the very real and disturbing worlds of human discord--from domestic abuse and schoolyard bullying to muggings, violent sports, and armed conflicts. He reveals how the fog of war pervades all violent encounters, limiting people mostly to bluster and bluff, and making violence, when it does occur, largely incompetent, often injuring someone other than its intended target. Collins shows how violence can be triggered only when pathways around this emotional barrier are presented. He explains why violence typically comes in the form of atrocities against the weak, ritualized exhibitions before audiences, or clandestine acts of terrorism and murder--and why a small number of individuals are competent at violence. (shrink)

Palliative care is a recent branch of health care. The doctors, nurses, and other professionals involved in it took their inspiration from the medieval idea of the hospice, but have now extended their expertise to every area of health care: surgeries, nursing homes, acute wards, and the community. This has happened during a period when patients wish to take more control over their own lives and deaths, resources have become scarce, and technology has created controversial life-prolonging treatments. Palliative care is (...) therefore faced with more ethical problems that other areas of health care. This book, by a clinician, teacher, and writer on health care ethics, has been written to provide all those who care for the terminally ill--doctors, nurses, social workers, clergymen, physiotherapists--with the concepts and principles which will assist them with difficult decisions. It challenges many received doctrines of palliative care, but its well-illustrated central theme is that technical expertise must be controlled by humane, non-technical judgments. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that in cultural production fields the concatenation of eminence explains success, defined as influence and innovation. We propose that individuals in fields as diverse as philosophy, literature, mathematics, painting, or architecture gain visibility by cumulating the eminence of others connected to them across and within generations. We draw on interaction ritual chain and social movement theories, and use evidence from the field of modernist architecture, to formulate a model of how networks of very strong ties generate (...) motivations and emotional enthusiasm, change reputations, and form collective movements that over time transform the structure of cultural fields. Because major aesthetic innovations break sharply with older styles, they need very strong group solidarity over a long period of time to propagate a new standard of practice. We propose mutual halo effects, i.e., the reciprocal reinforcement of upstream and downstream prestige on a given individual node, as the key factor accounting for success in a cultural production field. We discuss the relevance of these results for building a model of influence and innovation in cultural production fields in which networks—reshaped by shifting technological, political, and economic conditions—trigger new styles. (shrink)

In Minding Spirituality, Randall Sorenson, a clinical psychoanalyst, "invites us to take an interest in our patients' spirituality that is respectful but not diffident, curious but not reductionistic, welcoming but not indoctrinating." Out of this.

``Neural computing'' is a research field based on perceiving the human brain as an information system. This system reads its input continuously via the different senses, encodes data into various biophysical variables such as membrane potentials or neural firing rates, stores information using different kinds of memories (e.g., short-term memory, long-term memory, associative memory), performs some operations called ``computation'', and outputs onto various channels, including motor control commands, decisions, thoughts, and feelings. We show a natural model of neural computing that (...) gives rise to hyper-computation. Rigorous mathematical analysis is applied, explicating our model's exact computational power and how it changes with the change of parameters. Our analog neural network allows for supra-Turing power while keeping track of computational constraints, and thus embeds a possible answer to the superiority of the biological intelligence within the framework of classical computer science. We further propose it as standard in the field of analog computation, functioning in a role similar to that of the universal Turing machine in digital computation. In particular an analog of the Church-Turing thesis of digital computation is stated where the neural network takes place of the Turing machine. (shrink)