Drawing on insights from conversation analysis, discursive psychology and social psychology, this article describes some interactional features of two celebrity TV confessionals and the resources used by the TV interviewers and celebrity guests to attribute, accept or deny responsibility for their transgressions. The analytic interest lies in how confessions are locally and interactionally managed, that is, how ‘doing confessing’ is achieved in the television interview context. We show how the host’s opening turn constrains the celebrity guest’s contribution and secures overt (...) admission of guilt, while simultaneously inviting the celebrity guest to tell their side of the story. We also show how celebrity guests produce descriptions which minimize the extent and severity of their transgressions, reduce agency and transform the character of their transgression. In doing so, we argue that celebrity interviewees can convey mitigations and extenuations which diminish the extent of their responsibility – calling into question the very nature of their confession. We propose that our findings demonstrate the hybrid nature of interviewing in the celebrity TV confessional and contribute to our understanding of how ‘doing confessing’ in the public eye is discursively and interactionally negotiated. (shrink)

Empathy is an important way for doctors to demonstrate their understanding of patients’ subjective experiences. This research considers the role of empathy in 37 doctor–patient palliative or end-of-life care consultations recorded in a hospice. Specifically, it focuses on four contexts in which there is a disparity between patients’ displayed experience of their illness and the doctor’s biomedical, expertise-driven perspective on their illness. These include cases in which the patient is sceptical of the medical perspective, cases in which the patient’s expectations (...) exceed what can realistically be provided and cases in which patients have an overly pessimistic view of their condition. The analysis shows how doctors can use empathic statements to display that they are attentive to the patient’s subjective experience even when the task at hand is, ostensibly, an expertise-driven, biomedical one. It thus demonstrates that empathy is of importance throughout palliative care consultations, even in those phases which might seem biomedical or task-driven. (shrink)

Digital and social media have transformed how much and how fast we communicate, but they have also altered the palette of expressive strategies: the cultural forms that shape how citizens, activists, and artists speak and interact. In A Theory of Assembly, Kyle Parry argues that one of the most powerful and pervasive cultural forms in the digital era is assembly.

Almost a decade in the making, the radical research, meditations and experiences of Rev. David William Parry have culminated in a work that interweaves Mount Athos, the Arts, Religion, Philosophy, Theatre, Literature and Poetry in a delightfully fresh style of penmanship.

"Paleontologists like to say that to a first approximation, all species are extinct (ninety- nine percent is the usual estimate). The organisms we see around us are distant cousins, not great grandparents; they are a few scattered twig-tips of an enormous tree whose branches and trunk are no longer with us." (p. 343-44). The historical life bush consists mainly in dead ends.

This book adds to the theoretical development of the emerging fields of experiential learning and outdoor education by examining the central concept, 'experience', and interrogating a central claim of experiential learning: whether, and if so how, a short-term singular experience can transform a participant's life as a whole and in a permanent way. While such a possibility has been corroborated by the personal testimonies of participants, and the activities of instructors over many years, the book argues that we must go (...) beyond this kind of 'evidence'. In comparing Anglophone and continental approaches and drawing on the work of Dewey, Dilthey and Merleau-Ponty in the philosophy of experience, Experiential Learning and Outdoor Education presents the first detailed review of the concept of 'experience' in European philosophy, as applied to outdoor experiential learning. A vital insight into the field, this is important reading for students and researchers working in the philosophy of sport, and pedagogical theory, especially in areas relating to the outdoors, but also to experiential education more generally."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Later Platonists and their Heirs among Christians, Jews and Muslims offers a thought-provoking exploration of the reception of Platonism among communities of faith from early Christianity to the sixteenth century, from the Byzantine East to the Latin West. Rare emphasis is placed on the importance of Platonic thought and its diffusion in late antique and medieval Syria, Armenia, and Georgia but also among Arab and Jewish intellectuals from the seventh century onwards. As such, the volume makes a statement against the (...) separation of Neoplatonic philosophy from Christianity and the other Abrahamic faiths, since all four traditions promoted a life of virtue and goodness despite operating under different divine auspices. The volume seeks to establish paths of transmission and modes of adaptation across times and places. (shrink)

The paper has two aims. The first is to propose a general framework for organizing some central questions about normative practical reasons in a way that separates importantly distinct issues that are often run together. Setting out this framework provides a snapshot of the leading types of view about practical reasons as well as a deeper understanding of what are widely regarded to be some of their most serious difficulties. The second is to use the proposed framework to uncover and (...) diagnose what I believe is a structural problem that plagues the debate about practical reasons. A common move in the debate involves a proponent of one type of view offering what she and others proposing that type consider to be a devastating criticism of an opposing type of view, only to find that her criticism is shrugged off by her opponents as easy to answer, misguided, or having little significance for their view. This isn’t due to conceptual blindness or mere slavish devotion to a theory but something fundamental about the argumentative structure of a debate over genuinely shared issues. Hence, the debate about practical reasons suffers from argumentative gridlock. The proposed framework helps us to see why this is so, and what we might do to move beyond it. (shrink)

Charles Taylor is one of the most influential and prolific philosophers in the English-speaking world today. The breadth of his writings is unique, ranging from reflections on artificial intelligence to analyses of contemporary multicultural societies. This thought-provoking introduction to Taylor's work outlines his ideas in a coherent and accessible way without reducing their richness and depth. His contribution to many of the enduring debates within Western philosophy is examined and the arguments of his critics assessed. Taylor's reflections on the topics (...) of moral theory, selfhood, political theory and epistemology form the core chapters within the book. Ruth Abbey engages with the secondary literature on Taylor's work and suggests that some criticisms by contemporaries have been based on misinterpretations and suggests ways in which a better understanding of Taylor's work leads to different criticisms of it. The book serves as an ideal companion to Taylor's ideas for students of philosophy and political theory, and will be welcomed by the non-specialist looking for an authoritative guide to Taylor's large and challenging body of work. (shrink)

The mythical1 hungry ass, facing two identical bundles of hay equidistant from him, has engendered two related questions. Can he choose one of the bundles, there seemingly being nothing to incline him one way or the other? If he can, the second puzzle — pertaining to rational choice — arises. It seems the ass cannot rationally choose one of the bundles, because there is no sufficient reason for any choice.2In what follows, I will argue that choice is possible even when (...) there is no option which is better than the others (section II), and that it is perfectly reasonable to choose an option even when there is no sufficient reason for it (section III). I will then (section IV) point to another puzzling feature of the .. (shrink)

Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy; but linguistics student are rarely able to reach that bridge, let alone cross it to inspect and assess the activity on the other side. Professor Kempson's textbook seeks particularly to encourage such exchanges. She deals with the standard linguistic topics like componential analysis, semantic universals and the syntax-semantics controversy. But she also provides for students with no training in philosophy or logic an introduction to such central topics in the philosophy of (...) language as logical form, truth, speech acts, analyticity, entailment and presupposition. The exposition throughout is deliberately argumentative rather than descriptive, introducing the student step by step to the major problems in theoretical semantics. Special emphasis is placed on the need to consider individual arguments within the overall perspective of semantics as an integral part of general linguistic theory. Written primarily as a textbook for undergraduates and graduates in linguistics departments, this book will also be useful to undergraduates in philosophy and in psychology where linguistics is a part of their course. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn challenges voluntarist views held by British moral philosophers during the first half of the eighteenth century. After introducing her metaphysics of morality, namely, her account of human nature, and her account of moral motivation, which for her is a matter concerning the practice of morality, I analyze her arguments against theological voluntarism. I examine, first, how Cockburn rejects the view that God can by an arbitrary act of will change what is good or evil; second, how she (...) challenges views that understand the initial creation of the world solely in terms of divine will and draws attention to the role that the divine understanding plays in God’s creation; and third, how she argues that moral obligation does not require a superior lawmaker. I conclude by highlighting how Cockburn’s arguments not only challenge voluntarist views, but also offer support for her moral fitness theory. (shrink)

"New Perspectives on Freud's Moses and Monotheism" presents some of the most important current scholarship on 'Moses and Monotheism'. The essays in this volume offer new perspectives on Freud's perception of Judaism, of collective trauma and collective repression, national violence, gender issues, hermeneutic enigmas, religious configurations, questions of representation, and constructions of truth, while exploring the relevance of 'Moses and Monotheism' in diverse fields - from Jewish Studies, Psychoanalysis, History, and Egyptology to Literature, Musicology, and Art.

Das Werk des erst nach seinem Tod wiederentdeckten galizischen Schriftstellers Soma Morgenstern ist geprägt von der Identitätssuche des jüdischen Intellektuellen im 20. Jahrhundert. Nach der Shoah wendet er sich im amerikanischen Exil vom christlichen Europa ab, dem er die religiöse Schuld an diesem Massenmord zuweist. "Die Blutsäule" schreibt er gleichwohl in einem ganz eigenen Deutsch mit vielen Anklängen an die Sprache der Bibel; insofern diese Sprache zugleich die der 'verhassten' Täter bleibt, entsteht eine komplexe Romankonstruktion, deren religiöser wie zeitgeschichtlicher und (...) literarischer Hintergrund rekonstruiert wird. (shrink)

There is an urgent need to understand how private and public organisations can play a role in promoting human values such as fairness, dignity, respect and care. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Against this backdrop, organisations are being urged to make their contribution to the common good, take account of the interests of multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to complex challenges (...) which transcend traditional organisational and state boundaries. Ethics, Meaningfulness, and Mutuality poses critical questions related to organisational design by challenging limits to current thinking, such as the neglect by political philosophers of markets, firms and stakeholders, or by organisational theorists of business ethics. In so doing, the book advances our understanding of the theory and practice of ethical organising. Specifically, meaningfulness and mutuality will be used to yield values and principles for a philosophy of ethical organising which includes an account of human values in morally desirable collective action, and examines the relationship of collective action to the contested concept of shared value creation. Within a philosophy of ethical organising, mutuality permits an examination of the unavoidable relational nature of collective action, whereas meaningfulness addresses fundamental human concerns for significance and leading a life we have reason to value. By addressing our status as relational beings with human needs for meaning, a philosophy of ethical organising brings critical thinking to the creation of morally informed organisational practices which are not only instrumentally beneficial for addressing wicked problems, but are normatively desirable for human flourishing. (shrink)

One of the first envatted brains, the most cyborgian element of J. D. Bernal’s 1929 futuristic manifesto, The world, the flesh and the the devil, proposed a technological solution to the dreary certainty of mortality. In Bernal’s scenario the brain is maintained in an ‘out of body’ but ‘like-body’ environment—in a bath of cerebral–spinal fluid held at constant body temperature. In reality, acquiring prospective immortality requires access to very different technologies—those that allow human organs and tissues to be preserved in (...) a quite ‘inhuman’ life-world—the cryogenic storage chamber. Like Bernal, today’s cryonicists consider that immortality can be secured through preservation of the brain alone. In this article I trace attempts to preserve or suspend life, and especially brain function, through the application of new ‘technologies of immortality’. Drawing together historical information on the development of refrigeration, cryopreservation, transplantation, and nanotechnologies, I explore the uneasy relationship between cryonics and the technology on which it depends for its success—cryogenics. In so doing, I argue that the ability to successfully realize the science fiction fantasy of human immortality will rest on a moral and scientific parasitism: the capacity to use the biotechnological artifacts or proxies—cryogenically preserved brains, archived brains, tissues, and immortalized cell lines—derived from the dead, in order to prolong life. (shrink)

Glenn Aparicio Parry organized and participated in thirteen groundbreaking dialogues between Native American elders and leading-edge Western scientists that explored the underlying principles of the cosmos. Inspired by these dialogues, Original Thinking unfolds in a similar way to a dialogue circle. The questions it asks penetrate ever deepening layers of meaning, such as, Is it possible to come up with an original thought?, What does it mean to be human?, and How has our thinking created our world today? Delving (...) into the evolution of Western thought, Parry seeks to recover the living roots of wisdom that can correct the imbalances in our modern worldview. In doing so he invites us to reconnect with a living, original source--nature and her interconnected elements and cycles--and to reintegrate our heart with our head in order to expand our self-imposed narrowing of consciousness"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

My chapter examines Isaac Watts’s and Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s views concerning the metaphysics of the mind and their underlying accounts of powers and substances. In Philosophical Essays on Various Subjects Watts criticizes Locke’s account of substances and argues for his own preferred account of substance. Watts argues that there is no need to postulate an unknown substratum, as Locke does. Instead, Watts searches for a better explanation of what substances are. His proposal is that bodily substance just is solid extension (...) and that mental substance is identical with the power of thinking. This means that Watts believes that some powers can be substances. I will show how Watts defends his account of substances against various objections. Cockburn was not satisfied by Watts’s account of substance and disagrees with Watts’s understanding of powers. She believes that Watts is too quick to draw metaphysical conclusions. Cockburn takes seriously the limitations of human understanding and emphasizes that humans are ignorant about many metaphysical truths. I end by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Watts’s and Cockburn’s accounts of powers and substances. (shrink)

I argue that critical realists think pretty much what Tukka Kaidesoja says that he himself thinks, but also that Kaidesoja’s objections to the views that he attributes to critical realists are not persuasive.

We will investigate the relation between the notion of the craft of ruling in the "Euthydemus" and in the "Republic". In the "Euthydemus", Socrates' search for an account of wisdom leads to his identifying it as the craft of ruling in the city. In the "Republic", the craft of ruling in the city is the virtue of wisdom in the city and the analogue of wisdom in the soul. Still, the craft of ruling leads to aporia in the former dialogue (...) while in the latter it is a central feature of Socrates' account of justice -- both in the city and in the soul. Some commentators hold that the aporia at the end of the second protreptic interlude of the "Euthydemus" shows that Socrates' account of wisdom is fatally flawed and must be rejected. However, the difficulty for this position is that the craft of ruling from the "Euthydemus" is a hardy notion that plays an extremely important role in the "Republic". Indeed, reflecting this fact, other commentators hold that the aporia is solved in the "Republic". Still, what is so far missing is an analysis that clearly shows the way to this solution in the "Republic". In what follows, we will analyze the two protreptic inter-ludes in the "Euthydemus" in order to see how the aporia arises. As we shall see, Socrates presents the aporia as a labyrinth. Indeed, it is a labyrinth with a little noticed step that -- once it is noticed -- shows the way out. The result will be that the aporia of the "Euthydemus" points to a solution in which ruling in the soul implies a command of one's appetites and emotions. (shrink)

Derived from Ruth Williams' more than 40-year immersion in spiritual practice, as well as her clinical experience as a Jungian analyst, this thought-provoking volume explores the nature of spiritual paths and trajectories in practical ways, incorporating personal anecdote and ground-breaking academic research and providing a window into how Jungian practitioners work with soul and spirit. Williams explores the nature of being a human using the Yiddish idea of a person being a 'mensch,' which means being a decent human being, (...) having humanity and living ethically with integrity. The idea of 'grace' is the thread that runs through the book-the mystery that binds things together and makes life meaningful, purposeful, potentially joyful and spiritually fulfilling. Williams sees 'grace' as being that which underpins and lies behind synchronicity and divinatory practices and as a force by which we can learn to be guided. Rooted in clinical work, Exploring Spirituality from a Post-Jungian Perspective is fascinating reading for Jungian analysts, therapists and academics, as well as for general readers interested in a spiritual journey, both personally and for clinical purposes. (shrink)

It is always gratifying when another scholar endorses one's own publicly stated position on a controversial matter. It was therefore with distinct appreciation that I read John Banja's article crit...

The concept of simultaneity, and the associated problems of synchronization of moving clocks and establishment of a universal time scale, were given little or no attention prior to the twentieth century. In 1905, however, Einstein analyzed the concept of simultaneity on the basis of two principal postulates: Absolute velocity is meaningless,The velocity of light in a vacuum is the same for all unaccelerated observers.

In liberal political theory, meaningful work is conceptualised as a preference in the market. Although this strategy avoids transgressing liberal neutrality, the subsequent constraint upon state intervention aimed at promoting the social and economic conditions for widespread meaningful work is normatively unsatisfactory. Instead, meaningful work can be understood to be a fundamental human need, which all persons require in order to satisfy their inescapable interests in freedom, autonomy, and dignity. To overcome the inadequate treatment of meaningful work by liberal political (...) theory, I situate the good of meaningful work within a liberal perfectionist framework, from which standpoint I develop a normative justification for making meaningful work the object of political action. To understand the content of meaningful work, I make use of Susan Wolf’s distinct value of meaningfulness, in which she brings together the dimensions of objectivity and subjectivity into the ‘bipartite value’ of meaningfulness (BVM) (Wolf, Meaning in life and why it matters, 2010). However, in order to be able to incorporate the BVM into our lives, we must become valuers, that is, co-creators of values and meanings. This demands that we acquire the relevant capabilities and status as co-authorities in the realm of value. I conclude that meaningful work is of first importance because it is a fundamental human need, and that society ought to be arranged to allow as many people as possible to experience their work as meaningful through the development of the relevant capabilities. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to explore how a social justice framework can help illuminate the role that consent should play in health and science policy. In the first section, we set the stage for our inquiry with the important case of Henrietta Lacks. Without her knowledge or consent, or that of her family, Mrs. Lacks’s cells gave rise to an enormous advance in biomedical science—the first immortal human cell line, or HeLa cells.

c.4,000 word critical discussion of Fabre's book. Provides an overview of the book plus comments on the themes of (i) loyalty and treason and (ii) the ethics of spying and sex.

Many philosophers are completely unaware of the world of executive education and business events, and Specialist Public Lectures often arise from these occasions. They range from informal retreats, usually held in some tawny spot of nature for the purpose of team‐building among the employees of a firm, to exclusive, luxury junkets for C‐suite executives and VIPs at a spa or golfing resort for the purpose of networking and “upping one's game.” Most public lectures involve a sharing of information – arresting (...) facts or gasp‐inducing statistics – interwoven with a large interpretive claim, usually left quite vague. Metaphysicians can illuminate ideas of gender; epistemologists can weigh in on the epistemic authority afforded new technologies; philosophers of religion can reveal insights into character and secular civic education; and legal philosophers can guide debates about regulation. (shrink)

Of the many cosmological models developed during the past forty years, none is completely satisfactory; so work continues in the development of new models and in the checking of their predictions against the growing mass of experimental evidence. The validity of a model rests on its agreement with experimental data, particularly the data on distribution of galaxies and on redshifts.

We are far too willing to reject the belief that much of what we see in life is random.Uncertainty is an everyday experience in medical research and practice, but theory and methods for reasoning clearly about uncertainty were developed only recently. Confirmation bias, selective memory, and many misleading heuristics are known enemies of the insightful clinician, researcher, or citizen, but other snares worth exposing may lurk in how we reason about uncertainty in our everyday lives. Here we draw attention to (...) a cognitive bias that is little known—or possibly unknown—to those outside the field of probability pedagogy. Described by Konold as the... (shrink)

To the Editor: I was glad to see the Times taking an interest in the growing field of philosophical counseling, as evidenced by its March 21 article “The Socratic Shrink”. However, while providing...

The Deleuzian model and the masochistic contract -- Masochism, feminine "goodness" and sacrifice -- Self-mutilation and (a)signification -- Transgressive reconfigurations -- Heterocosms, spectres and the world remade -- Postscrip.

Recession of the galaxies indicates a repulsive force and suggests that Newton's formulation of gravitation is not complete. A possible modification is proposed, and this Neo-Newtonian equation allows a quantitative treatment of Mach's principle. It also limits the velocity of matter to c and gives a correct prediction for the perihelion of Mercury.

A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does (...) servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research. (shrink)

This volume offers two complementary works, unabridged, in modernized, annotated texts--the only available edition priced for classroom use. Grant and Tarcov provide a concise introduction, a note on the texts, and a select bibliography.