In a brief comment in ‘History of the Lie’, his one sustained engagement with Arendt, Derrida criticizes the ‘absence’ of any reference to the ‘problematic of testimony, witnessing, or bearing witness’ in her work, and asserts that she was ‘not interested’ in what ‘distinguishes’ testimony from ‘proof’. This passage links Derrida’s reading of Arendt to a theme that concerns him throughout his later work, specifically the ‘affirmation’ or ‘act of faith’ that ostensibly conditions all human relations, and the possibility (...) of sociality in general. In this article, I claim not only that Arendt did address the problem of testimony or witnessing, and the difference between bearing witness and establishing proof, but also that her consideration of these issues represents an alternative to many of the arguments Derrida develops in his later work, especially his approach to responsibility and judgment, secrecy and memory, and the relation between the self and others. (shrink)

Community Engagement (CE) has been presented by bio-ethicists and scientists as a straightforward and unequivocal good which can minimize the risks of exploitation and ensure a fair distribution of research benefits in developing countries. By means of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Kenya between 2007 and 2009 we explored how CE is understood and enacted in paediatric vaccine trials conducted by the Kenyan Medical Research Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control (KEMRI/CDC). In this paper we focus on the role (...) of paid volunteers who act as an interface between villagers KEMRI/CDC. Village Reporters’ (VRs) position of being both with the community and with KEMRI/CDC is advantageous for the conduct of trials. However it is also problematic in terms of exercising trust, balancing allegiances and representing community views. VRs role is shaped by ambiguities related to their employment status and their dual accountability to researchers and their villages. VRs are understandably careful to stress their commitment to self-less community service since it augments their respectability at community level and opens up opportunities for financial gain and self-development. Simultaneously VRs association with KEMRI/CDC and proximity to trial participants requires them to negotiate implicit and explicit expectations for material and medical assistance in a cultural setting in which much importance is placed on sharing and mutuality. To ensure continuity of productive interactions between VRs, and similar community intermediaries, and researchers, open discussion is needed about the problematic aspects of relational ethics, issues concerning undue influence, power relations and negotiating expectations. (shrink)

The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed myriad social, economic, and health inequities that disproportionately burden populations that have been made medically or socially vulnerable. Inspired by state and local governments that declared racism a public health crisis or emergency, the Anti‐Racism in Public Health Act of 2020 reflects a shifting paradigm in which racism is considered a social determinant of health. Indeed, health inequities fundamentally rooted in structural racism have been exacerbated by the Covid‐19 pandemic, which calls for the integration of (...) antiracist praxis to promote ethical public health research processes. This commentary describes ways in which antiracist praxis—which emphasizes empowerment of traditionally marginalized populations—offers strategies to explicitly address power imbalance, stigmatization, and other consequences of structural racism in public health research. (shrink)

First principles and the challenge of Parmenidean monism -- St. Thomas on analogia entis in the Scriptum super sententiis and in De veritate -- Consideration of objections to the view that the analogia entis is the analogy of proper proportionality -- The analogy of being and the transcendence and analogical intelligibility of the act of faith.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education ed. by David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman and Gary E. McPhersonCara Faith BernardDavid J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Gary E. McPherson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019)Three leading voices in music education, David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Gary E. McPherson, consistently work (...) to reconceive how music educators create and challenge the discourses of music learning and the ways in which people engage with music. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education furthers their contributions and serves as a break from the familiar and common “default philosophy of assessment” of tests, standards, regimens, and rankings to invite new ways of approaching music assessment.1 They, along with their coauthors, apply their theoretical, research, and teaching experience to examine music assessment through social praxis and how individuals and communities “deepen their growth as knowing and compassionate human beings.”2 In short, this Handbook is an invitation for music educators of all levels to reengage with their values and name them in their current and future practices.Using the current neoliberal state of education as a backdrop, Elliott, Silverman, and McPherson portray schools as spaces that yield corporate types of learning practices and assessments which “place little value on arts education.”3 Countering these realities, the diverse cadre of authors examines assessment [End Page 123] from different settings, roles, policies, and practices, organized around four themes. The first theme examines assessment through theoretical ideas including critical pedagogy, pragmatism, and Deleuzean frameworks. Next, in methodological practices, new ideas for assessment are considered through teacher evaluation, working with students with disabilities, and incorporating habits of mind. Creativity explores assessment through technological possibilities, popular music, and drawing, among others. Closing with international perspectives, the authors explore assessment through German and Scandinavian bildung/bildning, care as a driving force of assessment in South Africa, and an Iranian non-regulated perspective of assessment.Alexandra Kertz-Welzel asks: “Who decides what is assessed? How it is assessed? By whom is it assessed?”4 These questions are embraced and challenged throughout the Handbook. Instead of conceiving of assessment as something diagnostic—reaching musical benchmarks and aptitudes deemed by outside authorities—the authors welcome an epistemological shift of assessment. What might happen when music educators replace written self-assessments, quizzes, and playing tests in favor of, say, habits of mind (as Jillian Hogan and Ellen Winner describe in their chapter5) such as listening, noticing, being part of a community, persisting, expressing oneself, imagining, and making decisions? These changes might transform a community, one where students and teachers embrace music making beyond mere replication.6 The authors suggest ways of engaging in acts of subversion, resistance, care, and pragmatism to push past the product-driven view of assessment dictated by neoliberal and for-profit discourses.Historically, assessment has been contextualized, discussed, and critiqued through its practices; its purpose has been to gain information which aids in making decisions about teaching. In many contexts, particularly in the U.S., assessment practices stem from current educational policies, namely those noted in teacher evaluation systems.7 Such practices are intended to show student growth and drive instruction, to better label teaching quality and student success.8 In my own research on teacher evaluation, I found that music educators struggle with definitions and strategies of assessment; as a result, they defer to assessments based on hierarchies of musical skill and technique.9 Yet, Charlotte Danielson, a creator of many U.S. teacher evaluation frameworks, reminds that teaching “is not simply a matter of following a script of carrying out other people’s instructional designs.”10 Having to uphold the demands of assessment and evaluation forced many of the participants in my research to become compliant, even when they knew their teaching strategies were ancillary to who the students were and what they needed. They fabricated their assessments— often in the form of exit slips and inauthentic writing and musical compositional activities—to comply with policies. As a result, teachers’ values for music [End Page 124] teaching and learning were omitted from... (shrink)

The work of the French Lithuanian Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, describes a perceptive rethinking of the possibility of concrete acts of goodness in the world, a rethinking never more necessary than now, in the wake of the cruel realities of the twentieth century—ten million dead in the First World War, forty million dead in the Second World War, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Soviet gulags, the grand slaughter of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” the pointless and gory Vietnam War, the Cambodian self-genocide and (...) many an attempted extermination from the face of the earth of entire nations of indigenous peoples. The list of horrors goes on and on—daily holocausts that do not distinguish between the civilian and the soldier, the guilty and the innocent, those deserving of life and those less deserving. (shrink)

My topic in this paper is the nature of faith. Much of the discussion concerning the nature of faith proceeds by focussing on the relationship between faith and belief. In this paper, I explore a different approach. I suggest that we approach the question of what faith involves by focussing on the relationship between faith and action. When we have faith, we generally manifest it in how we act; we perform acts of faith: (...) we share our secrets, rely on other’s judgment, refrain from going through our partner’s emails, let our children prepare for an important exam without our interference. Religious faith, too is manifested in acts of faith: attending worship, singing the liturgy, fasting, embarking on a pilgrimage. I argue that approaching faith by way of acts of faith, reveals that faith is a complex mental state whose elements go beyond doxastic states towards particular propositions. It also involves conative states and – perhaps more surprisingly – know how. This has consequences for the epistemology of faith: the role of testimony and experts, the importance of practices, and what we should make of Pascal’s advice for how to acquire faith. (shrink)

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech-act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech-act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech-acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking (...) responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them. (shrink)

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech-act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech-act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech-acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking (...) responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) held two theses that might seem incompatible to contemporary readers, namely 1) that an act of faith is reasonable even by the standards of human reason without grace, and 2) that this act surpasses the power of such unaided human reason. In the later Middle Ages, many theologians who were not Thomists held that someone who performs acts of infused faith must also perform such acts through an acquired faith that is based on (...) natural reason. I argue that debates with Protestants and Jesuits caused Dominican Thomists to clarify and develop Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the traditional position that acts of faith surpass natural human abilities in such a way as to reject the older non-Thomistic understanding of acquired faith. This enquiry will show that major early modern disputes over the authority of Scripture and the source of faith are at least partially rooted in differences among medieval scholastic theologians. Although the Protestants and the Jesuits adhere to distinct confessions, their theological views on faith are based in part on an acceptance of or reaction to Scotistic and nominalist medieval views. Thomists drew on the same resources to respond to non-Thomistic medieval theologians, Protestants, and Jesuits. (shrink)

Frank Jackson and the author each take the other to hold a position in philosophy of mind that it is extremely difficult to sustain. This chapter tries to say something about how that can be. It seeks to demonstrate the sanity of Jackson's opponents and the fragility of his own position than to hold out for the truth of any particular doctrine. It wants to bring to the surface an assumption in ontology, which is seen as a crucial part of (...) the grounding of Jackson's particular version of physicalism. Once it is appreciated that this assumption is contestable, Jackson's opponents may be seen in a different light from the one in which they appear in his writings. More generally, a connection will appear between the vast literature on physicalism as a topic in philosophy of mind and the equally vast literature on material constitution as a topic in metaphysics. (shrink)

Meeting of the Minds records the proceedings of the S.I.E.P.M. conference held in Boston from June 14-16, 1996. The conference participants centred their attention on the relationships between medieval and classical modern philosophy. These relationships have been painted in dramatically different ways by those who have presented overviews of the two eras. Hans Blumenberg, in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age and his subsequent works, discovers the seeds of modernity in the medieval authors themselves. Leo Strauss and his followers see (...) a radical difference between the classical world views of the ancients and medievals and the successive layers of modern thought. These general portraits demand specifics, and the strength of the conference, whose results are contained in this volume, was that it provided many specific examinations of concrete relations between the philosophical positions of celebrated medieval and modern thinkers. Our hope is that this collection of papers will suggest the direction for further cooperative efforts on the interplay of the philosophical views represented by these two eras, and that the issues commonly debated by the medieval and early modern thinkers represented in this volume will give renewed consideration to important philosophical points that have been ignored in more recent debates. The volume contains contributions from E. Jennifer Ashworth (Waterloo, Ontario), Allan Back (Kutztown, Pennsylvania), Jos Decorte (Leuven), Thomas Dewender (Bochum), Idit Dobbs-Weinstein (Nashville), John P.Doyle (St.Louis), Jeremiah Hackett (Columbia, South Carolina), Simo Knuuttila (Helsinki), James McEvoy (Maynooth), A.Stephen McGrade (Storrs), Edward P.Mahoney (Durham, North Carolina), James D.Maliszewski (Toronto), Emily Michael (New York), Woosuk Park (Taejon, Korea), Horacio Santiago-Otero(+) (Madrid), Alison Simmons (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Jean-Luc Solere (Paris), Jose MariSoto Rabanos (Madrid), and Eileen C. Swe. (shrink)

Edward Pols is no stranger to these pages; indeed, his three most recent articles in The Review of Metaphysics are all versions of chapters in this, his fourth book. Those of us who have followed his philosophical development closely will recognize that The Acts of our Being elaborates and clarifies--but does not presuppose knowledge of--Meditation on a Prisoner. His general aim with regard to human agency and human action is to show that, yes, things really are as they seem, i.e., (...) that our common sense view that we ourselves originate our actions and are responsible for them, a view which more often than not is found to be contrary to scientific dogma, is in fact the correct view. His general strategy is to blaze a via media between the immediate prejudice which favors prima facie rational agency and the authoritative physiology which pretends to dispense with the concept of "agent." Realizing his task to be a tough one, Pols shrewdly substitutes the term "ontic responsibility," i.e., the state of being of such an ontological nature that accountability is appropriate and seemly, for the old bugaboo of a term "free will," thus perhaps facilitating a serious encounter with his more scientifically inclined readers. While acknowledging that reductionist science has been largely successful in shifting the everyday perception of human nature away from the ancient common sense view toward physicalist explanations and toward a broad faith in the eventual accomplishment of an exhaustive "perfected physiology," he takes great pains to demonstrate that it is not this newly popular scientific view, but the prima facie view, which is the philosophical ground of the entire legal structure, and hence, by extension, of social organization and civilization in general. Addressing the intelligent layperson rather than his professional colleague, Pols claims fundamentally that science's current project is to prove to us that we are actually something other than what we seem to ourselves to be. But science ought, instead of cancelling our prima facie knowledge of ourselves, to contribute to a fuller understanding of this prima facie knowledge. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends an underexplored account of faith—the perspectival account of faith—according to which faith is a value-oriented perspective on the world toward which the subject has a pro-attitude. After describing this account of faith and outlining what it is to have faith on the perspectival account, I show that the perspectival account meets methodological criteria for an account of faith. I then show that this account of faith can be used (...) to unify various faith locutions: having faith that p (propositional faith), having faith in something (attitudinal faith), being a person of faith (global faith), articles of faith (creedal faith), and acts of faith (praxical faith). Finally, since the perspectival account of faith is a cognitive account of faith, I defend the perspectival view against objections to cognitive accounts of faith. (shrink)

“Adam was hurled into Hindustan. In this land there is a mountain called Serandib, and it is reported that there is no higher mountain in all the universe. Adam landed on this mountain.” The subject of Serendib plays an important role in both the geographical and travel literature of the Arabs. Serendib, or Sarandib, is the transcription of the Singhalese name Sinhaladîpa, which means “island of the descendants of lions” (singha, “lions,” in Singhaly). Already, in the Middle Ages, in the (...) year 949, Arab merchants, who were well acquainted with the island of Ceylon, set up a branch in Colombo. The natural beauty and wealth of the island so touched the imagination of Arab voyagers that it appeared in the sixth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, and it was also believed that Adam lived on the island after having been driven from Paradise: “The island of Serendib is located directly under the equinoctial line…. Men fish for pearls along its banks and at the mouths of its rivers, and some of its valleys are rich in diamonds. As an act of faith I myself took a trip to the mountain, to the very spot where Adam was banished after being exiled from Paradise. I even climbed to its summit.”This excerpt, from The Thousand and One Nights, well summarizes the feelings of those Arab merchants whose accounts of their travels, in large measure, contributed to the spread of myths and legends about Ceylon. (shrink)

In the appendix of his latest book, Incontinence of the Void, Žižek presents an account of how, according to his dialectical materialism, love can overcome death. This article situates Žižek ’s argument in the context of his ontology and his theory of the subject to explicate how Žižek arrives at this position: one that appears, on the surface, to be inconsistent with a staunch materialist and atheistic stance. Building on Žižek ’s references to Kierkegaard in this appendix, I will furthermore (...) argue that the figure of the Knight of Faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling can be as another instantiation of the revolutionary subject of the act. This figure can be said to participate in a type of love that overcomes death insofar as its attachment to objects of desire embodies the acephalous, undead drive that is not reducible to ontic or symbolic structures of reality. (shrink)

In his medical and scientific works John Wesley provided an interpretation of the universe that was structured, though not pre-ordained, by God. The empirical method he adopted was measured in terms of efficacy and judged according to rationalistic standards. Its practical success, however, was used by Wesley to underpin his vocation of practical piety, which developed out of a holistic view of nature inspired by the spiritualism of Primitive Christianity. Accordingly, the providential ordering of Man and nature meant that safeguarding (...) physical health became a spiritual act, though Wesley separated the discourse of religion and terminology of medicine. This distinction was essential because it ensured intellectual integrity whilst leaving a protective space for religious faith. He made this move on the one hand but saw no contradiction in bringing the discourses of religion and medicine together to serve his mission. For Wesley, social and personal improvement did not rely exclusively on enlightened thinking or religious faith. Rather it depended on showing how rationalism and faith could display separate strengths within an overall framework of holism. (shrink)

Nana Sita is best known for being the secretary of the Transvaal Indian Congress and for his leadership in the passive resistance movement for which he was incarcerated three times. This article focusses specifically on three more times he was sentenced to hard labour for refusing to submit to the Group Areas Act and to leave his house at 382 Van Der Hoff Street in Hercules, Pretoria. The main sources for telling the story of Nana Sita’s resistance are interviews with (...) his 93-year-old daughter, a chapter written on him by E.S. Reddy and other unpublished material placed at the author’s disposal by Maniben Sita herself. The focus of the article will be on the religious arguments against the Group Areas Act put forward by Nana Sita himself in his defense during his final trial in 1967.Contribution: Historical thought and source interpretation are not limited to historic texts but include social memory in the endeavour of faith seeking understanding. People of faith in South Africa can only come to grips with reality by engaging with the stories of the past, like that of Nana Sita. (shrink)

"In his earlier volume, Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenic Wisdom, Thomas Langan explored the distinctive kinds of truth handed on by explicit traditions and raised the question of integrating these many diverse truth claims into a responsible, meaningful vision of reality. In Being and Truth, the author lays a foundation for this concept: a theory of knowledge and a theory of being that can find a place for all these differing realities. Although experience is always interpreted in (...) the light of our traditions, Being and Truth shows that this does not preclude real access to persons, things, and their interrelationships." "Balancing the realities of subjectivism with the demands of objective form and structure, giving both the relatively permanent and the ephemeral their due, is at every moment delicate. The "common sense" at the core of each person's "natural faith" must serve as a guide - yet neither of these is a simple notion. Langan unabashedly calls on his own wide-ranging experience of the lived world to illustrate this dialectic. Students and scholars of political philosophy, intellectual history, and theology will benefit from this rich and insightful text, which integrates historicity without undermining the possibility of attaining lasting truth."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

This work lies at the juncture between religious epistemology and virtue epistemology. Currently, both fields in epistemology are burgeoning with interest and novel theories, arguments, and applications. However, there is no systematic or sustained overlap between the two. I aim to provide such a systematic connection. Virtue epistemology holds that epistemology should turn away from analyzing person-neutral concepts like evidence, reliability, etc. as the primary locus of analysis in favor of person-based properties like intellectual character traits. I develop and defend (...) a virtue-theoretic approach to religious epistemology; arguing that, in certain circumstances, faith can be an act of epistemic virtue. After developing my own account of epistemic virtue, I turn to an analysis of epistemic trust and argue that such trust is an epistemic virtue. To place epistemic trust in someone is to be disposed to see him/her as a kind of intellectual authority and depend on that authority—a kind relying confidence or confidence reliance. Next, I analyze the conceptual connections between faith and epistemic trust—arguing that robust religious faith is a species of epistemic trust. We should see faith as an expression of epistemic trust in certain ways; namely, for religious matters and for beliefs that matter deeply to one’s overall intellectual, moral, pragmatic, etc. worldview. Given my argument(s) that epistemic trust is a virtue, it follows that faith is a particular expression of that virtue. Therefore, faith (when expressed properly) is epistemically virtuous qua act of epistemic virtue. We have an epistemological analysis of faith rooted systemically and deeply in virtue epistemology. The overall upshot is that genuine faith expresses a epistemically virtuous character via trust and, as such, can confer positive epistemic status on religious beliefs. Moreover, genuine faith must fit the same framework as other virtues: it must admit of a mean between excess and deficiency, it must come under the direction of practical wisdom, it must be consistent with other virtues, and other key criteria. I end by discussing how my approach addresses serious issues in religious epistemology and I locate it in the landscape of major theories of proper religious belief. (shrink)

After completing or dropping out of school, many young people leave their family households and in some cases they move from rural or semi-rural areas to urban centres. Faith-based organisations in major cities in South Africa sometimes act as a safety net for marginalised youth, especially as government departments are overburdened and not addressing all the needs of youth at the margins. This qualitative research is based on an analysis of individual and focus group interviews undertaken with young people (...) living in the central areas of Pretoria. It is shown how families and FBOs engage as separate, although at times not unrelated, entities in the lives of youth at the margins. In certain cases, the FBO became an institution of last resort and only in rare cases is a certain synergy achieved between FBOs and families. (shrink)

Is there, today," asks Jacques Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the study of (...) religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field. Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theologyto the limits of reason and to hospitality. Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida's remarkable contribution to religious studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 314-334 [Access article in PDF] The Epistemology of Cognitive Literary Studies F. Elizabeth Hart I Literary scholars have begun incorporating the insights of cognitive science into literary studies, bringing to bear on questions of literary experience the results of explorations within a wide range of fields that define today's cognitive science. The investigation of the human mind and its reasoning processes encompasses a rich (...) variety of empirical and speculative disciplines, including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, computer science, philosophy, and anthropology. These disciplines are all related to one another by the questions they ask about the brain and mind and the ground they cover in staking out their research agendas; but each also contributes uniquely in terms of individual scope and focus. Literary critics, eavesdropping on this maturing coalition, are now producing critical works that apply cognitive research to a similarly impressive range of literary concerns, with results so far that seem to span the gap between traditional and more contemporary literary critical approaches.All such criticism is dependent on scientific studies of the brain and mind and so accepts axiomatically some degree of epistemological efficacy in scientific empiricism. But this acceptance has not been naive or uncritical and has, in fact, been at times carefully qualified by critics' sensitivity to debate--to the lack of consensus among cognitive scientists, and to the fact that cognitive science is itself in its infancy stage, with its own practitioners often openly tentative about their results and descriptive capabilities. As it happens, such debate, in recent years, has even proven beneficial for literary scholarship since an important [End Page 314] paradigm shift has taken place that now makes some aspects of cognitive science more compatible than ever with the interests of literary studies. This is because, whereas an earlier phase of cognitive science focused its energies on Artificial Intelligence and on theories of language and psychology that supported AI, grounding its theories implicitly in a metaphor of the mind as a computer, today's cognitive scientists tend to concentrate instead on the more organic metaphor of the "embodiment" of mind, that is, of the mind's substantive indebtedness to its bodily, social, and cultural contexts, and on the figurative phenomena of metaphor, metonymy, image schemata, "fields," "frames," other "integrative mental spaces" (as they are called), and the gradient structures and prototypical bases of semantic categories, all of which contribute to recasting human reason into a set of highly imaginative--not logical but figural--processes. 1 For literary theory and criticism, this shift in cognitive science toward "the body in the mind" 2 --tantamount to a wholesale rejection of philosophical rationalism--has given rise to a new kind of interdisciplinary practice, to the potential for a sincere engagement between diverse sciences and even between literature and science that stretches all the bounds of what literary scholars generally mean when they speak of being interdisciplinary (e.g., exchanges with history, art history, anthropology, film studies, sociology).In the discussion that follows, I would like to explore this new interdisciplinarity in literary studies by examining its epistemological implications. I begin with a description of the kinds of criticism now being produced under the rubric of cognitive literary criticism or--to reflect the field's scope more accurately--cognitive and cognitive-evolutionary criticism. This description is not intended as a comprehensive or evaluative survey, since in-depth review articles of extant works are available elsewhere. 3 Rather, I hope to familiarize my readers with the basic orientations of this theory and criticism so that they can grasp the epistemological relations that will become the essay's focus. To lay a further groundwork for this focus, I will review various uses of the term "cognitive" (or "cognitivism") in the scholarship and offer an analysis of its meanings, first in cognitive science and then in literary theory. Building, then, on what "cognitive" might signify for literary studies, I show how a literary approach based on today's cognitive science is uniquely situated among other approaches because of its underlying theory of human... (shrink)

Education has been acknowledged as the key factor contributing to personality development and identity formation. To ensure appropriate education, it is thus of utmost importance to reflect on the power of the educational content. As a result, respecting Islamic values from a major authentic source, like the Holy Qur’an, paves the ground to fulfil this goal. On the contrary, the first and foremost educators to convey these values are the family, because each person mainly spends the time of one’s education (...) in this small, primary social institution. Above and beyond, the building block of a society and the starting point of a culture, a civilisation and human history is the family. As a noble book of guidance for the human beings, the Holy Qur’an has accordingly shed light on the role of the family. Against this background, this study, adopting a descriptive analytical approach, aimed to investigate the Islamic family from the perspective of the Holy Qur’an with an emphasis on the education of children. Accordingly, the Holy Qur’an reveals that the main purposes of creating a family are inner peace, generational survival and expansion of the faith and monotheism. A healthy family environment can thus have a profound impact on cultivating moral character and virtues. In view of the Holy Qur’an, the family is the first place to seek relief and perform the acts of worship. No divine religions have also given as much value to the family as Islam, which implies its comprehensiveness. Despite much attention to the family in most societies, it receives special importance in the Qur’anic teachings. This article is a review study that dealt with Qur’anic concepts related to education in the family. Therefore, after categorising different Qur’anic verses, analyses have been presented in each category. Contribution: Islam has set many specific programmes and educational instructions from childbirth and then delegated their implementation to the family. Accordingly, this noble religion offers many guidelines for picking a perfect name, breastfeeding and weaning, loving, observing justice and fulfilling promises in relation to children. (shrink)

Education has been acknowledged as the key factor contributing to personality development and identity formation. To ensure appropriate education, it is thus of utmost importance to reflect on the power of the educational content. As a result, respecting Islamic values from a major authentic source, like the Holy Qur’an, paves the ground to fulfil this goal. On the contrary, the first and foremost educators to convey these values are the family, because each person mainly spends the time of one’s education (...) in this small, primary social institution. Above and beyond, the building block of a society and the starting point of a culture, a civilisation and human history is the family. As a noble book of guidance for the human beings, the Holy Qur’an has accordingly shed light on the role of the family. Against this background, this study, adopting a descriptive analytical approach, aimed to investigate the Islamic family from the perspective of the Holy Qur’an with an emphasis on the education of children. Accordingly, the Holy Qur’an reveals that the main purposes of creating a family are inner peace, generational survival and expansion of the faith and monotheism. A healthy family environment can thus have a profound impact on cultivating moral character and virtues. In view of the Holy Qur’an, the family is the first place to seek relief and perform the acts of worship. No divine religions have also given as much value to the family as Islam, which implies its comprehensiveness. Despite much attention to the family in most societies, it receives special importance in the Qur’anic teachings. This article is a review study that dealt with Qur’anic concepts related to education in the family. Therefore, after categorising different Qur’anic verses, analyses have been presented in each category.Contribution: Islam has set many specific programmes and educational instructions from childbirth and then delegated their implementation to the family. Accordingly, this noble religion offers many guidelines for picking a perfect name, breastfeeding and weaning, loving, observing justice and fulfilling promises in relation to children. (shrink)

I examine three attitudes: belief, faith, and hope. I argue that all three attitudes play the same role in rationalizing action. First, I explain two models of rational action—the decision-theory model and the belief-desire model. Both models entail there are two components of rational action: an epistemic component and a conative component. Then, using this framework, I show how belief, faith, and hope that p can all make it rational to accept, or act as if, p. I conclude (...) by showing how my picture can explain how action-oriented commitments can be rational over time, both in the face of counterevidence and in the face of waning affections. (shrink)

The loss of the federally protected constitutional right to an abortion is a threat to the already tenuous autonomy of pregnant people, and may augur future challenges to their right to refuse unwanted obstetric interventions. Even before Roe’s demise, pregnancy led to constraints on autonomy evidenced by clinician-led legal incursions against patients who refused obstetric interventions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that the right to liberty espoused in the Constitution does not extend to a (...) pregnant person’s right to an abortion. With Roe’s demise, the right to request specific types of care has been vitiated. The same argument underpinning that holding may now become ballast for attacks on the traditionally more robust right, the right to refuse. Here we discuss how the elevation of fetal and embryonic rights may lead to a cascade of medical intrusions and deprivations of liberty against pregnant persons, and offer an argument opposing these improprieties. (shrink)

What for Sartre happens when bad faith goes so deep that one is no longer master of it? In The Condemned of Altona, Franz Gerlach, after an initial show of resistance, joins the Nazi cause and tortures prisoners of war in his charge. Fleeing home from Russia at the war’s end, he sequesters himself in the attic of the family mansion and attempts to absorb the guilt of the twentieth century by frantically arguing his case before a tribunal of (...) scuttling crabs.What does Sartre’s portrayal of hallucination tell us about the human condition and is it the result of insanity? As a harbinger for the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre’s ontology has shifted away from an emphasis on human isolation and absolute freedom to a concern with how behaviour, even of an irrational kind, is a profound reflection of one’s place in a social hierarchy. Also a reflection of a CDR-type approach, Sartre’s views change regarding the status of truth and interpersonal relations. For while someone like Nausea’s Roquentin exhibits a redemptive value through introspection, fantasy and private experience, Franz’s behaviour points to a repeated failure to deal with social reality and the associated attempt to redeem his own existence by acting authentically towards others. (shrink)

This text is an exploration of the metaphysical principle, "Every agent acts for an end." It is split into two parts, the first being primarily pedagogical and general, the second topical. In the first part, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange sets forth the basics of the Aristotelian metaphysics of teleology, defending its place as a central point of metaphysics. After defending its per se nota character, he summarizes a number of main corollaries to the principle, primarily within the perspective established by traditional Thomistic (...) accounts of metaphysics, doing so in a way that is pedagogically sensitive yet speculatively profound. In the second half, he gathers together a number of articles which he had written, each having some connection with themes concerning teleology. Thematically, the texts consider the finality and teleology of the human intellect and will, along with the way that the principle of finality sheds light on certain problems associated with the distinction between faith and reason. Finally, the text ends with an important essay on the principle of the mutual interdependence of causes, causae ad invicem sunt causae, sed in diverso genere. (shrink)

Moral theology: tradition and prospects -- Purpose, reason and action -- The process of practical reasoning -- How to evaluate good and bad actions -- Actions, dispositions and character -- The reality of sin -- Conversion to Christ -- God's will and God's law -- Virtues: moral dispositions for acting well -- Wisdom in action -- Justice -- Fortitude -- Self-control -- Faith -- Love -- Hope.

Acts of Religion, compiled in close association with Jacques Derrida, brings together for the first time a number of Derrida's writings on religion and questions of faith and their relation to philosophy and political culture. The essays discuss religious texts from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, as well as religious thinkers such as Kant, Levinas, and Gershom Scholem, and comprise pieces spanning Derrida's career. The collection includes two new essays by Derrida that appear here for the first time in (...) any language, as well as a substantial introduction by Gil Anidjar that explores Derrida's return to his own "religious" origins and his attempts to bring to light hidden religious dimensions of the social, cultural, historical, and political. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role that the personal history plays in a patient’s perception of his or her own illness in the light of the patient’s own personal history. It demonstrates the regrettable modern tendency to regards the patient as the “bearer of a disease” rather than as a human being with personal values and experiences into which their current illness needs to be integrated. I illustrate my point by an exchange between a student and an “attending” and the “attending” (...) and the patient. It represents only one out of unfortunately many such instances in which the pressures of “managed care” and “efficiency” have made truly knowing the patient as an individual with life experiences and personal values much more difficult. (shrink)