This article explains and assesses a particular method of loving others that is espoused by Søren Kierkegaard. In his later works, Kierkegaard advocates a kind of deceptive love whereby one mystifies or deceives another person for that other person's own good. The theological underpinning of this mode of love is found in the imitation of Christ. In other words, just as Jesus adopted an incognito, so also Christians should, at times, appear different or lowlier in order to help others by (...) meeting them where they are. After explaining this form of love, I argue that there are considerable reasons not to follow Kierkegaard in his support of outright deception within personal relationships. I conclude with some brief reflections on whether the deceptive structure of Kierkegaard's own authorship is thereby condemned or whether it can be exonerated. (shrink)

Luxury is one of the main polemic targets of Baron d’Holbach. It brings one to run after imaginary needs they cannot fulfill, dooming them to live an unhappy, grim life. This critical view of luxury is no news and was shared by many others _philosophes_. In this paper, however, I argue that in d’Holbach’s account, luxury is more than an economically and morally disruptive force. It is also a tool to reinforce oppressive power. First, I reconstruct d’Holbach’s well-known account of (...) luxury contained in his _Politique Naturelle_. Secondly, I show that a closer reading of his later work _Morale Universelle_ discloses a new element: according to d’Holbach’s social philosophy, luxury is a mystification strategy used by tyrants to be seen as gods and consequently dominate their subjects. Finally, pivoting on the continuity between human nature and modern society in the _Système de la Nature_, I show that luxury is inscribed into a natural process. It is nothing mysterious nor supernatural. This naturalization of luxury allows people to unmask the god-like tyrant as a common human being, showing that understanding how nature works can set man free not only from religion, but also from oppressive political power. (shrink)

Résumé Claude Lévi-Strauss a souvent souligné l’importance que revêtait pour lui la découverte précoce du marxisme dont l’inspiration l’aurait ensuite constamment accompagné dans son travail d’anthropologue. Cette affirmation est devenue un leitmotiv des travaux consacrés à Lévi-Strauss, sans que personne ne se soit soucié d’en vérifier le bien-fondé. De nombreux indices attestent pourtant que Lévi-Strauss s’est livré à une mystification autobiographique. Afin d’en saisir la signification, l’article se propose de reconstituer le contexte du milieu intellectuel parisien des années 1950, (...) lorsque cette mystification a vu le jour, et d’expliquer les raisons qui ont poussé Lévi-Strauss à entretenir cette fiction encore une trentaine d’années plus tard. Le but de cet argument est de montrer que la ruse autobiographique habilement mise en scène, loin de n’être qu’un obstacle herméneutique, peut également devenir une ressource qui aide à lever le voile sur des pans oubliés de l’histoire. (shrink)

_Philosophy and Mystification_ reflects on the nature, methods and resources of philosophic enquiry are carefully grounded in the central problems that have dogged Western philosophy in the modern era: logical necessity, machine intelligence, the relation of science and religion, determinism, scepticism and the questions of foundations and origins.

The metaphysical ethics of Levinas appeals to many philosophers of education because it seems to promise ethics and social justice without recourse to moral norms, ‘totalising’ political systems or religious belief. However, the notion that the subject can be detached from its worldly being—that one can posit a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal self which stands in ethical relation to a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal Other—is highly questionable. From an empirical perspective, our experience of the world and of ourselves can only (...) be conceived in social, cultural and linguistic terms; the self-referential lexicon Levinas employs to depict the relation between the transcendental subject and the Other ‘in his alterity’ renders his metaphysical assertions impossible to evaluate or give determinate form. From a transcendental perspective, Levinas's metaphysical abstractions simply do not have the power to motivate people to behave ethically. Instead of contributing toward the transformation of education and society envisaged by many philosophers of education, the ‘ethics of the Other’ merely generates an esoteric discourse. (shrink)

The metaphysical ethics of Levinas appeals to many philosophers of education because it seems to promise ethics and social justice without recourse to moral norms, ‘totalising’ political systems or religious belief. However, the notion that the subject can be detached from its worldly being—that one can posit a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal self which stands in ethical relation to a primordial metaphysical pre-conscious pre-phenomenal Other—is highly questionable. From an empirical perspective, our experience of the world and of ourselves can only (...) be conceived in social, cultural and linguistic terms; the self-referential lexicon Levinas employs to depict the relation between the transcendental subject and the Other ‘in his alterity’ renders his metaphysical assertions impossible to evaluate or give determinate form. From a transcendental perspective, Levinas's metaphysical abstractions simply do not have the power to motivate people to behave ethically. Instead of contributing toward the transformation of education and society envisaged by many philosophers of education, the ‘ethics of the Other’ merely generates an esoteric discourse. (shrink)

Dans un premier article sur le rapport à établir entre les problématiques sartrienne et marxiste é la lumière de la Critique de la Raison Dialectique, nous avions tenté de circonscrire projet spécifique de Sartre face au Savoir marxiste.Nous aimerions poursuivre aujourd'hui notre réflexion par une analyse de quelques thèmes majeurs nous permettant de voir dans quelle mesure et dans quel sens ces deux problématiques se recoupent ou non. A cet effet, nous distinguerons: I) le problème du matérialisme et de la (...) dialectique, 2) la conception de l'homme, 3) la perspective de base, 4) le concept de classe. (shrink)

Nāgārjuna and Dōgen point to many of the same Buddhist insights because they deconstruct the same type of dualities, mostly versions of our commonsense but delusive distinction between substance and attribute, subject and predicate. This is demonstrated by examining chapter 2 of the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā" and Dōgen's transgression of traditional Buddhist teachings in his "Shōbōgenzō." Nonetheless, they reach quite different conclusions about the possibility of language expressing a "true" understanding of the world.

In my last talk I introduced you to the system of the sciences and then went on to chat about the first of the natural series of the sciences, namely physics. To-night I shall discuss the other partner of the pair which could be called “the physical sciences”, namely chemistry.Of both of these sciences, physics and chemistry, it may be said that they are preeminently the study of matter-in-motion. Of both it may be said that the methods of study in (...) the laboratory have a strong resemblance. (shrink)

The debate over objectivity and relativism, science and postmodernism, which for the past eight months has been rocking American academic circles -- particularly those of the political left -- has apparently now arrived in France. And with what a bang! Following Denis Duclos..

William Placher and others have charged seventeenth-century theologians with "domesticating" divine transcendence, with fostering an understanding of God that was clear and comprehensible, but unattractive, unpersuasive, and easily undermined by secular thought. This essay tests that claim by analyzing the discourse of divine compassion which became prominent among post-Restoration Anglican divines. While the second generation of latitudinarians do exemplify the trends Placher traces, the first generation of latitudinarians, notably Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote, succeeds in finding a way to affirm divine (...) compassion without undermining divine transcendence. Moreover, Whichcote argues that an insistence on divine incomprehensibility fosters a voluntaristic conception of divine power and—contrary to Placher—undermines efforts to promote transformative justice in human society. The present case study suggests that we must reconsider our modes of articulating divine transcendence. (shrink)

Religion was always perceived as the threshold between two worlds. It is a space where individuals are supposed to be connected to a different reality through the mediating power of a particlular ritual, at a specific time and in a certain space. A new space of appearance is the expected outcome along with this relocation from profane to sacred. Religious broadcasting could be conceptualized as a visual and acoustic “altar”. The ritual, space and time are the pillars of this audio-visual (...) “cathedral” the very space that could build the bridge between sacred and profane, and the means for this mediated, symbolic transfer. This paper tries to outline the power of media representation in the context of religious broadcasting that uses ritual and imagination to maintain and negotiate the distinction between sacred and profane and to generate alternative narratives. In this regard, the religious broadcasting, presuming the sacerdotal role to represent, mediate and interpret the relationship between sacred and profane is being conditioned by a ritualized medium. As a result, the religious messages could end up as a ritualized mystification that would jeopardize the production of meaning. (shrink)

"Contrairement à ce que laisse penser une abondante littérature philosophique, le péché n'est pas l'unique " matrice " de la culpabilité. Le péché provient d'une culture ancienne dans laquelle la responsabilité objective prévalait encore sur la responsabilité subjective. Notre expérience de la culpabilité nous indique une autre voie. Avant d'être un écart à la loi, la culpabilité est un écart à soi, la rupture d'un engagement passé avec soi-même en vue de respecter autrui. Cette hypothèse permet de comprendre le scénario (...) complet de l'innocence au pardon en passant par la tentation, le remords, la honte et le repentir. Elle permet d'y voir plus clair sur les pathologies de la culpabilité. Elle permet aussi, indirectement, d'avancer des propositions constructives dans la question de la culpabilité postcoloniale, en réfléchissant à ce qu'une nation doit aux autres en fonction du regard qu'elle porte sur elle-même. Cet ouvrage répond au projet de libérer ces thèmes de leur pesanteur métaphysique en rationalisant la position des problèmes."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

Critical analyses of the audit profession have become more common in recent years. Many of these analyses focus on the entire audit profession in developing their criticisms and concerns. In this paper, the scope of analysis is narrowed to examine in depth the auditing profession's use of the concepts of reasonable assurance and materiality in audit performance and audit communications. Reasonable assurance and materiality are the terms that auditors use to describe the scope of their responsibility to the public. Similarly, (...) reasonable assurance and materiality are the key determinants of audit effort. An overview of official guidance, practitioner reports, and academic research reveals that these two key concepts are not well specified nor are they consistently applied in audit practice. These findings are evaluated from two competing perspectives on professions – the traditional, functionalist perspective and the critical theorists' perspective. Evaluation from the latter perspective leads to a conclusion that the profession's use of these key terms to guide practice and communication leaves the profession open to charges of mystification and unjustified paternalism. (shrink)

____Remembering Anna O.__ offers a devastating examination of the very foundations of psychoanalytic theory and practice, which was born with the publication of Breuer and Freud's ____Studies on Hysteria__ in 1895. Breuer described the case of Anna O., a young woman afflicted with a severe hysteria whom he had cured of her symptoms by having her recount under hypnosis the traumatic events that precipitated her illness. Drawing on the most recent Freud scholarship and on long-secret documents, Borch-Jacobsen demonstrates, however, that (...) Anna O. was never cured by Breuer's "talking cure" and that both Breuer and Freud knowingly falsified the historical record. Borch-Jacobsen points out the numerous inconsistencies in Breuer's account that suggests that Anna O.'s symptoms were simulated to meet Breuer's theoretical expectations and that her famed "reminiscences" were in fact fictitious memories induced by Breuer in the course of a hypnotic treatment. (shrink)

This article argues that there has been a general misunderstanding of the nature of role relations in Confucian role ethics. Recasting constitutive role relations in light of Beauvoir's ethics of ambiguity will aid in developing Confucian role ethics as a contemporary vision of human flourishing that can internally accommodate the need for a feminist transformation.

Two critical questions spun the web of the Turing test debate. First, can an appropriately programmed machine pass the Turing test? Second, is passing the test by such a machine, ipso facto, considered proof that it is intelligent and hence “minded”? While the first question is technological, the second is purely philosophical. Focusing on the second question, this article interrogates the implication of John Searle’s Chinese room denial of machine intelligence. The thrust of Searle’s argument is that a machine lacks (...) intentionality, so it can only simulate intelligence, not duplicate it. In his thinking, whatever a machine inputs to generate an intelligent output has no bearing on humanlike intelligence. Incidentally, Searle did not classify such a machine’s output as simulated and non-intelligent, nor did he explain how this output is actualised with mere simulation. The connection between “unintelligent machine’s input” and “intelligent machine’s output” is at this point shrouded in mystery. Consequently, the more Searle attempts a denial of machine intelligence in the Chinese room, the more he mystifies it. Using the method of critical analysis, this article advances three fundamental arguments to prove a machines’ obscurity in the Chinese room thought experiment. On the ground of Searle’s conviction, the first argument queries the absurdity in bypassing intentionality to produce intelligence; the second points out the obfuscation in generating intelligence with mere computation, and the third draws attention to the dilemma of classifying a machine’s output either as real-life intelligent behaviour or simulated intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

In disability studies, social and medical explanatory models are seen as being conflicting or mutually exclusive, and as mystifying respectively bodily impairment and the agency of social and environmental factors. This article uses critical discourse analysis to discuss the relationship between such models in policy documents produced by The Norwegian Federation of Organizations of Disabled People. Analysis of key topoi in the policy documents shows that they display elements of both social and medical discourse, and that the consequences of medically (...) defined impairments are used as justifications for policy interventions in a framework of social justice. While a strict version of the social model is adopted in general programmatic documents, arguments about specific policy fields conceptualize disability as a property of individuals — traditionally, a medical model framing. Analysis of topoi is shown to be a useful tool when CDA is applied to policy texts. (shrink)

Historically, numbers of women complainants in rape trials have been regarded suspiciously, or prejudiced in that their credibility has been seriously called into question, or undermined, both from within and outside the courtroom. Arguably, public and legal perceptions as to the expected conduct and behaviour of the stereotypical rape victim have been grounded in the belief that genuine women who allege rape should act and portray themselves as unequivocal victims. This suggests that the contemporary construct of the female rape victim (...) and her associated stereotypical image should be considered not solely as a legal derivative but also within a wider cultural context. This article explores the historical influences that shaped the cultural construct operating in the U.K., in particular, the societal and legal attitudes of the mid-Victorians towards women and sexual violence, creating an historical mystification around the construct of the female rape victim and the crime of rape itself. Reference is made to a number of cases reported in The Times newspaper between 1850–1885 which underline the requisite portrayal of the rape complainant as an unequivocal victim. It is argued that the relocation of this historical and socially constructed mythological imaginary within the context of the law and the trial process has disproportionately contributed to the modern scepticism which surrounds the female complainant. (shrink)

Verbs in the passive voice have been described as linguistic features which can exert ideological effects because they typically omit the agent, or ‘doer’ of an action. These missing agents are said to be potentially ‘mystified’ to readers. But to what extent are these agents actually mystified to readers, and can we predict when mystification is likely to occur? A text-based analytical framework for inference prediction focusing on agency mystification was applied to two corpora of US newspaper editorials. (...) Eighty-four percent of passive verbs were predicted not to mystify agency for casual readers. To test this method of inference prediction, a reader response study was carried out in which readers were asked to identify agents that had been deleted from texts via the addition of agentless passives. By a standard of 50% accuracy, 74% of passives were found to be non-mystifying. These results suggest that agents missing from texts are likely to be inferred correctly by readers in a majority of cases and that mystification may be predictable from text analysis. (shrink)

This paper is intended to elaborate the anthropocentric paradigm in the study of Islamic law which is done for two reasons. The first is the increasing trend of theocentricism within various puritan communities. This trend rejects the contextualization of Islamic law and has the potential to produce radical movements in the name of religion. The second is that, Islamic law studies is still rarely associated with the issues of legal paradigms, even though they are considered as the foundation in the (...) establishment of Islamic law. Thus, this paper is written as an attempt to make the prophetic social science paradigma an analytical tool for puritans’ Islamic law epistemology. This study reveals that the epistemological demystification is very important for the study of contemporary Islamic law. There are two steps in carrying out epistemological demystification: the first is the transformation of the basic structure of Islamic law. This transformation requires a shifting issue from theocentric to the anthropocentrism. The transformative theoanthropocentric paradigm as the basic legal structure has the capability to contextualize Islamic law which is not only relevant to the Muslim community, but also to the community as a whole. The second is the development of a theoretical framework. Concerning with this, Kuntowijoyo offers analytic-synthetic theories which accommodate a demystified vision as a link to a transformative theological foundation. (shrink)

In ‘Levinas: Ethics or Mystification?’ (Miller, 2017), Alistair Miller presents a searing indictment of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and a dismissal of claims for its importance for education. He provides a summary account of Levinas's philosophy and, in relation to this, refers briefly to a number of authors who have related Levinas's work to education. This account is at fault, however, in fundamental ways, and this leads to errors in the conclusions that he draws. The present short paper (...) does not attempt to address these problems in the round but rather focuses on a particular aspect of his phrasing in constructing the account, taking this as a significant pointer to the nature of the misinterpretation as a whole. (shrink)

"Le projet le plus général de Nietzsche consiste en ceci : introduire en philosophie les concepts de sens et de valeur. Nietzsche n'a jamais caché que la philosophie du sens et des valeurs dut être une critique. Que Kant n'ait pas mené la vraie critique, parce qu'il n'a pas su en poser le problème en termes de valeurs, tel est même un des mobiles principaux de l'oeuvre de Nietzsche". Cette analyse rigoureuse et critique de la philosophie de Nietzsche est une (...) lumineuse introduction à l'oeuvre d'un philosophe trop souvent réduit au nihilisme, à la volonté de puissance et l'image du surhomme. Gilles Deleuze remarque que "la philosophie moderne présente des amalgames, qui témoignent de sa vigueur et de sa vivacité, mais qui comportent aussi des dangers pour l'esprit" et que la force du projet philosophique de Nietzsche dans le "dépassement" de la métaphysique est "de dénoncer toutes les mystifications qui trouvent dans la dialectique un dernier refuge. La philosophie de Nietzsche a une grande portée polémique". (shrink)

Nombre de juristes, à travers l’histoire, se sont accommodés de la barbarie pourvu qu’elle s’insère dans des procédures respectées à la lettre, même si l’esprit – quel qu’il soit – en est totalement absent. La notion « d’état de droit », communément utilisée aujourd’hui dans l’ordre interne, relève de la mystification car elle supporte toutes les définitions : le droit nazi lui-même avait ses subtilités et tous les pouvoirs n’appartenaient pas au Chancelier du Reich. Concernant l’ordre intern...

"L'imagination comme faculté et les imaginaires comme accumulation des produits de cette faculté dans la culture constituent un chantier en philosophie. L'étude de l'imagination a été intégrée dans le criticisme par Kant, mais non approfondie du fait des "chimères" que l'imagination engendre pour lui. La faculté logico-formelle a ainsi pris le dessus, au point de devenir le paradigme de notre société. En 1929, pour régler le sort des néokantiens de Marbourg, Heidegger interdit tout droit de cité à une quelconque légitimité (...) philosophique de la culture -- et partant, à désigner l'imagination comme un univers libre de mystification. Ce livre cherche à démontrer une histoire de la légitimité de la philosophie des imaginaires, renforçant la pertinence de la culture prise comme univers symbolique à partir duquel requalifier les paradigmes de notre époque. Les théories de la connaissance gagneraient à s'enrichir de toutes les formes de l'art qui ne sont ni moins rigoureuses, ni moins cosmogéniques que ne le sont les sciences. Il ne peut y avoir de progrès du point de vue de la conscience humaine dans une conception de celle-ci qui refuse toute la dimension esthético-formelle."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Chenu, M.-D. Foi, certitude et recherche.--Gilson, É. Réponse à Louis-Marie Régis, On some difficulties of interpretation.--Dubarle, D. Logique et épistémologie du signe chez Aristote et chez les Stoïciens.--Geiger, L.-B. Ce qui est, se dit en plusiers sens.--Owens, J. "Diversificata in diversis."--Cauchy, V. Être et connaître, l'irréductibilité de l'aristotélisme au platonisme.--Joós, E. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, de l'intentio intellectus, à l'intentio rei.--Murin, C. Pour une démystification de la "mort-de-Dieu" nietzschéenne.--Joós, E. Post-scriptum, la nouvelle scolastique de Louis-Marie Régis.--Landry, A.-M. Louis-Marie Régis, O.P., quelques dates (...) et faits marquants de sa vie.--Lettre d'Henri-Irénée Marrou à Louis-Marie Régis. (shrink)

In dialogue with the most famous myth for the origin of different languages - The Tower of Babel - A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel provides a series of timely reflections on the themes of sameness and otherness from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective. How are we dealing with communication and its difficulties, the confusion of tongues and loss of common ground within a European context today? Can we move beyond Babel? Confusion and feared loss of shared values (...) and identity are a major part of the daily work of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bringing together an international range psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, the book is divided into six parts and covers an array of resonant topics, including: language and translation; cultural identity; families and children; the cyber world; the psychotherapeutic process; and migration. Whereas the quest for unity, which underpins the myth of Babel, leads to mystification, simplification and the exclusion of people or things, multilingual communities necessitate mutual understanding through dialogue. This book examines those factors which further or threaten communication, aiming not to reduce but to gain complexity. It suggests that diversification enriches communication and that, by relating to others, we can create something new. As opposed to cultural and linguistic homogeneity, Babel is not only a metaphor for mangled communication, alienation, and distraction, it is also about the acceptance or rejection of differences between self and other. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds. (shrink)