Nicu Gavriluţă, România în Starea Bardo: publicistică şi dialoguri culturale (Romania in the Bardo State: Journalistic Writings and Cultural Dialogs) Provopress, Cluj-Napoca, 2006.

The paper attempts at analyzing the bases of interreligious dialogue in the West, as well as the forms of its successful or failed implementation in Romania. The author reviews the causes of the Western recent preoccupation towards the Oriental (especially Indian) religions. Then, he approaches the question of interreligious dialogue from the Romanian perspective, looking for the specific elements that transforms the framework. Thus, he firstly analyzes the failed forms of the interreligious dialogue (that are the stereotypical discourse, the (...) missionary and the proselytism), paying a special attention to the case study of MISA. Finally, he interprets Mircea Eliade’s writings on India as a successful and fruitful dialogue between two cultures and two religions. (shrink)

In the first part of this text, the author includes a synthesis of Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru Culianu’s thoughts regarding the actuality of ancient mythologies and their camouflaged presence within the cultural, political, social, and entertainment practices of the contemporary human being. The main idea of this text is that the Eliade-Culianu paradigm of the myths’ interpretations is of actuality because, in the first place, does not deceive the specific of mythology and explains myths through myths. The (...) text then presents the author’s ideas regarding the camouflaged presence of certain mythological phantasms within the games of the quotidian. Basically, these phantasms refer to the social mythologies reactivated in the world after September, 11, 2001, to mythological content of the neighborhood subcultures’ practices, as well as to the need of reinventing the “black sheep”. The author also mentions the mythological sequences disguised in a successful book - The Da Vinci Code - or in the extravagant car promotions in the contemporary Occident. (shrink)

Nicu Gavrilta - Hermeneutica simbolismului religios. Studii si eseuri Editura Fundatiei AXIS, Iasi, 2003.

Lucian Blaga was an early- and mid-20th century European philosopher whose work was suppressed at the height of his career by the ascension to power of the Romanian Communist Party and the creation of the Romanian Socialist Republic. Because of historical circumstances, Blaga's philosophy has not become known outside of his own country, although within Romania it continues to be read and discussed. Were it to become known outside of Romania, Blaga's philosophy might well be able (...) to contribute to contemporary philosophical discussions. ;The thesis of this dissertation is that Blaga's philosophy has contemporary relevance to Anglo-American philosophy. Two steps are necessary to support this thesis. First, Blaga's philosophical system must be explained in sufficient detail to enable the reader to see how it can be applied to a variety of philosophical issues. This will be accomplished in six sub-chapters introducing Blaga's life and work, his philosophy of philosophy, his metaphysical system, his epistemology, his philosophy of culture, and his philosophy of religion. ;Secondly, Blaga's philosophy must be applied to issues discussed in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy in order to show how it can contribute to contemporary discussions. It seems likely that Blaga's philosophy has contemporary relevance to a number of philosophical fields. The field to which it will be applied in this dissertation is philosophy of religion, an arena of contemporary philosophy that is the scene of much lively debate. This section contains eight sub-chapters attempting to apply Blaga's philosophical insights to issues in this field. They are, in order, the nature of philosophy of religion, the problem of religious language, the question of religious knowledge, the justification of religious belief, the existence and nature of God, religion and science, the problem of inter-religious communication, and the "problem" of religious diversity. ;The dissertation concludes that Blaga's philosophy can make relevant contributions to issues in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of religion, and by extension, that it therefore has continuing relevance to Anglo-American philosophy. (shrink)

This volume, Applied Social Sciences: Philosophy and Theology, provides the reader with an important set of essays related to the two aforementioned fields of study. Aesthetics plays a key role in contemporary philosophy and several authors examine its various aspects, such as the question of identification of works of art; the concept of â oesocial aestheticsâ ; the social therapeutic function that art can have; and the relationships among hermeneutics, aesthetics and communication sciences. Other papers deal (...) with ethical issues, such as the role of human values in applied ethics and moral determinations in public life. The meaning and role of postmodernism in philosophy and society is examined at length in various contributions to the volume, and the same is true for phenomenology at large. Even the theoretical seduction and practical failure of Marxism is addressed, while anthropological issues are studied with reference to truth and other key philosophical concepts. John Searleâ (TM)s theory of intentionality is seen as a factor for creating social institutions, and the real meaning of â oeglobalizationâ is investigated in another article. Many essays deal directly with theological and religious topics. For instance the alleged â oeillusionâ of religion versus its persistency is analyzed, along with the current relations between Church and civil government in Romania, the presence of different forms of Christianity in the Romanian nation, the dialogue between social theology and anthropological research, and the antinomic nature of the Church. All papers included in the volume are original and open new perspectives on the many issues addressed by the authors. Even the philosophical styles are different: hermeneutics, analytic philosophy, historical approach, postmodernism, communication theory and linguistic approach. Some papers are theoretical and others have a more empirical or historical flavour. There is however an underlying unity because they all purport to provide new ideas to professionals involved in the socio-humanistic field. The information is divided into chapters in order to help readers to form by themselves an image of the issues that are studied. However, the volume is not addressed only to specialists, and is accessible to a wider public interested in an interdisciplinary approach. (shrink)

For the one who studies the socio-anthropology of religions, the book itself is the main character of the fascinating journey that Moshe Idel proposes in Perfections that absorb. Cabala and interpretation Starting from the imaginary of the book in the Judaic mystical literature, as presented by Moshe Idel, we have found four main hypostases of the book: the book as a pre-existent paradigm, the book as creation, the book as a paradox, and the book as a knowledge tool. We have (...) noticed that these hypostases are to be found also in the folk products from the traditional Romanian settings this showing the presence of similar aspects regarding the representations of the book on a social imaginary level in various cultural areas. Thus, we have tried to present the hermeneutics of the negative and its applicability for the socio-anthropological study of some divinatory phenomena that make reference to the book or whose central point is the book. Moreover, the conclusions of this analysis have demonstrated the large applicability of the hermeneutics of the negative so well described by professor Moshe Idel. This can also be extended to other socio-humanistic sciences. (shrink)

Feminist authors claim that many of the advertising messages are promoting stereotypical images of the genders. However, if in social sciences, gender stereotypes have been facilitated and enforced by religious ideologies, the connections between gender stereotypes in advertising and religious ideologies remain to be investigated. The purpose of this paper is to analyze these connections. Using the tools and methods of philosophy of communication, the paper attempts to emphasize a double discourse of advertising: an external one that derives (...) from existing religious ideologies, and an internal one that borrows the structure and elements of modern religiosity. If the first one is enforcing the gender stereotypes, the second one is more innovative and less related to stereotypical images of genders. When advertising is approached from the perspective of philosophy of communication, its most conspicuous aspect is its narrative dimension. One way in which narratives of advertising are constructed is in the form of myth. We can see that, in some circumstances, advertising has a function similar to myth, or includes structures of depth coming from the world of myth or of religion understood in a broader sense. The power of those elements is derived not from the realm of merchandise value, but from the one of traditional mentalities and cultural representations. In order to illustrate my research on the relation between gender, religion and advertising, I choose a sample of ads, that I analyze using the tools of philosophy of communication. Thus, my research has led me to a nuanced understanding of the relation between gender stereotypes and religion in advertising. (shrink)

The present study proposes a valorization of the work of professor and philosopher Ioan Biriş. The statistics of his books and studies, their distribution by areas of interest, and especially the ideas in his work confirm the need for philosophy in the Romanian cultural life. As a whole, his philosophical endeavor is based on the concept of totality. Thus in the Hegelian spirit, Ioan Biriş successfully convinces us that the logical may exceed the limits of formal exercise (...) and become the organon of philosophy. In this capacity, the logical may operate on the real and valorize the multiple relationships between identity and difference. His books Filosofia și logica științelor sociale, Totalitate, sistem, holon, Rolul imaginarului în cunoașterea științifică, Istorie şi cultură, as well as a series of studies among which let me mention: “L’identité symbolique et la logique partitive des valeurs spirituelles”, “On the logic of religious terms”, “Le rapport identite-difference et la conjonction collective. Aspects logiques”, clearly prove the author’s capacity to integrate existential, religious, cognitive and axiological issues into a unitary vision. As Noica would say, he succeeded to enter the spirit’s life thorough the intellect’s gate. (shrink)

Starting as a scientific presentation of the phenomenon of cloning, in which etymology, the definitions and some already classical examples are emphasized, this paper actually focuses on a less discussed perspective in nowadays debates on cloning. Thus, the paper aims at showing which are (if any) the mythical-religious structures of cloning, certainly without ignoring the social consequences, the advantages and disadvantages and the juridical effects of cloning. Discussing Mircea Eliadeís novella Les trois graces, the purpose of explaining the subtle (...) reactivation of ancient mythical-religious phantasms by the means of a contemporary scientific experiment such as cloning is reached. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy, and the Neonatal ICU by Charles C. CamosyAutumn Alcott RidenourReview of Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy, and the Neonatal ICU CHARLES C. CAMOSY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. 208 pp. $18.00In Too Expensive to Treat? Charles Camosy makes an important contribution to bioethics and Christian ethics by making the case for the need to consider social factors when treating imperiled (...) newborns. Arguing for both the full moral status of newborns and Roman Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the just allocation of resources, Camosy calls the medical community, bioethicists, and [End Page 209] Christian ethicists to account for current practices that disproportionately favor exorbitant costs for imperiled infants over other even more basic medical needs within the US health care system. Written before the adoption of the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration, Camosy’s argument has only increased in significance given the national need to prioritize resources in view of the government’s expansion of health care coverage.Born within twenty-two to twenty-four weeks of gestation and weighing between 500 and 850 grams, some imperiled infants absorb hundreds of thousands of dollars in short-term care that may extend into millions of dollars given long-term costs (146, 171–93). Recognizing the tragic reality in which “we have virtually unlimited health care needs” coupled with “limited health care resources,” Camosy contends that current Medicaid funds that privilege the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) should be reevaluated (1–3). In an effort to temper the “autonomous,” patient-driven principle with “justice,” Camosy poses a challenging philosophical, theological, and practical proposal for what he identifies as the “gray area” of the NICU.Maintaining a twofold commitment to human dignity that values the moral worth of the infant, on the one hand, and the common good that privileges a preferential option for the poor, on the other, Camosy develops his argument in four major steps. First, he validates the moral status of newborn infants and rejects social quality of life models that dismiss their intrinsic status as “persons.” Second, he dismisses arguments that emphasize personal dignity at the expense of considering the social quality of life, pointing out that such arguments disregard Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the link between relational anthropology and human personhood (100). Third, he contends that “weak” social quality of life models that privilege the patient or individual over social considerations do not take seriously either Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the common good or the potentially overwhelming economic and practical burdens they might place on families and society as a whole. Finally, Camosy presents a constructive proposal for limiting NICU resources that seeks to counter a culture of overtreatment that idolizes technology and is at the mercy of an unrestrained free market (162). Emphasizing the need for a just allocation of resources, he supports withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in some cases, thus foreseeing the possible death of some infants. Although he does not accept the direct killing of these infants, he does maintain that Catholic social teaching would allow for the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment based on certain criteria.Camosy raises a host of important considerations relevant to decisions about imperiled infants. Yet a few questions remain. First, from a Christian point of view, does he not fall into a kind of soft utilitarianism, even though he himself desires to avoid the pitfalls of utilitarianism? Second, how might Camosy envision Christian practices that care for “exposed” infants left without life-sustaining treatment? Finally, what about the difficult emotions that accompany [End Page 210] the death of an infant or child? Do certain kinds of grief complicate our rationing choices that appear to pit the old against the young? While perhaps unanswerable, these questions merit further discussion.Autumn Alcott RidenourMerrimack CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The problem of the crisis situation of Western European culture at the beginning of the 19th century became the central problem in the ideological heritage of R. Guenon. In his reflections, the French thinker turns to the consideration of the role and significance of traditions in the life of a person and society. R.Guenon fills the term “tradition” with his semantic load, making this term a key element in his philosophy. The reflexive space of Guénon’s philosophy is the (...) sphere of the philosophy of religion and it is difficult to attribute it to the sphere of religious philosophy. This difficulty lies in the departure of the French thinker from the traditions of the Christian worldview to the ideological foundations of Eastern mysticism, agnosticism and theosophical views. Perhaps it is these preferences of Guénon that lead the researchers of his work to the idea that he is, in a certain sense, the “forerunner” of the postmodern era in Europe. Tradition and the crisis of traditions for the philosopher are considered as the main subject of study. The scale of historical and philosophical analysis is taken by the thinker without embarrassment as wide as possible. Ultimately, the very crisis of culture for Guenon can and must serve as a transition to a new stage in the development of culture. In this new stage, a syncretic creative renewal of world religions on the basis of the Eastern mysteries will take place. The cyclic concept of the author’s history does not retain its traditional connection with the Christian understanding of the future, the loss of the Christian eschatological understanding of man. the Renaissance is declared a break point with the traditional understanding of being. For a philosopher, tradition is not reduced to folk custom. And already at this stage, we are witnessing Guénon’s attempt to give the established philosophical terms their own sound, fitting them to his concept and esoteric context. (shrink)

Politics and Religion in the New Century contains a collection of philosophical reflections on the intersection of religion and the political in contemporary social, political and intellectual life. Based on new research, the essays raise questions about the contemporary philosophical engagement with religion that orientate it on its practical rather than metaphysical dimension. That is, its social, political and ethical significance. This collection provides important insights for those interested in: philosophy, religious studies, politics, human rights, globalisation, (...) class='Hi'>social theory, ethics, sociology, political economy, government, anthropology, contemporary culture, and issues of justice and power generally. (shrink)

Moral Philosophy and Moral Education considers the interconnections of ethics, education, and the philosophy of culture as related to the human concern with self-knowledge. The individual self finds its inner life writ large in the forms of culture such as religion, art, and history. Such forms of cultural life represent and embody normative ideals that can provide the necessary content to shape the character and the conduct of civic life. Thora Ilin Bayer draws upon the ancient Greek (...) view of education as paideia and the conception of Bildung of the German idealist philosophers. These two ideas of education aim at the development of the whole person as distinct from training in a particular skill, subject matter, technique, or occupation. The education of the whole person aims at the production in the individual of a broad mental outlook harmoniously joined with a knowledge of the great perspectives and principles of human culture as it takes its various shapes within the history of humanity. Moral philosophy requires both culture and the individual as its terms of inquiry, and moral education requires a vision of how to have these two terms interact to form a whole. (shrink)

In this text, the problem of tolerance is discussed in the light of recent works of Umberto Eco and Stefan Afloroaei. The author argues that in the case of tolerance, the success lies not in tolerating the other, (not even in the weaker sense of the word), but rather in accepting him. The acceptance of the Other is the complete and powerful meaning of tolerance. Accep- tance ends where the very presence of the concept of tolerance is undermined and compromised (...) by its history of colonialism and exploitation. Therefore, the primary solution to understand and apply tolerance is the recognition of alterity, in an inner and outer meaning alike. (shrink)

A development in Management research is observed in recent years: interface of literature and management. The paper highlights the possibility of constructive impacts on human development through philosophy and experiments of Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate literary genius from India (1913), in the field of education. The essential equality of all, preservation of cultural diversity, and the infinite possibility of deepening our understanding of each other form the core of Tagorean values. Tagore was a visionary and, throughout his (...) life, he tried to bring about a radical change in society through education which would enable the world to come together—irrespective of diversity of language, identity, race, nationality, or religion. He recognized the need to promote a culture that fosters intellectual, social, and cultural growth in the global community. Using the classic example of Tagore the paper will examine how embracing of diversity in leadership and organizational development can contribute to holistic effectiveness through the introduction of non-conventional and alternative learning as advocated by Tagore that makes him all the more relevant in the present globalized context. The paper will also attempt to outline a learning path and unfold a voyage from knowledge to wisdom for leaders and organizations in future. (shrink)

Emerging Adults' Religiousness and Spirituality seeks to understand how the developmental process of meaning-making encompasses American emerging adults' religiousness and spirituality. This volume does not focus on disentangling religion and spirituality conceptually, but rather emphasizes their centrality in the psychology of human development. It highlights the range of experiences and perspectives of emerging adults in the U.S. grounded in social context, social position, and religious or spiritual identification. Chapters are written by an interdisciplinary group of authors and explore (...) topics such as the benefits and detriments of religiousness and spirituality to emerging adults; contexts and socializing agents such as parents and peers, the media, religious communities, and universities; and variations of religiousness and spirituality concerning gender, sexuality, culture, and social position. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Culture of Engagement: Law, Religion, and Morality by Cathleen KavenyAllen CalhounA Culture of Engagement: Law, Religion, and Morality Cathleen Kaveny WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. 320 pp. $98.95 / $32.95It is encouraging to read a book on the intersection of religion and law from an author as conversant with both fields as is Cathleen Kaveny. Reworking a number of columns that she wrote for Commonweal magazine, (...) Kaveny offers her concept of a "culture of engagement" as an alternative to America's polarizing culture wars. She builds a vision of engagement—typified by Pope Francis's emphasis on the church's need to "encounter" all human beings—that welcomes the influence that religious traditions and the broader culture and its laws can have on each other.Kaveny notes two ways in which the Roman Catholic tradition is particularly well situated to engage American culture and law. First, both American common law and the Catholic moral tradition use forms of "casuistry" to connect general rules with particular situations. Second, Catholic reluctance "to draw sharp lines between the pure and the tainted" can supply a salutary alternative to the Puritan tendency toward "prophetic indictment" (16).In part 1, Kaveny argues that law has both pedagogical and pragmatic qualities. In part 2, she describes the nation's struggle to balance governmental interests and religious liberty in the context of the contraception mandate in the 2010 Affordable Care Act. She faults the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for elevating the law's pedagogical role over its pragmatic function in their attack on the mandate. She herself leans toward pragmatism; she assumes that exceptions to laws of general applicability should apply only "in the most extreme cases" (116) and that the government—not the religious claimant—should determine when exceptions apply.Kaveny also suggests that the bishops would do well to pay greater attention to the common good, as "it reflects the moral consensus of the community, which is accurately reflected in our democratic process of lawmaking" (90). Development of the grounds for this optimistic linking of a moral consensus and majority rule to the common good would have been an interesting addition to the book.Part 3 is the heart of the work, exploring ways for American society to "move beyond a culture war mentality" (120). Kaveny resists the assumption that public discourse in a society torn by culture wars is served by pitting secular and religious voices against each other. She hopes instead for persuasion based on natural law. One is left wondering, however, how persuasion based on natural law could happen in America's ideologically diverse culture. [End Page 201]Part 4 explores the effect of America's ideological pluralism on discussions among American Catholics. Kaveny describes how the church's sexual abuse scandal has fed the growing sense of disconnection between church teaching and the expectations of the Catholic laity.Part 5, a series of essays on difficult ethical controversies, hints at what interaction between the American and Catholic traditions might look like. Kaveny advocates "reframing the question" and hints at what reframing the contraception question might look like (221).Some of the book addresses specifically Catholic questions. It is valuable in that respect. Its scope extends beyond any one religious tradition, however, as it offers a picture of engagement between equals: the American legal tradition and Catholic moral teaching. Nevertheless, Kaveny makes it clear that this sort of engagement can succeed only if the American legal community understands its need to reflect changing social values and the Catholic hierarchy moves away from insisting that "error has no rights" and toward acknowledging that people do have rights even when they are in error (257).Allen CalhounPhD candidate, University of AberdeenCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled: 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging (...) controversy. -/- Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked. (shrink)

Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, (...) this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself. The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jrgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society. (shrink)

As a result of the dynamic structure of society, there is a constant change in social life and researching the change is among the unit analysis of the field of sociology that takes society as a subject matter for itself. There are various ways to examine the change that has taken place in society. One of them is the implicit reference system thereby examining mindset structures. There are many factors such as economy, culture, and education which constitute mentalities and (...) one of them is religion. Religions because of their unique characters have an aspect to influence mentalities. From this point of view, the first issue in this article to be examined is the relationship between mentality-social change. Subsequently, insights will be given about mentality-religion relations, and lastly, an attempt to unearth the impact of religion-social change relations on mentalities will be made. For further clarification of all this process through an example, Sabri F. Ülgener's Zihniyet ve Din (Mentality and Religion) will be examined and Ülgener's views will be analyzed on the ground of religion-change relation. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The analysis aims at showing that the position of philosophy in society depends upon two factors: the real spirit of reform born from philosophy and the appetence of society for reform. The first part of the present study provides a short historical illustration of the genuine character of (...) philosophy as a bearer of reform, while the second part of the work mentions different attitudes toward reform, as well as the problems generated by the intersection of these attitudes with the reforms promoted by philosophy. In addition, the paper intends to contribute to the understanding of the present-day status of philosophy within the Romanian educational system. In this respect, the dialogue of philosophy and religion is considered relevant to the topic. Besides this aspect, the work also mentions the dogmatic imprint of philosophy during the Stalinist epoch and the dogmatic inertia after 1990 – manifested in different and apparently opposed forms. Moreover, the study suggests that the improvement of the prestige of philosophy depends not only upon the self-criticism that Romanian philosophy has to develop but also upon the influence that this spirit of self-criticism could have on decision-makers. Philosophical self-criticism is a precondition and, at the same time, a part of the reform that philosophy initiates in the field of knowledge. Thus, the paper is to underline the importance of philosophy in giving direction and in providing the framework for social reform. From this point of view, the dialogue between philosophy and religion is difficult but possible at university level and in the field of research. (shrink)

If you wish to think/write about many dimensional things like the‭ ‘‬world‭’‬,‭ ‬persons,‭ ‬consciousness,‭ ‬human thinking etc,‭ ‬you should at least think multi-dimensional and many levelled. Questioning the purpose,‭ ‬the subject-matter and the methodology,‭ ‬methods of the discipline. I have already dealt in detail about the disappearance of different subject from the philosophical discourse with the differentiation of other disciplines, as well as the involvement in philosophy in inter-disciplinary areas such as cognitive sciences, the creation of experimental philosophy (...) and the philosophies of other discourses, eg art, religion, science, mathematics, sport and every subject possible. Philosophy has/is often interpreted as consisting of logic, which in has its own discourse, while other aspects or forms of logic really form part of mathematics. The doing of philosophy as the doing of (usually informal) logic is in some way related to this belief. As far as the method of philosophy goes, it is always seen as employing arguments, argumentation and reasoning. But all kinds of writing and talking employ arguments, argumentation, reasoning and informal logic – not just philosophy. I conclude with a discussion from theoretical physics (in the past associated with the philosophical discourse) that provides us with ontologies as philosophy used to do. Against that background I present articles on the multiverse, more conventional articles on our universe, our world, our physical reality and the origins of life. I think these are some of the many things that it is necessary that philosophy should take note of and consequently question itself, its aims, objectives, subject-matter and methodologies. We might then have something different than one-levelled and one-dimensional thinking and more many layered and levelled and multi-dimensional thinking. Is this not how our consciousness functions? On many levels, layers and dimensions simultaneously? So should this not be the manner in which we conceive of ‘it’, its nature and functioning? We, philosophy, should at least be thinking ( instead of individual concepts, or statements, linear thinking - we should simultaneously think on many layers, on many levels and in several dimensions) in terms of 3D, for example 3D scatter plots .By this I mean the many different aspects of the person (mentally and physically, socially, culturally, as well as our environment, planetary and universe context should be included in every concept we employ; each concept should therefore be at least like a 3D scatter plot image, including all these levels and information). (shrink)

Purpose. The signification of the theoretical grounds for the conceptual reconstruction of the dichotomy "spirit-body" in the field of postmodern notions in philosophy and culture, the identification of the location of the given dichotomy in the processes of the transition of philosophy from being classical to the postclassical one, simultaneously, culture – to the cultural forms of postmodernity. Theoretical basis. The changing systems of post paradigm relations, radically transforming human life in the postmodern world, represent the obvious (...) transformations of the fundamental conceptual schemes. For postmodern philosophers, the dichotomy "spirit-body" does not mean better interpretation of separate substances any more, but the development of the relationship between mental and physical properties. Feminist philosophers assert that the "spirit-body" opposition occupies the special place among classical dichotomies, as it acquires the key meaning in the patriarchal concepts of masculinity and femininity. In the post modernity, the body and corporality become dominant themes not only in the philosophy and "high" culture, but also in mass culture; at the same time, the emphasis on their common narratives and intertexts testifies to the fundamental transformations that reflect the "condition" of postmodernity. Originality of this research lies in the expose of the specific transformation features of the dichotomy "spirit-body" as a philosophic opposition closely connected with postmodernism and realized in the practices of mass culture. This research is reflectedof the idea of the absoluteness and invariabilityof this duality as thebasicdichotomy of the classical philosophy in its correlation with cultural logic of the postmodernity at the end of the 20 – the beginning of the 21st centuries. Conclusions. With the reinterpretation of the "spirit-body" dichotomy, the body is theorized as a cognitive agent with desires independent of the mind. In postmodernism, the body is the source of charm, and aversion and destruction, and restoration. At the same time, with the growth of the visualization factor and the change in the status of "high" culture, the "turn" in the status of mass culture is created: today both the former and the letter have many common discourses, narratives and intertexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward Resilient DemocracyCognitive Resources and ConstraintsJohn Teehan (bio)I. Introduction: The Cognitive Science of ReligionAmerican Immanence, an important and insightful work, offers an analysis of the existential crisis facing American democracy, and a possible path through this crisis. In developing this path, Michael Hogue asks, "can the feeling and awareness of the precarious value of life …awaken us to the precious depths of immanence, to living as if this, our (...) one and only world, matters ultimately?"1 Such an awakening, he argues, is vital to developing a "resilient democracy." I believe the answer to his question is "yes," and a positive answer to this profound question is sufficient warrant for exploring the path Hogue sets out. However, there is another question, one with broader implications: can this moral vision be adopted on a wide enough scale to attain the critical mass necessary to develop a democracy sufficiently resilient to weather this crisis? I will explore this second question using the insights derived from cognitive science, and particularly from the cognitive science of religion. This approach picks up on Hogue's invitation to interpret religion "within the evolutionary contexts of natural history,"2 and concurs with his claim that in "demystifying religion" an "evolutionary account …opens the way to a religious experience."3The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is grounded in an evolutionary understanding of human cognitive and emotional processes, as these processes have developed to enable the species to respond to the challenges of survival and reproduction in dynamic environments, both physical and social. These cognitive tools were not shaped to discern some pre-given reality, but rather to serve the practical goals of natural beings embedded in natural situations. CSR, then, is congruent with the immanental philosophy, grounded in pragmatism, that Hogue develops in his book. Indeed, it can be argued that the methodology of CSR implicitly entails a pragmatist epistemology4. The various [End Page 65] mental tools and resultant religious beliefs and rituals all serve the ultimate goal of successful action within natural situations. CSR, then, can provide an empirical account of at least some of the processes that would be involved in actualizing an immanental political theology, and may identify some of the cognitive obstacles to that project.It is beyond the scope of this essay to set out a detailed account of CSR, but it will suffice to introduce some general tenets that have played a seminal role in the field.5 Those elements of a cultural system that we would deem religious are derived from natural cognitive processes that evolved to allow our earliest ancestors to successfully navigate an uncertain and dangerous environment.6 As an example, let's consider the gods, understanding by the "gods" any of the various beings that might commonly be termed "supernatural" (e.g., gods, spirits, ghosts, demons, fairies, divine ancestors, etc.). Belief in gods is theorized to flow, in part, from natural cognitive mechanisms for the detection of agents (that is, beings that act with intent). The ability to detect such beings—beings that might pose a danger—is essential to surviving in an uncertain and dangerous world. This ability was so vital that natural selection favored the evolution of a cognitive process for detecting agents that is hypersensitive.7 Detecting the presence of an agent when none is actually present is a much safer error than failing to detect an actual predator, and so this cognitive strategy could regularly give rise to false positives.Detecting the presence of an agent is the beginning phase of devising effective action, but to determine how to respond to this perceived agent, we must make sense of its possible intent. Therefore, we do not merely perceive a presence, we ascribe intention and purpose to that agent. In doing so, we engage the mental process termed Theory of Mind (ToM).8 Detecting the [End Page 66] action of agents, and determining intention and purpose, are vital to successful action. In a dangerous and uncertain world—i.e. the world in which humans have lived for millennia—these skills are essential to survival, and it follows that natural selection would favor cognitive processes that erred on the side of... (shrink)

This collection of essays derives from a conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Centre of Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews. It brings together a number of prominent academics from the fields of philosophy and political theory along with politicians and social commentators. The subjects covered include liberalism, education, welfare policy, religion, art and culture, and cloning. The mix of contributors and the topicality of the subject matter should (...) further promote a serious engagement between philosophy and public life. (shrink)

The article examines the reception of Western philosophy in Lithuanian philosophy of religion. The purpose is to show how the discourse of philosophy of religion came about in Lithuania. This branch of philosophy has been not only culturally and socially important in Lithuania, it has been significant as well for the formation and maintenance of national identity. By the same token, it also was the most developed and controversial theoretically. The first part of the article lays (...) out the genesis of the autonomous Lithuanian philosophy of religion, though strongly influenced by the transformations in the broader context of European philosophy. For that reason it will be useful to present the ideas of the most prominent Lithuanian thinkers in the field who have successfully adopted and adapted vital trends in Western philosophy into the Lithuanian cultural and intellectual context. The second part of the article is less historical and more problematic as it deals with specific issues concerning faith, God, anthropological problems as reflected in the works of contemporary Lithuanian philosophers of religion. Only after having explored certain affiliations of Lithuanian philosophy of religion with Western thought can we state that, although the latter was the necessary precondition of the former, Lithuanian philosophy of religion does substantiate its sovereign status while correlating in an original way major cultural transformations with the changes in theoretical context, according to the specific concerns of Lithuanian society. In addition, this historical and philosophical examination aims to look at the formation of Lithuanian identity, mentality, values, their roots in the Christian tradition as well as the capacity to respond at critical historical moments. (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István (...) Losonczy 29 // ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

The author intends to look at Romanian cultural transition as an ongoing process which since 1989 has known an accelerated pace according to the fall of communism and the real perspectives of integration in the European Union. Seen within the cultural constraints of globalization, the impact of social and cultural change in Romanian society affected considerably the cultural behavior of the individual as well as the setting of new institutions, their functioning and implicitly (...) the rhythm of democratization. Remarking on modernization in Eastern Europe, the author consid- ers that unless civil society asserts its presence, reconstructing the Romanian public sphere, transition may be a reversible process. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore various facets of Addams' approaches to culture as art and as structures of life because they illuminate not only her struggles to reconcile competing perspectives and values, but also because these issues are recurring features in the development of feminist analyses of culture. -/- “This well-crafted collection of essays recognizes Jane Addams as the inspiring and occasionally provocative feminist she was. Connecting Addams’s pragmatism to social theory, political philosophy, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and (...) more, the book’s twelve authors sympathetically and critically explore Addams’s ongoing relevance to issues of art, culture, sexuality, prostitution, religion, cosmopolitanism, public/private divisions, and community organization. Scholarly experts on Addams, as well as those discovering her feminist pragmatism for the first time, will find this volume valuable.” -/- Although Jane Addams's Twenty Years at Hull-House is considered an American classic, her dozen books and hundreds of published articles have sometimes been thought of as quaint examples of an overly optimistic era. Beginning in the 1990s, feminist scholars rediscovered the vitality of Addams's social philosophy and challenged the marginalization of her ideas. Today, following a war-laden twentieth century and the failure of militarism and "get tough" approaches to solve domestic and global problems, Addams's social theorizing, which emphasizes cosmopolitan experiences and sympathetic connections, provides a provocative alternative to Western notions of individualism, transactional relations, and spectator epistemology. Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams brings together many of the leading Addams scholars in North America to consider Addams's ongoing relevance to feminist thought. Aside from the editor, the contributors are Victoria Bissell Brown, Marilyn Fischer, Judith M. Green, Shannon Jackson, Katherine Joslin, Louise W. Knight, L. Ryan Musgrave Bonomo, Wendy Sarvasy, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Eleanor J. Stebner, and Judy D. Whipps. (shrink)

Autocatalytic networks have been used to model the emergence of self‐organizing structure capable of sustaining life and undergoing biological evolution. Here, we model the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations (MRs) of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, and interactions among them (e.g., the forging of new associations) play the role of reactions and result in representational redescription. The approach tags MRs with their source, that is, whether they were acquired through (...) social learning, individual learning (of pre‐existing information), or creative thought (resulting in the generation of new information). This makes it possible to model how cognitive structure emerges and to trace lineages of cumulative culture step by step. We develop a formal representation of the cultural transition from Oldowan to Acheulean tool technology using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Food set generated (RAF) networks. Unlike more primitive Oldowan stone tools, the Acheulean hand axe required not only the capacity to envision and bring into being something that did not yet exist, but hierarchically structured thought and action, and the generation of new MRs: the concepts EDGING, THINNING, SHAPING, and a meta‐concept, HAND AXE. We show how this constituted a key transition toward the emergence of semantic networks that were self‐organizing, self‐sustaining, and autocatalytic, and we discuss how such networks replicated through social interaction. The model provides a promising approach to unraveling one of the greatest anthropological mysteries: that of why development of the Acheulean hand axe was followed by over a million years of cultural stasis. (shrink)

Post-secularism is the fundamental evidence of the end of modernity. Modernity, as sleeping reason in Francisco Goya's painting, realizes that, although it thought that it was awake, it was producing monsters. We try to analyze post-secular philosophy from the point of view of Russian religious thought. We believe that such philosophers as Vladimir Soloviev, Pavel Florensky, Sergey Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Georges Florovsky, and Semen Frank may be helpful for understanding and overcoming post-secular order. Their unique views on the relations (...) between religion and philosophy, science, and social life are apparently missing in the current Western debates. It seems to us that Russian religious philosophy becomes surprisingly up-to-date and attractive in the contemporary world. We hope that the present volume will be a significant step forward in the inclusion of the heritage of Russian religious philosophy in contemporary debates. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical discussion of such cultural issues oscillates between liberal individualism and cultural stereotyping. Our paper confronts the bioethical expert discourse with public moral attitudes. The paper (...) is based on a qualitative study comprising 12 focus group discussions with religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel. Considering the respective socio-political and legal frameworks, the thematic analysis focuses on moral attitudes towards end-of-life decision making and explores the complex interplay between individual preferences, culture, and religion. Our findings draw attention to the variety and complexity of cultural and religious aspects of end-of-life decision making. Although there is local consensus that goes beyond radical individualism, positions are not neatly matched with national cultures or religious denominations. Instead, the relevance of the specific situatedness of religious beliefs and cultural communities becomes visible: Their status and role in individual situations, for example, as consensual or conflicting on the level of personal perspectives, family relationships, or broader social contexts, e.g., as a majority or minority culture within a political system. As the group discussions indicate, there are no clear-cut positions anchored in “nationality,” “culture,” or “religion.” Instead, attitudes are personally decided on as part of a negotiated context representing the political, social and existential situatedness of the individual. Therefore, more complex theoretical and practical approaches to cultural diversity have to be developed. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problem of the naming crisis of modern society. The sequences by which the social and cultural history of the West is ordered, represented by the evolution of economics, technology, religion, forms of capital and wealth, communications, following the technological acceleration of time, coexist with each other, compete for primacy, creating a society of atomized subjects who have ceased to understand their place in the history of society. This situation is described in the (...) article as an identity crisis. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the gaps that have been discovered in attempts to identify society, which are the object of criticism. The article refers to the tradition of explanatory modeling of social interactions in terms of psychopathology and psychiatry. The crisis of the identity of society is illustrated through the images of madness in modern art culture. The article hypothesizes that there is an unspoken ban on naming a society associated with the crisis of capitalism in the transition from disciplinary societies to control societies. Culture's interest in insanity serves as an indicator of a social crisis. The evolution of cultural interest in the figure of a madman from a frightening "outcast" to an attractive "rebel" is shown. The article suggests the tasks of critical philosophy that coincide with the tasks of caring for social health. The idea of the need for the deprivation of mental illness is expressed. Mental health care is considered as a social task. (shrink)

The Archaeology of Semiotics and the social order of things is edited by George Nash and George Children and brings together 15 thought-provoking chapters from contributors around the world. A sequel to an earlier volume published in 1997, it tackles the problem of understanding how complex communities interact with landscape and shows how the rules concerning landscape constitute a recognised and readable grammar. The mechanisms underlying landscape grammar are both physical and mental, being based in part on the mindset (...) of the individual; the same landscape can thus evoke different meanings for different people and at different times. People's perception has greatly influenced the construction of landscapes over millennia but, until recently, the potential of this area has been largely untapped. Apart from chapters focusing solely upon human interaction with landscape, there are several which skilfully integrate artefacts and place with landscape (e.g. Gheorghiu and Sognnes). Other chapters look at the way people have marked the landscape through such mechanisms as rock-art (e.g. Clegg, Devereux, Estévez, Fossati, Kelleher and Skier). Rock-art establishes personal and communal identity in relation to landscape and it is clear that other forms of visual expression were in place which distinctively created special places within the landscape. Landscape constructs can bind cultures together; bringing the old ways of reading the landscape into contemporary life (e.g. Smiseth). Defining early and late prehistoric landscapes and segregating these into, say, mundane domestic and ritualised spaces rely on both clear and subtle archaeologies and in this volume distinct monument clustering and ritualised linearity are considered (e.g. Mason and Nash). A volume such as this cannot escape the influence of New World approaches, such as anthropology, and in many respects chapters by Bender, Muller and Merritt give context to other chapters within the book. Finally, one must consider text as a means of constructing landscape and this is considered by Heyd, who eloquently deconstructs the travel diary of a 17th century Japanese poet. This will be an important volume for archaeologists, landscape scholars and students. The many approaches used are tried and tested, forming an invaluable resource and not just another edited book. (shrink)

'Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children's Digital Culture' explores the practices, relationships, consequences, benefits, and outcomes of children's experiences with, on, and through social media by bringing together a vast array of different ideas about childhood, youth, and young people's lives. These ideas are drawn from scholars working in a variety of disciplines, and rather than just describing the social construction of childhood or an understanding of children's lives, this collection seeks to encapsulate not only how (...) young people exist on social media but also how their physical lives are impacted by their presence on social media.One of the aims of this volume in exploring youth interaction with social media is to unpack the structuring of digital technologies in terms of how young people access the technology to use it as a means of communication, a platform for identification, and a tool for participation in their larger social world. During longstanding and continued experience in the broad field of youth and digital culture, we have come to realize that not only is the subject matter increasing in importance at an immeasurable rate, but the amount of textbooks and/or edited collections has lagged behind considerably. There is a lack of sources that fully encapsulate the canon of texts for the discipline or the rich diversity and complexity of overlapping subject areas that create the fertile ground for studying young people's lives and culture. The editors hope that this text will occupy some of that void and act as a catalyst for future interdisciplinary collections.'Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children's Digital Culture' will appeal to undergraduate students studying Child and Youth Studies and-given the interdisciplinary nature of the collection- scholars, researchers and students at all levels working in anthropology, psychology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, media studies, education, and human rights, among others. Practitioners in these fields will also find this collection of particular interest. (shrink)

The concept of mentality in the context of today's post-pandemic society, its role in the development of historical and socio-postmodern scientific thought are analyzed. Its correlation with other categories has been determined, revealing phenomena that are close in meaning. Revealed the significance of the category of mentality for the study of the development of society.Mentality as a system is a categorical characteristic of a nation, and hence of a society, the core of which is a given nation. The study of (...) mentality allows us to understand the internal relationships in society identify the internal reasons for the development of society and do praxeological research. The analysis of mentality within the framework of social philosophy cannot be limited to a certain time period, this category characterizes the nation and society at the present stage, accumulating in itself all the historical influences and changes projected at the present.The article examines the phenomenon of mentality as a system of internal deep-psychological socio-cultural attitudes of the individual. The article considers and substantiates a mental approach to understanding the phenomena of socially individual life. The philosophical and educational aspects of the formation of personality mentality and the main "problematic sides" of modern education through the prism of the mental approach are actualized. (shrink)

Religion constitutes an important element in every society as regards coping with the demands as well as vicissitudes of life. Mental health issues are becoming a recurrent decimal in societies overwhelmed by stress and other social factors. This paper examines how the presence of religious beliefs affects how some Christians respond to cases that have to do mental health. At the same time, it surveys how a near absence of religious attitude, that is, clinical medicine approach to mental health (...) issues betters the state of those suffering from these psychopathologies. This work sees participatory partnership approach as an effective means of correcting unhealthy biases that prevent a better understanding of mental health care. Sociological theory of structural functionalism will be used in assessing how religion can reinvent itself in areas that are associated with mental health. Ethnographic methodology through quantitative analysis of administered questionnaire is used as a research tool for this research. Three persons were also interviewed. The research findings show that religion is a crucial agent of socialization that can change how religious beliefs impact on mental health and there is need for medical professionals to collaborate with pastoral agents. (shrink)

Autonomy is a fundamental though contested concept both in philosophy and the broader intellectual culture of today’s liberal societies. For instance, most of us place great value on the opportunity to make our own decisions and to lead a life of our own choosing. Yet, there is stark disagreement on what is involved in being able to decide autonomously, as well as how important this is compared to other commitments. For example, the success of every group project requires that (...) group members make decisions about the project collectively rather than each on their own. This disagreement notwithstanding, mental disorder is routinely assumed to put a strain on autonomy; however, it is unclear whether this is effectively the case and, if so, whether this is due to the nature of mental disorder or the social stigma that often attaches to it. This book is the first exploration of the nature and value of autonomy with reference to mental disorder. By reflecting on instances of mental disorder where autonomy is apparently compromised, it offers a systematic discussion of the underlying presuppositions of the present autonomy debates in philosophy and psychiatry. In so doing, it helps address different kinds of emerging scepticism questioning either the appeal of autonomy as a concept or its relevance to specific areas of normative ethics, including psychiatric ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture by Richard B. MillerBill BarbieriFriends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture Richard B. Miller new york: columbia university press, 2016. 416 pp. $60.00In his studies on casuistry, war and peace, pediatric ethics, and other occasional topics Richard B. Miller has for some time been a leading source of creative impulses in the field of religious (...) ethics, so it is a welcome event to have this volume organizing past essays of his into a thematically cohesive presentation. His book sets out a vision of the character and concerns of religious ethics that helps counter critics, such as Stanley Hauerwas, who have expressed skepticism about the field.The governing conception of Friends and Other Strangers is that the study of religious ethics is properly shaped by attending to how "our lives ineluctably oscillate between experiences of intimacy and otherness" (5). Accordingly, Miller seeks to guide the field beyond either a one-sided focus on matters of friendship and special relations or a preoccupation with alterity and heterology. To grasp how the dialectic of intimacy and alterity shapes the normative character of personal and public life, he recommends religious ethicists should employ "the category of culture as an organizing rubric" (6).In the book's initial section Miller elaborates on his view of the enterprise of religious ethics and its place in the broader intellectual landscape. In a discussion drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and James Gustafson, Miller first offers his account of the characteristic concerns and history of the field. He then presents the case for a "cultural turn" in religious ethics, arguing not only that practitioners would benefit from incorporating anthropology and cultural studies into their work but that they should extend their ambit to normative questions throughout the academy. Responding to the problems of ethnocentrism and the moral authority of outsiders in criticizing cultural practices, Miller rounds out the section by proposing constructive norms for nonchauvinistic social criticism in multicultural contexts.Among the remaining essays are several that showcase Miller's appreciation of Augustine as a principal source of ethical insight. In a chapter scrutinizing the case for replacing disembodied patterns of moral reasoning with an "ethics of empathy," he proposes that Augustine's ethics of love can sharpen our grasp of both the possibilities and pitfalls of empathy as a moral value. Writing on friendship and evil, Miller invokes the Augustinian "theocentric imaginary" as a guide to how intimacy and alterity are balanced in friendship. And taking [End Page 194] up the ethics and social psychology of war, he presents Augustine's writings on the morality of killing as a source for just war standards that can be applied in cross-cultural normative criticism. That Augustine's seminal reflections on time and memory do not appear in a further chapter on "the moral and political burdens of memory" is a slight disappointment, no doubt attributable to the chapter's origins as a review essay.Other topics tellingly subjected to Miller's characteristically nuanced and sharp analysis include indignation and solidarity, responsibilities to children, and democracy and public reason. A bonus chapter collects six lengthy reviews of recent books—five on topics related to Islam—touted by Miller as exemplary in their embodiment of a cultural turn in religious ethics.Given its endorsement of a "cultural turn" in ethics, the book would have benefited from deeper reflection on discrete meanings of "culture," "cultures," and their various cognates. In addition, the individual chapters, originating in diverse settings, are not all equally well integrated into the book's governing themes. Overall, however, Miller's book amply succeeds in its Geertzian task of presenting both a model of and a model for the field of religious ethics. A fine distillation of the thought of a leading figure in the guild, it is essential reading for serious students of ethics.Bill BarbieriCatholic UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The Competitive Buddha is about mastery, leadership, and spirituality. Learn what you need to keep, what you need to discard, and what you need to add to your mental, emotional, and spiritual skill set as an athlete, coach, leader, parent, CEO, or any other performer in life. Understand how Buddhism can help you to be better prepared for sports and life, and how sports and life can teach you about Buddhism. Discover how people from all parts of the world have (...) brought together the Buddha and athletics for greater fun, enjoyment, and pleasure during their performances. Dr. Lynch is an avid runner and biker and he has coached athletes at the high school and AAU level. He earned his doctorate in psychology at Penn State University and has done extensive post-doctoral work in the area of philosophy, Taoist and Buddhist thought, comparative religions, leadership development, and performance enhancement. Dr. Jerry Lynch demonstrates how certain timeless core Buddha values inspire you to embrace and navigate unchartered waters and understand the Buddha-mind and the Kobe Bryant Mamba Mentality. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

The current study aims to explain the fundamentals of religious pluralism in Wittgenstein later philosophy and Gadamer philosophical hermeneutics, specifically regarding culture. It, then, proposes the approach more suitable for the Islamic context. Having fulfilled such an objective, pluralism, concerning religious rituals, becomes accepted and cultural and religious interaction is realized without any relativism conclusion. Wittgenstein’s pluralism results in pure relativism. That is to say, in order to understand the rules of the language game and life style he (...) mentions, one needs to be placed inside. However, it is a dialectical model that Gadamer philosophical hermeneutics leads to. Dialogue gives opportunity to cultural interaction and convergence, developing the religious culture. The latter is of more proximity to Islamic resources such as the Quran, proposing a religious culture transcending cultural, historical, and social limitations. All in all, the two significant features of Gadamer’s which Wittgenstein ignores are first, the interaction of religious pluralism encouraging the development of religious culture and second, reciprocal relation between culture and religion based on hermeneutics circle. (shrink)

This book brings together different intercultural philosophical points of view discussing the philosophical impact of what we call the ‘appropriated’ religions of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is home to most of the world religions. Buddhism is predominantly practiced in Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Laos, and Cambodia; Islam in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei; and Christianity in the Philippines and Timor-Leste. Historical data show, however, that these world religions are imported cultural products, and have been reimagined, assimilated, and appropriated by the (...) culture that embraced them. In this collection, we see that these ‘appropriated’ religions imply a culturally nuanced worldview, which, in turn, impacts how the traditional problems in the philosophy of religion are framed and answered—in particular, questions about the existence and nature of the divine, the problem of evil, and the nature of life after death. Themes explored include: religious belief and digital transition, Theravāda Buddhist philosophy, religious diversity, Buddhism and omniscience, indigenous belief systems, divine apology and unmerited human suffering, dialetheism and the problem of evil, Buddhist philosophy and Spinoza’s views on death and immortality, belief and everyday realities in the Philippines, comparative religious philosophy, gendering the Hindu concept of dharma, Christian devotion and salvation during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines through the writings of Jose Rizal, indigenous Islamic practices in the Philippines, practiced traditions in contemporary Filipino celebrations of Christmas, role of place-aspects in the appropriation of religions in Southeast Asia, and fate and divine omniscience. This book is of interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy of religion, sociology of religion, anthropology of religion, cultural studies, comparative religion, religious studies, and Asian studies. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. (...) Nuclear wars, natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

In this paper, we thoroughly investigate the various solutions proposed to solve the problems of transplantation system in Romania. Three types of solutions are especially envisaged: legislative ones, institutional ones and cultural/religious ones. We carefully analyze the main ethical and logistical arguments on presumed consent and its alternatives in Romania: family consent provided by the relatives and mandated choice. Special attention is dedicated both to institutional solutions (organizational, educational and information issues) and to religious arguments and motivations, for there (...) were several indicators of their importance for Romanian bioethical discourse in general and for their prevalence in transplantation debates in particular. . (shrink)

The paper attempts to show that Christian hope is not a product of religious fantasy. It finds today an ally in the dialogue with the natural sciences which started in recent years on the topic of the ultimate destiny of the world. The natural sciences have confirmed that the universe is doomed to physical annihilation. Humanity with its cultural riches, scientists say, is only an episode in universal history and doomed to perish. Hence, if the Earth is nothing more (...) than an island of rationality in a cosmic void, then the only thing we can do is to keep up a heroic attitude worthy of human beings towards our own fragile existence. Contemporary science’s visions of the future are pessimistic: abundant, though short-lived, evolution culminating in a sense of final futility and the ultimate destruction of all life in the universe. Such forecasts question religion’s claims for the eschatological transformation of all creation. Christian eschatology does not accept, however, reductionist presuppositions about the very nature of reality. The universe contains levels of meaning far richer than what we have been able to discover sofar. Theology’s task is not to provide easy consolation, or generate false hopes. It has a good reason to avoid catastrophism, and maintain calm in its strivings to keep up our faith in God’s concern for the destiny of all His creatures. Theologians have to take a serious stand on the very concept of finitude, furthered by natural and social sciences. This, in turn, will require critical review of such concepts as the world’s future in God, hope and new creation. This effort must be undertaken in dialogue with the scientific views of the world’s finitude. Both sides are prone to stereotype judgements and shallow answers which must be corrected in consideration of the complexity of the issue at hand. Christian theology has to justify its claim to truth, but certainly not by launching battles with science. Christian hope shows the new creation not as annihilation and destruction of the old but as its ultimate transfiguration and salvific transformation. It speaks about the paradox of continuity/discontinuity in this new universe’s emergence. Special attention is paid in the paper to the “logical” structure of matter. If the world ofultimate events is, in fact, to be a new world of the resurrection, created by transition into new reality, then certain scientific suggestions and data on the present world’s processes could prove helpful in grasping the truly cosmic dimensions of Christian hope. Crucial here will not so much be particular data but rather a sort of meta-science allowing the deduction of general concepts from the detailed achievements of scientific research. Such generalized insights include today the following elements: 1) the dynamic concept of physical reality, 2) the relationality of its processes and, 3) a deeper understanding of the complexity of matter/energy as carriers of a specific information-bearing pattern. It appears that there are some similarities in science’s and theology’s strivings for a deeper understanding of the truth of reality, which continues to evade our theories and teaches us modesty. Neither method nor concept has yet managed to explaineverything. There exists no universal key to a comprehensive interpretation. The postulate to avoid reductionism in approaching the manifold richness of reality is addressed to scientists and theologians alike. (shrink)

The paper attempts to show that Christian hope is not a product of religious fantasy. It finds today an ally in the dialogue with the natural sciences which started in recent years on the topic of the ultimate destiny of the world. The natural sciences have confirmed that the universe is doomed to physical annihilation. Humanity with its cultural riches, scientists say, is only an episode in universal history and doomed to perish. Hence, if the Earth is nothing more (...) than an island of rationality in a cosmic void, then the only thing we can do is to keep up a heroic attitude worthy of human beings towards our own fragile existence. Contemporary science’s visions of the future are pessimistic: abundant, though short-lived, evolution culminating in a sense of final futility and the ultimate destruction of all life in the universe. Such forecasts question religion’s claims for the eschatological transformation of all creation. Christian eschatology does not accept, however, reductionist presuppositions about the very nature of reality. The universe contains levels of meaning far richer than what we have been able to discover sofar. Theology’s task is not to provide easy consolation, or generate false hopes. It has a good reason to avoid catastrophism, and maintain calm in its strivings to keep up our faith in God’s concern for the destiny of all His creatures. Theologians have to take a serious stand on the very concept of finitude, furthered by natural and social sciences. This, in turn, will require critical review of such concepts as the world’s future in God, hope and new creation. This effort must be undertaken in dialogue with the scientific views of the world’s finitude. Both sides are prone to stereotype judgements and shallow answers which must be corrected in consideration of the complexity of the issue at hand. Christian theology has to justify its claim to truth, but certainly not by launching battles with science. Christian hope shows the new creation not as annihilation and destruction of the old but as its ultimate transfiguration and salvific transformation. It speaks about the paradox of continuity/discontinuity in this new universe’s emergence. Special attention is paid in the paper to the “logical” structure of matter. If the world ofultimate events is, in fact, to be a new world of the resurrection, created by transition into new reality, then certain scientific suggestions and data on the present world’s processes could prove helpful in grasping the truly cosmic dimensions of Christian hope. Crucial here will not so much be particular data but rather a sort of meta-science allowing the deduction of general concepts from the detailed achievements of scientific research. Such generalized insights include today the following elements: 1) the dynamic concept of physical reality, 2) the relationality of its processes and, 3) a deeper understanding of the complexity of matter/energy as carriers of a specific information-bearing pattern. It appears that there are some similarities in science’s and theology’s strivings for a deeper understanding of the truth of reality, which continues to evade our theories and teaches us modesty. Neither method nor concept has yet managed to explaineverything. There exists no universal key to a comprehensive interpretation. The postulate to avoid reductionism in approaching the manifold richness of reality is addressed to scientists and theologians alike. (shrink)

PREFACE WORD The Tanzimat period, which was the starting point of reform movements in many areas such as social, political, economic, military, etc., in which steps were taken towards Westernization, is considered to be an important milestone in drawing the fate of the Ottoman Empire. In this longest century of the empire, when many things were rushed, education partially received its share of change and reform. However, since the field of education was under the control of religious institutions such (...) as the Şeyhülislâmlık and the Nezâresi Evkâf-ı Hümâyun, the changes and reforms in this field remained limited. Regarding philosophy, which is the subject of our study, we can say in advance that philosophical movements in the West, the ideas of philosophers and philosophical education in the Western sense began to enter our country in the post-Tanzimat period. It is noteworthy that during this period when the Ottoman Empire became acquainted with Western philosophy, philosophy in the West experienced a period of crisis. In the period preceding this acquaintance, philosophy education in our country was carried out in a style loyal to the tradition of Islamic philosophy, and the break in this tradition occurred with the Tanzimat. One of the most widely debated issues from the Tanzimat to the present day has been whether or not a philosophical tradition unique to us can be established. Issues such as whether a philosophy built on our own culture and values can provide us with the opportunity to raise philosophers who are considered philosophers in the Western sense, and the level of competence and proficiency of Turkish in terms of creating a philosophical language on the way to realizing this opportunity, and efforts to establish a deep-rooted tradition continue to stand before us. In this study, from a holistic perspective, the changes in philosophical paradigms in certain periods from Tanzimat to the present day have been tried to be determined chronologically and problematically. The fact that the movements that emerged with Tanzimat were broken in certain periods, such as 1915, 1933 and 1960, and left their place to different movements, and the changes in our country in parallel with the change in the perception of philosophy in the world have been tried to be revealed in this study, and as a result of the study, results that have not been expressed so far have been reached. Again, whether the perception of philosophy has changed in society along with the change in philosophy in higher education is among the topics investigated in this study. For example, the fact that professors such as Mehmet İzzet, Niyazi Berkes and Necati Öner, who studied philosophy, regretfully admitted that it was embarrassing to say "I am studying philosophy", and instead took refuge in evasive answers such as "I am studying at the Faculty of Literature, I am studying at the Faculty of Language and History", clearly shows how the difficulty of doing philosophy in Turkey is at a high level with these prejudices. From the times when philosophy was identified with irreligion and atheism, and philosophers were seen as useless people who only criticized and did not produce solutions, to the present situation, the paths taken and the obstacles overcome make us hopeful for the bright future of philosophy in Turkey. In the Dârülfünun, which was de facto established in 1863 and opened and closed many times, philosophy courses were able to find a wide place in the curriculum after 1900 and especially after 1916. However, the contribution of philosophy courses and departments, which have been a significant part of the academy since 1916 both as a field of research and education, to the establishment and development of the longed-for original philosophical thought is currently the subject of a separate discussion. Indeed, philosophy departments have never escaped the criticism that they teach Western thought, transfer Western intellectual currents, ignore social values, and provide an exclusively Western and unproductive education. Our study, which deals with the processes of change and transition in philosophy education in Turkey and the debates on these processes, consists of three chapters and three appendices. In the first part, the studies in the field of philosophy from Tanzimat to the Republic are discussed theoretically and a general framework is tried to be drawn about the establishment of philosophy in Turkey. The topics covered in this section are mainly philosophy education until the establishment of the first university in 1863 under the name Dârülfünun and its closure and reopening in 1900 under the name Dârülfünun-ı Şâhâne. As is known, after a long period of trial and error, Dârülfünun was reformed under the name "Dârülfünun-ı Osmânî" in 1908 during the Second Constitutional Monarchy. Reforms in the field of education continued unabated, and with the university reforms in 1915 and 1933, philosophy departments also underwent significant change and transformation. Especially German faculty members, who were influential in these reforms, played an active role in the restructuring of the philosophy department. Apart from universities, philosophical activities were also carried out in non-governmental organizations, newspapers and journals. In particular, the philosophers who tried to become an association under the name of the Turkish Philosophical Society are today actively working under the name of the Philosophical Society of Turkey and the Turkish Philosophical Association. In this part of our study, in addition to these issues, the philosophers of the Republican period, which we have identified as four generations, and their philosophical attitudes and behaviors are evaluated together with the aspects reflected and not reflected in their works, and the interaction between the similarities and differences between the general characteristics of the generations and the philosophical atmosphere in the country is tried to be analyzed. The similarities and differences between the generations are analyzed since they are the main factors that determine and govern the course of philosophy in Turkey. The second chapter is devoted to "Philosophical Disciplines in Purgatory in the Republican Era". In this section, the disciplines of history of science, logic, Islamic philosophy and philosophy of religion, which we characterize as disciplines in limbo because their place in philosophy departments has always been controversial, are analyzed. In the third and final chapter, under the title "Philosophical Problems and Movements in the Republican Era", the problem of establishing the practical implications of the philosophical issues discussed in the first two chapters on the theoretical level, the question of whether Turkish can be the language of philosophy, Western philosophical movements in Turkey and their representatives are discussed. This chapter concludes with the main purpose of the study, which is to discuss the problems of philosophy in Turkey, suggestions for solutions and future perspectives. We have tried to enrich our research with three appendices that are considered to be complementary to these three chapters. The first appendix contains interviews with twelve senior professors who retired after teaching philosophy in Turkey for many years. These senior professors were asked questions about the changes in the view of philosophy in Turkey, philosophy education in higher education, their perceptions of philosophy, etc., and an important historical note was made with their answers based on their experiences. In this respect, we believe that these interviews will serve as an important source and reference for future generations and the social sciences community. Although the speeches of these professors contain many important discourses, messages and references, we have chosen one motto phrase to carry in the title. On this occasion, we would like to express our gratitude to our esteemed professors for sharing their vast knowledge and experience in the field of philosophy with us. In the second appendix, the short life stories and works of about a hundred professors in the field of philosophy in the Republican period are included. Although this information is sometimes easily obtained through the internet, biographical books or the works of the professors themselves, sometimes, after a very long and laborious work, original information has been reached, which is expressed for the first time in this study. Sometimes the capture of a very small detail required great efforts. In the third and final appendix, the names and periods of the senior philosophers of the Republican period are listed chronologically. (shrink)

For more than 20 years, sustainable development has been advocated as a way of tackling growing global environmental and social problems. The sustainable development discourse has always had a strong technological component and the literature boasts an enormous amount of debate on which technologies should be developed and employed and how this can most efficiently be done. The mainstream discourse in sustainable development argues for an eco-efficiency approach in which a technology push strategy boosts efficiency levels by a factor (...) 10 and more in industrialised and developing countries. A minority argues for a socio-cultural lifestyle switch, relying on new values, quality of life, sufficiency and redistribution strategies, with calls for appropriate and soft technologies. It is remarkable, however, that the articles, books and policy debates on sustainability seldom explicitly draw in a discussion of the nature of technology, how technology influences and is influenced by society, and what this implies for sustainable development. The mainstream interprets technology as neutral and instrumental: technology is no more than an instrument to reach a goal; it cannot be judged on its intrinsic characteristics, only on its use. The alternative view often builds on an autonomous and substantive interpretation of technology: technology is an autonomous, almost uncontrollable power that fundamentally reshapes our culture. A more balanced approach seems to be growing in the research on socio-technical sustainability transitions where the focus shifts to the co-evolution of technology and society, and to the networks, seamless webs and complex multi-actor processes that may carry a sustainability transition forward. This approach builds on insights from recent traditions in the philosophy and sociology of technology, in particular the social construction of technology (SCOT) and actor-network theory (ANT). While this provides for a better understanding of the nature and potential role of technology in sustainability policies, it remains to be seen whether it will actually influence the choice between technologies. This article investigates the different conceptualisations of technology in the sustainability debate. It first distinguishes between different approaches of sustainability and how these are related to differing views on technology. It then moves on to how the socio-technical transitions research incorporates insights from contemporary philosophy and sociology of technology. It reflects on the potential of transitions research to give guidance in technology choices, suggesting that the transition approach might be strengthened by drawing in insights from critical theory of technology and by taking a more political stance in defining sustainable development. (shrink)