Deleuze's Logique de la sensation is not a canonical art historical interpretation of Francis Bacon's painting and even less an illustration of Deleuze's philosophy. It is better read as a prolegomena to a semiotics of plastic art in which the visual image is related to the dialectics of touch and vision. These issues feature strongly in the art theories of Aloïïs Riegl, Wilhelm Worringer and Heinrich Wöölfflin. This article presents a comparative approach to the relation between Deleuze's and these writers’’ (...) conception of the image and attempts to answer the following questions: does a painting appeal strictly to the sense of vision? Does its structure point to a virtual haptic function of vision and if so, does painting overturn the stable hierarchy of senses with vision at the top? Is there a gradual relation between touch and vision? Reading Deleuze reading Riegl, Worringer and Wöölfflin offers an occasion to reconsider the image as a tensive surface grasped with a touching eye and seeing hand. (shrink)

This study employs ethnographic field data to trace a dialogue between the self-psychological concept of the self object and experiences regarding the concept of “interbeing” at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery in the United States. The dialogue develops an understanding of human experiences with the nonhuman natural world which are tensive, liminal, and nondual. From the dialogue I find that the self object concept, when applied to this form of Buddhism, must be inclusive enough to embrace relationships with animals, stones, and (...) other natural forms. The dialogue further delineates a self-psychological methodology for examining religions in their interactions with natural forms. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Derrida agree that translation is a tensive activity oscillating between the possible and the impossible with reference to the transposition of meaning among diverse systems of discourse. Both acknowledge that risk, alterity, and plurality accompany every attempt at paraphrasing language “in other words.” Consequently, their positions adhere to the traditional adage that “the translator is a traitor,” precisely because something is always lost in the semantic transfer. Yet, Derrida notes an important disagreement between their respective approaches (...) to translation and accuses Ricoeur of harboring a nostalgia for unitive meaning and of promoting the possibility of a transcendental signified that could produce a “pure” translation. In this essay, I critique Derrida’s interpretation of Ricoeur specifically by examining their individual interpretations of the Tower of Babel myth. I argue that Ricoeur’s theory of Babel as a non-punitive celebration of diversity and the open play of meaning “out-deconstructs” Derrida’s own notion of dissemination. (shrink)

As Adorno’s posthumous writings were released, a notable turn in his phi- losophy of music became noteworthy: by revealing an ambitious project on Beethoven, a quasi-axiomatic theory of musical time emerged, which seems to guide Adornian thought at very significant works and texts, as Philosophy of New Music. Sketched in three configuration types of musical time, this theory surprises with the so-called “ex- tensive type”. Adorno would then admit kinds of formal consistency (Stimmigkeit) that are not restricted to the ideal (...) of development (Entwicklung) and assumes the possibility of a non-regressive spatialization, which contrasts with his own ontological definition of the medium. This paper discusses the contradictions of extensive type by presenting an analysis of the Archduke Trio op. 97, in the light of the well-known originary affinity between Beethoven and Hegel. At last, the text presents by which means and for what reasons the extensive type would lead Adorno to the last and most decisive modality of musical time’s configuration, the late style. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The problem of persistence and emergence endowed with the limits of “actuality” is examined in the context of Nietzsche's appropriation of both Heraclitus and Boscovich to forge a natural philosophy of becoming. The physics of Boscovich allowed a systematic refurbishment of Heraclitean notions of becoming over being while Heraclitus's tensive dynamic of generation surpassed and overcame the limits of Anaximander's indeterminate. Nietzsche's early investigations bear overt signs of a formative philosophical outlook that seeks to marry the infinite and the (...) sensible in a fashion consistent with his mature concept of becoming. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the K-O Apel's Project of Anthropology of Knowledge belongs to the tradition of hermeneutics logic, developed by the Logic of Göttigen. This statement can be proved by the fact that Apel conceives the relationship between das Leibapriori and das Erkenntnisapriori. In two text of sixties Apel shapes the relationship between human body and knowledge as a polarization of opposite strengths. The logic of exclusive disjunction rules this polarization. Forty years later he changes his perspective (...) and presents them as tensive relation of rivalry. In this way Apel takes in his own argumentation a central topic of the hermeneutics logic, namely, the life conception as a mediation between strength and meaning. (shrink)

This critique of papers by hartshorne, tracy and eslick seeks a possible rapport between process theology and thomistic natural theology. both schools seek a god who is love, intimately involved in daily human life. but a dipolar god is not sufficiently transcendent to be so immanent. hence only love which is purely actual being can satisfy process intentions. tracy's new "tensive analogical language" and eslick's teleological explanation of novelty are thus more feasible on thomistic than on process grounds.

Philosophical hermeneutics provides a model of interreligious dialogue that acknowledges the interpretive variability of truth claims while maintaining their relation to a preinterpretive reality. The dialectic and tensive structure of philosophical hermeneutics directly parallels the tension between the diversity of belief and the ultimacy of the sacred. By placing philosophers like Gadamer, Ricoeur, Peirce, and Whitehead in conversation, J. R. Hustwit describes religious truth claims as coconstituted by the planes of linguistic convention and uninterpreted otherness. Only when we recognize that (...) religious claims emerge from a dalliance back and forth across the limits of the understanding can we appreciate the engagement between religions. In terms of dialogue, this approach treats religious truth claims as tentative hypotheses, but hypotheses that are frequently commensurable and rationally contestable. Interreligious dialogue goes beyond facilitating bonhomie or negotiating tolerance; dialogue can and should be a disciplined space for rationally adjudicating claims about what lies beyond the limits of human understanding. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur is a philosopher of wide ranging interests whose main concern is hermeneutics. His hermeneutics is self-reflexive, an existential appropriation that eventually gives way to self-understanding. Questions pertaining to self-identity, the problem of the other and intersubjectivity are presented by him in a tensive style, keeping the scope of interpretations wide open. While discussing the question of self-identity, he moves towards intersubjectivity which is centred on self-esteem. It provides a context for self-constancy which gives to a moral identity, an (...) attestation of Here I am. Here arises the basic issue, how the narrative identity which is hermeneutical give rise to an ethical relation. If so, Ricoeur must be ready to see that there is an asymmetric relation between the same and the other which can be termed ethical. Though he says that conscience contains an injunction to attest ourselves to say, Here I am, it is a statement of “said” and not one of “saying”. Only a statement of “saying” can interrupt ontology and enact the movement from the same to the other which is ethical. Hence, Ricoeur stands at the hemeneutical level which cannot abandon ontology. But the polysemic nature of alterity posed by him never closes the possibilities of an ethical interpretation. (shrink)

In this essay, I will critically examine Collin Turbayne and Philip Wheelwright's approaches to the theory of metaphor. Through criticism of their views I will arrive at Paul Ricoeur's theory which I consider is the most comprehensive one. Ricoeur retains what is fruitful from the above mentioned theories and tries to make them part of a very ambitious project which is represented by his monumental work The Rule of Metaphor (1977). He manages to open a new dimension in the analysis (...) of metaphor by linking it through a special use of imagination to the phenomenal world, by according it the status of statement (redefining Frege's sense and reference polarity) and by pointing out the idea that metaphors have an emotional meaning as well. Thus, I will start with the two different views on this issue, first that of Collin Turbayne, who develops a theory of metaphor based on the "as if" prescription and thus brings the whole discussion on metaphor into the field of reflective judgment. Then there is Philip Weelwright's theory which considers that metaphorical language, through its fluidity and tensiveness, is closely connected to "what is", that is, to the real. Using these two theories as dialectical counterparts, I will try to bring them together in an act of synthesis, arriving finally at Paul Ricoeur's theory of metaphor. (shrink)

Certaines maximes énigmatiques dÉpicure nous parlent de l'essence du plaisir en termes de concentration et d'ex-centration, de condensation et d'ex- tension, d'implosion d'explosion. Un certain épicurisme chez Kant lui fait dire la même chose, là où le sentiment vital est invoqué dans l'expérience esthé- tique. Le plaisir esthétique est mis en rapport avec la tensivité, le corps, la vie, le corps-en-vie. Toutefois, le plaisir, dans la tradition épicurienne, semble être l'inter- face de eros et aisthèsis, d'une érotétique et d'une esthétique, (...) le corps-en-vie étant un corps-désir et un corps-sensation. Lucrèce, en bon épicurien et en préfi- gurant un certain Merleau-Ponty, évoque dans sa poésie géniale la vérité des sens, celle du corps-sensation défini à partir de la " sensation globale " du corps .Some enigmatic maxims of Epicurus discuss the essence of pleasure focusing on terms like concen- tration and excentration, condensation and extension, implosion and explosion. The epicurist tendency in Kant makes him saying similar things. He mentions " vital feeling " in his determination of the aesthetic experience. Aesthetic pleasure then is related to " tensivity ", the body and life, the living body. However, pleasure, in the Epicurean tradition, seems to be the interface o/eros and aisthèsis, of a erotetic and an aesthetic, because the living body is at the same time a body-desire and a body-sensation. Lucretius, as a good Epicurean and announcing Merleau-Ponty, writes in his genial poem about the truth of the senses, the truth of body-sensation defined from the point of view of the " global sensation " of the body. (shrink)

We hear much these days of lifelong learning and higher levels of nursing practice. We have even been introduced to the concept of the supernurse. This paper seeks to contribute an ethico-political dimension to the largely performative uses of these terms in contemporary nursing politics. This is done by exploring the promise of certain elements of Nietzsche's philosophy for nursing. Certain major Nietzschean themes are outlined in the context of modernity followed by their exploration in a nursing context. These themes (...) come principally from Thus Spake Zarathustra, and include not only that of Übermensch (Superman), but also the related ideas of eternal recurrence, nihilism, and the last Man. It is argued that the conditions in which nurses now learn and practice have become increasingly instrumentalized and technorational to the extent that they are in danger of effecting a nihilism in what becomes a culture of perpetual obligation to those who would seek to measure our performance. It is against this background that Nietzsche's idea of the Übermensch is explored as a figure for self-overcoming the professional subjectivity that may be constructed in the face of these conditions. However, it will be seen that this raises certain issues which beg the question of the productive value of Nietzsche's philosophy in this particular context. At this point, in the last part of the paper, by considering the tensive relation between the discourse practices of present-day managerialism and nursing ethics, it is argued that it is these very problems that present the Übermensch as a tensive but potentially productive figure for nursing and nurse education in its broadest sense. (shrink)

This article aims to overcome the representational conceptions of landscape in or-der to recover its substantive character. Landscape appears as a semantically ambiguous and tensive concept in both conceptualizations, but if the representational approaches draw on the dualisms of modernity (between nature and culture, subject and object, art and sciences) and understands landscape in terms of a spiritual / artistic / visual construction opposed to nature, a substantive approach towards landscape emphasizes the continuity between the natural and the anthropic and, (...) without denying the constructive potential of subjective or cultural perceptions, endows the geographical forms with the capacity to produce meanings, constraints and socio-political options by means of their aesthetic qualities. The article is divided in five paragraphs: the first four discuss different kinds of representational attitude towards landscape elaborated during the XX century (the cognitive, the idealistic, and the critic approach), while in the fifth paragraph I will pin down some elements to build an integrally substantive conception of landscape, opening the path for further research developments. (shrink)

Sallie McFague’s theological models construct a tensive relationship between conceptual structures and symbolic, metaphorical language to interpret the defining and elusive aspects of theological phenomena and loci. Computational models of language can extend and formalize the conceptual structures of theological models to develop computer-augmented interpretations of theological texts. Previously unclear is whether computational models can retain the tensive symbolism essential for theological investigation. I demonstrate affirmatively by constructing a computational topic model of the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas from Summa (...) Theologica (Second Part, in English translation) useful for interpreting not only the Thomistic text but also recent papal encyclicals. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the relationship between competitive sports and the phenomenon of sports fandom as a unique symbiosis that qualitatively changes the nature of sport and reveals new aspects of human play in general. I note that spectators as consumers transform sport, in addition to indirectly and directly influencing and intervening in sports practice. As a result of this versatile involvement—from the initial form of competitive, formalized and unproductive game—sport can evolve through four successive stages: professional sport → (...) sports show → ‘meta-play’ → “meta-sport “. The first of them has been sufficiently studied from two points of view, mainly: (a) control of training progress, effective coaching, and maximalised performance, and (b) management and marketing. The second form, sports show, is very rarely studied separately from the first stage (e.g.). Here I separate them. The third and fourth stages are proposed and studied here anew by a philosophical analysis of current and possible future developments and changes in the sports show. I analyse all these changes from a dialectical perspective and support it using the paradigm of tension between positive and negative freedom. From this point of view, all the mentioned transformations—from professional sport to meta-sport—are caused by changes (from synergy to tension and conflict) in the positive and negative freedom of spectators and sports organizations in a ‘dialectical symbiosis’. These are followed by the tensive contradiction between the principal freedom of human play and the self- and institutional restriction of freedom in the stage by stage evolving frames of game, sport, and professional sport. ‘Dialectical symbiosis’ is considered here as the fusion of entities, as a result of which one of them, at least, is transformed into a new quality. (shrink)

Politics of the Soul in the Alcibiades is an important book that develops an interpretation of the essence of the political (politics of the soul) as eluci-dated through the analysis of Socrates' practice of "self-cultivation" or care for the soul. In the process, it also confronts the issue of the problematic relationship between philosopher and statesman that is present to Plato's dialogues. The analysis contributes the following to ongoing scholarship: (1) It offers a detailed and critical discussion of the neglected (...) and oft times ma-ligned dialogue the Alcibiades; (2) It contributes to the reinterpretation of the traditional view of the Socratic method arguing for elenchus as an expres-sion and instantiation of the normative politics it seeks to define; (3) In de-veloping a unique account of Socratic participatory democracy, it has the subordinate aim of demonstrating the value of Socratic practice over our own impoverished practice of impoverished political discourse. The text is suita-ble for scholars working in the fields of philosophy, ancient Greek philoso-phy, and classical studies. It would serve as an excellent secondary text for graduate level courses reading Plato's dialogues because it contains an ex-tensive and sustained discussion of Socratic method. In addition to graduate students, it is appropriate for college students pursuing courses in philoso-phy in their 3rd or 4th year of study. Laypersons who are intellectually curious about philosophy, particularly those interested in Socrates, will be attracted to this text. (shrink)

Using the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur as an interpretive matrix, this article suggests that critical theologies may be understood as an instantiation of the concrete unity of past and present in religious symbol. The intransigence of debates between critical and counter-critical theologies is thus disclosed as an inability to account for and remain within the past-future dynamic in religious symbol. Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy provides the philosophical terminology for unpacking the simultaneously archaeological and teleological character of symbol. The article then (...) turns to Ricoeur’s accounts of metaphor and narrative to make the following observations: Reflecting the metaphorical capacity of language, critical theologies occur as a juxtaposition of known and unknown, here understood as a juxtaposition of past and present in religious expression; The inherently tensive character in critical theology gives way to a dialogical trajectory. Critical theologians engender Ricoeur’s reference to the pluralism of ontology in the ‘metaphorical is’; and Critical theology represents the very human capacity to create a new future out of a meaningless past by narrating the stories of the marginalized. These Ricoeurian themes are highlighted by examples drawn from the theologies of James Cone, Jürgen Moltmann, Mario Aguilar, David Tracy, and Johann Baptist Metz. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a questão da materialidade significante do corpo no enlace discursivo do político imbricado nas fronteiras com o social, a partir das obras de Dan Halter. Para tanto, proponho um diálogo teórico-analítico entre a perspectiva dialógica desenvolvida pelo russo Mikhail Bakhtin e a perspectiva do materialismo-histórico, tendo como base o dispositivo teórico da Análise do Discurso francesa, a fim de analisar o objeto de estudo em questão na relação corpo, memória e discurso. Nesse sentido, (...) ao trabalhar com a imbricação entre a materialidade verbal e não verbal, busco lançar olhar sobre duas obras do artista zimbabueano Dan Halter, considerando, desse modo, os efeitos de sentido que deslizam metafórica e metonimicamente para outros sentidos do corpo que se desdobram em diferentes imagens do sujeito, tendo em vista os processos de estruturação do conflito e da tensividade do/no social a partir dos espaços ocupados por estes corpos e atravessados que são pelo simbólico, pela ideologia e pela história. ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the question of the signifying materiality of the body in the discursive interlacement of the political imbricated on the frontiers with the social, based on the works of Dan Halter. To this end, we propose a theoretical-analytical dialogue between the dialogical perspective developed by Russian Mikhail Bakhtin and the historical-materialism perspective, based on the theoretical assumptions of the French Discourse Analysis, in order to analyze the object of this study in its relation with body, memory, and discourse. In this sense, by working with the imbrication between verbal and non-verbal materiality, we intend to focus on two specific works by Zimbabwean artist Dan Halter, considering the meaning effects that slide metaphorically and metonymically to other senses of the body that unfold in different images of the subject, in view of the processes that structure the conflict and tensivity of the social from the spaces occupied by these bodies and crossed by the symbolic, by ideology, and history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME ON CONTINUED EXISTENCE AND THE IDENTITY OF CHANGING THINGS Most discussions of Hume's rather cursory treatment of coherence as a factor in generating belief in what he calls the continu' d existence of objects in Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses, have taken a common line in interpreting the nature of the problem Hume's treatment is designed to solve. For instance, perhaps the two most ex2 3 (...) tensive discussions, those of Price and Gomberg seem to agree that the problem is: how do we fill in the gaps among our perceptions, complete sequences or series that are incomplete, and come to believe in the existence of a world of unperceived objects. At the same time such discussions have focussed on the issue of whether the inference from the coherence of our perceptions to belief in the continued existence of objects (ICCE) is, as Hume claims, distinguishable from causal inference. Hume is read in such a way that ICCE if not causal is at least quasi-causal; that is, the only difference for Hume between the two sorts of inference has been taken to be one concerning the evidence on which each is based — causal inferences on past constant conjunctions or uniformities, ICCE on something less. I believe that these discussions have invariably omitted a key factor in understanding Hume's treatment of coherence, one that I want to point out and develop in this paper. Hume's discussion of coherence, like his discussion of constancy, is bound up with the concept of identity; for belief in the continued existence of an object, which coherence generates, is a belief about its identity. Hence a causal inference is distinguished from ICCE by Hume as only the latter necessarily involves belief in the identity of an object over time. Once this is recognized, we can view Hume's discussion^of coherence as requiring an answer to the question: "How do we come to believe in the identity of changing things?" I want to consider two interpretations of 106. the exact nature of ICCE for Hume — one suggested by examples offered in his discussion of coherence, the other suggested by remarks about the concept of identity in other sections of Part Four of Book One of the Treatise — and to argue that neither satisfactorily answers this question. This failure raises doubts not only about ICCE but about the tenability of Hume's characterization of the "vulgar" view of perception and his view of identity. When Hume first answers the question, "What qualities of our impressions or perceptions lead us to attribute to them a distinct and continued existence,?" by isolating the qualities of constancy and coherence, I think it is clear that the former is invoked to account for objects which are, at least in a relative sense, unchanging, which have always appear 'd to me in the same order and return upon me without the least alteration (T194), while the latter is invoked especially, if not solely, to account for objects that underto rather large changes over time, things which after a little absence or interruption may become hardly knowable. (T195) Hume's example concerns a fire in his chamber, which undergoes great change from the moment he leaves (or perhaps the moment it is lighted) to the time he returns (or perhaps the time it is a bunch of glowing embers), but which, nevertheless, compared to other fires undergoes a like alteration...in a like time. (T195) Whatever more coherence can do, it is required, at least initially, to account for just those cases which cannot be subsumed under constancy, in other words, cases in which changing objects are taken to possess distinct and continued existence. In the famous paragraph following his initial comments on coherence, Hume seemingly proceeds to explain how coherence gives rise to belief in continued existence. The account runs basically as follows. Hume hears a noise, as of a door turning; he sees a porter coming toward him. But, Hume says, I never have observ' d3 that this noise could proceed from anything but the motion of a 107. door; and therefore conclude, that the present phaenomenon is a contradiction to all past experience... (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The method of contrast is used within philosophy of perception in order to demonstrate that a specific property could be part of our perception. The method is based on two passages. I argue that the method succeeds in its task only if the intuition of the difference, which constitutes the core of the first passage, has two specific traits. The second passage of the method consists in the evaluation of the available explanations of this difference. Among the three outlined options, (...) I will demonstrate that only in the third option – as we shall see, the case of the scenario that remains the same but is perceived in two different ways by the same perceiver – the intuition purports a difference that posses the necessary characteristics, namely being immediately evident and extremely complex and multifaceted, which determine its tensive nature. The application within auditory perception of this third option will generate two cases, a diachronic one and a synchronic one, which clearly show that we can auditorily perceive causality as a link between two sonorous episodes. The causal explanation is the only possible explanation among the many evaluated within the second passage of the method of contrast. (shrink)

In this article I will reflect on interreligious dialogue and the tensive relation between openness and identity from a theological perspective. First, I consider the so‐called theology of religions and the threefold soteriological typology of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Second, I address one of the main criticisms of this approach, namely that the soteriological approach amounts to a perversion of the virtue of openness. This critique is articulated especially within particularism, a model which sets out to move beyond the soteriological (...) fixation of the classical theology of religions. Because this relatively new model has not yet been analyzed systematically in the relevant literature, I will analyze some of its main tenets. I focus especially on the way this model sets out to alter the terms of the discussion on the dialogical tension between openness and commitment by claiming that hermeneutical openness should precede soteriological appreciation. Third, I turn to comparative theology as a fertile expression of particularism. Comparative theology presents itself as a genuinely adequate way to understand and appreciate the otherness of the religious other without losing sight of one's own identity. Moreover, comparative theology gives a new twist to the discussion on the dialogical tension between openness and commitment. Whereas the classical theology of religions seems to be actuated by the conviction that it is both possible and necessary to come to a final and definite soteriological appreciation of the religions, comparative theology sees interreligious encounter first and foremost as an ongoing conversational process, which can yield preliminary results only. It is my contention that this marks the nature of real and authentic dialogue. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Social Function of Religious Belief And these conclusions, that religion is both coeval and coex tensive with the race, are strengthened by a, consideration of the obscure problem of religious origins, using the Word origin not in the sense of a starting point in time, but as cause or ground. In other words, the enquiry at this point is not historical, but psychological. The temporal origin of religion is veiled in the thick darkness of the prehistoric ages. (...) The genetic-causal ground of religion is, however, always open to investigation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Quoi de plus inerte que les objets mathématiques. Rien ne les distingue de la pierre et pourtant, à les considérer dans leur perspective historique, ils semblent bien ne pas être aussi dénués de vie qu’il n’y paraı̂t. Conçus par l’homme, ils laissent entrevoir le souffle qui les anime. Pris dans les rets d’un langage, ils ne peuvent se séparer de la forme que les forces tensives qui les contraignent leur ont donnée. S’ils n’ont pas de vocation biologique spécifique, ils sont (...) pour autant toujours et avant tout des possibilités de vie, des objets de puissance. Bien qu’ils ne connaissent ni la douleur, ni le rire, ils ont par leur mode ou leur style d’existence une forme de vie singulière qui structure le donné ou la matière des autres entités auxquels ils participent. De ce fait, en s’immisçant dans l’armature de ces entités, ils conditionnent leur forme d’espace, les enjoignant de se plier à une charpente qu’elles n’ont pas choisie. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way of navigating the tension between the local and global in Fratelli tutti. The author argues that the encyclical exemplifies and develops an analogical approach for authentic encounter. The analogical approach to God and its use of language emphasize a tensive space between the known and unknown, which the author transposes to human encounter. The encyclical grounds and develops this transposed analogical approach through emphasis on cultural diversity, with a bifocal affirmation of difference and desire for (...) relationship. Francis’s attention to Indigenous peoples grounds attention to the local as disposing toward a global outlook in care for the natural world. Finally, the author applies this approach to reflection on reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Church in Canada. Reflection on language is thereby put to the work of engaging the tensive and morally complex space between truth and reconciliation—namely, the space of encount er where healing is ongoing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME ON CONTINUED EXISTENCE AND THE IDENTITY OF CHANGING THINGS Most discussions of Hume's rather cursory treatment of coherence as a factor in generating belief in what he calls the continu' d existence of objects in Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses, have taken a common line in interpreting the nature of the problem Hume's treatment is designed to solve. For instance, perhaps the two most ex2 3 (...) tensive discussions, those of Price and Gomberg seem to agree that the problem is: how do we fill in the gaps among our perceptions, complete sequences or series that are incomplete, and come to believe in the existence of a world of unperceived objects. At the same time such discussions have focussed on the issue of whether the inference from the coherence of our perceptions to belief in the continued existence of objects (ICCE) is, as Hume claims, distinguishable from causal inference. Hume is read in such a way that ICCE if not causal is at least quasi-causal; that is, the only difference for Hume between the two sorts of inference has been taken to be one concerning the evidence on which each is based — causal inferences on past constant conjunctions or uniformities, ICCE on something less. I believe that these discussions have invariably omitted a key factor in understanding Hume's treatment of coherence, one that I want to point out and develop in this paper. Hume's discussion of coherence, like his discussion of constancy, is bound up with the concept of identity; for belief in the continued existence of an object, which coherence generates, is a belief about its identity. Hence a causal inference is distinguished from ICCE by Hume as only the latter necessarily involves belief in the identity of an object over time. Once this is recognized, we can view Hume's discussion^of coherence as requiring an answer to the question: "How do we come to believe in the identity of changing things?" I want to consider two interpretations of 106. the exact nature of ICCE for Hume — one suggested by examples offered in his discussion of coherence, the other suggested by remarks about the concept of identity in other sections of Part Four of Book One of the Treatise — and to argue that neither satisfactorily answers this question. This failure raises doubts not only about ICCE but about the tenability of Hume's characterization of the "vulgar" view of perception and his view of identity. When Hume first answers the question, "What qualities of our impressions or perceptions lead us to attribute to them a distinct and continued existence,?" by isolating the qualities of constancy and coherence, I think it is clear that the former is invoked to account for objects which are, at least in a relative sense, unchanging, which have always appear 'd to me in the same order and return upon me without the least alteration (T194), while the latter is invoked especially, if not solely, to account for objects that underto rather large changes over time, things which after a little absence or interruption may become hardly knowable. (T195) Hume's example concerns a fire in his chamber, which undergoes great change from the moment he leaves (or perhaps the moment it is lighted) to the time he returns (or perhaps the time it is a bunch of glowing embers), but which, nevertheless, compared to other fires undergoes a like alteration...in a like time. (T195) Whatever more coherence can do, it is required, at least initially, to account for just those cases which cannot be subsumed under constancy, in other words, cases in which changing objects are taken to possess distinct and continued existence. In the famous paragraph following his initial comments on coherence, Hume seemingly proceeds to explain how coherence gives rise to belief in continued existence. The account runs basically as follows. Hume hears a noise, as of a door turning; he sees a porter coming toward him. But, Hume says, I never have observ' d3 that this noise could proceed from anything but the motion of a 107. door; and therefore conclude, that the present phaenomenon is a contradiction to all past experience... (shrink)

Philosophers struggle to identify a conception of race in Descartes’s philosophy. Yet, Descartes was not wholly silent on matters of foreign ethnicity and identity. This paper compares Descartes’s various statements on savages and barbarians, which have never been methodically analyzed. A tensive view emerges across several texts wherein Descartes asserts that all persons are rational while simultaneously presuming the epistemic inferiority of the foreign other construed as “savage” or “barbarous.” Further examination indicates that prejudice against this foreign other is endemic (...) to both Descartes’s epistemology and his conception of the mind-body union. (shrink)

Philosophers struggle to identify a conception of race in Descartes’s philosophy. Yet, Descartes was not wholly silent on matters of foreign ethnicity and identity. This paper compares Descartes’s various statements on savages and barbarians, which have never been methodically analyzed. A tensive view emerges across several texts wherein Descartes asserts that all persons are rational while simultaneously presuming the epistemic inferiority of the foreign other construed as “savage” or “barbarous.” Further examination indicates that prejudice against this foreign other is endemic (...) to both Descartes’s epistemology and his conception of the mind-body union. (shrink)

1975 printing. Bibliographical references included in "Notes": pages 175-184, and index. Table of Contents: Language and conception -- Communication -- Tensive language -- Two ways of metaphor -- From metaphor to symbol -- The archetypal symbol -- On the verge of myth -- The sense of reality.

From a reading of Sein und Zeit and contemporary courses, we are interested in examining the transcendental structure of Dasein to explain what we understand as its bidimensional character. For this, we analyze the function of the mood in the dynamics of the structure through the anxiety and profound boredom . We emphasize the affective disposition as an existential starting point and condition of possibility for two pathways, since in relation to being we observed tension between two dimensions that are (...) oscillated Dasein towards one concealment and one unconcealed motion of what happens. With this interpretation we intend to show that the tensive dynamics of the bidimensional structure of Dasein proposed here is the effect of the original givenness of being. (shrink)

If Reality or What-Is is "presential, perspectival and coalescent," then only the tensive language of metaphor is adequate to express and reveal it. Dividing metaphor into epiphor, movement from the concrete to the strange, and diaphor, movement through the heterogeneous, Wheelwright extends the terms to myth as a narrative or story. With a lucid and easy style, the author inter twines the complexities of anthropology, mythology, poetry, and philosophy.--A. B.