"The central task of phenomenology is to investigate the nature of consciousness and its relations to objects of various types. The present book introduces students and other readers to several foundational topics of phenomenological inquiry, and illustrates phenomenology's contemporary relevance. The main topics include consciousness, intentionality, perception, meaning, and knowledge. The book also contains critical assessments of Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method. It argues that knowledge is the most fundamental mode of consciousness, and that the central theses constitutive of Husserl's (...) "transcendental idealism" are compatible with metaphysical realism regarding the objects of thought, perception, and knowledge. Helpful tools include introductions that help the reader segue from the previous chapter to the new one, chapter conclusions, and suggested reading lists of primary and some key secondary sources. Key Features: Elucidates and engages with contemporary work in analytic epistemology and philosophy of mind. Provides clear prose explanations of the necessary distinctions and arguments required for understanding the subject. Places knowledge at the center of phenomenological inquiry"--. (shrink)

Contemporary ethics has often faced questions concerning its epistemological foundations. Thus epistemological problems of ethics have become a main interest in ethics, and ethics has begun to be considered mainly as meta-ethics or analytical ethics, mainly dealing with the foundation of ethical propositions or norms. However questions raised about the foundation of ethics have mostly ended in dilemmas. Today, moral dilemmas or epistemological dilemmas of ethics pose a challenge to contemporary ethics in the form of questions like "Is (...) ethics normative?", "Is there any ethical knowledge?", "Are the statements of ethics bearers of truth-values? (these questions relate to what 1 call the Normativity Dilemma); and questions like "Are ethical judgements objective?", "Are values part of the world, out there, in the way that physical objects are?" (these questions relate to what 1 call the Objectivity Dilemma); and questions like "Is there any criterion to see which principles are correct?", "Do we have good reasons to do what is right?", "Can acting ethical ever be justified?" (these questions relate to what 1 call the Justification Dilemma). Are these dilemmas that are said to be epistemological genuine dilemmas, or are they only supposed to be so? In this paper I will tackle the epistemological foundations of these dilemmas and try to demonstrate that there are fallacies involved in them. (shrink)

This anthology "explores three areas of life in which religion has a profound impact: political policy; ecology: and women's rights. Through the lens of six religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- the carefully-curated articles address some of contemporary society's most challenging issues"--Cover.

The advent of an unregulated and financial form of capitalism, combined with a sharp rise in income inequalities and economic insecurity since the 1970s, appears to pose, at first glance, a significant challenge for the relevance of the works of first-generation critical theorists, which are often confined to an historically specific ‘artistic’ critique of the bureaucratic stage of capitalist development. Through an analysis of the various concerns and demands expressed by members of the alter-globalization and Occupy movements, the article nevertheless (...) aims to demonstrate that first-generation critical theory can continue to play a significant role in conceptualizing contemporary forms of resistance by: (1) capturing the social malaise engendered by neoliberal capitalism; and (2) informing the practice of resistance in contemporary capitalist societies. (shrink)

In The Culture of Control Garland describes the ‘policy predicament’ of late modern society as involving the normality of high crime rates and the acknowledged limitations of the criminal justice system. This combination has triggered a contradictory range of policy responses that Garland describes as adaptive and non‐adaptive, with the non‐adaptive responses characterised as ‘denial’ and ‘acting out’. Garland’s invocation of these Freudian constructs invites a more fully developed psychoanalytic reading of the contemporary landscape of penal policy. Drawing on (...) the writings of Jung and Freud as well as more recent psychoanalytic interpretations of punishment and punitiveness, we aim in this paper to put the Culture of Control ‘on the couch’. That is, we try to draw out some of the psychoanalytic themes that Garland so tantalisingly dangles before us, and begin to flesh out the implications of a full‐fledged psychoanalytic interpretation of Garland’s argument. (shrink)

Deleuze's relationship to Kant is intricate and fundamental, given that Deleuze develops his transcendental philosophy of difference in large part out of Kant's work. In doing so he utilises the moment of the sublime from the third Critique as the genetic model for the irruption of the faculties beyond their capture within common sense. In this sense, the sublime offers the model not only for transcendental genesis but also for aesthetic experience unleashed from any conditions of possibility. As a result, (...) sensation in both its wider and more specifically artistic senses (senses that become increasingly entwined in Deleuze's work) will explode the clichéés of human perception, and continually reinvent the history of art without recourse to representation. In tracing Deleuze's ‘‘aesthetics’’ from Kant we are therefore returned to the viciously anti-human (and Nietzschean) trajectory of Deleuze's work, while simultaneously being forced to address the extent of its remaining Idealism. Both of these elements play an important part in relation to Deleuze's ‘‘modernism’’, and to the discussion of his possible relevance to contemporary artistic practices. (shrink)

This book puts together the diverse concerns of Murdoch's career: the literary, the philosophical, the ethical and the religious exploring. Iris Murdoch as a thinker concerned with conceptions of human good in contemporary Western cultures.

Is the ubiquity of contemporary popular music akin to a deliberate aggression to the hearing, making the listening experience devoid of any sense? If so, is there any strategy to morph this supposed confusion into meaningful stimuli? Relying on epistemology, we attempt at promoting the act of listening as a proper way of world-making and refer to Mark Reybrouck, Bruno Nettl, Steven Brown and Joseph Jordania—among others—to gather appropriate heuristic tools. In the last part of the essay, we advance (...) the concept of timbral quotation as an additional means to grasp meaningful cues in the timbrical richness of contemporary popular compositions. We shall sustain the particular fitness of this tool especially with regard to nowadays’ Western popular music, more and more timbre-centered rather than harmony-centered. (shrink)

Contemporary scholarship concerning science diplomacy is increasingly taking a historical approach. In our introduction to this special issue, we argue that this approach promises insight into science diplomacy because of the tools historians of science bring to their work. In particular, we observe that not only are historians of science currently poised to chart the diplomatic aspects involved in the transnational circulation of technoscientific knowledge, materials, and expertise. They are ready to bring critical global analysis to an important phenomenon (...) that has too often been treated as a benign diplomacy device deployed by the Global North without equal reference to the Global South. Through cases discussed in the articles of the special issue, however, we see that historically, in the Global South as well as the Global North, science diplomacy has often functioned to mediate the circulation of technoscientific knowledge and materials, and its historical study helps to better illuminate the resulting knowledge-power nexus. (shrink)

Despite, or quite possibly because of, the structuralist, post-structuralist, and deconstructionist critiques of subjectivity, master signifiers, and political foundations, contemporary philosophy has been marked by a resurgence in interest in questions of subjectivity and the political. Guided by the contention that different conceptions of the political are, at least _implicitly_, committed to specific conceptions of subjectivity while different conceptions of subjectivity have different political implications, this collection brings together an international selection of scholars to explore these notions and their (...) connection. Rather than privilege one approach or conception of the subjectivity-political relationship, this volume emphasizes the nature and status of the _and _in the ‘subjectivity’ _and _‘the political’ schema. By thinking from the place _between _subjectivity and the political, it is able to explore this relationship from a multitude of perspectives, directions, and thinkers to show the heterogeneity, openness, and contested nature of it. While the contributions deal with different themes or thinkers, the themes/thinkers are linked historically and/or conceptually, thereby providing coherence to the volume. Thinkers addressed include Arendt, Butler, Levinas, Agamben, Derrida, Kristeva, Adorno, Gramsci, Mill, Hegel, and Heidegger, while the subjectivity-political relation is engaged with through the mediation of the law-political, ethics-politics, theological-political, inside-outside, subject-person, and individual-institution relationships, as well as through concepts such as genius, happiness, abjection, and ugliness. The original essays in this volume will be of interest to researchers in philosophy, politics, political theory, critical theory, cultural studies, history of ideas, psychology, and sociology. (shrink)

The complex problems facing developing countries have often been attributed to the tendency of their people to maintain traditional beliefs and practices. Many contemporary philosophers have criticized traditional thought for failing to match the levels of efficiency and effectiveness achieved by modern science. However, other contemporary philosophers have suggested that modern science embodies tendencies that are as likely to exacerbate as relieve the problems of the developing world. I conclude that philosophers must be as wary of modern practices (...) and beliefs as they are of traditional practices and beliefs. Modernity rather than tradition is undoubtably a principal source of Africa's problems. Philosophers discussed include Kwame Gyekye, Robin Horton, Godwin Sogolo, Charles Taylor, Karl Popper, Joseph Rouse, Justen Habermas, and Segun Gbadegesun.. (shrink)

Demonstrating how radical political transformation might be facilitated from within the much maligned aesthetic category of realism, the author examines a number of contemporary works from Big Brother, Melancholia, catfish, and This is Not a Film to Alize Shvarts' "abortion art." Her discussion of these pieces suggests new understandings of the role of trope l'oeil in illusion, the rendering of realism's limitations, and relationships between hypervirtuality and simulation. The author's core project throughout is to develop a framework for thinking (...) about contemporary forms of realism which, rather than focusing on the importance of seeing beyond deceptions that distort reality, argues that reality lies within the deceptions themselves. (shrink)

This book offers a sustained critical assessment of Nietzsche's ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. Robertson develops an original, but critical, reading of Nietzsche's ethics, and uses it to address a range of longstanding issues to do with morality, moral psychology, value, and the good life.

In order to be able to provide informed, effective and responsive mental health care and to do so in an evidence‐based, collaborative and recovery‐focused way with those who use mental health services, there is a recognition of the need for mental health professionals to possess sophisticated critical thinking capabilities. This article will therefore propose that such capabilities can be productively situated within the context of the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, one of the most challenging, innovative and influential (...) thinkers of the 20th century. However, rather than focusing exclusively upon the content of Foucault's work, it will be suggested that it is possible to discern a general methodological approach across that work, a methodological approach that he refers to as “the history of the present.” In doing so, Foucault's history of the present can be understood as a productive, albeit provisional, framework in which to orientate the purpose and process of critical thinking for mental health professionals by emphasizing the need to both historicize and politicize the theoretical perspectives and therapeutic practices that characterize contemporary mental health care. (shrink)

Confusion concerning the scientific study of consciousness is metanalysed by considering definitions of consciousness and the diversity of beliefs about consciousness and reality particularly as they are affected by information from anomalous experiences. This archival and theoretical examination reveals that the purported subjective nature of consciousness continues to create problems for its scientific study resulting in diversity in the academic community concerning the nature of consciousness. After a brief discussion in the first section of the confusion found in the literature (...) concerning consciousness, some of the referents of the term consciousness are defined in the second section. The third section consists of a summary of die results of a study by Baruss and Moore in which the disparity of versions of consciousness is related to differences in personal beliefs and purported experiences. In particular, purported anomalous experiences such as mystical experiences or out‐of‐body experiences are correlated with rejection of a physicalist interpretation of reality and a scientific mode of inquiry. Such experiences are discussed in the fourth section. It is indicated in the fifth section that the requirement for mterchangeability of observers in science has not been respected in some previous discussions of consciousness and that continued introspection of subjective experience and personal self‐exploration may be informative for a given investigator if not for everyone in the scientific community. (shrink)

The social and technological developments, social movements, scientific discoveries, economic growth or diseconomies give rise to many problems for human beings. Many disciplines such as economics, political science, architecture, sociology and psychology discuss these problems and offer solutions from different perspectives. Philosophy has its own way of dealing with these problems. As opposed to the common belief, philosophy does not only deal with ideals independently of what is going on in real life. The problems of the contemporary philosophy are (...) also the problems of the contemporary world. For this reason, this book aims to present and discuss certain philosophical problems in the contemporary world and to suggest solutions to them. (shrink)

The gene is one of the most fundamental concepts in life sciences, having been developed in the mold of the Mendelian paradigm of heredity, which shaped genetics across 150 years. How could Mendel possibly be so prophetic in the middle of 19th century, using only the small garden of the monastery as his experimental breeding field? I believe that we are indebted to Mendel's mastery of the scientific method, which was far ahead of his time. Although his experimental technology was (...) literally garden‐variety, Mendel's excellence in the method of science, algebra, and logical analysis helped him in designing the right experiment and in interpreting the results insightfully. This may be valuable to recall in today's technology‐focused culture, where the center of interest tends to be on the generation and description of high‐throughput datasets from specialized genomics screens. As Mendel's story suggests, progress in 21st century genetics may also depend on the development of robust concepts and generalizations. (shrink)

Ethics & Behavior, Volume 22, Issue 5, Page 409-410, September-October 2012.

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