This case study of a 2016 Florida constitutional amendment analyses the semiotic devices and mechanisms of shaping public opinion on solar energy and beliefs about energy distribution. After a nationwide rise in rooftop solar installations between 2014 and 2015, utilities in several US states were faced with challenges to their business models. Anticipating similar problems in Florida, utilities and energy corporations promoted constitutional amendments. This semiotic analysis follows the voter from the billboards and flyers to the text on the ballot. (...) Starting from Peirce’s phenomenological categories, this critical analysis of the campaign reveals how the goals of the amendment were shrouded in positive environmental and consumer protection narratives. Lakoff ’s cognitive linguistics and Stibbe’s ecolinguistics support a deeper analysis of the ballot text. This study shows that by leaving key concepts (especially net metering) out of the discourse, the ballot text successfully framed an anti-solar amendment as a pro-consumer measure, while hiding the direct legal implications concerning alternative energy distribution. In particular, this study explains the opposition to the sharing of surplus in the context of neoclassical economics as a key factor in shaping beliefs about alternative energy distribution. (shrink)

Decisions concerning use of gene therapy will probably not be made within the privacy of what was once a dyadic doctor–patient relationship. More likely, some overarching guidelines will emerge directing or limiting the practice. Debate and position-taking over the myriad scientific, social, ethical, legal, and political implications of research into and manipulation of the human genome has intensified since the U.S. government officially launched the Human Genome Project in 1988 by appropriating funds to the Department of Energy and the National (...) Institutes of Health for genome research. The discourse this costly research endeavor has generated in the scientific and bioethics literature and even in the popular press outlines a host of issues likely to evoke attempts at line drawing and policymaking. Many of these issues lend themselves easily to the shorthand of dualistic opposition: somatic cell therapy versus germ line therapy or engineering ; correction of defects and disease only versus enhancement of conditions not considered defects or diseases; intervening on the basis of phenotype only versus intervening on the basis of genotype also. (shrink)

Two phenomena have been present in multiethnic/multinational Bosnia and Herzegovina since its independence from SFR Yugoslavia: massive depopulation and strong nationalism(s). Although nationalism influences which nation/ethnic group should produce and how, the links connecting these nationalistic ideologies and pronatalist population policies in the country/entity have been, almost paradoxically, left on the margins of the previous studies. This paper asks to what extent nationalist ideologies are present in the pronatalist population policy discourse in the Serb-dominated entity Republic of Srpska and (...) what nationalism it is. After developing Spectrum of Nationalism(s), a framework underlined by Siniša Malešević’s views on nationalism and ethnicity as ideologies, the paper provides an overview of Bosnia’s demographic processes and brief insights into Republic of Srpska pronatalist policies through a semi-structured literature review. Keeping in mind that media profoundly influences public opinion, discursively moulding policy debates, two most recent cases of pronatalist campaigns and programs in the Republic of Srpska: Let Our Children Be Born and National Programme of Demographic Revival, are analysed via critical discourse analysis (CDA). Selected media articles predominantly cover the period from 2018 onwards, concentrating on the commentaries of the ruling SNSD political nomenklatura. The analysis displays the powerful influence of nationalism on the discourse on population policies. However, on the spectrum of nationalism(s), civic nationalism seems only to be pro forma defined, while in RS’s reality, the abovementioned path has continued toward an ethnonationalism direction. (shrink)

In this paper I present a linguistic investigation of the literary style known as free indirect discourse within the framework of formal semantics. I will argue that a semantics for free indirect discourse involves more than a mechanism for the independent context shifting of pronouns and other deictic elements. My argumentation is fueled by literary examples of free indirect discourse involving what I call language shifts: -/- Most of the great flame-throwers were there and naturally, handling Big (...) John de Conquer and his works. How he had done everything big on earth, then went up tuh heben without dying atall. Went up there picking a guitar and got all de angels doing the ring-shout round and round de throne...that brought them back to Tea Cake. How come he couldn’t hit that box a lick or two? (Hurston 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God) -/- Free indirect discourse combines elements of both, but it seems decidedly closer to direct discourse. I examine the reigning semantic analysis of free indirect discourse, a variant of the demonstrative account of direct discourse featuring “double context dependence” (Banfield 1982,Schlenker 2004). After showing that this type of account has fundamental difficulties with language shift data like (1), I close with a brief sketch of an alternative analysis based on “mixed quotation.”. (shrink)

This paper provides a marketing ethics analysis that addresses the practice of selling genetic tests directly to the consumer. It details the complexity of this emergent sector by articulating the panoply of evolving ethical/social questions raised by this development. It advances the conversation about DTC genetic testing by reviewing the business and healthcare literature concerning this topic and by laying out the inherent ethical complications for consumers, marketers, and regulators. It also points to several possible public and company policy (...) adjustments. Because this area is relatively new and incredibly dynamic, its current discussion is necessarily an exercise in the “logic of discovery” rather than the “protocol of validation”. The paper serves as a primer for the types of GT being promoted. It also calls for a public discourse in the academic and general community to uncover and define the ethical guidelines and systemic adjustments necessary to create fairness in the various DTC transactions occurring between genetic test sellers and the buyers/clients of their services. (shrink)

This book features new perspectives on the ethics and politics of free speech. Contributors draw on insights from philosophy, psychology, political theory, journalism, literature, and history to respond to pressing problems involving free speech in liberal societies. Recent years have seen an explosion of academic interest in free speech. However, most recent work has focused on constitutional protections for free speech and on issues related to academic freedom and campus politics. The chapters in this volume set their sights more (...) broadly on the non-state problems that we collectively face in attempting to realize a healthy environment for free discourse. The volume's contributors share the assumption that threats to free speech do not come exclusively from state sources or bad actors, but from ordinary strategic situations in which all may be acting in good faith. Contributors take seriously the idea that our current cultural moment provides plenty of reason to be concerned about our intellectual climate and offer new insights for how to make things better. New Directions in the Ethics and Politics of Speech will be of interest to researchers and students working in ethics, political philosophy, social theory, and law. (shrink)

The Lily's Tongue offers a nuanced, sustained reading of what Maughan-Brown calls the "Lily Discourses"--four discourses that Kierkegaard wrote about the instruction in the Gospel of Matthew to "consider the lilies." Kierkegaard suggests that the lilies are "authoritative" rather than merely "figural" or "metaphorical." The aim of this book is to explore what exactly Kierkegaard means by asking, How do texts speak with authority? In Maughan-Brown's reading, Kierkegaard argues that the key to a text's authority is in the act of (...) reading itself. No text can have authority unless the reader grants it that authority. That is because, paradoxically, no text can avoid or escape the use of figural language. If the lilies speak authoritatively it is precisely because they are also figural. Texts do not speak directly; their tongue is always the lily's tongue. Drawing on the work of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Derrida, The Lily's Tongue situates Kierkegaard's reading of Matthew at the intersection of theological, philosophical, political, and literary investigations of figural language. It uniquely contributes to the ongoing discussion of Kierkegaard's theory and practice of "indirect communication" by introducing four pivotal signed discourses into this debate. In so doing, Maughan-Brown reveals a groundbreaking theory of figure--one that ultimately requires a renewed reading of the major pseudonymous works. (shrink)

This paper offers a review of the argumentation-theoretical literature on metaphor in argumentative discourse. Two methodologies are combined: the pragma-dialectical theory is used to study the argumentative functions attributed to metaphor, and distinctions made in metaphor theory and the three-dimensional model of metaphor are used to compare the conceptions of metaphor taken as starting point in the reviewed literature. An overview is provided of all types of metaphors distinguished and their possible argumentative functions. The study reveals that (...) not all possible argumentative functions of metaphor have been taken into account, such as the role of conventional direct metaphors in standpoint and starting point. Novel direct metaphor as part of an analogy argument has received most attention, while indirect metaphor can constitute argumentative moves as well, such as the introduction of a standpoint, starting point or connection premise. The overview also shows that certain combinations of variables seem to be impossible of unlikely to occur. These results have a bearing on the analysis of metaphors in argumentative discourse and show the omission in current studies of metaphor. Being aware of these dimensions of metaphor ánd of its potential in argumentation would enrich argumentation studies and metaphor studies alike. (shrink)

Research in the area of intellectual property (IP) is increasingly relevant to the rapidly growing artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics industries, affecting the legal, business, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors. This contributed volume aims to develop our understanding of the legal and ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence and robotics technologies and the appropriate intellectual property based legal and regulatory responses. It provides a philosophical and legal framework for considering concepts and principles that relate to the development and use of such (...) technologies at the international, regional, and national levels. The legal discourse in IP concerns the ever-growing AI sector and how businesses can protect their IP and incorporate AI. Moral sentiments often take a back seat to market sentiments, even in shaping the direction of ethical business strategy. This anomaly persists despite growing interest in ethics and IP. Taking an interdisciplinary and diverse perspective, this book enriches the evolving definition and scope of IP literature by focusing on actors, products and regulation that shape the business sector. Considering the gap between theory and practice, this book bridges academic and professional knowledge in unpacking legal, ethical and governance issues in the intellectual property industry. In an effort to include as many viewpoints as possible, contributions have been gathered from diverse fields, including business, ethics, governance, law, philosophy and technology studies. This book will appeal to academics in the field of intellectual property, business ethics, AI, emerging technologies and strategic innovation, as well as practitioners and policy makers. (shrink)

In a postmodern framework, the traditional subject-object dynamics within literature transform, eschewing possessive relationships for a symbiotic interplay mediated through vision. This shift is evident in the subversive narrative techniques of postmodern novels, where linear plots dissolve into fragmented memories and character development unfolds through nightmarish psychological narratives. This paper delves into the philosophical and theological implications of such narrative strategies in Eileen Chang’s The Little Reunion. It examines the inner discourse of the novel’s characters through a tripartite (...) analysis of free, direct, and indirect quotations, exploring how these narrative forms challenge traditional notions of identity and consciousness. Further, this study discusses the complexities involved in translating and interpreting these layered psychological discourses, highlighting the intertwined relationship between language, thought, and spiritual introspection. Eileen Chang’s novel not only marks a significant evolution in the modernization of the narrative form but also engages deeply with themes of psychological realism that resonate with existential and spiritual inquiries. The novel's artistic and content-driven aspects offer insights into a version of Chang that connects profoundly with philosophical explorations of self and otherness, making it a pivotal work for understanding the evolution of Chinese modern and contemporary literature within a broader philosophical and religious context. (shrink)

What I suggest we can see in this brief overview of the literature is an extensive interpenetration on both sides of these debates between scientific, political, and social values. Important shifts in political and social values were of course occurring over the same period, some of them in parallel with, and perhaps even contributing to, these transitions I have been speaking of in evolutionary discourse. The developments that I think of as at least suggestive of possible parallels include (...) the progressive encroachment of public values into the private domain of post-World War II American life, the cold war, the rise of consumerism, and the flowering of what Christopher Lasch calls a “narcissistic individualism.”35 In popular language, the 1960s gave birth to the “me” generation. Perhaps the most tantalizing analogue is suggested by Barbara Ehrenreich's argument for the emergence of a new meaning of masculinity — an ideal of masculinity measured not by commitment, responsibility, or success as family provider, but precisely by the strength of a man's autonomy in the private sphere, his resistance to the demands of a hampering female.36 It is tempting to speculate about possible connections between changes in scientific discourse and developments in the social and political spheres, but such connections, however suggestive, would clearly have to be demonstrated.For now, however, I want to focus on another kind of change —a transformation not so much in the social or political sphere as in the scientific sphere. I make this turn, or return, in support of a more complex account of scientific change that incorporates reverberations within the scientific communty along with social and political changes.In the 1960s, all of biology was undergoing a major transformation in direct response to the dramatic successes of molecular biology. These successes seemed to completely vindicate the values on which the molecular revolution was premised — namely, simplicity and mechanism. Following the victory of Watson and Crick, and of others after them, the fever of that endeavor swept through biology leaving in its wake a new standard of science, and of scientific discourse — one predicated on clarity, simplicity, and analyzability; on the definition of legitimate questions as those capable of clear and unambiguous answers. Every biological discipline felt it — even evolutionary biology, which in some respects was at the furthest pole. Perhaps precisely because it seemed conceptually so remote, evolutionary biology may have felt it most of all. Lewontin inadvertently provides us with some direct support for this view. Indeed, he begins his introduction to Population Biology and Evolution with the following remarks: The twenty years since World War II have seen a vindication in biology of our faith in the Cartesian method as a way of doing science. Some of the most fundamental and interesting problems of biology have been solved or are very nearly solved by an analytic technique that is now loosely called “molecular biology.” But it is not specifically the “molecular” aspect of biology of the last twenty years that has led to its success. It is, rather, the analytic aspect, the belief that by breaking systems down into their component parts, by simplifying them or using simpler organisms, one can learn about more complex systems. As it happens, the problems that were attacked and are being attacked by this method lead to answers in terms of molecules and cell organelles.... There is a host of problems in biology, however, that has been much neglected in these twenty exciting years, because the answers to them cannot be meaningfully framed in molecular and cellular terms.37Lewontin is referring, of course, to problems in evolution. The remainder of his remarks is devoted to an argument for the applicability of the method, if not the content, of molecular biology to these problems. He writes, “It is not the case that molecular biology is Cartesian and analytic while population biology is holistic. Population biology is properly analytic and operates, within the framework of its own problems, by the process of simplification, analysis, and resynthesis.”38 With these remarks, he leads into the criticism of the “holists” who have “held up progress.”This new ethic of simplicity, clarity, and mechanism — embodying the very virtues lauded by Williams — was explicitly carried into evolutionary biology in the name of scientific progress. As it happened, the values implied also fit conveniently well with other values — each set of values providing crucial support for the other.However substantive the scientific gains may have been in some respects, the net effect of this ethic has also been a systematic “perceptual bias” — a bias with profound practical consequences for the entire program of methodological individualism in evolutionary biology, if not elsewhere as well. It may well be that the whole is equivalent to the reconstituted aggregate of its parts, if, in the process of aggregation or summation, all possible interactions among the parts are included. But if certain kinds of interactions are systematically excluded, our confidence in that program necessarily founders. My claim here is that such systematic exclusion does occur, and that it occurs on a number of different levels. To briefly review the interlocking kinds of “bias” that I see occurring in practice, I suggest the following schematic listing:On the most general level: The ethic of simplicity — the privileging of certain values, even certain methodologies, as having an a priori superior claim to scientific credibility.Only slightly less general, and crucially related, is the equation of “scientific” with “tractible”: Given the techniques of analysis available, the equation of science with what we can do inevitably leads to a systematic technical bias favoring simplicity. That is, because we don't know how to model complex dynamics, nonlinear interactions are systematically biased against because of the limitations of our technical know-how. The consequences of this equation of the scientific with the tractible are greatly compounded by the additional equation between what we can do and what is — that is, by our temptation to confuse tractibility with reality.Finally, and also closely related, a further kind of elision occurs even within the confines of tractibility. This kind of elision — taking the form almost of inferring tractibility from one's prior assumptions of what is real — is exemplified by the history of a mathematical ecology of mutualism. Even when mutualism can be introduced into the same technical machinery, it is still not pursued. The basic assumption is that competition is what is real, not because it is easier to model, but because it is what we expect. When the actual difficulties of modeling competition are then in turn suppressed, as in the Robert May story, what we have, given the temptation to equate the tractible with the real, is the possibility of a truly self-fulfilling prophecy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin LiteratureEllen OliensisAndrew Laird. Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. xx + 358 pp. Cloth, $85.Prospective readers should not be put off by the title of this ambitious book. Though "speech presentation" (the use of direct discourse [DD], free indirect discourse [FID], (...) etc.) may seem a rather narrow and technical topic, Laird makes a persuasive case for its manifold significance. And while he foregrounds "Latin literature," Laird ranges freely across centuries and genres, drawing on texts as diverse as the Hittite SongofUllikummi, Sannazaro's DepartuVirginis, and a 1994 story in the DailyTelegraph. The result is a thoughtful and engaging study from which readers of very different interests and stripes will be able to profit. Three chapters on the theory of narrative representation and speech presentation are followed by another three exploring representational strategies in (mostly Latin) historiography, epic, and the novel; a final chapter treats the speeches of divine messengers in epic as "allegories of representation." The book is framed by a brief introduction and conclusion, the latter capped by a suggestive coda pointing to the multiple lines of research, across various disciplines, which might be opened up by a more scrupulous consideration of speech presentation.In the introduction, Laird outlines the benefits, practical and theoretical, of focusing on speech presentation: "First, [speech presentation] can throw light on the themes and stylistic features of particular texts. Second, functions of speech [End Page 596] presentation bear on broader concerns including form and content, representation, genre, ideology, and intertextuality" (xv). These claims are amply justified in the ensuing chapters. Laird's theoretical orientation generates an abundance of local insights. He suggests that Tacitus' contrasting introductions to the speeches of Calgacus and Agricola--the distancing locutusfertur versus the confident itadisseruit (Agr. 29.4, 33.1)--help differentiate barbarian from Roman by implying "that Agricola's oration possesses a greater ontological stature than Calgacus'" (126); that Encolpius' exploitation of what Laird dubs "angled narration of dialogue" (reserving DD for his interlocutors' speech and ID for his own) produces the effect of narratorial transparency in the Cena (217-20); that the use of direct discourse for Mercury's message and indirect for Fama's in Aeneid 4 "enhances the essential contrast between the nature of the two messengers" (272). In one of his boldest discussions (192-205), Laird reviews the unanswered speeches in the Aeneid and concludes that Virgil's epic is far more rigid than previous epics in associating speech with authority and dutiful silence with subordination (Laird interestingly contrasts Homeric epic, which proclaims this hierarchy but doesn't practice it with anything like Virgil's consistency); Laird goes on to speculate that this strong linkage of speech with authority also applies to Virgil's own epic discourse, which (like Aeneas' narration in books 2 and 3) is delivered to readers who are silent or even silenced.Occasionally, the marriage of theory and interpretation founders. For example, Laird's account of the multiple literary echoes in Encolpius's seaside soliloquy (Satyricon 81.1-82.1, discussed at 221-24) shows little trace of the theoretical self-consciousness displayed in his earlier remarks on the ideological character of intertextuality and its proximity to speech presentation. And the argument that the opening sequence of the Aeneid is designed to entice the reader into Virgil's "realist" fiction (157-64) rests on some unconvincing claims (e.g., that Aeneas' first speech "begins with a prayer" addressed to "the gods, or even the poem's audience" [162], and that Juno's first soliloquy has "the poem's audience or readers" as "her first addressees" [164]). Elsewhere, Laird suggests that Aeneas' parenthetical eloquaransileam? (Aen. 3.39) "could be FID conveying his own doubt and hesitation at the time of the incident he is describing" (182-83); but surely the question makes sense only if it is attached, not to the narrated past (where the relevant question would be "shall I keep pulling on this uncanny tree?") but to the present of narration.Although Laird, an astute reader, has much to teach us about... (shrink)

The trend to centralization of the Mizrahi narrative has become an integral part of the nationalistic, ethnic, religious, and ideological-political dimensions of the emerging, complex Israeli identity. This trend includes several forms of opposition: strong opposition to "melting pot" policies and their ideological leaders; opposition to the view that ethnicity is a dimension of the tension and schisms that threaten Israeli society; and, direct repulsion of attempts to silence and to dismiss Mizrahim and so marginalize them hegemonically. The Mizrahi (...) Democratic Rainbow [The Keshet], the most prominent proponent and representative of this trend, was established in the 1990s with the intention of being a leading civic and political body in Israeli society. While it was the Mizrahi worldview that led to selection of the organization's name and aims, their vision was to be involved in social struggle on behalf of other groups in Israeli society. Since it was established, The Keshet has aimed to function as an assertive, long-term alternative coalition exerting influence, power, and pressure on the Israeli narrative network. And, indeed, the organization has succeeded in disrupting Israeli discourse, principally, by challenging the ideological foundations of the Zionist meta-narrative. Nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century and nearly a decade since it was established, The Keshet not only represents the most current wave of Mizrahi discourse, it has changed it to such a great degree that it is impossible to ignore its influence. Further, this alternative narrative may have significant potential to advance the internal Jewish discourse so fundamental at this time given the changing Israeli situation and regional conditions. And, while it is possible to view The Keshet and this new narrative as a continuation of the Mizrahi struggle, as a narrative The Keshet's agenda represents a post-colonial perspective and multi-cultural alternative to Zionism as a social vehicle. Amidst all of this, The Keshet continues to offer concrete proposals to change the Jewish character of the state as well as its internal and external relations. One of the primary goals of this study was to examine the rise of the Mizrahi narrative over the last two decades and the new Mizrahi discourse in Israeli society. More specifically, the study sought to attain an in-depth understanding of the central narrative created and represented by The Keshet. An additional goal was to investigate the influence of The Keshet's activity and the narrative it constructed in regard to other narratives. In particular, the study focused on The Keshet's opposition to the central Zionist narrative that infuses civic, political, and academic frameworks in Israel. Accordingly, the primary research questions investigated in the study sought to determine: What has been the influence of the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow on the Mizrahi narrative in Israel? And, what are implications of such influence for the central Zionist narrative? Methodologically, the study was based on narrative and comparative analyses of texts from different periods of the older and newer Mizrahi narratives. The corpus included two types of texts: First, academic texts and opinion pieces, both philosophical and programmatic in nature, published in magazines, journals, books, as well as position papers; second, all of the texts published by prominent and influential figures who charted the path of The Keshet or led it organizationally and/or intellectually over the last twenty years (e. g., Yehudah Shenhav, Yossi Yona, Moshe Krief among others). All texts were examined by means of philosophical, historical and critical hermeneutic tools. This analysis revealed different levels of Mizrahi and civic discourse in Israel as well as among The Keshet's founders and leading ideologues. The study was based on a three stage process model, developed for purposes of this study, for investigation and analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative as well as other oppositional narratives, in particular opposition to the hegemonic meta-narrative. The stages are: issuing the challenge, dissolution and, liberation; that is, liberation is the measure of the ultimate success of the struggle for narrative change. Such change is not based on success in the field, but rather on a radical, fundamental reversal of thought, discourse patterns, stylistic structures, as well as forms of questioning - in this case of taken-for-granted racist mechanisms. However, the principal change is in achieving a deep, inner de-legitimization of the signifiers, categories, and reproductions of all manner of mockery that are based on immoral colonialist processes that are reinforced by regimes of fear and intimidation whose self-destruction began upon their very creation. This three stage model charts the course of the oppositional Mizrahi narrative from: accounting for the past (passing judgment on the so-called historic colonialist Zionism) to writing a new (pure Mizrahi) history and creation of a Mizrahi-Arab identity separate from the Ashkenazic, identified as Zionist. Contemporary post-colonialist discourse is integral in these stages. Such a perspective has been transformed by transitions from - binarism to hybridity, Orientalism to Occidentalism, the politics of "liberation" to "constructive" politics, from the history of consciousness to the history of change, as well as from nationalist to post-nationalist questions. Fundamentally, according to this approach, political and other struggles for the emerging narrative of Mizrahi (or Arab) history seek to centralize it in society and weave it amidst the models of multiculturalism. Undertaken in parallel, the central characteristics of all these stages are borrowed from countries in which the need for national reconciliation led to renunciation of apartheid and racist policies and historical judgment of the hegemony supported by racist leaders. In addition, these three moves were undertaken in Keshet and its ideologues by means of substantive symbolic violence directed at the hegemonic Ashkenazic discourse, which included creation of hatred of it, use of stereotypes the opposite of oppressive discourse, and adoption of an arrogant point of view toward it. This stands in stark contrast to the claims of the self-proclaimed new Mizrahi stance of a discourse established on purely ethical grounds that sought to cleanse itself of these very same oppressive elements. The model developed for and demonstrated in this study allows for analysis of oppositional narratives in which the libratory stage evolves into a form of entrapment, as appears to be occurring to the new Mizrahi discourse. This conclusion is based on the observations shared by many Keshet proponents including leading intellectuals who worked on the manifestos that were the subject of criticism from the Zionist camp. The study identified and defined the following six interwoven strata, which for purposes of explication are each discussed in a separate chapter: The first chapter presents a general theoretical discussion of the issue of the narrative and the inter-narrative struggle that has become central and applicable in various ways in the latest generation (e. g., anthropologically, hermeneutically, and philosophically). The analysis surveys different discussions in the inter-narrative struggle and locates them in the contexts, relations, and meanings derived from, representing, and indeed reproducing the narrative of national identity. The second chapter includes a historical survey of the older Mizrahi struggle that existed prior to the ascendance of the new Mizrahi narrative. Initially, Mizrahi discourse focused on expressing the ethnic protest that grew in years to follow. These feelings of discrimination and social distancing of the immigrants from Islamic countries gave birth to expressions of protest, the most prominent of which were Wadi Salib and the Black Panther Movement's various activities. The research literature contains many explanations for the exacerbation of the ethnic problem and creation of a situation that could not be ignored. The consensus academic view reached at the end of the 1970s identified a number of primary factors for this situation: the existence and extensive numbers of different ethnic groups; the relative or absolute segregation of frameworks within which members of these ethnic groups lived and acted; and the significant overlap between socio-economic status and feelings of discrimination retained by members of the Mizrahi group due years of neglect by the Ashkenazic establishment, the strengthening of Mizrahi social, cultural, and political power, as well as the emergence of a Mizrahi elite that identified with Mizrahi problems. The severe consequences of feelings of discrimination were expressed in a long series of events, such as: rioting by residents of the Rehovot Sharayim neighborhood in 1956; events of Wadi Salib in Haifa in 1959; and a chain of activities involving the Black Panthers in the 1970s. Protest was also an aspect of the "tent movement" in the 1970s and 1980s. Political activities were advanced by the Tami Movement that competed in the election for the 10th Knesset in 1981 and the Shas Movement that has continued to garner political power since being found in 1984. The 1980s and 1990s were characterized as the era of radical consciousness of Mizrahi discourse as well as by the rise to power, in consecutive order, of the political parties – Tami, Shas, and the Mizrahim HaHadashim [the New Mizrahi]. The latter party laid the foundations of the new radical Mizrahi discourse from which emerged such cultural activities as: Iton Aher [A Different Newspaper]; Bimat Kivon Aher [Another Direction Forum]; Efir'yon journal; the Halah Organization for Education in Neighborhoods, Development Towns, and Villages; Kedma; the newspaper – Patish [Hammer]; and, eventually the establishment of Keshet. The third chapter presents an examination of the materialization of the inter-narrative struggle in the case of Israel, with a specific focus on The Keshet and the new Mizrahi narrative advanced by it and intellectuals. The Keshet ideology is examined in the context of its grounding in post-colonial thought, especially that of Edward Said; the directions proposed by Ella Shohat and her followers; the central thinkers of the narrative in Israel in the last decade; and the harsh critique leveled at the Ashkenazic-Zionist narrative. The practical steps proposed for implementation within the multicultural model are also examined. Here the effort to reduce the centrality of Zionism while revealing its oppressive mechanisms was undertaken in parallel with use of these mechanisms in order to create a Mizrahi space with broad margins inclusive of alternative forms of Israeli identity in the Middle East and in conjunction with Arabs within and beyond Israel. Mizrahi traditionalism is examined in the fourth chapter in two particular respects. First, the criticism of the new Mizrahi narrative leveled by the renewed view and, second, the implications of the alternative in terms of creating a Mizrahi space that does not oppose Zionism. Rather, in opposing the post-colonialist perspective, this renewed traditionalist perspective criticizes as well as values Zionism. This space seeks to be both Jewish and Mizrahi. It does not detach itself from nationalist Zionism but rather views itself as a continuation of this tradition and, accordingly, is an effort to develop a next stage in its development. For example, an essential dimension of the traditionalist perspective, "commitment," is considered in this stage to be a fertile basis for dialogue with the past and as an anchor for contemporary interpretation of Mizrahi and other Jews' identities in Israel. The fifth and sixth chapters deal with all of the vectors of criticism directed at the new Mizrahi narrative, including its ideological foundations, philosophical stance, as well as intellectual and practical basis in the Israeli sphere in the face of Palestinian nationalism. These vectors of criticism from within and beyond The Keshet deal with issues, such as, the meaning of the movement's activities and the narrative that it offers regarding questions of Israeli identity, Israeli collective memory, and Mizrahi self-perception. At the same time, it must confront the capitalist neo-liberal narrative in a global world and thrive in a context in which it must make itself manifest amidst oppositional narratives. The final chapter presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative. It does so by means of a theoretical model that examines it as an oppositional narrative – one that seeks to challenge the hegemonic meta-narrative, to dissolve the boundaries of the narrative discourse, and to propose liberation and redemption that may led to entrapment amidst a changing, a-dichotomous realities (e. g., global economic development in the face of Zionist nationalisms that display ideological strength as well as development of the sense of being an Israeli that maintains its vitality and continuity while being constituted by sectors that challenge being a Mizrahi, such as co-ethnic subjects. The Keshet's influence is dramatic and extends in a number of central directions. Its political activity and non-entry into the domains of the Israeli parliament granted the movement significant power in civic discourse and contributed to changing the persona of the Mizrahi discourse; for example, from political-party struggles over budgets and obtaining shares of the regime to changing the face of Israeli society and the centrality of the Mizrahi narrative. This change included deconstructing the Ashkenazic narrative and constructing comprehensive Ashkenazic-Zionist guilt, as evident in the Ehud Barak's request for collective forgiveness. This was accomplished through the participation of leading members of Keshet who appeared in prominent intellectual forums and engaged in lively discourse - principally in academic, social, and media domains. Such participation gave new meaning to various aspects of Israeli society while establishing different models of multiculturalism. The rise of the new Mizrahi narrative is a significant marker in the inter-narrative struggle as it represents a desire for separate or hybrid identities. And, the deep probing of the narrative constructed by leaders of The Keshet and those who identify with the movement produced a number of clear ways to distinguish it from the old Mizrahi struggle, whose history was portrayed through social protests, in a manner similar to linear vectors marked with wars and elections. The old Mizrahi struggle selected the traditional tactical struggle identified usually with social and political movements that seek to change political, social, and economic reality - from the bottom up. Their primary demand was to change decisions as well as the division of social goods and resources. Hence, this older period of struggle was not aimed at opposing the ideological foundations of the hegemonic narrative nor did it seek to undermine in a radical manner the unique nature of the state of Israel as a revolutionary solution for the problems of the Jews according to the Zionist approach, as a national home for the Jewish people, and recognition of the right to an preferred and meta-definition of Jewish nationalism. In contrast, the top down struggle advanced by the new narrative is part of an ideological movement led by the educated that is assertive and ground in post-colonialist theory. Accordingly, it was critical of the techniques and mechanisms of oppression as well as sought to attack the Zionist ideological foundations and to reveal its racist operations and the regimes that have preserved it so efficiently for many years. The uniqueness of this narrative is the intellectual offensive that continues to be advanced and, in parallel, development of the discourse struggle in Israel concerning the justification for Zionism and the concrete political proposal that Jews reject the taken-for-granted status of it as an ideology. This new narrative recognizes the historic difficulties of subversion as an emancipatory and, principally, moral effort. In addition, the new Mizrahi narrative shares the foundations and narrative of Palestinian victimization. In its radical version, the new Mizrahi narrative seeks to connect to the Palestinian narrative in order to create a new space here. According to this version, this action will take place gradually. The first stage will be characterized by opposition to Western European, Ashkenazic Zionism. The Eurocentric Zionism will surrender in the second stage, to be followed in the last stage by creation of a coalition of Jews and Arabs that will be establish through concrete actualization of the refugee status and victimization that is shared by both Palestinians and Mizrahim (whether as Mizrahim or Jewish-Arab). Not a speculative academic exercise, the goal sought by this narrative is delineate and to achieve a multicultural model in which equality, liberty, and social justice will overcome the nationalism and colonialism of either side; that is it will be neither Zionist nor Jewish. Thus, this approach stresses what is shared (e.g., acceptance of the Arab space and not a rejection of it; the legitimacy of the Arab language and culture). This is part of detachment from and historic judgment of the colonialist Zionist enterprise. This possibility includes moral elements that remove the evil and harm caused by Zionism for many years as well as inner cleansing – primarily among Ashkenazim – of attitudes towards Jews and non-Jews. Though, in this regard, it should be noted that, to date, the new narrative has not made similar claims that Palestinians undergo a similar process. The assumption seems to be that this should be tested, that the coalition proposed is a possibility that will be recognized by the Palestinians, and that they are prepared to undergo a similar, shared moral process that involves negating the state of Israel as a Jewish, Western state, a state of the Jewish people, and not only for those who live within it. These Mizrahi thinkers conducted a significant move through deconstruction and substitution of the Eurocentric narrative with a multi-cultural proposal that is optimistic and even attractively naïve. Today, they acknowledge that they did not take into account Palestinian nationalist violence directed to citizens, the traditionalist alternative, and widespread opposition within the Mizrahi community toward what is perceived to be Mizrahi seclusion. They also did not take into account the harsh criticism rendered by young and educated Mizrahim who claim that they were born into a complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered identity that includes internalization of the language of the West and rules of the game of this complex identity. And, though they are critical of some of its values, this makes it difficult to mount internal emotional opposition to the West and to the globalization contained within this world. Hence, this more familiar world is preferred over the values of the Mizrahi-Arab alternative, particularly in regard to problems in the domains of democratic citizenship, stance taken toward women, and freedom of speech. Further, educated Mizrachim reject the post-colonialist perspective and are stridently critical of its dichotomization. They claim that such a division is irrelevant in a world in which older ideologies have collapsed and new spheres – such as cyberspace and others – are open to them in which they can present themselves with an Israeli identity that is not categorized as necessarily Mizrahi. (shrink)

This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut literature off altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value, founded on (...) the methods of analytical philosophy, restores to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore metaphysical and skeptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a social construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and "making" in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to restore rigor and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing. (shrink)

The growing general interest in understanding how neuroscience can contribute to explanations of our understanding and appreciation of art has been slow to find its way to philosophy of literature. Of course this is not to say that neuroscience has not had any influence on current theories about our engagement, understanding, and appreciation of literary works. Colin Martindale developed a scientific approach to literature in his book The Clockwork Muse (1990). His prototype-preference theory drew heavily on early artificial (...) neural network research. Jenefer Robinson has appealed to results from affective neuroscience in her discussion of our emotional engagement with literary works (see Robinson, 2005). More recently literary critics have tried to extend cognitive literary theory in the direction of neuroscience (Ashton, 2005; Byatt, 2006; Young, 2010). This line of research traces its origin to commentary on a 1995 a paper by Herbert Simon in the Stanford Humanities Review (Franchi and Güzeldere, 1995). So, although there hasn't been much going on that could justifiably be called a neuroscience of literature, discussions of neuroscientific research have woven their way into the fabric of some aspects of philosophy of literature and literary theory. Nonetheless, there has been a great deal of resistance to the creeping insurgence of neuroscience into both fields. I will challenge this skepticism in what follows. In section 1, I will sketch a model for research at the crossroads of philosophy and neuroscience of art and suggest how it can be applied to the philosophy of literature. In Section 2, I will introduce situation models and discuss the role they have been hypothesized play in discourse comprehension and narrative understanding outside of literature. In Section 3, I will explore some ways that situation models can contribute to discussions of narrative understanding, appreciation, and the artistically salient features that differentiate literature as a category of art from non-art literary forms like newspaper columns, magazine articles, or biographies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Old Are Modern Rights? On the Lockean Roots of Contemporary Human Rights DiscourseS. Adam SeagraveArguing for the proper placement of John Locke’s natural rights theory within intellectual history is a particularly high-stakes enterprise for historians of political thought and political theorists alike. This is due in large part to the fact that, as Brian Tierney notes in his recent study, it is “widely agreed that Locke’s work was (...) an important influence in the formation of modern liberal ideas, including ideas concerning rights.”1 Our understanding of Locke thus contributes to our reflective self-understanding as “modern liberals” (of one stripe or another) to an extent perhaps unequaled by any other thinker so far removed from our own time.As a result of the rare promise of studying Locke’s natural rights theory, there has been no shortage of scholarly attempts to determine its place in intellectual history on the basis of Locke’s own writings and their relation both to preceding and subsequent traditions and modes of thought. Although John Dunn had argued in his influential study that Locke’s political thought was too thoroughly steeped in theology to remain relevant in the contemporary context, this thesis has since been persuasively challenged (albeit in very different ways) by Simmons, Zuckert and Waldron, among others.2 Each of these scholars has contributed to an emerging agreement [End Page 305] that the thread of Locke’s natural rights theory may indeed be carried all the way up to current political and moral debates in some form or another. The precise length of this thread as it extends in the other historical direction has, however, remained a point of heated controversy. The scholarly literature on this issue may be broadly described in terms of a spectrum determined by two opposing emphases in understanding the relation of Locke’s natural rights theory to its medieval predecessors: a continuity emphasis and a discontinuity emphasis.On the discontinuity end of the spectrum stand those such as Michel Villey, Leo Strauss, C. B. Macpherson and, more recently, Michael Zuckert who argue for the existence of some sort of “Copernican moment” separating medieval natural rights theories from their modern counterparts.3 Whether this moment is identified with William of Ockham in the fourteenth century or Hobbes in the seventeenth century, these scholars tend to emphasize the distinctively “modern” character of Lockean natural rights theory and its significant departures from medieval modes of thought. According to many of the advocates of discontinuity, Lockean natural rights are not only “modern” in their political applications but also in their more profound meaning as foundations for morality, and particularly in their newly conceived relation to the concept of natural law.4The continuity end of the spectrum is, perhaps, more variegated, including scholars such as Tuck, Tierney, Tully, Oakley, Nederman, Coleman, and Swanson, among others.5 Despite their many important differences, [End Page 306] these scholars each focus upon the similarities between various elements or strains of medieval thought and modern natural rights theories rather than the differences between them. Insofar as the scholars on this end of the spectrum explicitly consider Locke’s natural rights theory, they tend to emphasize Locke’s intellectual debt to various preceding traditions and thinkers rather than his innovations upon them. Building explicitly upon the work of Tuck, Tierney and Tully, Janet Coleman finds “some extraordinarily Lockean moments” in the medieval thinkers John of Paris and Godefroid of Fontaines, and argues that Locke ought to be understood as contributing to this medieval tradition of thought rather than departing from it.6 Scott Swanson, in turn, builds upon Coleman’s scholarship in carefully connecting medieval understandings of the rights of subsistence and the principle of extreme necessity to Locke’s natural rights theory. Swanson initially goes even further than Coleman in asserting that “all of Locke’s celebrated doctrine is here [in John of Paris’s writings] offered in a nutshell” before concluding on the more moderate note, echoed by Cary Nederman, that Locke’s “application of natural rights of subsistence to politics” may indeed have been something “new under the sun.”7Brian Tierney, who has long been a prominent... (shrink)

In art and literature, animals appear not only as an allegoric representation but as a reference which troubles the border between humanity and animality. The aim of this book is to challenge traditional ways of confronting animality with humanity and to consider how the Darwinian turn has modified this relationship in postmodern narratives. The subject of animality in culture, ethics, philosophy, art and literature is explored and reevaluated, and a host of questions regarding the conditions of co-existence of (...) humans and animals is asked: Should discourse ethics now include entities that initially seemed mute and were excluded from discussions? Does the modern animal rights movement need a theology, and vice versa, is there a theology that needs animals? Are animals in literature just metaphors of human characters, or do they reveal something more profound, a direction of human desires, or a fantasy of transgressing humanity? This book provides answers and thus gives a new impetus to a so far largely overlooked field. (shrink)

Qualitative research from a feminist perspective in the postmodern era: methodological, ethical and reflexive concerns Developing methodology is an ongoing process in certain types of qualitative research. This paper describes the process in a study of single midlife women, detailing reflexive concerns on the ethics of data collection and dissemination of research findings from a feminist postmodern perspective, as well as the way in which modification of techniques of analysis occurred as the study progressed. Beginning research questions were concerned with (...) identifying the impact of menopausal symptoms, and the debate surrounding HRT on the lives and decision‐making processes of single midlife women. Initial analysis of data, using grounded theory techniques, indicated a need to place greater emphasis on the way the women constructed or talked about the self, including the embodied self. This led to an exploration of the literature relating to reflexivity, identity construction and embodiment, including feminist poststructuralist interpretations of the discursive and embodied construction of self, and informed both the theoretical framework and the method. The way in which a type of analysis fitting under the broad rubric of discourse analysis, that is one that gave added emphasis to gendered subjectivity, directed further analysis is discussed, as well as the influence on the women of social and scientific discourses in circulation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Human Revolution and the Adaptive Function of LiteratureJoseph CarrollIBefore the advent of purely culturalist ways of thinking in the early decades of the twentieth century, the idea of "human nature" was deeply ingrained in the literature and the humanistic social theory of the West.1 In the past three decades, ethology, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology have succeeded in making the idea of "human nature" once again a commonplace (...) of public discourse, but the actual shape and content of human nature, even among Darwinian social scientists, remains controversial. Human nature is the product of evolution, and for Darwinians, concepts about the structure of human nature are necessarily bound up with concepts about the course of human evolution. My purpose in this essay will be to examine two chief alternatives in the current Darwinian understanding of human evolution and human nature, to advocate one of these alternatives, and to assess its implications for Darwinian literary study. One alternative can be identified with evolutionary psychology, and the other, the one I shall advocate, with evolutionary anthropology and cognitive archaeology. For the sake of economy, I shall refer to the former as the EP model and to the latter as the EACA model.In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the main theoretical controversy in Darwinian social science was that between the sociobiologists and Darwinian anthropologists, on the one side, and the evolutionary psychologists on the other. The point at issue was whether "fitness maximization" or the desire to maximize reproductive success could serve as a direct motive in human behavior. The sociobiologists tended to assume it could; the [End Page 33] evolutionary psychologists instead insisted that fitness maximization was mediated through "proximal mechanisms" such as the male desire for sex and the female desire to acquire resources from male sexual partners. In the arena of received professional opinion, the evolutionary psychologists won this debate, and evolutionary psychology is now the mainstream, establishment creed in Darwinian social science.2 Its hegemony is evidenced by a flood of popular expositions and textbooks. The majority of these expositions give little evidence that the authors are themselves alert to the speculative character of the fundamental concepts of their creed, and the chief tenets of the creed have often been reiterated in a naively uncritical way.The chief tenets of orthodox evolutionary psychology are (a) that the structure of the human mind stabilized during the Pleistocene (beginning about 1.6 million years ago); (b) that the human mind is "modular" in character—consisting of discrete bits of dedicated neural circuitry automatically activated by environmental releasers; (c) that human cognitive aptitudes and motivational structures are firmly adapted to the hunter-gatherer life-style of the Pleistocene—the "environment of evolutionary adaptedness" or EEA; and (d) that the adaptation to Pleistocene conditions carries with it, as a necessary corollary, a "mismatch" between the adapted human mind and all cultural ecologies more complex than that of hunter-gatherers. The core concept, the idea on which all the others depend, is that of the EEA:What we think of as all of human history—from, say, the rise of the Shang, Minoan, Egyptian, Indian, and Sumerian civilizations—and everything we take for granted as normal parts of life—agriculture, pastoralism, governments, police, sanitation, medical care, education, armies, transportation, and so on—are all the novel products of the last few thousand years. In contrast to this, our ancestors spent the last two million years as Pleistocene hunter-gatherers, and, of course, several hundred million years before that as one kind of forager or another. These relative spans are important because they establish which set of environments and conditions defined the adaptive problems the mind was shaped to cope with: Pleistocene conditions, rather than modern conditions.3For evolutionary psychologists, the difference between our Paleolithic ancestors and ourselves is a difference not in anatomical and neurological character but only in external "circumstances." In the EP model, the structure of the human mind at the present time and the structure [End Page 34] of the mind of, say, half a million years ago, would be the same. They would be equally the mind of the Pleistocene.The EP model of... (shrink)

Although the language we encounter is typically embedded in rich discourse contexts, many existing models of processing focus largely on phenomena that occur sentence-internally. Similarly, most work on children's language learning does not consider how information can accumulate as a discourse progresses. Research in pragmatics, however, points to ways in which each subsequent utterance provides new opportunities for listeners to infer speaker meaning. Such inferences allow the listener to build up a representation of the speakers' intended topic and (...) more generally to identify relationships, structures, and messages that extend across multiple utterances. We address this issue by analyzing a video corpus of child–caregiver interactions. We use topic continuity as an index of discourse structure, examining how caregivers introduce and discuss objects across utterances. For the analysis, utterances are grouped into topical discourse sequences using three annotation strategies: raw annotations of speakers' referents, the output of a model that groups utterances based on those annotations, and the judgments of human coders. We analyze how the lexical, syntactic, and social properties of caregiver–child interaction change over the course of a sequence of topically related utterances. Our findings suggest that many cues used to signal topicality in adult discourse are also available in child-directed speech. (shrink)

This article explores the role of Athenian literary prizes in the development of ancient literary criticism. It examines the views of a range of critics , and identifies several recurrent themes. The discussion reveals that ideas about what was good or bad in literature were not directly affected by the award of prizes; in fact the ancient critics display what is called an “anti-prize” mentality. The article argues that this “anti-prize” mentality is not, as is often thought, a product (...) of intellectual developments in the fourth century BC. It is suggested that the devaluation of prizes is actually a contemporary, integral feature of prize-awarding culture in general. This article draws on recent approaches from cultural sociology to offer some conclusions about the way in which prizes function in popular and critical discourse. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall examine two types of assertions in literary narrative fiction: direct assertions and those I call literary assertions. Direct assertions put forward propositions on a literal level and function as the author’s assertions even if detached from their original context and applied in so-called ordinary discourse. Literary assertions, in turn, intertwine with the fictional discourse: they may be, for instance, uttered by a fictional character or refer to fictitious objects and yet convey (...) the author’s genuine assertions. The structure of the paper is twofold. The first, descriptive part is a question–answer type of discussion in which I shall introduce general philosophical arguments against assertions in fiction and present counter-arguments to them, paving the road to my account of literary assertions. In the second, argumentative part, in turn, I shall examine the nature of literary assertions, such as their semantic and ‘aspectival’ characteristics and their peculiar illocutionary force as well as the reader’s stance toward them. (shrink)

This paper discusses the discourse contrasts that arise in connection to direct evidentiality in Southern Aymara (henceforth, Aymara), an understudied Andean language. Aymara has two direct evidentials, the enclitic _=wa_ and the covert morpheme _-_∅, which are used whenever the speaker has the best possible grounds for some proposition. I make the novel observation that a sentence with _=wa_ can be felicitously uttered if the speaker attempts to update the common ground by addressing an issue on the (...) table. In fact, the sentence with _=wa_ that is uttered must be congruent with prior discourse; I tie this to the claim that _=wa_ is a (presentational) focus marker (Proulx in Language Sciences 9(1):91–102, 1987 ). This paper thus claims that _=wa_ is a marker that combines evidentiality and focus. In contrast, uttering a sentence with _-_∅ entails that the speaker’s contribution is already in the common ground, which likens this evidential to common ground management operators—there is no congruence requirement in this case. I identify which construction can be used in different discourse settings (conversation openers and telling anecdotes). I implement a formal analysis based on Farkas and Bruce (Journal of Semantics 27:81–118, 2010 ) and Faller (Semantics and Pragmatics 12(8):1–53, 2019 ) that links evidentiality and discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Walter Glannon WHAT LITERARY THEORY MISSES IN WITTGENSTEIN Wittgenstein's stock is rising in literary criticism. The market value of expressions such as "language games" and "form oflife" is increasing in that they seem to lend themselves to the notion of interpretive communities endorsed by diose of reader-response persuasion.1 Wittgenstein's style is also apparently at a premium, in light of a recent attempt by a proponent of deconstruction to relate (...) the philosopher's writing to that movement's use of rhetorical strategies in dealing with texts.2 There are affinities between Wittgenstein's repudiation (in the Investigations and the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics) of the metaphysical realism in the Tractatus and die arguments from reader-response critics against the notion of unmediated facts, as well as the rejection of the metaphysics of presence by deconstructionists. All diree oppose the idea that truth and falsity are conferred on our statements about the world by properties independent of diese statements. Insofar as these two critical schools are concerned primarily with language, they share Wittgenstein's aspiration to "bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use" (PI, I, § 116), for we can arrest the tendency to postulate objective, unmediated facts by "looking into the workings of our language" (PI, I, § 109). Moreover, Wittgenstein avoids psychology which involves the mental faculties. Presumably, this puts him at one with die concerted effort of many critics to rid texts of die author and with it the problem of intentionality. At first blush, then, the relation between Wittgenstein and literary criticism appears to be an attractive one. Yet Wittgenstein's antirealism does not militate against his passion for truth, that is, his intense desire to achieve complete understanding in the areas ofphilosophy that vexed him most.3 Nor does it debar him from thinking about the inexpressible realm 263 264Philosophy and Literature of the mystical, since, despite his concern for language, Wittgenstein never ceased being attracted to "things that cannot be put into words" (TLP, 6.522). This is not at all congenial to die purpose ofliterary theory, which admits ofno such shadowy domain beyond words and our linguistic practices. Indeed, I shall illustrate that Wittgenstein's resdess search for truth, spiritual concerns, and the dialectical structure of his works for the most part put him radically at odds with a critical enterprise whose aversion to truth and penchant for rhetorical analysis and conventions blinds it to both his view of literature and his aim in doing philosophy. I Since die advent of the New Criticism, literary theory has in great measure addressed itself to die discourse ramer than the story in texts. With the focus on literature as a rhetorical construct, more traditional humanistic interpretations have been excised. A more recent development of this shift to the discursive side of diings has been the effort to blur the distinction between literature and philosophy.4 With neidier discipline having a privileged status, both have been reduced to a textual discourse with no lines ofdemarcation, a reduction diat is at variance with Wittgenstein on two counts. First, he compartmentalized literature and philosophy as having distinct purposes: the literary works that interested him were stories ofmoral import; philosophy was to be practiced for the sake of clarity in thought. To the extent diat such clarity, if attainable, pointed toward an ethical dimension that lay beyond the bounds of language, literature and philosophy for him did have a common goal; but the paths leading to it were distinct. Second, and more importantly, Wittgenstein had no concern for the discourse of the literature diat he read. Rather, it was the moral import of the stories that attracted him. Most noteworthy on this score were the writings of Tolstoy, who had a profound influence on Wittgenstein's view oflife, and Dostoevsky.5 Wittgenstein often recommended Tolstoy's Twenty-three Tales to his friends, and while a schoolmaster in Lower Austria from 1920 to 1926, he constantly read The Brothers Karamazov, doing so aloud on one occasion in die presence of the village priest. He was especially impressed with Dostoevsky's character the Elder Zossima, "who could see into people's hearts and direct diem" (Rhees... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Embodied Knowledge in Ensemble Performance by J. Murphy McCalebEric C. Melley, D.M.A.J. Murphy McCaleb, Embodied Knowledge in Ensemble Performance (Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2014)J. Murphy McCaleb’s Embodied Knowledge in Ensemble Performance explores how musicians interact and share information while performing, specifically within unconducted chamber ensembles. The book is a direct outgrowth of the author’s doctoral dissertation and follows a similar format. Beginning with a presentation of four essential (...) research questions, McCaleb continues with an overview and justification for his methodology, followed by case studies, conclusions, and foundations for further research. The four questions McCaleb seeks to answer with this volume are: How do musicians interact and share information with each other while performing? What is the nature of the information being shared in ensemble performance? To what extent does the musical content being performed affect the ways it has to be physically created by musicians? How does the physical relationship between the performers and their instruments relate to communicative and interactive processes of ensemble performance? After an explanation of methodology, McCaleb devotes a chapter to each of the four questions. The substantial and excellent review of literature is distributed throughout the comprising six chapters, providing a natural connection between case studies, previous research, and resultant conclusions. While the author suggests the book [End Page 103] has value for both researchers and practitioners, the most prominent result of the discourse provides a new paradigm with which to study ensemble interaction, but contains few practical suggestions for performers, leaning heavily on previous research. McCaleb’s work will most directly benefit other researchers and music education theorists.The volume spans 140 pages, including an index and bibliography, as well as an accompanying DVD. The DVD includes video examples of rehearsals and performances for two ensembles that served as subjects of the research case studies: the Boult String Quartet, the premiere student quartet at the Birmingham Conservatoire (where the author was completing his doctorate), and The Supergroup, an ensemble that performs free group improvisations. The author is himself a member of The Supergroup and serves as “a reflective practitioner, assuming the roles of researcher and musician” (p.16). While his research methodology is pluralistic (though decidedly qualitative in nature), the employment of action research, wherein the “people being studied become part of the knowledge creation process,” is a prominent element in his method (p. 13). This is one area where McCaleb’s perspective is both powerful and open to debate. One of the central and strongest premises of McCaleb’s work is that music is a singular form of procedural knowledge. Because the nature of procedural knowledge at some level defies linguistic translation, the perspective of performing musicians is a critical element to any phenomenological study of musical performance. The author acknowledges that this raises questions of subjectivity and works to incorporate empirical methods such as “observation, interviews, literature review, and case studies” to counter the more subjective methodology (p.15). McCaleb’s multifaceted approach to research is for the most part highly effective, but at times the anecdotal tone of his first-hand descriptions of musical experiences can soften the force of his premise.Based on the concept that music is a form of procedural knowledge, McCaleb posits that communication among ensemble musicians is first and foremost musical. In order to illustrate this, the author explores other common models used to study interaction between musicians. In this review of other research studies, McCaleb is most effective in pointing out the inadequacies of applying other models to musical ensemble interaction. The linguistic model, which seeks to correlate physical gestures with speech patterns, remains inadequate to study communication between instrumental musicians. Previous research investigating the gestural model, while focusing on instrumental music, is preoccupied with emotional content, primarily between performer and audience, and does not approach the question of what and how communication occurs between performing musicians (pp. 27–28). Based on the inadequacies of other research [End Page 104] models, McCaleb seeks to establish a new paradigm of interaction entirely independent of social models and based solely in musical performance (p. 7).This points to an important area of research that McCaleb largely neglects: the neuroscience... (shrink)

This is a broad interdisciplinary and comparative study of the ways in which we discursively 'make' the world and its things. The author goes beyond the 'poetic thinking' of Heidegger toward a more pragmatic way of interpreting concrete social, cultural, and political experience. The author outlines three constitutive functions of world-making. Endowing signifies the direct provision of the 'wherewithal' that must come into being if anything else is to come into being. Enabling develops or facilitates what is endowed. Entitling (...) embraces the realm of justice and decision; it concerns what it is right for human beings to have and do and be. Placing these functions in contemporary contexts, the book offers as an alternative some perspectives of American pragmatism and continental philosophy. The book closely examines the thinking of Hobbes, Descartes, Vico, Calderón, and Jefferson and several literary figures and thinkers. (shrink)

In this book, classicist Joshua Billings considers classical Greek drama as intellectual history. Developing an innovative approach to dramatic form as a mode of philosophical thought, Billings recasts early Greek intellectual history as a conversation across types of discourses and demonstrates the significance of dramatic reflections on widely-shared conceptual questions. He integrates evidence from tragedy, comedy, and satyr play into the development of early Greek philosophy in order to place poetry at the center of Greek thought. He thus offers a (...) substantially new history and map of classical intellectual culture: drama, on his view, appears as our best source for understanding the thought of the fifth century, while at the same time revealing significant tensions and anxieties in the development of philosophy. At the heart of the book is a novel approach to the philosophical qualities of drama. Though dramatists and their works have been considered philosophical in a variety of ways going back to antiquity, scholarly approaches have consistently taken "literature" and "philosophy" as defined categories, tracing more or less direct connections between one and the other. On the contrary, Billings argues that neither "literature" nor "philosophy" were available as stable categories in the fifth century. Rather he describes the way that drama treats issues that would come to be called philosophical, without relying on assumptions concerning what constitutes philosophical method or literary form. Drama develops a kind of method that allows it to pose and pursue conceptual questions in dramatic form which Billings describes as the "philosophical poetics" of drama. (shrink)

Introduction: Laughter as an expression of human nature in the Middle Ages and the early modern period: literary, historical, theological, philosophical, and psychological reflections -- Judith Hagen. Laughter in Procopius's wars -- Livnat Holtzman. "Does God really laugh?": appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology -- Daniel F. Pigg. Laughter in Beowulf: ambiguity, ambivalence, and group identity formation -- Mark Burde. The parodia sacra problem and medieval comic studies -- Olga V. Trokhimenko. Women's laughter and gender politics (...) in medieval conduct discourse -- Madelon Köhler-Busch. Pushing decorum: uneasy laughter in Heinrich von Dem Türlîn's Diu crône -- Connie L. Scarborough. Laughter and the comic in a religious text -- John Sewell. The son rebelled and so the father made man alone: ridicule and boundary maintenance in The Nizzahon vetus -- Birgit Wiedl. Laughing at the beast: the judensau: anti-Jewish propaganda and humor from the Middle Ages to the early modern period -- Fabian Alfie. Yes . . . but was it funny? Cecco Angiolieri, Rustico Filippi and Giovanni Boccaccio -- Nicolino Applauso. Curses and laughter in medieval Italian comic poetry -- Feargal Béarra. Tromdhámh guaire: a context for laughter and audience in early modern Ireland -- Jean E. Jost. Humorous transgression in the non-conformist fabliaux: a Bakhtinian analysis of three comic tales -- Gretchen Mieszkowski. Chaucerian comedy: Troilus and Criseyde -- Sarah Gordon. Laughing and eating in the fabliaux -- Christine Bousquet-Labouérie. Laughter and medieval stalls -- Scott L. Taylor. Esoteric humor and the incommensurability of laughter -- Jean N. Goodrich. The function of laughter in The second shepherds' play -- Albrecht Classen. Laughing in late-medieval verse and prose narratives -- Rosa Alvarez perez. The workings of desire: Panurge and the dogs -- Elizabeth Chesney Zegura. Laughing out loud in the Heptaméron: a reassessment of Marguerite de Navarre's ambivalent humor -- Lia B. Ross. You had to be there: the elusive humor of the Sottie -- Kyle Diroberto. Sacred parody in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of wit -- Martha Moffitt Peacock. The comedy of the shrew: theorizing humor in early modern Netherlandish art -- Jessica Tvordi. The comic personas of Milton's Prolusion VI: negotiating masculine identity through self-directed humor -- John Alexander. Ridentum dicere verum (using laughter to speak the truth): laughter and the language of the early modern clown "pickelhering" in German literature of the late seventeenth century (1675-1700) -- Thomas Willard. Andreae's ludibrium: Menippean satire in The chymische hochzeit -- Diane Rudall. The comic power of illusion-allusion -- Allison P. Coudert. Laughing at credulity and superstition in the long eighteenth century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music, Education, and Religion: Intersections and Entanglements ed. by Alexis Kallio, Philip Alperson and Heidi WesterlundWilliam M. PerrineAlexis Kallio, Philip Alperson, and Heidi Westerlund, eds., Music, Education, and Religion: Intersections and Entanglements (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019)It is perhaps something of a truism–or at least a stereotype containing a grain of truth–that most academics, particularly in the United States, are notoriously bad when it comes to a (...) scholarly discussion of religion. In scholarship on education, this results in unfortunate omissions within debates regarding the philosophical aims of curriculum. Religion, after all, is an inescapable part of everyday life for billions of human beings around the globe. To ignore religion is to ignore an important part of the human experience. Part of the problem in discussing religion is undoubtedly the conventions of academic discourse itself. To qualify as “research,” academic writing has generally been expected to place a degree of distance between the author and the content matter at hand. In the case of religion, this has involved a state of remove to an ostensibly neutral vantage point, typically a perspective grounded in a philosophical naturalism. This tendency is compounded by the pressure, particularly acute within secular institutions, to compartmentalize religious belief as a private matter that should not overtly inform one’s public professional practice. Thus, while a researcher in music or music education might have an active religious life in private, an open [End Page 117] integration of personal faith and teaching practice might be considered extraordinarily unprofessional—at least if the faith in question is socially déclassé. The obvious problem inherent in this framework for understanding the relationship between religion and professional life is that, particularly when it comes to questions of philosophy, religious faith is rarely a strictly personal matter. As Charles Taylor notes, religious faith as a lived human practice traditionally involves strong evaluations: determinations of right and wrong that supersede personal choice or preference.1 These evaluations often take the form of hypergoods, positions by which moral or truth claims must be weighed. Strong evaluations and hyper-goods by nature cannot be limited to the personal; they inform all areas of our intellectual, social, and professional lives. Such commitments tend to inform and precede other philosophical commitments, rather than vice versa. Pressure to minimize the importance of hypergoods can be a profound source of frustration for religious believers within the secular academy, particularly as the assumption that deep religious commitment is incompatible with a spirit of critical inquiry runs very deep. When the academic literature touches on matters of religious concern, either directly or indirectly, it seems to either minimize the complexity or concerns of traditional religious belief as lived experience, or privilege progressive forms of religious practice. At worst, academic discourse on religion is condescending, often coupled with class-based and socio-geographic prejudice against particular religious groups and beliefs.With this framework in mind, I approached Music, Education, and Religion: Intersections and Entanglements with a degree of apprehension. Fortunately, editors Alexis Kallio, Philip Alperson, and Heidi Westerlund have put together an impressive volume that treats the complex relationship between music education and religious practice with the respect and sensitivity that the topic deserves. As the editors note in their introduction, music as a human practice cannot be artificially separated from religious beliefs. These domains are, as the volume’s subtitle makes clear, entangled through a multiplicity of intersections. The book itself consists of eighteen essays representing a wide array of viewpoints, case studies, and contextualized problems from around the world. The diversity of topics prohibits drawing any generalizable conclusions beyond the obvious observation that interaction with religion presents entanglements that cannot be ignored under an artificial banner of secular neutrality. As the first edited collection of essays in our discipline to tackle these problems in a substantive manner, however, the book is unquestionably successful in opening a space for critical discussion. With this in mind, rather than attempting to summarize each of the included chapters within this review, I will instead attempt to engage in conversation with some of the themes that emerge from the book from my own vantage point as a scholar... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments THE RHETORICAL CASE AGAINST A THEORY OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE by Mark Kipperman In the last twenty years or so, attacks on naive realist theories of science —from the historicism of Kuhn to the outright anarchism of Feyerabend — have encouraged a perhaps equally simplistic notion of science as mere model-making, a metaphoric discourse analogous to poetry. From another direction, liberal defenders of science (...) as a liberal art, like Jacob Bronowski, would subsume both science and poetry under what we might call "liberal discourse in general," the unrestricted, trudiseeking, world-building acts of human imagination. But all such attempts —relativist, historicist, or liberal truth-seeker — to "reconcile" literature and science misunderstand both the meaning of metaphor and the meaning of truth in the humanities. If we are truly to value, understand, and preserve the uniqueness of literary discourse, we must argue that science and literature not only cannot be "reconciled" but also that they must not be. Despite my title, I intend to argue not that a theory of literature and science is impossible, but mat any theory that attempts to show that both activities can be significantly unified in a larger historical or linguistic structure will miss the point of their incompatibility as human activities. A study of literature and science should display not their theoretical unity but their rhetorical diversity, where rhetoric is understood as die study of language's purposiveness in respect to human action, language's purposiveness in persuading its audience to see and to build this kind ofworld rather than that one. While both literature and science may both use 76 Mark Kipperman77 metaphor and share similar linguistic structures, die rhetorical directions of the two activities are not only different, they are opposed. To construct a theory, as Heidegger points out in his essay "Science and Reflection," means to step back, as is implied by the etymology of the Greek théôrein, to behold the appearance from the outside; and in our world to theorize is to behold as an object, as science does.1 Theories of literature and science that invoke linguistics or historiography may well show — indeed, precisely because the standpoint of theory is adopted, probably will show — that science's own linguistic structure looks very much like literature's. But here, having adopted die dieoretical standpoint, we are already acting as scientists, treating both science and literature as objects of observation. If we act as rhetoricians, we stand inside the scientific or literary arguments and ask what their language is trying to persuade us of, and what their activities are trying to do. After the work of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Mary Hesse, it would be difficult to deny that science, from the point of view of epistemology or historiography, creates like art a series ofhistorically evolving metaphors, models, redefinitions. And, ofcourse, I do not deny the utility ofa literary critical language that on its side shares the historiographie or analytic subtlety of a science. But if the question is a dieory not of science and criticism, but of science and belles lettres, I believe a note of caution is called for. The worlds created by scientific and literary languages are so different that their common use of metaphor is less significant than the divergence of their aims and results. Even Kuhn has warned against applying his historiographie theory of science to the arts in the face of their diverse sociological, educational, and "normal" practical activity.2 Briefly, the aim ofscientific rhetoric is to persuade us that it reflects only a world ofobjects; die aim of literature is to persuade us that it reflects a world of human speech, representations, actions. The aim ofliterary argument is to reveal truth within this public sphere. Science's language of lawfulness argues that it is pre-Adamic, repeating but not distorting nature as physis— in Aristotle's words, nature as things that come into being through "necessity" or that "have their origin in themselves." Literary language takes its place among human artifacts that come into being through deliberation, argument, production, or action, and so belongs to the historical manifestation of nature and human nature in which it originates.3 But does not science... (shrink)

Recently, scientific and popular press articles have begun to represent sex as a health-promoting activity. A number of scientific studies have identified possible health benefits of sexual activity, including increased lifespan and decreased risk of certain types of cancers. These scientific findings have been widely reported on in the popular press. This "sex for health" discourse claims that sexual activity leads to quantifiable physical and mental health benefits in areas not directly related to sexuality. Analyzing this discourse provides (...) an opportunity to better understand both broader health promotion discourses and current norms and anxieties about sexuality. In this article, I place this "sex for health" discourse within the context of broader health promotion discourses and within the context of a number of historical and contemporary discourses connecting health and sexuality. I argue that although the "sex for health" discourse may serve to de-stigmatize sexual activity for some, it may also increase pressure on others to be sexually active and may further pathologize sexual "dysfunction." In addition, these representations often serve to further privilege a normative form of sexual behavior - coitus in the context of a monogamous heterosexual partnership - at the expense of non-normative sexual desires, identities, and practices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ovid’s Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the MetamorphosesMargaret Worsham MusgroveK. Sara Myers. Ovid’s Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. xvi + 206 pp. Cloth, $32.50.This book takes seriously Ovid’s claim in the proem of the Metamorphoses that his work will encompass the entire universe. Ovid’s primaque ab origine mundi (1.3) must be read as a statement of thematic, not merely (...) chronological scope. “The origin of the world” will continue as a central concern throughout the poem. Myers reads the cosmogony of Book 1 as a continuation of the programmatic statement of the proem: Ovid is allying himself with the tradition of natural-philosophical poetry, as originated by Hesiod and adapted to Hellenistic standards by Apollonius and Vergil. The theme of cosmogony does not merely “frame” the poem, and does not surface only in the explicit creation stories of Book 1 and the didactic discourse of Pythagoras in 15, but instead pervades the entire work. Aetiological stories, as explanations of where individual phenomena come from, continue the scientific theme displayed in the opening cosmogony. The whole Metamorphoses can thus be read as an exploration of the type of poetry which investigates origins of everything, from the universe to natural features to cultural institutions. We should credit Myers with elucidating this cosmogony-aetiology link, which breaks us free of narrow, literal categories, and allows us to see the similar poetic aims of these two literary devices. Her introductory chapter, exploring “The Generic Question” of the Metamorphoses and of post-Callimachean literature in general, points out how recent Latin scholarship has already begun to blur some of those long-unquestioned black-and-white distinctions between genres.At the same time, Myers acknowledges the clash between science (or natural philosophy) and myth. Ovid uses “scientific” language, often in the form of Lucretian allusions, to recount fantastic mythological tales of creatures whose very existence would be questioned by the philosophers. Chapter 1 examines metamorphosis stories which involve natural phenomena, such as the cosmos itself, various animals, etc. Metamorphosis is seen and narrated as a kind of scientific process; hence Ovid’s detailed descriptions of the moment of transformation. [End Page 338] But by calling attention to the incongruity of his subject and his language, Ovid questions the authority of cosmogony to validate myth and of myth to convey the truth.The remainder of Myers’ book focuses on the way in which Ovid unmasks the devices used in aetiological poetry’s claim to a voice of authority. Chapter 2 examines the Alexandrian affiliations of aetiological stories explaining the origins of cultural or religious institutions. This chapter follows something of the approach of P. Knox in the studious attempt to look at the elegiac, unepic features of Ovid’s narrative. Myers investigates the language used to mark a story as an aetion: words such as causa, origo, novus, and unde. Partially through comparison with Ovid’s technique in Fasti (a consistently aetiological, didactic poem) and through examination of the fragments of Callimachus, she also points out certain narrative techniques as characteristic of aetiology. The embedded narrative, related by a supposedly authoritative informant, is revealed as part of the modus operandi of didactic and aetiological poetry.This chapter is perhaps Myers’ most valuable contribution, because it gives us a rationale for some of the seemingly odd features of Ovid’s narrative. One example: why, at Met. 4.772–89, are Perseus’ most famous adventures reported only in indirect statement? Variatio for its own sake is not an adequate answer. Genre would seem to be part of the explanation: battles with monsters belong in epic, a genre which Ovid eschews, at least for the moment. But beyond that negative explanation, Myers suggests a positive one. After the indirect report, someone asks Perseus for an aetiological story: why Medusa had snakes in her hair. His answer in direct speech displays several of the linguistic features which Myers has identified as characteristic of aetia. Thus, Ovid depicts Perseus not so much at a Homeric banquet, with stories of battles and conquests, but at a Callimachean one, with learned exchanges of aetiological myths (cf... (shrink)

Diskurso analitinis požiūris propagandos tyrime gali padėti ne tik ištirti propagandos turinį, žodyną, bet ir jo kūrimo kontekstą, kurio analizė tampa vis svarbesnė, plėtojantis sunkiau atpažįstamoms propagandos formoms. Šiame straipsnyje, taikant pusiau sisteminę literatūros apžvalgą ir dedukcinę teminę analizę, nagrinėjama, kaip jungiant propagandos ir diskurso terminus suvokiama propaganda bei kokiose tyrimų tematikose, interpretaciniuose kontekstuose ir kokius metodus pasitelkiant naudojama tokia jungtis. Į apžvalgą įtraukti anglų kalba 2012–2021 m. publikuoti mokslo darbai, kurių pavadinimuose minimi propagandos, diskurso ar propagandinio diskurso terminai. Tyrimo (...) rezultatai rodo, kad propagandos analizei pasitelkdami diskurso analitinį požiūrį, tyrėjai propagandą daugeliu atveju suvokia kaip neigiamą reiškinį, todėl jos analizei dažniausiai pasitelkia kritinę diskurso analizę. Propagandos ir diskurso terminų jungtis moksliniuose tyrimuose naudojama vis dažniau ir yra ypač būdinga visuomenę poliarizuojančių propagandinių pranešimų analizei. Tačiau moksliniuose darbuose propagandos ir diskurso terminų jungtis ne visada išplėtojama tinkamai. (shrink)

In traditional and popular accounts, Zen Buddhism is depicted as a practice that rejects literary study and intellectualization in favor of a direct experience of enlightenment that is beyond words. Indeed, the Zen school has traditionally defined itself as a "separate transmission outside the teachings, not dependent on words and letters". Even when regarding the tradition's literary output, Zen literature is famous for its antinomian dialogues replete with outrageous antics, frequent non sequiturs, and crude, illiterate utterances that appear (...) to validate the perspective that Zen simply rejects logical thinking, rational discourse, literary cultivation, and any systematic means of study. While it is... (shrink)

In terms of classical tafsir literature, it is possible that the speeches made to a person or group in the Qurʾān carry messages for other individuals or groups. According to some approaches that emerged in the modern period, when the speech was made and to whom it was directed not only determine the meaning, but also limits it. This dilemma has to be based on the theoretical dimension. The most obvious example of the transition of the speech from (...) class='Hi'>direct counterpart to the other is the transition of the speeches made to the unbelievers to the believers. Therefore, in this study, the possibility of the transcendence of the speech in the Qurʾān will be handled in the context of the messages for believers in the speeches directed to the unbelievers. One aspect of the issue of the transcendence of the speech in the Qurʾān can be explained by the style that the Qurʾān follows. However, the subject should also be based on linguistic aspects. As a matter of fact, the expansion of the speech can sometimes be related to the meanings of words and sometimes with the possibilities and literary aspects of language, and sometimes with an analytical effort. In this study, the related examples will be analyzed and it will be revealed that the transition between the speeches in the Qurʾān is possible in terms of the style of the Qurʾān. In the study, the methodological findings related to the linguistic aspects of the issue will also be studied.Summary: The discourse that the Qurʾān is an address by God makes different associations in terms of classical literature and some modern methods of understanding. In the works of classical method and rhetoric, a theoretical framework is drawn around the nature, arbitrariness, conditions and types of the book. In this context, the varieties, indications and scopes of the addresses in the Qurʾān are discussed. While it is emphasized that the Qurʾān is an address in modernist contextualist approaches, it is stated that understanding the address requires having contextual information, therefore reading the address as a book evaporates meaning. Because, according to these approaches, the meaning is sought in the text with the transformation of address to book (verbal culture to written culture), thus the Qurʾān is converted from a literal meaning into a system. Knowing what the Qurʾān tells and why it tells that, depends on the comprehension of all the contextual elements of the Qurʾān, which was sent as an address. In fact, knowledge of when, where and when the Qurʾān was sent about what events and to whom it is addressed, is the data that is primarily considered in the comprehension of the verses, as emphasized by the classical interpretation literature. However, the perception of the classical interpretation evaluates these data in different categories in terms of the integrity of religion, judgment and experience. For example, the narrations on the reason of sending and the Makki-Madani information are only examples of the meanings of the verses. They sometimes serve as elements that contribute to the comprehension of the verses, while sometimes with the help of other chapters they can narrow the meanings of the verses. The realist-methodological basis of the method science provides the emergence of this holistic-categorical perspective.It is difficult to justify the claim that there is an absolute relationship between the address and the addressee in terms of the classical literature. In the classical literature, the expressions, which come in the form of an address and have a mandatory relationship with addressees, are dealt with the concept of direct address. Direct addresses are binding for the first addressees. Because when an address is mentioned, it is mandatory to have an addressee. It can be assumed that this discourse has the same position with the context theories considering its premises. However, it is not possible to compare these theories with each other in terms of the scope of the address. Classical theories of reasoning consider that direct addresses cover indirect addressees by methods, such as shar’i (legal) necessity or analogy (qiyas), while contextualists and historians can convert the text beyond the virtual level by identifying what a command means within the context of the address-addressee relationship. When the Qurʾān is completely considered as an address, or when direct addresses are taken into consideration, it is very difficult for the modern period's comprehension methods that the verses, which mention or address the disbelievers-polytheists, can also address Muslims. In fact, the dialectic of the address-addressee requires this. Moreover, the addressees (polytheists-Muslims) who are spoken within the context of the verses have two different beliefs that cannot be dealt with at the same time and mentioned in the same verse. Therefore, it is not possible to direct the messages given to the polytheists to the believers and to attribute the qualities in these verses to Muslims.However, the classical literature did not even consider as a problem to address Muslims with the verses that directly addressing unbelievers-polytheists. It is because both linguistics and facts requires this. The method practitioners and interpreters discussed this issue in a very wide range. They examined the transitivity of the book between parties, such as people of the book-Muslims, Muslims-unbelievers, Prophet-ummah. In the context of the interpretation literature and the perception of modern-day interpretation, the possibility of the transitivity of the book can be clarified in the context of the inclusiveness of a verse that speaks of polytheists-disbelievers to include Muslims, or the conversion of an address to polytheists-unbelievers to Muslims. Classical literature explains this point sometimes with the literal indication (circularization) and the circumstance of literary use of language (rhetoric) and sometimes with the possibility of the address (stylistic features).In verses and hadiths, belief bases categorical classes, such as believers, unbelievers, polytheists, hypocrites, people of the book are mentioned, as well as descriptions of the characteristic-practical dimensions of these classes. In this context, commands sometimes refer to the practices that need to be performed in order to be a believer, sometimes works that must not be performed by the believer, and sometimes matters that might put the believer's faith-practice integrity at risk when it is done. In the Qurʾān, in some of the addresses to the believers, it is apparent that they are prohibited from being like unbelievers or having unbeliever-like qualities. Moreover, sometimes negative results that may arise for Muslims when they act like unbelievers are cited in the verses. Sometimes at the end of the verses that address and mention Muslims, information is included on situations involving unbelievers and the torment they will encounter. In addition, in cases where adjectives belonging to opposing belief profiles are mentioned, the address to non-Muslims expresses warning, evaluation, gratitude and perseverance in faith for Muslims, while the address to Muslims contains elements of incentive and opportunity for non-Muslim groups. It is possible to justify this matter with the style of the Qurʾān. However, it can be said that the transitivity of the address in the Qurʾān takes place in two theoretical aspects. The first of these is related to linguistic-rhetoric premises and it is used in antithesis, allusion, metaphor etc. The second one is the similitude-comparison. Here, the comparison is a phenomenon that occurs in the mind without the need for propositions. Because when the mind hears these statements, it can instantly reach a stronger meaning than the literal wording. In this study, it is discussed whether it is possible to transition from direct addresses to indirect addressees, with reference to the problems of the modern period. In this context, the study primarily focuses on the fact that the Qurʾān sometimes transmits its messages and teachings to addressees through opposing belief systems. Thus, the manner adopted by the Qurʾān while directing certain commands and negations, not directly but through the opposing side, has been presented. In this study, the possibility of the verses that only mentions polytheists-unbelievers to also addressing Muslims was analyzed and these verses were compared with addresses to Muslims on the same matters. In the last part of the study, a theoretical framework was drawn on the subject and the method of interdisciplinary transitivity was determined. (shrink)

The article analyzes literature addressing the problem of reality in modern anti-realist theories. The purpose of the review is to expand the circle of researchers, including not only representatives of analytical philosophy, but also those of the phenomenological tradition, since the principle of phenomenological reduction corresponds to the general conceptual attitude of anti-realists, and in methodological terms, phenomenology more consistently implements the program of anti-realism. The principle of anti-realist philosophy is shown as exemplified in solutions of the “difficult problem (...) of consciousness” within analytical philosophy and also in the development of a phenomenological attitude. Such a combination of two, by far the most respectable, philosophical schools makes it possible to more accurately determine the contribution of theorists of both directions to the theory of reality, to identify problematic nodes, internal disagreements and points of intersection of the ideas of phenomenologists and representatives of analytical philosophy in understanding the nature of reality. The works of modern researchers of the problems of reality R. Berghofer, V. Vasyukov, Ya. Ishihara, V. Ladov, L. Makeeva, R. Pils, A. Fursov, D. Chalmers and many others, as well as the works of E. Husserl, W. Quine, H. Putnam’s works, which have become philosophical classics, allow us to clarify the ideas about reality that have developed in the anti-realist discourse from different sides. New studies of the principle of phenomenological reduction by Yu. Himanka and the origins of the formation of phenomenological philosophy by N.V. Motroshilova make it possible to clarify the contribution of phenomenologists to the anti-realist tradition. (shrink)

First published in 1992, this book evokes Pandora and Occam as metaphoric corner posts in an argument about language as discourse and in doing so, brings analytic philosophy to bear on issues of Continental philosophy, with attention to linguistic, semiological, and semiotic concerns. Instead of regarding meanings as guaranteed by definitions, the author argues that linguistic expressions are schemata directing us more or less loosely toward the activation of nonlinguistic sign systems. Ruthrof draws up a heuristic hierarchy of discourses, (...) with literary expression at the top, descending through communication-reduced reference and speech acts to formal logic and digital communication at the bottom. The book offers multiple perspectives from which to review traditional theories of meaning, working from a wide variety of theorists, including Peirce, Frege, Husserl, Derrida, Lyotard, Davidson, and Searle. In Ruthrof's analysis, Pandora and Occam illustrate the opposition between the suppressed rich materiality of culturally saturated discourse and the stark ideality of formal sign systems. This book will be of interest to those studying linguistics, literature and philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 410-411 [Access article in PDF] S. P. Ward. Penology and Eschatology in Plato's Myths. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. Pp. v + 295. Cloth, $99.95.In this work the author begins by asking himself the following question: What is an eschatological myth? The adjective "eschatological" indicates that the discourse it qualifies is concerned with the last things; that is, death (...) and the judgment of souls that follows it. Hence, the relation that may be established between eschatology understood in this sense and penology, which refers to the punishments the soul undergoes at the end of its earthly existence. As far as the meaning of 'myth' is concerned, the author, influenced by G. S. Kirk (The Nature of Greek Myths [Penguin, 1974]), adopts a relativist position. He does not think it possible to give a general definition; therefore, he limits himself to pointing out some of the characteristics of this type of discourse, on the basis of passages from the Platonic corpus which are usually considered as myths.Having set his analytical tools in place, the author proposes a commentary on the eschatological myths at the end of the Gorgias (523a-527e), at the end of the Phaedo (107c-115a), at the end of Republic X (614b-621d), in the Phaedrus (246a-249d), in some parts of the Timaeus (42b-d, 91a-92c), and in the Laws (903a-905d). He then examines the relations between penology and eschatology in the dialogues of the first period, the intermediary period, and old age.Although Plato takes his inspiration from traditional myths, those that appear in the dialogues are distinguished from traditional myths by two features: a scientific background, which indicates an influence from the Presocratics; and the role played by elements proper [End Page 410] to the Platonic doctrine. The insertion of considerations of a scientific nature into myths makes them more credible, but is not enough to make them into true discourses. Thus, the question of the relation in Plato between these myths and his philosophical doctrine remains open. Nevertheless, and although it is sometimes difficult to justify particular points in the myths, it is still true that we can note a great deal of coherence between what they recount and the ethical questions developed in the dialogues in which they appear.In spite of this consistency, one observes an evolution in the way these myths are presented. In the Gorgias, the punishments inflicted on the soul by the gods are presented as intended to make the soul better. The idea of reincarnation plays no role here, but it is present in the Phaedo. In this dialogue, however, the question arises of how to harmonize reincarnation with post-mortem punishments which, because of it, no longer seem to be necessary. In the Republic, emphasis is placed instead on the role of individual responsibility in the process of reincarnation. The Phaedrus continues in this direction, but is characterized by its allusions to the theory of intelligible forms. In the Timaeus, by contrast, Plato abandons the theme of a way of life and that of the judgment of souls, for a vision of the process of reincarnation that is integrated, not without difficulty, within a cosmological vision. The Laws continue along this path.This analysis shows that Plato evolved on questions of eschatology and penology, even if he did not radically change his mind. Yet there is one point on which he never varied: even if he did not establish precise frontiers between science and religion, Plato never thought his myths to be true discourses, but he always considered their capacity for ethical edification and their pedagogical value.This work is clear and well structured. It is completed by a bibliography and a general index, is easy to read, and presents a genuine usefulness. One also notes, on the part of the author, a good overall knowledge of the whole of Greek literature, from the origins to the end of Antiquity. Nevertheless, three criticisms may be made: (1) This publication merely reproduces the format... (shrink)

ASHÉ: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic is a collection of interdisciplinary essays contributed by international scholars and practitioners. Having distinguished themselves across such disciplines as Anthropology, Art, Music, Literature, Dance, Philosophy, Religion, and Theology and conjoined to construct a defining approach to the study of Aesthetics throughout the African Diaspora with the Humanities at the core, this collection of essays will break new ground in the study of Black Aesthetics. This book will be of great interest to scholars, practitioners, (...) and students interested in tracing African heritage identities throughout the African Diaspora through close examination of a variety of discourses directly connected to expressive elements of cultural production and religious rituals. (shrink)

In her astute study of contemporary Arab women writers, Anastasia Valassopoulos begins by noting the pitfalls of much existing criticism of writers such as El Saadawi and Djebar in the West. Citing Amal Amireh’s article on the fraught history of the reception of El Saadawi in Egypt and in Europe, Valassopoulos comments that Arab women’s literature tends to be seen as ‘documentary’, and this obscures the ‘core issue of representation’ as it is explored and challenged by women writers. In (...) the face of this omission, the present article explores a selection of works by El Saadawi and Djebar from an aesthetic perspective. El Saadawi and Djebar use literary writing as a means to escape the constraints placed upon them by patriarchy, as well as by colonialism, and uphold creativity and poetry as a possible release from imprisonment. This article also uses Glissant’s and Bhabha’s concepts of literary opacity and the right to narrate as a partial framework for a reading of the relation between writing, freedom and aesthetic form in the works of El Saadawi and Djebar. El Saadawi and Djebar purposefully deploy a form of self-effacement, both in their autobiographical representations and in their portraits of female characters, also akin to Trinh Minh-ha’s strategy in Woman, Native, Other. Minh-ha’s dissemination of the writing voice, and the affirmation of collective solidarity between multiple but internally fragmentary feminist positions, serves, then, as a further theoretical backdrop for El Saadawi’s and Djebar’s use of opacity and the right to narrate as tools in an active feminist resistance to sexist and racist discourses. Both El Saadawi and Djebar use their writing to conceive women’s liberation from various forms of imprisonment, and they figure women’s fractured, convoluted and at times opaque self-expression as a direct form of resistance to both patriarchal and colonial oppression. (shrink)

If the notion of free will is to be retained by philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists, then it will be a free will which is essentially non-conscious. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a conscious free will (in the sense of consciousness initiating action) is incompatible with the evidence of neuroscience, and the phenomenology described in the literature of normal creativity, psychotic passivity, and the neurological syndrome of the alien limb or hand. In particular the work of (...) Libet and others who have directly stimulated the brain and measured activity from its surface leads to the conclusion that subjective states (be they sensory or intentional) are preceded by predictive neural activity. Subjective phenomenology is temporally distinct from the initiation of “voluntary” action. In addition it will be argued that free will is more than a belief and that it comprises a perceptual sensorimotor component. Free will is conceptualized as a three component phenomenon consisting of a perceptual, non-linguistic experience of freedom, an experiential belief which is linguistic, and related to a specified action in time, and an abstract belief which is linguistic but remote from any particular action and akin to philosophical discourse (the abstract belief or otherwise, in free will). A theoretical explanation of some of the pathological phenomenology of possession of action is offered in terms of temporal considerations. The direction of action within mental/virtual space is hypothesized to be a function of the temporal sequence of its initiation and awareness of the latter “reaching” consciousness. It is suggested that perturbation of this temporal sequence may lead to the misattribution of host-as-alien-initiated action. Work of this kind, which is beyond subjective introspection, is necessary if we are to develop adequate models to use in conjunction with modern investigation techniques. (shrink)

Great scholars in philosophy possess a keen analytical mind, excel in logical reasoning, and exhibit meticulous attention to detail. They rigorously define terms, avoiding ambiguities and errors. Originality and the willingness to challenge conventions are their hallmarks. They make significant contributions across various philosophical fields. They transparently address the exact aim of their research, and what it is not. Finally, they anticipate the impact of their theories on the current literature, and how such an impact should blossom across the (...) future generations. In this respect, great philosophers address open problems and propose big questions for the foreseeable research efforts of those who will follow. Mario Alai embodies the qualities of a great scholar in philosophy, and the various essays in this volume are an evidence to that. It is challenging to condense a lifetime of research in one book. However, the Editors of the present volume’s aim was to face this challenge, to make a collection dedicated to Mario Alai’s work not only possible but, as metaphysicians would say, actual. The book attempts to bring together the reflections of three different generations of scholars - i.e., mentors, colleagues, and students - on Alai’s thought. Viewed from this perspective, the extensive and valuable contributions that follow, crafted in honor of Mario Alai and his scholarly endeavors, come as no surprise. All the chapters focus on a theme that was very dear to the philosophical curiosity of Mario Alai. Moreover, in engaging with these different topics, the plethora of contributions gives us a sense of the work by Alai. To make sense of the different contributions as a unified enterprise, this volume is organized into three sections, which seek to gather writings that revolve around Mario’s most substantial contributions, while elucidating their contemporary significance in the global discourse. Moreover, it endeavors to offer precious insights into the origins and development of these contributions, as observed through Mario’s writings and responses. This represents a sort of closure of the theoretical circle, clearly showing how the work by Mario Alai has been appreciated through different generations, originating from his relation to his mentors, on the one hand, while also shedding new light on his students’ research interests, on the other. Editing such a wealth of material was, again, no small feat. Still, the taxonomy we have chosen for this book will assist readers in navigating the profound depths of Alai’s philosophical research. Consequently, the book is structured into the following three parts: 1. Realism in History of Philosophy, History of Science, and Metaphysics. 2. Scientific Realism. 3. Realism in Philosophy of Language, Epistemology, and Experimental Philosophy. Each contribution actively participates in a substantial conversation with Alai’s body of work, as a deep theoretical dialogue between the author and Mario. Consequently, it appeared fitting to let Alai conclude this conversation, with direct responses to these philosophy-provoking pieces in his honor. We shall refrain from further commentary on the works within this book and allow them to express their significance independently to appreciate the river of ideas flowing through Mario’s work1. Beyond their philosophical substance, they are a vivid testament to Alai’s enduring dedication and ongoing contributions, in different moments of his research life. (shrink)

Stakeholder literature tends to presume that effective stakeholder dialogue, occurring directly or indirectly, among a focal firm, local communities, governments, and nongovernmental organizations is desirable for successful firm–stakeholder relationships. Even if theoretically desirable, effective dialogue does not always occur. There are two key theory-informing lessons in Botnia’s Fray Bentos successful green field pulp mill investment and start-up in Western Uruguay. First, critics could not halt the project politically supported by Uruguay in an expanding multi-party international dispute. Second, the Botnia (...) corporate communications process did not succeed in building consensus relationships, and attention was not paid to discourse creating shared meanings among all stakeholders. Participatory relationships were few, and successful dialogue was at best limited to supporters. This article uses discursive analysis to examine how newspaper and press release texts and language used therein both shaped and reflected the dynamically changing nature of firm–stakeholder relations in the Fray Bentos dispute. Despite the focal firm’s professed good intentions to create participatory relationships with its stakeholders during the building project, various stakeholders opposed the project and Botnia was caught in the crossfire of heated debate between Uruguay and Argentina. Three different frames changing over time are identified: the investment frame, the conflict frame, and the political frame. The analysis shows that the relationships between the focal firm and stakeholders involved many meanings only partly shared, due in part to a lack of corporate appreciation for the role of language in managing firm–stakeholder relationships. (shrink)

: Hisbah is the most important institution in a society and nation.Enforcement parties are those who are directly involved in executing this. Incarrying out their duties, they bear heavy responsibility because it involvesthe rights of Allah and the rights of human. Hisbah implies theimplementation of al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf when it is clear thatit is abandoned, and wa-n-nahy ʿani-l-munkar when itis clear that it is done. This study is based on the concept of Hisbah in SharīʿahLaw which is of a general and (...) widespread aspect of enjoining good andpreventing evil. Literature reviews and library searches have been conductedintensively to clarify the principles of hisbah. Additionally, descriptiveand content analysis of textual content was done on the provisions of lawsand regulations as well as guidelines on the prevention of sharīʿah crimeparameters in Malaysia. In general, our country has implemented the conceptof hisbah in its own form without the branding of an institution specifically as“the institution of hisbah”. The roles and functions of hisbah are given to theSharīʿah Enforcement Division, Islamic Religious Department in the states. (shrink)

George Pattison provides a bold and innovative reassessment of Kierkegaard's neglected Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and reading of his work as a whole. The first full length assessment of the discourses in English, this volume will be essential reading for philosophers and theologians, and anyone interested in Kierkegaard and the history of philosophy.

“Any writer worth his salt knows that what cannot be spoken is ultimately the thing worth speaking about; yet most often this humbling awareness is unsaid or covered up. There are some who have made it their business, however, to court failure and acknowledge defeat, to explore the impasse of words before silence. William Franke has created an anthology of such explorations, undertaken in poetry and prose, that stretches from Plato to the present. Whether the subject of discourse is (...) All or Nothing does not matter: the struggle of speech to name the unnameable is the same. This ambitious two-volume undertaking demonstrates a preoccupation as old as Western civilization itself: the limits of language and the virtue of being at a loss for words. How long we have been raiding the Inarticulate!” —Peter S. Hawkins, Boston University “Developments in critical theory during the past two decades have led to renewed interest in negative theology. Books like _Languages of the Unsayable_, _Negation and Theology_, _Derrida and Negative Theology _, and _The Otherness of God _ have signaled the resurgence of this ancient tradition. William Franke’s distinctive contribution is to provide the background and texts from which these recent developments have emerged.” —Mark Taylor, Williams College Apophasis has become a major topic in the humanities, particularly in philosophy, religion, and literature. This monumental two-volume anthology gathers together most of the important historical works on apophaticism and illustrates the diverse trajectories of apophatic discourse in ancient, modern, and postmodern times. William Franke provides a major introductory essay on apophaticism at the beginning of each volume, and shorter introductions to each anthology selection. The second volume, _Modern and Contemporary Transformations_, contains texts by Hölderlin, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Dickinson, Rilke, Kafka, Rosenzweig, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Weil, Schoenberg, Adorno, Beckett, Celan, Levinas, Derrida, Marion, and more. (shrink)

There is an analogy between Timaeus's act of describing a world in words and the demiurge's task of making a world of matter. This analogy implies a parallel between language as a system of reproducing ideas in words, and the world, which reproduces reality in particular things. Authority lies in the creation of a likeness in words of the eternal Forms. The Forms serve as paradigms both for the physical world created by the demiurge, and for the world in (...) class='Hi'>discourse created by Timaeus: his discourse gains its validity not from faithfulness to the way things appear, or the way particular things 'actually happened', but in virtue of its attempt to express in words a likeness of the perfect and eternal reality. There are implications for Plato's philosophy of language, and for the relation between words and things (words do not depict or name things but can be used to construct worlds in a parallel way to the manner in which things construct worlds, both worlds being modelled on one common world of ideas). The match between world and discourse is because of their common pictorial relation (likeness) to an independent model. (shrink)

Research on an expert system regarding unemployment insurance law has pointed to the difficulties of explicitly representing temporal relations. The question has been addressed in the artificial intelligence literature with respect to planning systems and linguistic analysis. The approaches adopted do not appear to be directly transposable to legal discourse. The problem seems so far to have escaped notice amongst researchers attempting to develop legal expert systems. The paper explores in a preliminary way how lawyers use temporal concepts. (...) It is submitted that “legal time” only partly overlaps with real time. A sketch of a formalization of temporal relations in law, following J. F. Allen's approach, is presented. (shrink)