Everyone thinks they know who Prince Zuko is and can be. His father, Fire Lord Ozai, and sister, Azula, think him weak, disobedient, and undeserving of the crown. His Uncle Iroh thinks him good, if troubled, but ultimately worthy of his faith. The kids initially think him a villain, but eventually come to see him as a person – neither monster nor saint – someone who can choose to go in a new way. Zuko himself shows great (...) ambivalence between these conflicting stories about who he is, though each one helps to craft his own self-understanding. In this paper, we apply Hilde Lindemann’s narrative account of the self to explore the ways that others “hold” Zuko in one identity or “let him go” from others. According to Lindemann, our personal identities consist of the first- and third-person stories that cluster around significant acts, relationships, and commitments in our lives. Our identities are fundamentally relational, formed by the interaction between our own self-conception and the ways in which others see us. As such, others’ stories can enable or prevent us from imaginatively projecting ourselves into a particular future. This can lead us to becoming trapped in our identities; without the possibility of being perceived differently by others, we might find ourselves unable to try different ways of being or acting. The converse is also true, in that others can open up new possible identities by seeing things in us that we have trouble seeing in ourselves. If others in our moral community see us as wicked, beyond redemption and unable to repair our wrongs, we are held in the role of the villain and might come to live into that role without question. Zuko’s story is a perfect illustration of Jean Harvey’s reminder that, “it is just not true that once a thief, always a thief” and that agents can choose to go in a new way, can choose to change. How does Zuko change? We argue that Zuko’s redemption is enabled by those in his moral community holding him in identities in which he is a good person, capable and deserving of care, friendship, and love. While the identity he has in relation to his father and sister closes down many possible futures, his uncle Iroh in particular persists in holding him in an identity in which he is loved and worthy of love. And in doing so - in holding this space for him - Iroh opens up a way for Zuko to exercise agency and choose to become a different kind of person than the one he thought he was destined to be. (shrink)

Book Three of Avatar: The Last Airbender portrays Uncle Iroh as wise and peace‐loving, in the mold of a Daoist sage. This chapter argues that Iroh's Book One foolishness is a pose, and Iroh's character does not fundamentally change. In Book One, he is wisely following strategies suggested by the ancient Chinese Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi for dealing with incompetent leaders. His seeming foolishness in Book One is in fact a sagacious strategy for minimizing the harm that Prince Zuko (...) would otherwise inflict on himself and others a gentle touch that more effectively helps Prince Zuko find wisdom than would be possible with a more confrontational approach. To understand Iroh's wisdom, it is useful to look to the ancient Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, specifically his advice for dealing with incompetent rulers by following peacefully along with them, unthreateningly modeling disregard for fame and accomplishment while not being too useful for their ends. (shrink)

Zuko's plight illuminates the process of aspiration, including common challenges to the aspirant. The arc of Zuko's transformation illustrates the interplay between two dimensions of practical identity. The way Zuko says, “I'm good now” and “I'm not that person anymore,”suggests that he thought that by standing up to his father and changing his explicit commitments, he had already achieved the desired change. Through much of Books Two and Three, Zuko is negotiating the relationship between an evolving (...) self‐conception and a changing, but recalcitrant being‐in‐the‐world. He starts with a conscious self‐conception of a banished prince single‐mindedly focused on capturing the Avatar in order to gain his father's acceptance and restore his “honor.” Zuko is becoming good at being good: not just thinking of himself as changed or better, but seeing the world differently and responding accordingly. (shrink)

In her chapter “Duress and Moral Progress”, Seana Shiffrin offers a novel perspective on coerced promises. According to the dominant view, these promises confer no right to performance on the coercer and do not create new reasons for the victim. Shiffrin accepts that these promises fail to confer rights, but disagrees that they never alter the victim’s moral profile. She argues that they do at least where promises are ‘initiated’ by the victim, rather than ‘dictated’ by the coercer. The initiation (...) of a promise, albeit in far from ideal circumstances, opens the door, Shiffrin claims, to valuable opportunities for moral progress. In this response, I argue that Shiffrin makes a misstep by not rejecting the dominant view altogether. I suggest that the older Hobbesian picture, according to which coerced promises do confer rights, is supported by our moral and legal practices. Furthermore, it makes moral progress more likely. (shrink)

Didache 1:4b – ἐὰν λάβῃ τίς ἀπὸ σοῦ τὸ σόν, μὴ ἀπαἱτει, οὐδὲ γὰρ δύνασαι [if anyone takes something from you that is yours, do not ask it back, because you should not or would not be able to] – is discussed in this article as problematic to the present mindset of the Nigerian church, especially as frontal attacks and premeditated persecutions from rival religions daily threaten to exterminate the Christian faith in Nigeria. This article argues that the Christians in (...) Nigeria unwittingly interpreted this first-century document and wrongly so because this interpretation has metamorphosed into an ideology. The article suggests a sharp measure against this ideology. Contribution: The church in Nigeria is controlled in their attitude towards self-defense by the text of Didache 1:4b. This article’s contribution is a reexamination of the text in comparison to its parallel in the synoptic texts to assert that the synoptic texts, instead of Didache 1:4b, suggests non-violent self-defense. (shrink)

Paul uses the word ἑνότης twice in Ephesians, and quite strangely, those are the only two places where the feminine noun features in the whole of the New Testament. In the two passages where they appear, they both relate to invisible unity, the unity of the Spirit that produces a common faith and knowledge of the Son of God – εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Such unity suggests that ecumenism amongst Christian denominations is (...) not only a possibility, it is also a necessity as far as we all profess one Christ. This unity is however far from ecclesiological unionism. Considering that the church appears weak from the outside when its diverse lines of doctrine, sacraments and ministerial ethics are emphasised. This suggests that a reasonable antidote would be the emphasis on the philosophy of unity amidst our diversity especially to the hearing of non-Christians.Contribution: This study makes firm the belief that Christianity is formed on divergent traditions that produced various strands of practices, which in turn produce different Christian sects and denominations, and a reverse is not possible. It then suggests a bonding in faith through the invisibility of henotic unity, which the pericope suggests. This will help the church to amass a stronger defence politically and structurally against rival religions and social organisations even in the midst of doctrinal differences. (shrink)

Many languages have past-and-counterfactuality markers such as English simple past. There have been various attempts to find a common definition for both uses, but I will argue in this paper that they all have problems with ruling out unacceptable interpretations, or accounting for the contrary-to-fact implicature of counterfactual conditionals, or predicting the observed cross-linguistic variation, or a combination thereof. By combining insights from two basic lines of reasoning, I will propose a simple and transparent approach that solves all the observed (...) problems and offers a new understanding of the concept of counterfactuality. (shrink)

Between 1869 and 1879, the communal Christian group the Oneida Community undertook a pioneering eugenics experiment called “stirpiculture” in upstate New York. Stirpiculture resulted in the planned conception, birth, and communal rearing of fifty-eight children, bred from selected members of the Oneida Community. This article concerns how the Oneida Community's unique approach to religion and science provided the framework for the creation, process, and eventual dissolution of the stirpiculture experiment. The work seeks to expand current understanding of the early history (...) of eugenics in the United States by placing its practice more than two decades earlier than is generally considered. Additionally, this article situates the Community's leader John Humphrey Noyes as an early eugenics and social scientific thinker. Finally, the treatment provides a case study for the transitional period in mid to late nineteenth century America whereby scientific modes of epistemology were accommodated within or supplanted by theological worldviews. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge for many companies and entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, it is a paramount activity which provide valuable insights that affect a wide range of strategic decisions. One of the main challenges in competitor identification lies in the complex nature of the competitive relationships that arise in business envi- ronments. These have been extensively investigate over the years, which lead to a plethora of competition theories and frameworks. Still, the concept of (...) competition remains conceptually complex, as none of these approaches properly formalized their assumptions. In this paper, we address this issue by means of an ontological analysis on the notion of competition in general, and of business competition, in particular, leveraging theories from various fields, including Marketing, Strategic Management, Ecology, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. Our analysis, the first of its kind in the literature, is grounded on the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and allows us to formally characterize why competition arises, as well as to distinguish between three types of business competitive relationships, namely market-level, firm-level and potential competition. (shrink)

L’exercice artistique suppose un rapport au temps spécifique : l’homme s’exerçant à son art répète, reprend, corrige ses gestes. Mais en va-t-il de même concernant la réception des œuvres : la perception du spectateur s’exerce-t-elle par répétition et variation des expériences esthétiques? L’objet de cet article est de montrer qu’il existe un type d’exercice dont le mécanisme repose plutôt sur la déstabilisation des habitudes de perception. À partir des réflexions valéryennes sur l’informe dans l’Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de (...) Vinci et Degas, Danse, Dessin, nous proposons de penser un exercice de la perception qui passe par la décomposition de ses mécanismes. Cette idée trouve sa réalisation dans des dispositifs artistiques labyrinthiques tels que l’exposition Contact d’Olafur Eliasson (Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2014-2015) qui, en perturbant les échelles d’espace et de temps, oblige le récepteur à produire consciemment le travail de cohérence de la synthèse perceptive. (shrink)

L’exercice artistique suppose un rapport au temps spécifique : l’homme s’exerçant à son art répète, reprend, corrige ses gestes. Mais en va-t-il de même concernant la réception des œuvres : la perception du spectateur s’exerce-t-elle par répétition et variation des expériences esthétiques? L’objet de cet article est de montrer qu’il existe un type d’exercice dont le mécanisme repose plutôt sur la déstabilisation des habitudes de perception. À partir des réflexions valéryennes sur l’informe dans l’_Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de (...) Vinci_ et _Degas, Danse, Dessin_, nous proposons de penser un exercice de la perception qui passe par la décomposition de ses mécanismes. Cette idée trouve sa réalisation dans des dispositifs artistiques labyrinthiques tels que l’exposition _Contact_ d’Olafur Eliasson qui, en perturbant les échelles d’espace et de temps, oblige le récepteur à produire consciemment le travail de cohérence de la synthèse perceptive. (shrink)

Antisthenes was famous in antiquity for his studies of Homer's poems, his affiliation with Gorgias and the sophistic movement, his pure Attic writing style, and his inspiration of Diogenes of Sinope, who founded the Cynic philosophical movement. Antisthenes stands at two of the greatest turning points in ancient intellectual history: from pre-Socraticism to Socraticism, and from classical Athens to the Hellenistic period. Antisthenes' works form the path to a better understanding of the intellectual culture of Athens that shaped Plato and (...) laid the foundations for Hellenistic philosophy and literature. Antisthenes of Athens keeps in mind the goals and polemics framing each philosophical and textual discussion. The volume considers the ancient traditions about Antisthenes' rejection of Plato's “Theory of Forms,” his assertion of the paradox, “It is impossible to gainsay,” and his denial that definition of essence is possible, as well as the plausible intentions of Antisthenes. In cases where these questions are not easily settled, and where modern interpretation has varied, Susan H. Prince identifies the roots of the disagreements. The goal and meaning of Antisthenes' other famous ancient paradox, “I would rather go mad than have pleasure,” is illuminated by comparison with other evidence showing that pleasure does have a place in his ideology. Evidence for his relationship to Diogenes of Sinope, and for his receptions by the Cynics, Stoics, Skeptics, Christians, and Neo-Pagans is examined for both its historical value and its distorting tendencies. (shrink)

The rule against penalty clauses in contract law sits uneasily with the promise theory of contract. According to the rule, if contracting parties agree a monetary remedy for breach which is substantially in excess of what would be required to compensate the claimant then that remedy is not enforceable. If contracts enforce promises however one would expect to see these clauses enforced. The rule appears therefore to be an example of a contract doctrine that diverges from promise. Promise theorists tend (...) to respond to divergent doctrines in one of three ways, they either: seek to accommodate these doctrines within the promise principle, or they repudiate them, or finally they justify these doctrines on the basis of the specific legal context within which they operate.I argue that in the case of the penalties rule all of these standard responses would fall short. These responses are inadequate because they are premised on the claim that the promise principle is the only general moral principle relevant to evaluating contract law, or that it has overriding justificatory priority when it conflicts with other moral concerns. I argue that a richer conception of the moral principles that bear on contract and how they interact offers a way forward for justifying the rule. (shrink)

The growing practice of returning individual results to research participants has revealed a variety of interpretations of the multiple and sometimes conflicting duties that researchers may owe to participants. One particularly difficult question is the nature and extent of a researcher’s duty to facilitate a participant’s follow-up clinical care by placing research results in the participant’s medical record. The question is especially difficult in the context of genomic research. Some recent genomic research studies — enrolling patients as participants — boldly (...) address the question with protocols dictating that researchers place research results directly into study participants’ existing medical records, without participant consent. Such privileging of researcher judgment over participant choice may be motivated by a desire to discharge a duty that researchers perceive themselves as owing to participants. However, the underlying ethical, professional, legal, and regulatory duties that would compel or justify this action have not been fully explored. (shrink)

Gérard Genette parle fort peu de questions spatiales dans ses discours sur le récit. Il s’en est justifié en arguant que l’espace narratif constitue une catégorie de contenu plutôt que de forme. Cependant, cet espace s’avère souvent narrativement pertinent pour des raisons qui ne sont pas thématiques et, tout en restant fidèle à Genette, on peut caractériser narratologiquement les potentialités spatiales du récit. Cela suggère que le désintérêt de Genette narratologue pour ce domaine est lié non seulement à un choix (...) d’objet et à des questions de méthode mais aussi à des raisons plus individuelles : si Genette est bien « l’homme de l’espace », il l’est toujours du dehors, loin de tout colmatage et de toute rigidité. (shrink)

MARXISM AND THE PHILOSOPHY, OF LANGUAGE By V.N. Volo?inov translated by Ladislav Matejka & I.R. Titunik Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. 205 pp., $9.95 The contributions of Volo?inov's theories of language are assessed and are contrasted to traditional Marxist philosophy, Saussurean linguistics and more recent developments in transformational grammar and sociolinguistics. Studying connections between language and politics in the 1920s, Volosinov explored the ways social reality enters verbal signs and their usage, anticipating many of the debates within modem linguistics.

Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 in order to remove a perceived barrier to clinical genetic testing. By banning health insurance companies and employers from discriminating against an individual based on his or her genetic information, legislators hoped that patients would be encouraged to seek genetic testing that could improve health outcomes and provide opportunities for preventive measures. Their explicit legislative goal was to fully protect the public from discrimination and allay their concerns about the potential for (...) discrimination, thereby allowing individuals to take advantage of genetic testing, technologies, research, and new therapies.However, GINA left a number of issues unresolved, most notably failing to define the concept of disease manifestation. GINA was structured such that it only provides protection against misuse of genetic information up until the point when an individual's disease has manifested. It protects an individual with a genetic predisposition for a disease, but not an individual actively suffering from that disease. (shrink)

Ethical debates around genetic enhancement tend to include an argument that the technology will eventually be fairly accessible once available. That we can fairly distribute genetic enhancement has become a moral defence of genetic enhancement. Two distribution solutions are argued for, the first being equal distribution. Equality of access is generally believed to be the fairest and most just method of distribution. Second, equitable distribution: providing genetic enhancements to reduce social inequalities. In this paper, I make two claims. I first (...) argue that the very assumption that genetic enhancements can be distributed fairly is problematic when considering our understanding of gene–environment interactions, for example, epigenetics. I then argue that arguments that genetic enhancements are permissible because the intended benefits can be distributed fairly as intended are misinformed. My first claim rests on the assertion that genetic enhancements do not enhance traits in a vacuum; genes are dependent on conducive environments for expression. If society cannot guarantee fair environments, then any benefit conferred from being genetically enhanced will be undermined. Thus, any argument that the distribution of genetic enhancements will be fair and that the technology is therefore morally permissible, is mistaken. (shrink)

English Communication Skills have proved to be an integral skill in employment skills. Students graduating in a wide range of disciplines face a number of difficulties in learning the English language especially when they focus on their areas of specializations. It has become a major issue. With reference to the page no 29 of India Skills Report 2023, the employment ratio of Bachelor of Engineering/Bachelor of Technology and Master of Business Administration was 57.44% and 60.1% respectively and the same was (...) 55.15% and 55.09% in the respective fields in 2022 when Communication Skills were kept at the top (page no 9, India Skills Report 2022) in the list of key skills of Digital Age. English proved to be a game changer in terms of enhancing employability scope (Page 20, 21, 45, 47, 53, 54, 55; India Skills Report 2022) and a number of cities and states performed better with more focus on developing English Communication skills of university students. This study is primarily based on looking into social and affective factors affecting English language acquisition skills. It is absolutely relevant to the course developer, policy makers as well as academicians to understand what factors affect the language acquisition capacities of learners and necessary modifications can be initiated accordingly. This is an analytical study and it ascertains the significance of language affective factors from a rapid evidence assessment report submitted by EEF at University of oxford, Department of Education in July 2020 and a similar research project was conducted by Takayo Nitta at the University of Western Cape in South Africa on non-natives learning English and facing similar challenges in social, affective and cognitive areas. This is a qualitative study and secondary data is collected from the research project conducted at the University of Western Cape since learners were from a non-native country only where existing language learning culture is found to be utmost similar and problems are also identical. (shrink)