Nowadays, binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of a TV series in one session) has become a widespread practice of media consumption, raising concerns about its negative outcomes. Nevertheless, previous research has overlooked the underlying psychological mechanisms leading to binge-watching. In the present work, we investigated some of the psychological variables that could favor binge-watching tendencies in a sample of TV series viewers (N = 196). To this aim, psychological determinants of problematic digital technologies usage (i.e., feelings of loneliness), as well (...) as some of the mechanisms related to the enjoyment of media contents (i.e., escapism and the identification with media characters), were considered as predictors of the tendency to binge-watch. Results indicated that higher feelings of loneliness were associated with higher levels of problematic digital technologies usage. Additionally, direct and indirect effects showed that only escapism – out of the four dimensions measuring the problematic use of Internet-related technologies – predicted participants’ stronger identification with media characters, which in turn promoted greater binge-watching tendencies. Overall, we suggest that binge-watching could be interpreted as a coping strategy for media escapists, who enjoy TV series as a privileged online space in which the need to escape finds its fulfillment, allowing them to manage loneliness by identifying with a fictitious character. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of religious luck posed by Zagzebski poses a problem for the theory of hell proposed by Buckareff and Plug, according to which God adopts an open-door policy toward those in hell. Though escapism is not open to many of the criticisms Zagzebski raises against potential solutions to the problem of luck, escapism fails to solve the problem: it merely pushes luck forward into the afterlife. I suggest a hybrid solution to the problem which (...) combines escapism and the claim that God gives enough grace to those in hell to cancel out any bad moral luck. (shrink)

In our paper, ‘Escaping hell: divine motivation and the problem of hell’, we defended a theory of hell that we called ‘escapism’. We argued that given God’s just and loving character it would be most rational for God to maintain an open door policy to those who are in hell, allowing them an unlimited number of chances to be reconciled with God and enjoy communion with God. In this paper we reply to two recent objections to our original paper. (...) The first is an argument from religious luck offered by Rusty Jones. The second is an argument from Kyle Swan that alleges that our commitments about the nature of reasons for action still leaves escapism vulnerable to an objection we labeled the ‘Job objection’ in our original paper. In this paper we argue that escapism has the resources built into it needed to withstand the objections from Jones and Swan. (shrink)

Abstract Applied ethics is commonly carried out on the assumption that moral decisions can be handled by experts. This involves a failure to recognize that being morally serious means recognizing that one cannot hand over responsibility for certain decisions to anyone else. The idea of moral expertise is shown to be based on a misconstrual of the nature of moral discourse, one that can be overcome by following Wittgenstein's exhortation to philosophers to pay heed to the actual uses of language. (...) The sense of a moral judgment cannot be considered in isolation from what the speaker is doing in the context of utterance. The author concludes by suggesting that this discussion can provide the basis for a new reading of Anscombe's essay ?Modern Moral Philosophy? (shrink)

Escapism is defined as the attempt to avoid awareness of aversive beliefs. Strategies, and a few examples, of escapism are discussed. It is argued that self-deception is one species of escapism and that entrenched escapism, escapism pursued with the intention of permanently avoiding any awareness of one's belief, no matter what happens, is theoretically irrational, except in the special case where it compensates for irrationality elsewhere, by guarding one from the formation of further irrational beliefs (...) of more serious import than the belief one wishes to avoid. The model of rationality employed in this argument is then extended to practical rationality, and it is argued that entrenched escapism is pragmatically irrational as well, unless it compensates for other irrationalities elsewhere in a person, as, for instance, when a person must avoid certain facts to avoid succumbing irrationally to despair, or unless it compensates for the effects of an environment in which it is otherwise impossible for an optimally functioning person to survive emotionally. The results for entrenched escapism would apply to self-deception as well, since it aims (in all but very odd cases) at the permanent removal of the offending belief. The function of escapism, then, is to compensate for irrational patterns of belief formation, and to maintain effectiveness (for the sake of continuance of the species), insofar as that is possible, in situation in which a rational person would succumb to despair and suicide. (shrink)

Mass culture is regarded as space of realization of different forms of escapism, which is understood as the result of human desire to get liberated from the routines of everyday life. Escapism, which has existed in different epochs and in different cultures, has become wide spread today. The reasons are, on the one hand, the extension of the realm of everyday life, demythologization of culture, on the other – great technological opportunities, which allow the escapist to construct his (...) own fantastic worlds with the help of new technologies. In mass culture the escapist gets a lot of opportunities to implement his fantasies, which may have different and contradictory consequences for real life. Such forms of escapism have been examined as fantasies embodied in different literary genres and screen forms, mass tourism, creating attractive images of «Orient», and virtual reality as the most important space for creating «other-worldliness». Mass culture, with its cult of game and entertainment, creates rich possibilities for different forms of escapism. Popular literature allows the reader to get immersed in the romantic world of love or a fantastic fairy tale. Screen arts, from cinema to computer art, make this immersion still deeper and more exciting, and virtual reality, which has embraced the whole world with the advent of computer era, drags in both children and adults, creating new worlds, where people choose their identity by themselves, construct their surroundings. Cultural industry creates new forms of entertainment and games with its commercial profit in view, but for an individual a quest for «other worlds» may turn into a dramatic break with reality. (shrink)

This article provides a framework for understanding post-truth politics by employing the ideas of Nietzsche and Schmitt. It posits pre-moral and pre-economic guilt and debt, relating human non-self-sufficiency, at the heart of social and political existence and alleges that guilt and debt are the hey bonds that hold human groupings together. Following Schmitt, romantic attitudes to politics are seen as negating this underlying reality, opting instead for escapist fantasy of self-mastery and unlimited creative potential. The author claims that these promises (...) in particular are picked up by post-truth politics, placing the human person and their preconceptions at the heart of the world and handing over to them prime creative power at least as a matter of fantasy. Nevertheless, this escapism merely hides the persistence of guilt and debt. However, despite being an inadequate way of perceiving the world, the post-truth fantasy still constitutes a severe challenge to political bonds. (shrink)

This article is a philosophical analysis of escapism as a pedagogical possibility, with a particular focus on TV series. Taking my own, as well as students, experience of escapism into TV series as a starting point, that is, their ability take us somewhere far away, something which has become more acute during the pandemic time since we remain more or less self-isolated because of the corona virus Covid-19, the article discusses escapism in relation to distraction and attention (...) in life as well as within teaching, but also in relation to colportage, hope and social justice. According to Ernst Bloch, social justice cannot materialize without regarding things differently. Something that is often dismissed as mere escapism might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an “immature, but honest substitute for revolution”. Drawing on Bloch’s understanding of colportage and hope, as well as Walter Benjamin’s understanding of mass culture and cinema, the article treats escapism and TV series not as something simple, but rather as possible seeds for a new social order and thus as having pedagogical possibilities. (shrink)

The African continent has played host to various colonizers from the western world. Most of these countries have negative tales of the activities of the colonizers before independence as well as their neo-colonizing activities after independence. On this basis, it is axiomatic for most African scholars to impute the guilt of African woes to the activities of the colonizers. They consider the whole gamut of colonial legacies in Africa as a doom and a problem to the African continent. Some of (...) the scholars compared the relationship between the Africans and their colonizers in terms of father-son relationship where a father gives the son ‘poison rather than a fish’. This paper accepts the fact that the colonizers were involved and are still involved in some activities that are detrimental to African development but rejects the position that the colonizers are entirely the problem. This paper in fact, posits that the greater problems militating against the proper development of the African continent are traceable to Africans themselves. It gives a verdict that Africans as human beings like the colonizers have the freedom to take control of their events and take the responsibility for their actions instead of imputing blame to others. Key words: Africa, colonizers, freedom, responsibility . (shrink)

There is a previously unrecognized coupling which underlies the Western evaluation of aesthetic experiences. By and large, we are taught that for our aesthetic pleasures to have any “value” (i.e. to be good) they must do more than merely entertain, distract, or delight. Instead, they should confront us with some “truth” about the nature of our existence and/or guide us to some “reality” concerning the state of our world. This paper asks: 1) whence this prejudice concerning the value of our (...) aesthetic experiences? 2) What metaphysical and ethical assumptions underlie this epistemological standard? And, finally, 3) how might our expectations concerning the nature and value of aesthetic experiences alter if these assumptions are called into question, as they are, for example, by contemporary metaphysical pessimism? This paper uses the concept of “guilty pleasures” as a site to expose the history of our Western assumptions concerning the evaluation of aesthetic experiences and to explore how a pessimistic revaluation of reality might change our analysis of what comprises “good” art. To this end, this paper traces the origins of our aesthetic assumptions in the West, shows how these assumptions continue to influence our aesthetic expectations today, exposes the hidden metaphysical premises, which underly those expectations, and explores why and how we might call these premises into question through a pessimistic revaluation of existence. All of these supports, in the end, a critical reassessment of the status and value our so-called “guilty pleasures.”. (shrink)

Pompey's dialogue with his helmsman about celestial navigation at Lucan 8.165-92 is designed to illustrate the impossibility of mental escape from civil war. Seeking reassurance after Pharsalus in the Stoic refuge of astronomy, Pompey is instead reduced to despair by celestial portents of his imminent death, namely, the helmsman's reference to stellar deceit (a pessimistic reworking of Manilius) and his gratuitous mention of the ill-omened star Canopus. Pompey's mental collapse casts doubt on the usefulness of stellar observation for either consolation (...) or spiritual progress, in contrast with the optimistic view of astronomy espoused by Lucan's uncle Seneca the Younger. (shrink)

Alfred Mele's deflationary account of self-deception has frequently been criticised for being unable to explain the “tension” inherent in self-deception. These critics maintain that rival theories can better account for this tension, such as theories which suppose self-deceivers to have contradictory beliefs. However, there are two ways in which the tension idea has been understood. In this article, it is argued that on one such understanding, Mele's deflationism can account for this tension better than its rivals, but only if we (...) reconceptualize the self-deceiver's attitude in terms of unwarranted degrees of conviction rather than unwarranted belief. This new way of viewing the self-deceiver's attitude will be informed by observations on experimental work done on the biasing influence of desire on belief, which suggests that self-deceivers don’t manage to fully convince themselves of what they want to be true. On another way in which this tension has been understood, this account would not manage so well, since on this understanding the self-deceiver is best interpreted as knowing, but wishing to avoid, the truth. However, it is argued that we are under no obligation to account for this since it is a characteristic of a different phenomenon than self-deception, namely, escapism. (shrink)

In response to the problem of Hell, Buckareff and Plug (Relig Stud 41:39–54, 2005; Relig Stud 45:63–72, 2009) have recently proposed and defended an ‘escapist’ conception of Hell. In short, they propose that the problem of Hell does not arise because God places an open-door policy on Hell. In this paper, I expose a fundamental problem with this conception of Hell—namely, that if there’s an open door policy on Hell, then there should be one on Heaven too. I argue that (...) a coherent conception of Heaven cannot have such a policy. Hence, escapism is not an adequate response to the problem of Hell. (shrink)

Star Trek is a successful popular cultural endeavor because it allows for exactly different kind of imaginative escapism, the possibility of joining in on an alternative narrative. In “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the Enterprise orbits a mysterious planet, where on its surface someone or something is causing temporal and spatial displacement. This chapter uses Romanticism as a philosophical gateway to the sublime experience that is the Guardian of Forever. The Guardian of Forever is the cause of (...) the spatial displacement and ripples in time that shake the Enterprise at the episode's beginning. Friedrich Nietzsche in his writings on Greek history, adopted the Romantic attitude toward the past by suggesting there are certain meaningful archetypes in the Greek past: in the context of “City on the Edge”, James T. Kirk represents the Tragic Hero, Spock the Apollonian figure, and McCoy the Dionysian figure. (shrink)

Escapism as artistic politics: propaganda in Black Panther (2018) Escapism is omnipresent in contemporary mass art, even though it has a bad reputation. This article traces that reputation back to a pragmatist conviction that art should give expression to experiences, and morals, from everyday practical life. Through a philosophical conversation with two pragmatist aestheticians, W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul C. Taylor, and an art-critical discussion of an escapist film, Black Panther (2018), I provide a pragmatist defence of the (...) use of escapism as political-aesthetic motif. Works that set themselves the task of communicating standards of radical equality (among which: standards of racial equality applicable to white supremacist societies), cannot appropriately express what they want since they necessarily fail to appropriately address their audience. The only utopian course that remains is to react negatively to, by trying to escape, the norms that a present audience necessarily imports from white supremacist society. (shrink)

In perceptual experience we are directed towards objects in a way which establishes a real relation between a mental act and its target. In reading works of fiction we enjoy experiences which manifest certain internal similarities to such relational acts, but which lack objects. The substitution theory of art attempts to provide a reason why we seek out such experiences and the artifacts which they generate. Briefly, we seek out works of art because we enjoy the physiology and the phenomenology (...) of, for example, the experience of love or mountain climbing, and works of art serve as props for the promotion of substitutes for the corresponding genuine feelings. Art arose, or came to be separated out from other, related phenomena, through the discovery that the experience of substitute emotions can be pleasurable. (shrink)

In spring 2020, COVID-19 and the ensuing social distancing and stay-at-home orders instigated abrupt changes to employment and educational infrastructure, leading to uncertainty, concern, and stress among United States college students. The media consumption patterns of this and other social groups across the globe were affected, with early evidence suggesting viewers were seeking both pandemic-themed media and reassuring, familiar content. A general increase in media consumption, and increased consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to media use (...) for coping strategies. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. We examine links between specific types of media use with psychological well-being concepts, and examine the moderating roles of traits (hope, optimism, and resilience) as buffers against negative relationships between stress and anxiety and psychological well-being. Our findings indicate that stress was linked to more hedonic and less eudaimonic media use, as well as more avoidant and escapist media-based coping. Anxiety, on the other hand, was linked to more media use in general, specifically more eudaimonic media use and a full range of media-based coping strategies. In turn, escapist media was linked to negative affect, while reframing media and eudaimonic media were linked to positive affect. Avoidant coping was tied to poorer mental health, and humor coping was tied to better mental health. Hedonic and need-satisfying media use were linked to more flourishing. Hope, optimism, and resilience were all predictive of media use, with the latter two traits moderating responses to stress and anxiety. The findings give a nuanced portrait of college students’ media use during a pandemic-induced shutdown, showing that media use is closely intertwined with well-being in both adaptive and maladaptive patterns. (shrink)

The most obvious varieties of mental phenomena directed to non- existent objects occur in our experiences of works of art. The task of applying the Meinongian ontology of the non-existent to the working out of a theory of aesthetic phenomena was however carried out not by Meinong by his disciple Stephan Witasek in his Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik of 1904. Witasek shows in detail how our feelings undergo certain sorts of structural modifications when they are directed towards what does not (...) exist. He draws a distinction between genuine mental phenomena and what he calls `phantasy-material', asserting that `the job of the aesthetic object, whether it is a work of art or a product of nature, is to excite and support the actualisation of phantasy-material in the experiencing subject'. We might think of such phantasy-material as a matter of Ersatz-emotions or emotional `slop'. We could then see Witasek's aesthetics as an elaborate taxonomy of the various different sorts of Ersatz-emotions which the subject allows to be stimulated within himself in his intercourse with works of art, and see works of art themselves as machines for the production of ever more subtle varieties of such phantasy-material in the perceiving subject. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explain why mainstream analytic philosophy lost interest in the philosophy of history. It suggests that the reasons why the philosophy of history no longer commands the attention of mainstream analytical philosophy may be explained by the success of an ontological backlash against the linguistic turn and a view of philosophy as a form of conceptual analysis. In brief I argue that in the 1950s and 1960s the philosophy of history attracted the interest of mainstream analytical philosophers (...) because the defence of the autonomy of historical explanation championed by the likes of Collingwood, Dray, Melden, Winch, Von Wright and others was in tune with the predominant conception of philosophy as a conceptual enterprise concerned primarily with clarifying different explanatory practices. As this conception of philosophy as an essentially conceptual enterprise became recessive, the purely methodological non-reductivism advocated by defenders of the autonomy of history was accused of ontological escapism and the discussion concerning the autonomy of psychological explanations became the province of the philosophy of mind and action. (shrink)

"Fans largely regard sports as an escapist pursuit-something that provides distraction from the cares and concerns of "real life". This book pushes back against the fully escapist account of sports fandom and argues that we understand the value of fandom in terms of the ability of sports to prompt fans to reflect meaningfully on the notion of the good life. Even if we are not engaged in high-level athletics ourselves, it is possible to learn a great deal from those who (...) are: about what sacrifices are required to achieve our goals; about how to persevere through failure and disappointment; and about teamwork and the rewards of accomplishing things together. Moreover, partisan fandom, which has been criticized from various quarters, can teach us valuable lessons about love and what it means to be invested in things over which we have no control. If our reflection on the efforts of individual athletes helps us reflect on our own pursuit of the good life, our attachments to teams can help us to cultivate a certain kind of humility and openness to all that life has to offer. The Ethics of Sports Fandom is an accessible resource for researchers and students interested in the ethics and philosophy of sport that offers an analysis of several different aspects of contemporary fandom: fantasy sports, the ways that fans interact with athletes on social media, violent sports, women's sports, and the support for our countries' national teams. In all these areas, reflecting on what it means to respect athletes as individual human beings engaged in their own pursuit of the good life requires that fans consider their sports-related behavior in a new light"--. (shrink)

Socrates wrote nothing; Plato's accounts of Socrates helped to establish western politics, ethics, and metaphysics. Both have played crucial and dramatically changing roles in western culture. In the last two centuries, the triumph of democracy has led many to side with the Athenians against a Socrates whom they were right to kill. Meanwhile the Cold War gave us polar images of Plato as both a dangerous totalitarian and an escapist intellectual. And visions of Plato have proliferated at the heart of (...) postmodern critiques of the very idea of metaphysics and politics. Plato's Progeny begins with an account of modern responses to the trial of Socrates and the controversial question of Socrates' relation to Plato. At its centre are two chapters exploring the idea of Platonic origins in and for philosophy, and of Platonic foundations for philosophical politics. Exploring unfamiliar as well as familiar invocations of Plato, Melissa Lane argues that twentieth-century ideological battles have obscured the importance of Socratic individualism, the nature of Platonic ethics, and the value of Platonic politics. Succinct and clearly written, this is an ideal guide for everyone interested in the way philosophers are still writing footnotes to Plato. (shrink)

The most obvious varieties of mental phenomena directed to non- existent objects occur in our experiences of works of art. The task of applying the Meinongian ontology of the non-existent to the working out of a theory of aesthetic phenomena was however carried out not by Meinong by his disciple Stephan Witasek in his Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik of 1904. Witasek shows in detail how our feelings undergo certain sorts of structural modifications when they are directed towards what does not (...) exist. He draws a distinction between genuine mental phenomena and what he calls `phantasy-material', asserting that `the job of the aesthetic object, whether it is a work of art or a product of nature, is to excite and support the actualisation of phantasy-material in the experiencing subject'. We might think of such phantasy-material as a matter of Ersatz-emotions or emotional `slop'. We could then see Witasek's aesthetics as an elaborate taxonomy of the various different sorts of Ersatz-emotions which the subject allows to be stimulated within himself in his intercourse with works of art, and see works of art themselves as machines for the production of ever more subtle varieties of such phantasy-material in the perceiving subject. (shrink)

_The Record of Great Doubts_ emphasizes the role of _qi_ in achieving a life of engagement with other humans, with the larger society, and with nature as a whole. Rather than encourage transcendental escapism or quietism, Ekken articulates a philosophy of material force as a basis of living a life of commitment to the world. In this spirit, moral cultivation is not an isolated or a self-centered preoccupation, but an activity that occurs within the dynamic forces of nature and (...) amid the rigorous demands of society. In this context, a vitalism of _qi_ is an emergent force, not only providing the philosophical grounding for this vibrant interaction but also giving a basis for an investigation of the natural world that plumbs the principle within things. Ekken thus aimed to articulate a creative and dynamic milieu for moral education, political harmony, social coherence, and agricultural sustainability. _The Record of Great Doubts_ embodies Ekken's profound commitment to Confucian ideas and practices as a method for establishing an integrative ethical vision, one he hoped would guide Japan through a new period of peace and stability. A major philosophical treatise in the Japanese Neo-Confucian tradition, _The Record of Great Doubts_ illuminates a crucial chapter in East Asian intellectual history. (shrink)

Though to deny the geological impact of human force on nature is now essentially quasi-criminal, many theorists remain, nonetheless, unimpressed with what this “new era” has afforded us in terms of critical potential. This article is concerned with what Srinivas Aravamudan deems “the escapist philosophy of various dimension of the hypothesis concerning the Anthropocene.” Following Erik Swyngedouw's indictment of apocalyptic discourses' vital role in displacing social antagonisms and nurturing capitalism, this article argues that the new regimes of Anthropocenean consciousness have (...) been powerful in disavowing racial antagonisms. It discusses the ways in which Anthropocene ethics have foreclosed proper political framings by promoting a moral philosophy unequipped to face the racial histories of our current ecological predicament. It contends that the “political Anthropocene” will remain an impossibility until it is able to wrestle with the problem of black suffering. (shrink)

Amidst a worsening climate crisis, there is growing public discourse theorising the possible colonisation of outer space to secure a sustainable future for humanity. In the face of these escapist fantasies, political discussion on humanity's relation to the universe is notably limited and primarily frames space exploration as a dangerous Promethean endeavour. While I do not contest this claim, I argue that humanity's technological capabilities and acquired knowledge of the universe can alternatively facilitate an Earth-centred engagement with the Cosmos as (...) a sublime aesthetic experience. I frame the sublime Cosmos and its infinite expanse of dynamic material forces, as a site of resistance against Promethean visions of human mastery and colonisation. I then theorise how the sublime Cosmos can be productively engaged as a source of political imagination and spiritual elevation. Recovering a spiritual attachment to Earth is necessary, for we are irrevocably tied to this rapidly destabilising planet. (shrink)

This paper explores the perversion of reality in the context of advanced technologies, such as AI, VR, and AR, through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality and the precession of simulacra. By examining the transformative effects of these technologies on our perception of reality, with a particular focus on the usage of digital avatars, the paper highlights the blurred distinction between the real and the simulated, where the copy becomes more ‘real’ than the original. Drawing on Baudrillard’s concept (...) of hyperreality, the paper delves into the perversion of reality as individuals seek refuge in virtual pleasure paradises and embrace artificial pleasures through their digital avatars, disconnecting from genuine human experiences. The convergence of AI, VR, and AR technologies amplifies this hyperreal condition, where digital avatars mimic or surpass the depth of human relationships, challenging our understanding of what is real. In line with Baudrillard’s theory, the paper explores the objectification and commodification of reality within digital spaces, specifically examining the digital avatars’ role in the erosion of genuine human connections. It explores the implications of these avatars in terms of consent, exploitation, and loss of authenticity, echoing Baudrillard’s concerns about the distortion of reality in contemporary society. Recognizing the implications of these technologies, the paper calls for a critical reflection on their transformative power. It emphasizes the need for a nuanced understanding of the hyperreal condition and ethical responsibility in engaging with AI, VR, and AR, particularly in relation to the usage of digital avatars. By resisting the seductive allure of digital escapism and preserving genuine human connections, we can navigate the perversion of reality and cultivate empathy, compassion, and meaningful interactions that transcend the simulated experiences offered by technology. (shrink)

In this chapter I invite the reader to consider the philosophical assumptions which underpin the early career aims and objectives of Barrie Kosky. A focus will be his “language” of opera, and the processes by which the audience is prompted to interpret it. The result will be to see how Kosky creates mystery and meaning while avoiding fantasy and escapism; and can express psychological truth while stimulating subjective interpretations. The point will be to show that Kosky’s oeuvre demonstrates a (...) central concept in the Kantian tradition of aesthetic theory regarding the key process in creative expression, and that is the evocation/communication of “aesthetic ideas”. (shrink)

_The Record of Great Doubts_ emphasizes the role of _qi_ in achieving a life of engagement with other humans, with the larger society, and with nature as a whole. Rather than encourage transcendental escapism or quietism, Ekken articulates a philosophy of material force as a basis of living a life of commitment to the world. In this spirit, moral cultivation is not an isolated or a self-centered preoccupation, but an activity that occurs within the dynamic forces of nature and (...) amid the rigorous demands of society. In this context, a vitalism of _qi_ is an emergent force, not only providing the philosophical grounding for this vibrant interaction but also giving a basis for an investigation of the natural world that plumbs the principle within things. Ekken thus aimed to articulate a creative and dynamic milieu for moral education, political harmony, social coherence, and agricultural sustainability. _The Record of Great Doubts_ embodies Ekken's profound commitment to Confucian ideas and practices as a method for establishing an integrative ethical vision, one he hoped would guide Japan through a new period of peace and stability. A major philosophical treatise in the Japanese Neo-Confucian tradition, _The Record of Great Doubts_ illuminates a crucial chapter in East Asian intellectual history. (shrink)

As a moral principle toleration is universal, but only in the sense that potentially it is addressed to every rational and moral agent. The question is whether this principle is appropriate in all situations and what are those moral agents who recognize its practical actuality for them? Toleration is not an absolute ethical principle, but one among others in the context of a particular moral system. It should be given a proper place in the hierarchy of principles. Understanding toleration as (...) the absolute or even overriding principle may lead in the face of obvious and directly threatening wrong to its use as an umbrella for adoptive or escapist behavior. The limits to toleration are given by basic and minimal ethical task to resist evil. The principle of active opposition to evil by all possible means is prior to the principle of toleration. (shrink)

In analyzing evidence indicating that K'ung-ts'ung-tzu was a forgery, Yoav Ariel questions current views of the Confucian school in the time between the Sage's death in the fifth century B.C. and the emergence in the eleventh century of Neo-Confucianism. The text, traditionally ascribed to a descendant of Confucius, K'ung Fu, provides a setting for a series of philosophical debates between K'ung family members and representatives of such non-Confucian schools as Legalism, Mohism, and the School of Names. However, finding that this (...) text was probably fabricated by the controversial Confucian master, Wang Su, Ariel explains how it sheds light on the third-century philosophical milieu: Confucianism then is seen to have been not only Taoistically metaphysical, individualistic, and escapist, but also aggressive in advocating early Confucian values. The first part of Ariel's book deals with the general characteristics, history, dating, authenticity, and authorship of the text. The second part is a fully annotated and analyzed translation of the first of the two traditional volumes that constitute the K'ung-ts'ung-tzu. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

To date, critical engagement with Arnold Hauser’s sociology of art has been confined to the field of art history. This perspective has ignored Hauser’s interest in literary history, which I argue is essential to his project. Hauser’s dialectical model, composed of conflicting realist and formalist tendencies, extends to the literary sphere. In The Social History of Art, these two traditions are epitomised by the Russian social novel and German idealism. Anti-enlightenment tendencies in German intellectual culture provide Hauser with evidence of (...) idealism’s propensity for escapism and reaction. Conversely, he extols the Russian social novel as the naturalistic art form par excellence. Because the intelligentsia is central to Hauser’s understanding of the formation of literary culture, this paper provides an outline of his sociology of intellectuals. Through a comparison of the German and Russian literary intelligentsia, this paper shows that Hauser’s analysis of literature is often more complex than his sociological interpretations of the visual arts. (shrink)

This paper offers a close reading of PAW Media animation My Name is Danny. Drawing across a growing body of recent Central and Western Desert experimental cinema, this paper asks what is at stake in the turn to animation. Rather than escapism or otherworldly fabrications which have little to do with lived experience of the “real,” animation in this context has potent everyday exigencies and politics. The capacity for bringing to life literally – animate – is here linked to (...) the primacy of a sentient landscape; an object world already alive and enlivened with motion, movement, sensation. The question for contemporary filmmaking is how to engage country and its viscera today. How to keep country/ancestor/story alive literally through sentient forms of affective exchange; a project which animation, as this paper will explore, uniquely provides. Drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, as well as the animation theory of Cholodenko, Lemarre and others, this paper argues for a radical reconsideration of animation not as incompatible with tradition but in fact as facilitating traditional ontologies of affect and sensation in a national context of remote Aboriginal Australia “under occupation.”. (shrink)

The personal tragedies of life as well as the horrors of genocide and plague leave many people wondering whether Christian hope is not an empty sentiment. Despite the strong incarnational thrust of his Christology which led to a kind of optimism about the human prospect, Karl Rahner recognized the problems of falsereligious hope. His “optimism” is therefore framed within a stark realism, or “pessimism” about a human condition marked by guilt, suffering and death. Hope is found not in pious (...) class='Hi'>escapism, in evasion of darkness, but in standing squarely within and facing the tragic dimensions of life. A comprehensive understanding ofRahner’s Christian pessimism opens up both the history of human entanglement in guilt (Rahner’s rendering of original sin), and the implication of God in darkness of death (the classic issues of providence and divine suffering). Rahner’s incarnationalism is offset in his later work by a theology of the cross, where theincomprehensibility of human suffering rests in the incomprehensibility of God. An eschatological hope is thus rooted in the suffering and death of Jesus. The Christian is one who can dare to hope in the face of tragedy because the cross is where God’s saving presence is most realistically revealed. (shrink)

This book deals with the problem of how Christian theology can be integrated with secular thinking. It is claimed that since modern science applies many different perspectives, this integrative effort can only take place as a never-ending dialogue between different interpretations of both theology and science. Max Weber is often regarded as a classic interpreter of modern Western culture, and the investigation is a conversation between his thinking and Christian theology. interpretation of Max Weber's texts in regard to the function (...) of views of life in modern society and suggesting one possible way of revising Christian theology so that it can be integrated with Weber's view on views of life, science and modernity. two basic challenges, namely an epistemological challenge and a cultural challenge. Christian theology, as classically formulated, has lost much of its credibility in the face of scientific discoveries and philosophical criticism. In Weber's view, it therefore is questionable if any well-educated person can be rationally justified in holding on to a traditional form of Christian faith. The cultural challenge implies, that if religion divorces itself from modernity, it risks becoming a form of escapism and thus contributing to alienation. challenges, it is claimed that Christian theology should be oriented towards praxis rather than towards metaphysical speculation. The author here suggests one way of formulating such a theological perspective. This suggestion is based around the understanding of the symbol of the kingdom of God as a way to formulate a Christian utopian realism. (shrink)

Purpose: To show that the idea of non-dualistic thinking is of great value for some of the core problems of media philosophy (which often lacks the radical approach of Josef Mitterer's concept). Method: Non-dualistic philosophy, introduced by Mitterer, has a lot in common with other thinkers' discontent with the traditional way of describing the subject-object relation. Their differences and the impasses of phenomenological, structuralist and psychoanalytic media theory shall be examined to show whether and to what extent non-dualism could do (...) better. Findings: As sociologists and some media-philosophers are already adopting some principles of non-dualism without a real framework, non-dualistic thinking offers a new insight into the way that consent/dissent is manufactured in a world where most descriptions are given in a mediated (i.e., non-interpersonal) form. Implications: If we re-establish the personal freedom of gathering knowledge individually instead of "getting nearer to the truth," the way of looking at the escapist power of media also has to be reinterpreted. The early distinction between Lumiére-like "documentation" (= truth) and Méliès-like "fiction" (= perception open to alternatives) could be another dualism, which should be expurgated by the application of Mitterer's concepts. (shrink)

In Jackie Kay's award-winning novel, Trumpet (1998), the main character Joss Moody, a celebrated jazz trumpet player, is discovered upon his death to be anatomically female. The essay traces both postmodern and humanist affirmations of constructions of self-hood. Situating Virginia Woolf's version of a metaphysical and escapist androgyny as one kind of aesthetic against the material politics of the transgendered subject, the essay argues that Kay's novel can be seen as part of a 20th century tradition of literature and film (...) which satirizes, parodies and painfully exposes the discontinuities of dominant sex–gender systems. The essay ends by arguing that Kay also develops these systems by imbricating sex and gender within a series of dislocated familial, sexual and racial identities, beginning with the arrival of Joss's African father in Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Authority and Tradition in Ancient HistoriographyDonald LateinerJohn Marincola. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xvi 1 361 pp. Cloth, $64.95.Marincola scrutinizes claims to authority and credence in the ancient writers of history, both Greek and Roman. In the synoptic manner of his teacher Charles Fornara (The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome, 1983), Marincola surveys nearly a millennium of explicit statements (...) (xii, 1) and methods implicit in actual practice. Starting from the Milesian Hecataeus and other now fragmentary authors and extending to the truncated text of the Antiochene Ammianus Marcellinus, he chiefly examines the historians proper, but occasionally and justifiably includes relevant comments from other genres, by Aristotle, Cicero, and Lucian in his satire on writing history.Appendix I offers a useful table of the forty-eight historians mentioned. Some authors are mentioned on nearly every page, such as Thucydides and Polybius, while others, such as Hellanicus or the so-called Oxyrhynchus Historian, seem neglected (eight and six references respectively in the very full index, none a serious discussion). A more troubling problem than the quantity of references is that the sheer size of the enterprise prevents Marincola from fully considering the principles and habits of even his principal players: Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Ammianus.Fierce scholarly controversy is side-stepped (e.g., “tragic history,” 23) because every topic broached requires Marincola to register the positions of his full roster. Since the remnants of the second-stringers are often so meager that we cannot discern, for example, what Psaon of Plataea or Cato did write so as to indicate his position relative to predecessors, the 300-page text suffers the consequence of “catalogue effect,” forever trotting along, as it must, to the succeeding epoch and author. Topoi are responsibly identified, described as they are transmitted from writer to writer, and differences noted. For an example, the historian’s inquiring enterprise that seemed so susceptible to tragic human oblivion to Herodotus, or so necessary an investigation for political acuity to Thucydides, became a pastime for Sallust (when politics had to be abandoned) and comforting escapism for the often unique Livy, luxuriously basking in an antique glow when reliving the days of yore (Praef. 3, 43.13.2). As for recorders’ motives, the self-evident love of ascertaining fact or belief for Herodotus yielded, in some cases, to nocturnal transmissions from the gods through dreams for later chroniclers. Not only Hesiod and Ennius before historiography, but Pliny the Elder, author of the Germania (Pliny Min. Ep. 3.5.4), employed [End Page 303] dreams to legitimate the urge to indite the past (48; cf. Dio 78.10.1–2, and, again, beyond history, Galen, Lucan, etc.; 50 n. 64).Marincola examines how the ancient historians claimed—or created—authority and veracity for their reports. No god, no muse, no oaths or witnesses (5) certify their work, but personal investigation: thus a first-person narrator from Hecataeus (FGrHist 1 F1) onwards. Techniques include imitation of eminent predecessors, explicit modifications of faulty procedures, and presentation of their own personae and their predecessors’ (for example, political and military experience or lack thereof). Imitation emerges as verbal (including dialect: Ionic, Attic), thematic, stylistic, organizational (divisions of the work by seasons, years, campaigns, etc.), and attitudinal (praise, blame, other functions of history). Continuation itself provides a manner of imitation.Marincola’s approach to the presentation of events and to the self-presentation of these historians is fundamentally rhetorical. He discusses topoi on matters such as occasions for writing history, authors’ qualifications (offices, travel, etc.), and the inquiries and efforts (e.g., libraries visited) that they made. He eschews interest in the truth of claims (which he justifies), but his survey method also prevents him from examining each historian’s strategy as part of that author’s epistemological or literary whole. At times (e.g., 76 on narratival credibility), he seems to say that historians were more interested in the credible than the actual. He declares that “history was a branch of rhetoric” (79), but the best of these historians would not endorse this formulation.The approach allows many good comparative observations... (shrink)

The Person Vanishes argues that despite John Dewey's failure to articulate «an adequate theory of personality», his writings provide at least a theory-sketch of human personality consistent with the assumptions that framed his philosophical outlook. Recognizing the new developments in society, science, and the arts, Dewey argues for the necessity of a Copernican revolution in our understanding of the human self; from the monadic and minimalist self of the Cartesian-Newtonian modernist tradition to a relational and processual model of selfhood consonant (...) with the press of post-modernist historical experience. As a field and activity conception, Dewey's self emerges as a nexus of relational energizing, genuinely moored in a cultural surrounding in which ongoing creative reconstruction becomes the mark and criterion of the self's health and growth. What vanishes in Dewey's reconstruction is not the self as such, but only the entitative, substantive self of early modernism. Dewey's understanding of the self is grounded in the conviction that philosophy must begin its inquiry from the ordinary experience of plain men and women. The Person Vanishes examines Dewey's participatory notion of deliberation, what he calls «dramatic rehearsal», by using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study. The analysis attempts to cash out the personal and collective habits, as well as the different modalities of ends, facts, and values that diagram the existential dimensions of this problematic situation. Contrary to traditional dualistic and spectatorial accounts of deliberation, Dewey's «dramatic rehearsal» shows the complexity of decision-making when the genuine limitations of daily life are taken seriously. The attempt to march to Dewey's participatory philosophy reveals the escapist nature of all dualistic philosophical traditions and the reason for their continuous failure to resolve concrete social and personal conflicts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:After Irony: Aristophanes’ Wealth and its Modern InterpretersJames McGlewThe contest between Chremylus and Penia in Wealth (488–626) lies at the center of interpretations of Aristophanes’ final surviving play and of Old Comedy’s dramatic and receptive development in Aristophanes’ last years. In much of the work of scholars since Helmut Flashar’s 1967 article, 1 and including A. E. Bowie’s recent study (1993) on Aristophanes, that contest and the episodic portion (...) of the play following it are seen as dominated by a tension between the play’s logical consequences and its dramatic outcomes; Penia, these scholars believe, gives the better argument, and when Chremylus nonetheless proceeds with his plan of restoring Plutus’ sight, his program is haunted by her warnings: for the insightful members of the audience, Chremylus’ plan proves to be a social and ethical catastrophe. This “ironic interpretation” of Wealth has troubled some recent commentators. But most of those who refuse to see a fundamental disengagement between the logic and drama imbedded in the play, find a similar tension between the play’s dramatic promise and its reception; for Konstan and Dillon (1981) and for Olson (1993), the play imagines universal wealth but serves a conservative, anti-revolutionary ideology: comic fantasy provides an escape for an increasingly impoverished and powerless dēmos. Thus, even if Wealth did not persuade poor Athenians that Penia was better than Plutus, it still helped keep them loyal to her.Recent interest in Wealth has had some effect in rescuing the play from literary death. Viewed as enervated and unimaginative by most scholars of recent generations, 2 Wealth has regained the moral weight [End Page 35] that once inspired the Italian Renaissance to honor it before any other work of Greek antiquity with a Latin translation, 3 and that invited the attention of Fielding (Aristophanes 1742) and other modern translators. Underlying this new interpretation of Wealth lies a reassessment of its dramatic qualities: the dramatic and narrative infelicities that troubled the last generation of Aristophanes scholars are now seen as keys to the subtlety of this last extant example of Old Comedy. But the revived interest and dramatic reassessment of Wealth have made it into a very different play. 4 What earlier scholars had read as a somewhat anemic flight into escapist fantasy is now taken as a demonstration that wealth and justice, good behavior and material happiness are inherently irreconcilable. Chremylus may dream of universal wealth, but the play itself hopes to offer its audience a superior moral wisdom.The new readings of Wealth constitute a relatively united front against which the few dissident voices—Sommerstein’s (1984) is the most important 5 —have had little effect. This paper examines the dramatic and political character of Aristophanes’ last comedy to argue that Wealth itself thematizes the relationship between comic fantasy and its audience’s private desires, a relationship at the heart of recent conservative interpretations of the play. I will suggest that Aristophanes has constructed Chremylus’ victory over Penia to restate—albeit his audience and comedy itself were changing—the political significance and integrity of comic fantasy. Accused by Penia at 557—and by her modern admirers—of doing nothing more than “trying to kō mō idein” her, Chremylus [End Page 36] invites his audience “to laugh at poverty” and dream of escaping it in a way that reaffirms Athenian democratic identity and celebrates the decision-making powers of the collective dē mos. 6The ironic interpretation of Wealth, and even some critics of this interpretation, 7 assume that Aristophanes’ audience would have perceived, and held on to the perception, that Penia’s argument was stronger than Chremylus’; and that, moreover, the superiority of Penia’s argument shaped the audience’s view of the second half of Wealth, which presents a utopic vision of life without her (Olson 1993, 235–36). But the comic arguments of Aristophanes’ earlier agons—our best source for reconstructing the expectations of Wealth’s audience—do not offer much support for these assumptions. Arguments win in Aristophanes’ earlier plays by uniting the Chorus, the synecdochic audience, behind the protagonist; for this, verifiable fact is not necessarily the best tool. In Acharnians, Dicaeopolis’ argument... (shrink)

Strauss's opera Capriccio of 1942 may be viewed as pure escapism, a fantasy about the question of the primacy of words or music in opera, set in eighteenth-century France. It is, however, in several ways a denial of time: dramatic time, in that it has no plot or denouement; historic time, in that it ignores the crisis of war and violence contemporary with its performance; cultural time, in that its musical style is self-consciously reactionary and takes no account of (...) twentieth-century developments. It is more than mere escapism, however. It represents an extreme form of the flight from the terror of time that marks idealist philosophy, Enlightenment rationalism, and Romantic aesthetics. On a trivial level, this flight may be connected with the “aesthetic politics” of 1930s Germany; but modern thought — for example, that of Habermas — has not broken free from the rationalist flight from time, and we must finally concede that Capriccio is supported by Romantic aesthetics, no less than the masterpieces of the Western tradition. If we are resolute it condemning it, we must also reject the whole conception of the masterpiece. (shrink)