William James's influence on Richard Rorty's neopragmatism increased during the last decade of his life. I point out two themes that are not entirely consistent in Rorty's vision of the future of philosophy. Rorty's later “romantic polytheism” was more pluralistic and closer to James's view than his earlier atheism, but his commitment to the “linguistic turn” prevented him from accepting James's reconstruction of metaphysics and epistemology. I argue that Rorty's rejection of the concept of experience committed what James (...) called the fallacy of “vicious intellectualism,” and yet the overall impact of his work was enormously beneficial in challenging the traditional self‐image of philosophy and moving it in the direction of James's pluralism. (shrink)

The article presents Richard Rorty’s religious metaphors in the context of the concept of civil religion derived from The Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau and primarily used today for the sociological analysis of the relationship between religion and the state. It is paired with Rorty’s conception of pragmatism as romantic polytheism and its fundamental notions of romance, polytheism, and poetry. Parallels between social and religious institutions formulated by the American neo-pragmatist, such as priesthood and sanctuary, provide (...) the details of his proposition. The article opposes the interpretation of Jason Boffetti, who suggests that the use of religious language is a sign of a considerable change in Rorty’s standpoint. A characteristic feature of Rorty’s philosophy is its secularism. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between his vision of civil religion and that of other scholars. This discrepancy has its source in Rorty’s pragmatist position and underlines the political character of his philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism by Richard RortyJ. A. ColenRORTY, Richard. Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism. Edited by Eduardo Mendieta. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021. xxxv + 236 pp. Cloth, $27.95This book reproduces Richard Rorty's manuscript of the Ferrater Mora Lectures held in Spain in 1996, about ten years before his death. The preface is signed "Bellagio, July 22, 1997." Robert Brandom's foreword for the book states (...) that its publication is an "epoch-making event" since it was "long-lost" in the abysses of Catalan and Spanish languages.We could think that this should be taken with a grain of salt, considering that large sections of the book were previously published even in English. Chapter 1, "Pragmatism and Religion," was printed in the Revue Internationale de Philosophie in 1999; chapter 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism," was collected in The Revival of Pragmatism (ed. Morris Dickstein) in 1998; and lectures 3 and 4 appear in a 2000 book edited by Robert Brandom. Chapter 7 was printed in Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope, and 8, 9, and 10 were published in his Philosophical Papers.So truly, only chapters 5 and 6 were entirely ignored by the Anglophone reader. Rhetoric aside, it is nonetheless a very important book, and perhaps even an epoch-making one, although the Rortian scholar will never find himself in unchartered territory. It is indeed epoch-making for at least three different kinds of reasons.Firstly, the complete book with Rorty's own preface and all the lectures set together, carefully edited by Eduardo Mendieta, with notes and an insightful epilogue, presents Rorty's "mature version and vision of his path-breaking pragmatism." The oral nature of the delivery adds some charm to the text, and the recovery of the whole book-length text is epochal since, in spite of being a prolific writer of distinctive and provocative texts, Rorty's books are scarce: He wrote just four important books, in comparison with hundreds of shorter pieces. (It could even be argued that even his four main books are "fragments" that in some instances lack cogency.)Secondly, the political landscape has largely changed. People used to fight for the Truth. It may very well be that the combat of ideas by resorting to words with capital letters, interesting as it often is, doesn't make for the best arguments. When the flag of Truth (uppercase) is raised in politics, reason easily becomes the prey of the passions of the soul. Mendieta aptly titled his interviews with Rorty with the motto "take care of freedom and Truth will take care of itself." The notion that the highest [End Page 363] degree of freedom and tolerance and the lowest degree of dogmatism arise when no truth is believed was not Rorty's own invention, and in fact it has a long ancestry. But Rorty is surely among its most vocal advocates and a remarkable thinker. Right now, the situation looks entirely different. Rorty's indefatigable struggle against the idea of truth in politics was all too successful. Could it happen that the owl of Minerva rises again at dusk, and the book emerges when people are no longer fighting about truth but against fake news? In fact, a new post-truth era was just inaugurated. Thus, the book makes an amazing read for those who are interested in the genealogy of an old idea: the death of Truth—an irony that Rorty would have appreciated.Thirdly, Rorty is an unavoidable figure in contemporary political philosophy, but his pragmatism has always been somewhat mysterious. Despite his praise of the early pragmatists and his dismissive attitude towards "depth," very few doubt that his arguments are deeper and go further than, say, John Dewey's. Nor was he exactly one of the so-called new pragmatists such as Putnam, Huw Price, or Robert Brandom. Nevertheless, his bold and iconoclastic attacks on "representationalism," the naïve idea that language and thought merely mirror the world, really were influential, or even gave birth to a new pragmatism. But he was not one of them. (Etienne Gilson used to quote a saying according to which God... (shrink)

Stimulating, thought-provoking text by one of the 20th centurys most creative philosophers clearly and discerningly makes accessible such topics as probability, measurement and quantitative language, structure of space, causality and determinism, theoretical laws and concepts and much more. "...the best book available for the intelligent reader who wants to gain some insight into the nature of contemporary philosophy of science."Choice.

In this paper I argue that the Levinasian opposition between the violence of the production of identity and self-presence and its undermining in a charitable disburdening of the self for the sake of the monotheistic ethical other, is unable to provide all the resources required for a politically motivated critique of the present. As a critique of Levinas' almost Manichean opposition between identity and difference, I argue, by appealing to the Arendtian model of public space, that Levinas underestimates our capacity (...) to build and open up societal spaces within which a non-violent polytheistic political difference can proliferate. The identity of the built and legislated can constitute a non-violent stage upon which discursive political differences are played out. (shrink)

I initially characterize what I consider to be a growing consensus regarding the relationship between science and nature. This consensus contradicts the definition of scientific activity as a device for the instrumentalization of the natural world – something that it has been since its birth. Next, I criticize the Hegelian notion that science is endowed with an egalitarian politics vis-à-vis nature. Finally, I outline the broad outlines of what could turn out to be an authentic politics of this kind: only (...) possible within a set of polytheistic beliefs. In this environment, the conditions for the deobjectification of nature and the subjectification of the subject would be established – processes without which relations would remain defined in a hierarchical structure. From this change, more egalitarian relations between human beings and nature could be promoted: the basis for sustaining a truly ecological way of life. This would make it possible to overcome the slave mechanism of modern science whose gears take momentum from the spiritual impoverishment of nature. (shrink)

Christian philosophers and theologians have long been concerned with the question of how to reconcile their belief in three fully divine Persons with their commitment to monotheism. The most popular strategy for doing this—the Social Trinitarian strategy—argues that, though the divine Persons are in no sense the same God, monotheism is secured by certain relations that obtain among them. It is argued that if the Social Trinitarian understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity is correct, then Christianity is not interestingly (...) different from the polytheistic Amun-Re theology of Egypt’s New Kingdom period. Thus, Social Trinitarianism should be classified as a version of polytheism rather than monotheism. (shrink)

In this reading of the Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro are seen less in a primordial conflict between reason and devotion, than as sincere Hellenic polytheists engaged in an inquiry based upon a common intuition that, in addition to the irreducible agency of the Gods, there is also some irreducible intelligible content to holiness. This reading is supported by the fact that Euthyphro does not claim the authority of revelation for his decision to prosecute his father, but rather submits it to (...) elenchus, and that Euthyphro does not embrace the ‘solution’ of theological voluntarism when Socrates explicitly offers it. Since the goal of this inquiry is neither to eliminate the noetic content of the holy, nor to eliminate the Gods’ agency, the purpose of the elenchus becomes the effort to articulate the results of this productive tension between the Gods and the intelligible on the several planes of Being implied by each conception of the holy which is successively taken up and dialectically overturned to yield the conception appropriate to the next higher plane, a style of interpretation characteristic of the ancient Neoplatonists. (shrink)

"All art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one." Friedrich Schlegel's words perfectly capture the project of the German Romantics, who believed that the aesthetic approaches of art and literature could reveal patterns and meaning in nature that couldn't be uncovered through rationalistic philosophy and science alone. In this wide-ranging work, Robert J. Richards shows how the Romantic conception of the world influenced (and was influenced by) both the lives of the people (...) who held it and the development of nineteenth-century science. Integrating Romantic literature, science, and philosophy with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involved—from Goethe and the brothers Schlegel to Humboldt and Friedrich and Caroline Schelling—Richards demonstrates how their tempestuous lives shaped their ideas as profoundly as their intellectual and cultural heritage. He focuses especially on how Romantic concepts of the self, as well as aesthetic and moral considerations—all tempered by personal relationships—altered scientific representations of nature. Although historians have long considered Romanticism at best a minor tributary to scientific thought, Richards moves it to the center of the main currents of nineteenth-century biology, culminating in the conception of nature that underlies Darwin's evolutionary theory. Uniting the personal and poetic aspects of philosophy and science in a way that the German Romantics themselves would have honored, The Romantic Conception of Life alters how we look at Romanticism and nineteenth-century biology. (shrink)

In his new book, "The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe," Robert J. Richards argues that Charles Darwin's true evolutionary roots lie in the German Romantic biology that flourished around the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is argued that Richards is quite wrong in this claim and that Darwin's roots are in the British society within which he was born, educated, and lived.

I develop a version of process theology inspired by Hartshorne. This development aims to reconcile Hartshorne both with recent science and with analytic metaphysics. It posits an endless series of ever greater cosmic epochs. Each cosmic epoch is a subcomputation in a divine organism. Each divine organism is like a phoenix. Just as new cosmic epochs are born from the ashes of old cosmic epochs, so new deities are born from the ashes of old deities. The result is a process (...) polytheism. (shrink)

On the assumption that romantic partners tend to act from a first-person plural perspective, how should the love that binds them be understood? This paper approaches this question by focusing on romantic practical integration, understood as the tendency of romantic partners to integrate their practical perspectives in such a way that allows them to have ‘reasons-for-us’: reasons for action that apply to them as a group, in a collective and non-distributive sense (Westlund Citation2009). After dispelling some reservations (...) about the connection between romantic love and the first-person plural perspective, I argue that the resources offered by one leading account of love, due to Bennett Helm, fall short of accounting for romantic practical integration. Building on Stephen Darwall’s account of romantic love as a ‘second-personal attitude of the heart’, I develop an alternative proposal. The proposed view foregrounds the relational and non-deontic normative character of romantic love, by conceptualizing it as an addressing attitude that intrinsically seeks – but doesn’t demand – reciprocation. On this view, the attitude of romantic love co-involves the addressee of the attitude as a (potential or actual) member of a narratively unified interpersonal community, in light of which putative reasons-for-us may be taken on board or rejected. (shrink)

Written with a general audience in mind, On Romantic Love offers a new theory of love as a partially unconscious, sometimes rational and always controllable emotion, while explaining some of the neuroscience underlying our wildest passions.

The Early Romantics met resistance from artists and academics alike in part because they defied the conventional wisdom that philosophy and the arts must be kept separate. Indeed, as the literary component of Romanticism has been studied and celebrated in recent years, its philosophical aspect has receded from view. This book, by one of the most respected scholars of the Romantic era, offers an explanation of Romanticism that not only restores but enhances understanding of the movement's origins, development, aims, (...) and accomplishments--and of its continuing relevance. Poetry is in fact the general ideal of the Romantics, Frederick Beiser tells us, but only if poetry is understood not just narrowly as poems but more broadly as things made by humans. Seen in this way, poetry becomes a revolutionary ideal that demanded--and still demands--that we transform not only literature and criticism but all the arts and sciences, that we break down the barriers between art and life, so that the world itself becomes "romanticized." Romanticism, in the view Beiser opens to us, does not conform to the contemporary division of labor in our universities and colleges; it requires a multifaceted approach of just the sort outlined in this book. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987, Colin Campbell’s classic treatise on the sociology of consumption has become one of the most widely cited texts in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and the history of ideas. In the thirty years since its publication, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism has lost none of its impact. If anything, the growing commodification of society, the increased attention to consumer studies and marketing, and the ever-proliferating range of purchasable goods and services have made (...) Campbell’s rereading of Weber more urgent still. As Campbell uncovers how and why a consumer-oriented society emerged from a Europe that once embodied Weber’s Protestant ethic, he delivers a rich theorization of the modern logics and values structuring consumer behavior. This new edition, featuring an extended Introduction from the author and an Afterword from researcher Karin M. Ekström, makes clear how this foundational work aligns with contemporary theory in cultural sociology, while also serving as major influence on consumer studies. (shrink)

In this article, James Gibson’s influential notion of “perceptual affordances” is applied to the romantic realm. The core idea of Gibson’s view rests on the possible, meaningful actions that the perceptual environment offers the animal. In order to sustain this idea, Gibson posits two additional major characteristics of affordances: (a) affordances are perceived in a direct cognitive manner, and (b) affordances have a unique ontological status that is neither subjective nor objective. While I accept the core idea, I have (...) doubts as to whether the two other characteristics are necessary in other types of affordances, such as social and romantic affordances. The romantic realm offers an abundance of many enticing affordances. In this regard, I discuss phenomena like the availability of a romantic alternative, romantic ambivalence, choosing a romantic partner, sexual fantasies, the road not taken, reciprocity, playing hard to get, cultivating backup mates, romantic affordances in old age and in the digital realm. In light of the abundance and complexity of romantic affordances in our current romantic environment, knowing the nature of these affordances is most useful from both pragmatic and theoretical viewpoints. (shrink)

This paper defends the thesis that romantic partnership is a form of friendship by arguing that such partnership is a romantic kind of close friendship. Despite its modest philosophical popularity, the thesis that romantic partnership is a form of friendship stands in need of an adequate defense, and so the paper first reconstructs and critically evaluates previous philosophical attempts to vindicate the thesis in order to motivate the need for a fresh defense of it. To substantiate the (...) thesis, the paper then offers accounts of romantic partnership and close friendship before explaining how romantic partnership counts as a romantic form of close friendship in light of these accounts. The paper then responds to critics of the romantic-partnership-as-friendship position. (shrink)

The emphasis on the unique self in the Romantic period resulted in representations of romantic love as an aspect of psychological depth. However, in Maria Edgeworth’s novel, Belinda (1901), love is represented as a function of visceral sensation and at best as automatic rather than reflective psychological processes. To some degree, Edgeworth was influenced by the scientific culture of her time in viewing love as a product of the external, observable world rather than of the interior mind. More (...) surprisingly, perhaps, Edgeworth considers love as a function of high society, thus breaking down symptomatic associations of love and domesticity. In Belinda, love is a product of both the logical scientific method and the questionable morality characteristic of fashionable sociability. Standing partially outside the Romantic emphasis on psychological depth and the empirical insistence on rationality, Edgeworth theorises a love that questions the foundational concepts of subject/object and feeling/reason through which love has been understood from the Romantic era to the present day. (shrink)

This book is both extraordinarily useful and wonderfully beautiful. It provides a sympathetic and articulate account of the basic philosophical and religious theory of Hindu polytheism, an analysis of some of its fundamental concepts, a systematic ordering and explanation of the major deities with their various names and symbols, and a clear picture of the structure and development of Hindu thought. The Sanskrit texts are printed separately, and there is a set of fine black-and-white plates. I can't imagine a (...) more delightful, or more useful, basic reference work on the subject. The earlier French edition, published in 1960, differs in minor points and does not contain the very valuable index.—W. G. E. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on Hegel's important but underappreciated conception of romantic art. The author argues that for Hegel, art is a work of language. Whereas Hegel believes classical art is a work of language that serves as a foundation of society, however, romantic art provides what the author refers to as a supplement.

The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha - A Translation of the Chinese Version of the Abhiniskramanasutra. S. Beal. Reprint, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1985. xii + 395 pp. Rs. 90.

In this book, Esposito presents a historiography of organicist and holistic thought through an examination of the work of leading biologists from Britain and America. He shows how this work relates to earlier Romantic tradition and sets it within the wider context of the history and philosophy of the life sciences.

At the heart of this book is a simple comparison: monotheistic religions are exclusive, whereas ancient polytheistic religions are inclusive. In this thought-provoking book, Maurizio Bettini, one of today's foremost classicists, uses the expansiveness of ancient polytheism to shine a bright light on a darker corner of our modern times. It can be easy to see ancient religions as inferior, less free, and remote from shared visions of a more inclusive world. But, as Bettini deftly shows, many ancient practices (...) tended to produce results aligned with contemporary progressive values, like pluralism and diversity. In Praise of Polytheism does not chastise the modern world or blame monotheism for all our woes but rather shows in clear, sharp prose how much we can learn from ancient religions, underscoring the limitations of how we view the world and ourselves today. (shrink)

David Lewis n’a pas développé de philosophie complète de la religion à proprement parler mais il s’est penché précisément sur différents thèmes religieux comme le rapport entre Dieu et le possible, l’argument ontologique ou la théodicée. Bien que dénuées de toute systématicité, les publications de Lewis sur le religieux défendent un athéisme très argumenté. L'article vise à montrer comment son athéisme s'articule à l'existence d'une pluralité de dieux.

Two formative forces for Greek philosophers remain undertheorized: polytheism as a metaphysical position and myth as a source of intelligibility. Heidegger’s work is perhaps exemplary in this regard: he both runs together Greek Metaphysics and Monotheism as well as fell prey to the power of myths. In this paper I introduce and translate the 1953 essay “Mythology and the Tropic Experience of Being” by the Brazilian philosopher Vicente Ferreira da Silva, where he proposed an openly polytheistic Heideggerian metaphysics and (...) philosophy of mythology. Vicente Ferreira da Silva thereby developed a phenomenological approach to myth that can dialogue fruitfully with ancient philosophy in its fullness and also reflect critically about contemporary myths. (shrink)

The comparison drawn by the Neoplatonist Olympiodorus between the Stoic doctrine of the reciprocal implication of the virtues and the Neoplatonic doctrine of the presence of all the gods in each helps to elucidate the latter. In particular, the idea of primary and secondary “perspectives” in each virtue, when applied to Neoplatonic theology, can clarify certain theoretical statements made by Proclus in his Cratylus commentary concerning specific patterns of inherence of deities in one another. More broadly, the “polycentric” nature of (...) Neoplatonic theology provides a theoretical articulation for henotheistic practices within polytheism without invoking evolutionist notions of “monotheistic tendencies.” The Neoplatonic distinction between the modes of unity exhibited by divine individuals (“henads”) and ontic units (“monads”), which is integral to the polycentric theology, also provides a theoretical basis for the non reductive crosscultural comparison between deities. The polycentric theology thus offers a promising foundation for a polytheistic philosophy of religion. (shrink)

[The Romantic Medicine of Oliver Sacks.].

Romantic love is subject to the same philosophical analysis, this book shows, as any other human experience such as selfhood, good and evil, or justice—even though most philosophers have neglected it. An appropriate method of inquiry here, the author holds, "must be an ontological theory; it must evaluate the reality of love in comparison to the other things we think are real." Part I examines the layman's conception of romantic love as a "mysterious, unanalyzable feeling." It also examines (...) the psychologist's conception of romantic love as "an unmysterious natural phenomenon"—a drive. Part II turns to the sociologist's conception of romantic love as a social institution—"an interpersonal transaction with a social function." Part III concludes that romantic love is an objective social process which society makes possible "by granting the individual a private inner being which escapes typification by being literally unspeakable." Written with clarity, wit, and charm, _Romantic Love _will appeal to all intellectually curious readers including philosophers and social scientists. (shrink)

This essay presents an ideal for modern Western romantic love.The basic ideas are the following: people want to form a distinctive sort of plural subject with another, what Nozick has called a "We", they want to be loved for properties of certain kinds, and they want this love to establish and sustain a special sort of commitment to them over time.

Romantic Motives explores a topic that has been underemphasized in the historiography of anthropology. Tracking the Romantic strains in the the writings of Rousseau, Herder, Cushing, Sapir, Benedict, Redfield, Mead, Lévi-Strauss, and others, these essays show Romanticism as a permanent and recurrent tendency within the anthropological tradition.

This volume is the result of a thorough exploration of contemporary conceptions of romantic love from different points of view. Beginning with an initial text where the meanings of romantic love are discussed theoretically and historically, the contributions gathered here present current discussions about love in the present day and in different geographical contexts that range from Hungary to Italy or Spain. The first part of the book is devoted to the analysis of mobilities for the sake of (...) love as a result of globalization. These mobilities are analysed in relation to love ideals, to gender equality and to online searches for the ideal partners. The second part of the book deals with the exploration of different imaginaries of love in particular geographical contexts. The topics dealt with here include love as sickness, love and violence, love ideals for men engaged in gender equality and love ideals for those who engage in cross-dressing practices. In the third part, writing about and for love is addressed. Love writings to the beloved dead, teenage girlsâ (TM) blogs and bestsellers such as Fifty Shades of Grey are discussed in particular detail. This book addresses current conceptions of romantic love in different social groups through different practices and in different countries, and shows that, despite the variability of discourses, experiences and practices related to love, a number of ideas of what love should be like â " related to the Western ideals of romantic love â " persist in all these contexts. The contributions to this volume are derived from extensive fieldwork and ethnographic research, and will be of undoubted interest for the academic milieu. However, given the topic it deals with, the book will also appeal to the general public, who will find in these pages many â ~love storiesâ (TM) derived from the detailed study of the society which we inhabit and the ideals of love that we breathe. (shrink)

Women are often viewed as more romantic than men, and romantic relationships are assumed to be more central to the lives of women than to those of men. Despite the prevalence of these beliefs, some recent research paints a different picture. Using principles and insights based on the interdisciplinary literature on mixed-gender relationships, we advance a set of four propositions relevant to differences between men and women and their romantic relationships. We propose that relative to women: (a) (...) men expect to obtain greater benefits from relationship formation and thus strive more strongly for a romantic partner, (b) men benefit more from romantic relationship involvement in terms of their mental and physical health, (c) men are less likely to initiate breakups, and (d) men suffer more from relationship dissolution. We offer theoretical explanations based on differences between men and women in the availability of social networks that provide intimacy and emotional support. We discuss implications for friendships in general and friendships between men and women in particular. (shrink)

Polytheism is a strange view to hold in modernity. Connected as it is in the popular imagination with archaic, animistic, magical, prescientific systems of thought, we don’t hesitate much before casting it into the dustbin of history. Even if we are not monotheists, we are likely to think of monotheism as the obviously more plausible position. The traditional arguments for the existence of God, which have been enormously influential in Western philosophy of religion, do not necessarily rule out (...) class='Hi'>polytheism but they are clearly formulated with monotheism in mind. While there could be multiple first causes, intelligent designers, or beings than which nothing greater can be conceived, the simplest and most natural... (shrink)

Our romantic lives are influenced, to a large extent, by our perceptions of physical attractiveness – and the societal beauty standards that shape them. But what if we could free our desires from this fixation on looks? Science fiction writer Ted Chiang has explored this possibility in a fascinating short story – and scientific developments might, in the future, move it beyond the realm of fiction. In this paper, I lay out the prudential case for using “attraction-expanding technology,” and (...) then consider it from a moral point of view. Using the technology would, in one respect, be morally good: it would benefit those whom prevailing beauty standards marginalize. But attraction-expanding technology also raises a moral concern – one that can be cast in non-harm-based and harm-based terms. I argue that the non-harm-based objection should be rejected, because it is incompatible with a moral principle central to queer rights. And the harm-based objection, I argue, is outweighed by the benefits of attraction-expanding technology, and undermined by the prerogative you have over your personal romantic choices. I conclude by considering whether, from the perspective of society, the development of attraction-expanding technology would be desirable. (shrink)

Romantic Organicism attempts to reassess the much maligned and misunderstood notion of organic unity. Following organicism from its crucial radicalisation in German Idealism, it shows how both Coleridge and Wordsworth developed some of their most profound ideas and poetry on its basis. Armstrong shows how the tenets and ideals of organicism - despite much criticism - remain an insistent, if ambivalent, backdrop for much of our current thought, including the work of Derrida amongst others.

On its surface, the movie her depicts a classical romance: boy meets girl, both fall in love, the relationship evolves, until they finally and sadly break up. What makes this conventional plot special and worthwhile of being used in philosophical investigation is the fact that the girl in this case is an artificial intelligence —Samantha is an operating system owned by Theodore. But is reciprocal, romantic love between a human and an AI even possible, and, if so, might there (...) be aspects of such a loving relationship that warrant ethical criticism? Assuming, for the sake of argument, a positive answer to the first question, this chapter focuses on the latter. In addressing the ethical implications of such a loving relationship, we highlight the likelihood of its sexist and misogynistic traits. Current depictions of AI lovers—just like Samantha—usually fulfill the female stereotype of being warm, caring, and always up to satisfying the user’s needs. This is due to a fundamental asymmetry which is constitutive for relationships between humans and AIs—after all, the latter are programmed and bought for the very reason to satisfy the buyer’s needs. We argue that romantic love between a human and an AI, therefore, warrants substantial ethical criticism, as it falls short of important ethical aspects of a romantic love worthwhile pursuing. (shrink)

In the 21st century, educators seem to have more capacity for thinking pluralistically about teaching than they did a few decades ago. It is now commonplace to talk about multiple intelligences, a variety of teaching and learning styles, different acceptable outcomes of education. If we take the lead from archetypal psychology, the Greek pantheon can provide us with language for talking about a wide range of distinct philosophies, value systems, energies, feeling states, habits of behavior and teaching styles as they (...) can be observed in the classroom. The gods are many, and if we follow the advice of the ancient Greeks we will be careful not to neglect any of them—and not get too carried away in worshiping any single one of them. (shrink)

Feminists and gay liberationists condemn romantic love as an inherently sexist and heterosexist institution which requires sexist idealizations and heterosexual desire. I argue that although romantic love in contemporary Western societies often includes sexist idealizations and heterosexual desire, those elements are not necessary constituents of the concept of romantic love. The crucial elements in romantic love are concern, admiration, the desire for reciprocation, and the passion for union, none of which require either sexist idealizations or heterosexual (...) sexual desire. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.4 (2003) 353-375 [Access article in PDF] A Rhetoric for Polytheistic Democracy: Walt Whitman's "Poem of Many in One" Peter Simonson Department of Communication University of Pittsburgh This essay aims to generate rhetorically oriented normative communication theory useful for the current socio-intellectual moment. It draws upon Walt Whitman's 1850s poetry as an artistically compelling statement of what I call polytheistic democracy, a form of life marked (...) by three overlapping ideals: pluralistic tolerance for multiple gods and moral orientations; commitment to recognizing, preserving, and artfully representing socio-cultural variety; and receptivity to contact with a diverse range of particular others. Whitman offers theory in the sense of a structured way of seeing. It is normative in that it describes a world that might be, not one that is, and provides orienting visions, regulative ideals, and topoi of praise and criticism that stand available to guide the communicative practices of individuals, groups, and institutions alike.The theory is "rhetorically oriented" in that it draws upon techniques and vocabularies developed within the rhetorical tradition. Methodologically, it is generated through rhetorical criticism and imitatio. I offer a reading that brings out the rhetorical dynamics of Whitman's vision of polytheistic democracy as articulated in his 1856 "Poem of Many in One" (later and canonically titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore"), a central social statement in his much-revised masterwork, Leaves of Grass. In so doing, I hold Whitman up as a model for imitatio, the complex interpretive practice whereby, in Michael Leff's words, historical texts come to serve "as equipment for future rhetorical production" (1997, 201). Imitatio is an intellectually generative process. "As the embodied utterances of the past are interpreted for current application, their ideas and modes of articulation are reembodied, and old voices are recovered for use in new circumstances" (203).I couple imitatio with a neo-pragmatist rhetorical criticism oriented toward practice and reflection in the current cultural moment. Whitman gains significance insofar as he helps us experience, think about, and act [End Page 353] within the worlds we now traverse. 1 Among other qualities, those worlds are marked by heterogeneous groups and people who must continuously find ways to live with one another; by large institutions that stand as steady reminders that individuals may not matter very much; by ubiquitous electronic and print media offering copious streams of symbolic culture; and by countervailing geographical forces of circulation and social segmentation of fleshly bodies in the material spaces of public life. In worlds with such qualities, Whitman is a useful locus of imitatio—someone whose cosmopolitan social imagination, deep pluralism, wide-ranging habits of contact, and attention to corporeal individuals all serve as useful equipment for new rhetorical and moral production."Poem of Many in One" has a self-exemplifying 2 aspect to it, for it models what it aims to cultivate in the world. Whitman's print-based rhetoric provides an overarching vision of polytheistic democracy and mass community, scattered across time and space and actualized partly through individuals. His discourse models this social condition by displaying radical openness to high and low, sacred and profane, the admired and the socially despised. It is rhetorically driven by a copious style and an aesthetically oriented democratic ethos that Whitman's mediated eloquence aims also to generate in its readers. Its success thus hinges on readerly receptivity and cultivated ethos that re-embodies aspects of his sensibility and rhetorical techniques, giving them new momentum in scattered realms of social being.I amplify key components of Whitman's normative vision not to trump competing moral principles and orientations but to supplement them. In this sense, my essay is pluralist all the way down. It is socially pluralist in that I believe in encouraging the development and preservation of multiple sets of normative orientations, with no single principle or moral perspective ordering all others. It is individually pluralist in that I understand moral principles as interpretive and rhetorical resources deployed and judged on the basis of their contingent appropriateness and usefulness. 3 "One does not... (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between romantic love and polyamory. Our central question is whether traditional norms of monogamy can be excised from romantic love so as to harmonize with polyamory’s ethical dimensions (as we construe them). How one answers this question bears on another: whether ‘polyamory’ should principally be understood in terms of romantic love or instead some alternative conception(s). Our efforts to address these questions begin by briefly motivating our favored approach to romantic love, (...) a “narratival” one inspired by 1930s cultural theorist Denis de Rougemont, wherein such love is exclusive, supernatural or promising transcendence, painful, impeded, and, ultimately, fatal. We maintain that, even once exclusivity is removed as an official component, tensions with polyamory’s ethical dimensions remain: romantic love’s other elements rationalize acting and feeling in ways that privilege a singular beloved above others. A tempting solution is to further revise romantic love. However, we are skeptical that this leaves space for distinctively romantic love. Our tentative proposal, then, is that polyamory’s ethical dimensions favor rejecting romantic love as ultimately desirable. (shrink)