In this paper, we see that contrary to most readings of T 1.4.2 in the Treatise ("Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses"), Hume does not think that objects are sense impressions. This means that Hume's position on objects (whatever that may be) is not to be conflated with the vulgar perspective. Moreover, the vulgar perspective undergoes a marked transition in T 1.4.2, evolving from what we may call vulgar perspective I into vulgar perspective II. This paper presents the first (...) detailed analysis of this evolution, which includes an explanation of T 1.4.2's four-part system. (shrink)

Berkeley “argues with the learned and speaks with the vulgar.” I use his double maxim to interpret his ethics. My approach is new. The Sermons and Guardian Essays mainly speak to the vulgar and Passive Obedience and Alciphron reason with the learned. The reward of ethics is eternal bliss in a future state: religion and ethics are connected. I study a set of problems: resurrection, eternal life, happiness, benevolence, the goodness of God, and self-love. Divine bliss is unlike any earthly (...) happiness. The idea of law does not support benevolence, even if it is a Christian duty and virtue. God is good, but how to prove it? The learned must study the complex theodicy problem; the vulgar need assurance based on their sensuous experience and fervent hope of eternal bliss. Self-love may be a vital issue to the learned, although the vulgar may not realize their need to overcome it. The main questions concern Berkeley’s two approaches to ethical problems: first, how do their topics differ, and second, are they mutually consistent? (shrink)

In Zimbabwe, popular music, particularly the Zimdancehall music genre, has become a cultural site where Shona moral values clash with explicit sexual lyrical content despite a censorship regime in the country. This article examines the nature and cultural consequences of the moral decadence that emerges in popular Zimdancehall song lyrics by several musicians. The article illustrates how vulgar language popularises Zimdancehall songs in unheralded ways that foster identities laced with cultural ambivalences that may portray the artists as both famous and (...) depraved. This qualitative study does textual and content analysis of 11 purposively sampled songs with sex terms to elucidate the cultural inconsistencies in Zimdancehall song narratives. Analysis is informed by the Neuro-Psycho-Social theory, which recognises how socio-cultural restrictions are challenged by an emerging ghetto culture like new wine in old bottles. Alternative unsanctioned new popular music genres can be used to permeate the sociocultural system. (shrink)

Rock music, rap, and heavy metal are all forms of vulgar music. Vulgarity refers to actions and communication that are “common, noisy, and gross,” and are “untranscendent.” A technological society is a vulgar society in its base of materialism and exclusive concern with power. Its excessive rationality produces a need for escape, for ecstasy, for the release of instinctual power. Vulgar music mimics a technological society and provides compensation for its repressive impact.

In Treatise 1.4.2, David Hume seeks to explain how we come to believe in the external existence of bodies. He offers a complicated psychological account, where the imagination operates on the raw data of the senses to produce the ‘vulgar’ belief in the continued existence of the very things we sense. On behalf of philosophers, he presents a perceptual relativity argument that purports to show that the vulgar belief is false. I argue that scholars have failed to appreciate Hume's peculiar (...) formulation of the perceptual relativity argument and its relation to his psychological account of the vulgar belief. On my interpretation, in order to account for all the premises that Hume explicitly offers, the argument is best interpreted as beginning with a reductio that opposes the effects of the senses and the imagination in the vulgar belief. Thus Hume can be interpreted as identifying an ‘antinomy’ in the habits of the vulgar mind that produce belief in bodies. (shrink)

En el parágrafo §7 de Ser y Tiempo Heidegger distingue entre «vulgar», «formal» y «fenomenológico» a propósito del concepto de «fenómeno». El objetivo del presente artículo es mostrar, en primer lugar, que esta diferencia puede entenderse únicamente desde una previa aclaración de los motivos metodológicos del término. Se sostendrá, en segundo lugar, que todo tratamiento temático es al mismo tiempo un tratamiento metodológico, esto es, que la fenomenología hermenéutica de la existencia humana desarrolla y oculta un particular discurso del método.

Marxism was indeed vulgarized due to scientism in the 20th century, which even limits the development of Chinese social theories nowadays. This paper put forward the idea that it was serious misunderstanding to interpret Marx as prophet or inventor like empiricists who regard finding out eternal laws as the goal of science. In fact, Marx did not propose any so-called “natural laws of historical development”. He articulated that the only thing worth to do was to take note of what happened (...) before his eyes and to become its mouthpiece. Thus, to understand science in the face of social practice, to analyze everything historically and never to thrust “eternal” laws in any era should be taken as the core of Marx’s new science, which is very important to China today. (shrink)

What did it mean to “vulgarize” in Renaissance Italy? Was it simply a matter of translating into the vernacular, or did it mean making a text more accessible to the people – to in some sense popularize it? The answer is far from simple and certainly never one-sided; therefore, each individual case needs to be independently assessed on its own merits. This article seeks to shed some light at least on the major treatments of the theory of vulgarization by the (...) likes of Ludovico Castelvetro, Faustus Longianus, Francesco Robortello, Alessandro Piccolomini, Orazio Toscanella and Girolamo Catena, which were central to the debate from the 1540s onwards. (shrink)

Since his death in 1980, there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in the life and work of Jean-Paul Sartre, as interpreters have searched for the threads that link the diverse elements of his thought. In this book, Stuart Zane Charme uses the concept of vulgarity as a key to understanding the interaction of Sartre's social background and his analysis of existential authenticity.

In the first Enquiry, Hume takes the experience of exerting force against a solid body to be a key ingredient of the vulgar idea of power, so that the vulgar take that experience to provide us with an impression of power. Hume provides two arguments against the vulgar on this point: the first concerning our other applications of the idea of power and the second concerning whether that experience yields certainty about distinct events. I argue that, even if we accept (...) Hume’s conception of the vulgar’s approach, neither of Hume’s arguments succeeds. The first argument can be resisted either by using the very arguments Hume provides concerning other causal representations or by simply rejecting Hume’s strict empiricism. The second argument can be resisted on epistemological grounds: there is no reason to think that an experience of a maximally-strong metaphysical connection would provide a maximally-strong epistemological connection. Unlike some recent neo-Anscombean responses to the second argument, my response does not require challenging Hume’s view that causal relations are strictly necessary. Though I do not attempt to translate the resilience of the vulgar view into contemporary terms, the failure of Hume’s arguments challenges one of the long-standing motivations for Humean approaches to causation. (shrink)

Section III of part IV of Book I of Hume's Treatise entitled “Of the ancient philosophy” has been virtually ignored by most Hume scholars. Although philosophers seem to concentrate on sections II and VI of part IV and pay little or no attention to section III, the latter section is paramount in showing how serious Hume's skepticism is, and how Hume's philosophy, contrary to his intention, is far removed from "the sentiments of the vulgar". In this paper I shall first (...) explore Hume's view on ancient philosophy as it is presented in section III, and I shall particularly focus on his discussion of identity and simplicity of bodies. Second, I shall argue that Hume's account of identity and simplicity in terms of qualities is at best unsatisfactory. Finally, I shall try to show that Hume's advice to hold a "moderate" skepticism cannot be taken seriously. On the contrary, Hume seems to hold an "extravagant" skepticism, since he claims that there is a contradiction between our most fundamental natural beliefs, as well as between our natural beliefs and philosophical reasoning. (shrink)

With the triumph of capitalism at the end of the Cold War, the 1990s witnessed the emergence of an optimistic sentiment grounded in the idea of limitless progress. However, as Fisher (2020) asserts, this sentiment was called into question by the crises of the early 21st century, giving rise to a melancholic outlook on the future. This new phase of capitalism has generated a series of existential-themed products in popular culture, albeit with a despairing tone regarding the direction of society. (...) The issue at hand aims to analyze popular culture through a Sartrean existential prism, seeking to understand how the cultural industry creates clichés inspired by historical existentialism, producing what we will refer to as “vulgar existentialism,” in contrast to Sartre’s historical existentialism. Our hypothesis unfolds in two parts: 1- Vulgar existentialism promotes a hedonistic rebellion that does not threaten the system, reducing the crisis to a “neutralized” form of conduct; 2- Such conduct is sustained by an imaginary rooted in popular culture productions that manifest melancholy and fatalism in relation to attempts at radical societal transformation. (shrink)

As I see it, the historic role of literary Bloomsbury was to act as a sort of check or antibody continually attacking the proponents of the vulgar passions in the body politic whenever these menaced the traditional values of liberal England. In a democracy and perhaps in any modern state there is always a danger that men seeking power will rely upon the feelings rather than the intelligence of the masses. Such appeals to the vulgar passions represent a continual danger; (...) fight on till the Huns are smashed, squeeze Germany until the pips squeak, woman's place is in the home, stamp out dirty unnatural vice, keep the black man in his place—exhortations of this kind can be terribly effective. Against them, or most of them, one may oppose the arguments of the Sermon on the Mount: love your enemies, all men are brothers. This Bloomsbury did not do; it had no use either for the hero or for the saint. In its polemics it appeals to good sense and good feeling and relies upon the belief that ultimately the reasoned argument will prevail. Quentin Bell is the author of, among other works, Virginia Woolf: A Biography, Bloomsbury, Ruskin, and On Human Finery. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Art and the Elite" and exchanges with E. H. Gombrich and James Ackerman. (shrink)

Perhaps you know the old joke about the soldiers passing a message down the line— first man to second, “send reinforcements, we’re going to advance”; next-to-last man to last, “send three-and-fourpence, we’re going to a dance.” Well, the history of pragmatism is like that—only more so.

Preview: /Commentary: Richard Shusterman, Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics in the Classical Arts of Love, 436 pages./ I think “it is official” now. Ars Erotica will become some sort of classic. There are several reasons why. Some, just cannot stop giggling when they hear the word sex. Many will grab the book out of curiosity, and maybe some, although I do not believe that many, will even do it for camp reasons. Many of these readers have a neurotic and/or complicated (...) relationship to sexuality, and hopefully at least some of them will find the book helpful, as they reflect on themselves and their sexual lives through the text. On the other hand, I cannot imagine anyone in aesthetics or with a scholarly interest in sexuality who would not find the book helpful. Nothing comparable on the relationship of aesthetics and sexuality has been done and the book embraces the topic globally – featuring Shusterman’s vast and deep knowledge – about not just Western philosophy and culture, but also Chinese and Japanese thinking among others. (shrink)

This contribution grapples with the question: Is there a relationship between Steve Biko’s ‘quest for a true humanity’ or, differently put, his search for South Africa’s ‘human face’ and Vuyani Vellem’s quest for an African spirituality? Our proposition is that there is such a relationship. This discussion is framed overall by two other questions: What is the relevance of this ‘quest’ within the present South African context, what is its contribution to the global situation and, fundamentally, what is the contribution (...) black liberation theology can make to these discourses? In the course of this exploration, we engage the concepts of Africanisation and Afrocentricity, colonisation, coloniality and decoloniality, and we ask whether a true Afro-pluralism is possible without a true African indigeneity. These concepts, we shall argue, are tools of struggle, not only in confronting colonisation and coloniality but also in battling imperialism, in the form I discuss here: the politics of vulgarity. I contend that an African spirituality, Biko’s ‘gift’ from Africa to the world, is the most appropriate vessel for that very gift.Contribution: This article serves as commemoration of the contribution the late Professor Vuyani Vellem made to the qualitative substantiation of black theology liberation in South Africa. It demonstrates the powerful way in which Afro-pluralism enhances the contra-narrative of imperialism and colonialism. (shrink)

There are remarkable parallels between Hume and Nagarjuna in their denial of substantiality and independence in objects and their subsequent attitude toward our ordinary world. Acknowledging a deep-rooted human tendency to take objects as independent entities, they both argue that there is nothing intrinsic in those objects that make them unitary and independent, and that those characters are, strictly speaking, merely fictitious, mental constructs. They nonetheless affirm the existence of our ordinary world as real. Although their main purposes of the (...) philosophical inquiry are different (epistemological for Hume, and soteriological for Nagarjuna), their accounts of the nature of our world allow us to accept it in the way we ordinarily believe with the deeper understanding of it. It is only in this world where we think, act, and interact with others that an epistemology grounded in human sentiment and experience (for Hume) or humans liberation (for Nagarjuna) is possible. (shrink)

This paper aims to elucidate the case of the vulgar craftsmen who are excluded from the citizen body, a case which evidently challenged Aristotle’s conception of citizenship, as we find it presented in Pol. III,5. I argue that Aristotle’s exclusion of vulgar craftsmen from citizenship in his best city, based on their habits, activities, and ways of life, lacks justification, even when evaluated against his own criteria.

I argue that the vulgar belief in continued and distinct existences, as Hume describes it in Treatise 1.4.2, “Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses,” is defeasibly justified. Prior to and apart from the rebutting defeater that Hume brings forward as an argument from perceptual relativity in paragraphs 44 and 45, the vulgar belief is perfectly in order, philosophically speaking. For Hume, a belief is defeasibly justified if and only if it is produced by permanent, irresistible, and universal principles of (...) the imagination. The vulgar belief meets these conditions and thus is defeasibly justified—even though it suffers eventual defeat. (shrink)

Diverse interpretations of Maimonides’ Guide have abounded since it was first written. A recent school depicts Maimonides as a critical philosopher, in the Kantian mold, who was skeptical of claims to know certain metaphysical truths. Josef Stern’s new book is a landmark in this skeptical interpretation, which refines and extends the debate in various new directions. This chapter claims that focusing on skeptical motifs can bring Maimonides into line with recent developments in understanding the history of philosophy. Stern directs attention (...) to the role that questioning can play in religious faith, and contends that Maimonides’ arguments are a series of spiritual exercises leading to equipollence and, ultimately, to silence and incomplete knowledge of God and the intelligences. The second half of the chapter turns to arguments that oppose a straightforward reading. It contextualizes them in studies of recent decades and offers alternative explanations of key passages in order to preserve a traditional reading. (shrink)

Quais sáo as teorias vulgares da moralidade criticadas por Hume na famosa passagem is-ought ? Quais eram seus defensores? Neste ensaio, trato de algumas diferenças entre Hume e Hutcheson que podem iluminar algumas respostas. Hume, ao contrário de Hutcheson, combateu toda forma de separaçáo da natureza humana em componentes naturais e divinos. O conceito de simpatia cumpre uma funçáo essencial nesse aspecto. Há bons indícios de que o jovem Hume adotou no Tratado uma estratégia abertamente crítica a todas as teorias (...) morais defendidas pelos pensadores, religiosos e moralistas de sua época. Isso inclui o voluntarismo contratualista, as éticas racionalistas, bem como as concepções religiosas influenciadas pelo dogmatismo evangélico escocês. Nisso Hume distanciou-se de Hutcheson, pois sua crítica também incluía as visões influenciadas pelas teorias do direito natural com referência na providência divina. A passagem is-ought sinaliza essa intençáo. Todavia, todo esse ímpeto juvenil resultou numa série de maus resultados pessoais, o que o levou, na maturidade a mitigar sua agressividade filosófica e a adotar, em seus escritos, uma atitude mais equilibrada. (shrink)

Resumen: Esta investigación busca dar cuenta de los espacios que habitan los personajes del cuento Alegres, libres y ruidosas de Pedro Juan Gutiérrez. Mediante los detalles que nos entrega el narrador, revisaremos los “operadores tonales”, estableciendo los enunciados descriptivos y los detalles inherentes a ellos, en cuanto a la composición de los personajes, así como el tipo de espacio en que se realizan, construyendo una identidad transgresora bajo la perspectiva de la poética de lo soez. En este sentido, los personajes (...) serán “máquinas deseantes” que irrumpen en la realidad con un flujo sistemático de líquidos descompuestos que arrastran residuos políticos, éticos y estéticos presentes en la Cuba contemporánea. Así, podríamos hablar de un sexo eminentemente político que no se presenta denotativamente en el cuento sino en las metáforas construidas por aquellos operadores que fijan el “tono” del relato. Por último, postulamos que los detalles funcionan como “pistas” de una historia secreta que funciona bajo la historia visible que se narra en el cuento.: This research seeks to explain the spaces inhabited by characters from the story Alegres, libres y ruidosas by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez. Thoughout the details provided by the narrator, we will review “tone operators”, determining their descriptive and inherent statements, concerning characters, the space in which they are realized by building a transgressor identity under the view poetics of the vulgar. In this sense, the characters are "desiring machines" that burst into reality with a systematic flow of decomposed liquids that drag political, ethical and aesthetic residues present in contemporary Cuba. Thus, we could speak of an eminently political sex that does not occur denotatively in the story but in the metaphors constructed by those operators who fix the "tone" of the story. Finally, we postulate that the details function as "clues" of a secret story that works under the visible story told in the tale. (shrink)

This study throws new light on the composition of Boyle's Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv'd Notion of Nature ; it also draws more general conclusions about Boyle's methods as an author and his links with his context. Its basis is a careful study of the extant manuscript drafts for the work, and their relationship with the published editions. Section 2 describes Boyle's characteristic method of composition from the late 1650s onwards, involving the dictation of discrete sections of text to (...) amanuenses; it also assesses the effect this had on the structure and presentation of Boyle's writings. Section 3 considers the published text section by section and indicates which parts were written when; it also surveys unpublished draft material relating to the work. Section 4 places the work in context, considering the intellectual threats that Boyle sought to confront in it, both when he initially composed it in the 1660s and when he rewrote it c. 1680. It thus anchors him more precisely than hitherto in the intellectual debates of his day. (shrink)