Neglect of the moral promise of disorientation is a persistent gap in even the most sophisticated philosophies of embodiment. In this article, I begin to correct this neglect by expanding our sense of the range and nature of disoriented experience and proposing new visions of disorientation as benefiting moral agency. Disorientations are experienced through complex interactions of corporeal, affective, and cognitive processes, and are characterized by feelings of shock, surprise, unease, and discomfort; felt disorientations almost always make us unsure of (...) how to go on. I argue that experiences of disorientation can strengthen the moral agency of individuals. I begin by clarifying experiences of felt ease and orientation. I then characterize disoriented embodiment by investigating select experiences that often involve or accompany disorientation, focusing throughout on how disorientation prompts changes in motivation and action. I conclude by charting how disoriented embodiments can help individuals become better moral agents overall, in part by challenging norms that restrict embodiment and undermining dualistic conceptions of the self. (shrink)

This chapter argues that some disorientations prompt individuals to gain new awareness in politically and morally important ways, even when they do not prompt capacities for decisive moral judgment or confidence. It investigates disorientations of experiencing racism, white privilege, consciousness-raising, and critical education, drawing on first-person, philosophical, and empirical accounts of double consciousness, white anti-racism, moral shock, double ontological shock, gaslighting, outlaw emotions, and feminist pedagogy. It demonstrates how, in some cases, these disorientations generate awareness of contingent oppressive norms and (...) of political complexity, and it then argues for the moral and political significance of such awareness. Even as it does not help individuals resolve how to act, such awareness can generate epistemic humility, allow individuals to relate differently to their histories and communities of origin, and clarify the necessity of collaborative rather than individual action. (shrink)

Although Indonesia is far from where Islam emerged, it is a country with the world’s largest Muslim population. The historical data on Islam’s entry into Indonesia is still very limited, therefore it is not easy to find clear information about it. This met with the historical reconstruction difficulty to the Islamic sciences’ development, especially ḥadīth, when Islam first came to Indonesia. Ḥadīth is not as popular as other sciences such as tafsīr, fiqh, taṣawwuf, and kalām. The ḥadīth’s arrival and the (...) history of prevelance in Indonesia were not as clear as the others sciences. To solve this problem, the Indonesian historians traced the dates when Islamic sciences began to emerge and spread in Indonesia. These also provided clues about ḥadīth science’s emergence and development in Indonesia. Based on tracing early ḥadīth studies in Indonesia, we can speak about two important figures’ names who are widely mentioned and cannot be separated from ḥadīth science history in Indonesia; Mahfudz Tremas (d. 1338/1920) and Hasyim Asy’ari (d. 1366/1947). These two figures colored Islamic teaching in Indonesia because of their mastery Islamic knowledge covering various Islamic sciences. Both of them also had an important role in Indonesian society in the colonialism era. This made it easier for them to spread ḥadīth widely among Indonesian Muslim people. In this research article, data, reports, and information of ḥadīth science emergence in Indonesia, Mahfudz Tremas and Hasyim Asy’ari’s biographies, studies, and contributions were compiled with descriptive analysis method and historical approach. Furthermore, data collection and evaluation methods were used in this research article. This research cites references written in Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic, and other foreign languages. The journal articles and scientific books we used are among the sources used in this study. The early Indonesian scholars are generally experts not only in one of the Islamic sciences but also in others. Moreover, Islamic sciences that they desired, deepened in, and focused on were mixed. The early Indonesian scholars not only wrote several on Islamic science fields, but they also interconnected the early Islamic sciences’ works in Indonesia. Therefore, it can be considered a difficult task to distinguish ḥadīth from others. The subject, we examine here is within the ḥadīth science’s historical framework mixed with other Islamic sciences in Indonesia. This research article focused only on ḥadīth entry history in Indonesia, Mahfudz Tremas, Hasyim Asy’ari, and their role in ḥadīth development. The questions we answered in this article are when ḥadīth science began to emerge, what was and how the role of Mahfudz Tremas and Hasyim Asy’ari were in Indonesia at this subject as the greatest contributors to its early emergence and dissemination, and high authority scholars among Indonesian Muslim society. Our aim in this research is to study, understand, and explain the early ḥadīth science’s history in Indonesia. Mahfudz Tremas and Hasyim Asy’ari, who are Indonesian ḥadīth scholars teaching ḥadīth for Indonesian people, attaching great importance to ḥadīth, making a great contribution, and having the most influence, are discussed. Understanding and explaining ḥadīth studies in Indonesia would be easier by getting to know these two scholars. Apart from these two scholars, it should not be assumed that there was no ḥadīth scholar in Indonesia in the early period. Here, we aim to understand the most influential scholars’ service and contribution in the ḥadīth field. It is important to introduce Indonesian hadith scholars, their works, and contributions to scholars and scientists in Turkey and the world, and then to contribute to the academic and scientific relations among the countries. This research article, as one of the first Turkish sources on ḥadīth’s growth and development in Indonesia, would be useful for ḥadīth academicians in Turkey. Since the research title on the ḥadīth science emergence history in Indonesia, and Mahfudz Tremas and Hasyim Asy’ari’s contribution to its development, as we know, has never been done before. This research article will help to built a network between the Indonesian and Turkish peoples, scholars, and academicians. It also contributes to increasing the scientific benefits of the two sides of academic circles. Through this research, contemporary ḥadīth studies in Indonesia can be traced from the time it emerged and the early development process. Moreover, It is a great contribution to specify the early ḥadīth science history in Indonesia, as the world’s largest Muslim country. (shrink)

Fearing is a central part of how we relate to each other and the unpredictable world. Fearing badly is a key part of many of our moral failures, and fearing better a central part of our moral repair. We might think that fearing is undesirable and should be avoided whenever possible. In fact, Fearing Together shows that the avoidance of fear causes some of our greatest threats. By understanding fear as a relational practice, we see that our relationships with other (...) fearers shape what we fear, what fear feels like, how we identify and understand our fears, and how we cope with them. Growing as moral agents involves coming to grips with what kinds of fearers we want to be and become, and with what we owe each other when facing what we cannot control. At the heart of this book are the moral quandaries and complexities of relational fearing: the ethics of fearing together. (shrink)

Breaks through the cultural barriers between Western, Indian, and Chinese philosophy and demonstrates that despite considerable differences between these three great philosophical traditions, there are fundamental resemblances in their abstract principles.

This paper draws on findings from qualitative interviews with queer and trans patients and with physicians providing care to queer and trans patients in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to explore how routine practices of health care can perpetuate or challenge the marginalization of queers. One of the most common “measures” of improved cultural competence in health care practice is self-reported increases in confidence and comfort, though it seems unlikely that an increase in physician comfort levels with queer and trans patients (...) will necessarily mean better health care for queers. More attention to current felt discomfort in patient–provider encounters is required. Policies and practices that avoid discomfort at all costs are not always helpful for care, and experiences of shared discomfort in queer health contexts are not always harmful. (shrink)

This chapter defines disorientations as temporally extended, major life experiences that make it difficult for individuals to know how to go on, often involving feeling out of place, unfamiliar, or not at home. It canvasses how disorientations have been of interest in sub-disciplines of philosophy as well as present in philosophers’ own first-person accounts, and relevant for researchers in clinical psychology. The chapter then defends disorientations as a family resemblance concept, highlighting how different instances of disorientation are related by overlapping (...) similarities. It concludes by outlining the book’s feminist methodological approach to claims about: what disorientations are; the effects some disorientations have; the moral and political status of those effects; and disorientations’ position in contexts of oppression. (shrink)

This paper offers an ethical consideration of how fear can be a tool of agents, used to deliberately shift people away from existing beliefs, commitments, or habits, or towards new ones. It contends that properly understanding the ethical dimensions of such uses of fear depends in part on a clear understanding of the dynamics of disorientation that can be involved in such uses. Section two begins with a clarification of the connections between fear, orientation, and disorientation. It suggests that experiences (...) of fear are in some cases either orienting or disorienting, and that the disorienting aspects of fear are in need of more attention. Section three shows how experiences of fear can be tools—they can be cultivated and wielded by agents deliberately for multiple reasons, including sometimes in order to disorient or re-orient others. Section four turns to a moral evaluation of these uses of fear, attending specifically to why the dynamics of disorientation and orientation often involved in experiences of fear are important for understanding the moral status of uses of fear. (shrink)

After exploring the theory and practice of politics in ancient China, ancient India, and modern Europe, Scharfstein argues that the justification for deception and force is inseparable from political life and assesses the chances for a better political future.

This paper considers an area of research in clinical psychology that focuses on the resilience of members of marginalized groups who have experienced traumas directly related to their social identities. The paper describes these as social group-based traumas and outlines three effects of social group-based traumas that can make the experiences of them, as well as experiences of recovery following them, distinct from those involved in other kinds of traumas. In cases where resilience frameworks are useful for understanding such recoveries, (...) the paper proposes three methodological strategies for designing research to address the characteristics of social group-based trauma. (shrink)

ROOTS OF BERGSONS PHILOSOPHY Ben-Ami Scharfstein ROOTS OF BERGSONS PHILOSOPHY NEW YORK MCMXLIII COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS To My Father and Mother ...

Many contexts of injustice demand resolute action—action that is purposeful, decisive, confident, and unwavering—but this chapter argues that in some contexts of injustice, irresolute actions can be called for. The chapter begins by identifying what characterizes irresolute action in such contexts. It then introduces three kinds of irresolute action against injustice and defends their effectiveness in some contexts of injustice and activism, taking as examples contexts of heterosexism, mass incarceration, North American colonialism, and post-industrial poverty. It differentiates such contexts from (...) other cases of structural injustice, oppression and moral dilemmas where one can fulfill one’s responsibilities resolutely. Finally, it argues that we need to understand the importance of irresolute action against injustice in order to further understand the position of disorientation in moral life. (shrink)

This chapter examines the death of prisoners from illness in prison. It brings together first-person accounts and other research on the experiences of aging, being ill, and dying in prison, with and without formal hospice care, and the experiences of those working in hospice, caring for other prisoners at end of life. It considers these accounts, emphasizing Butler's analysis of livability and asking the question: what makes life, death, and grief in prison livable? It argues that adequately considering the complexity (...) of prison hospice programs means attending not just to how, where, and with whom prisoners are dying but also to who is most likely to be imprisoned, how their relationships are likely to be constrained, and how their lives and deaths are most likely to be perceived. Formal and informal hospice programs are important not only for the way prisoners provide basic care to each other within them but for the way they also allow for recognizing and mourning those who die in prison, as significant, remembered, and grievable. (shrink)

This chapter argues that some disorientations prompt morally beneficial shifts in habits of relating to other people and to unpredictable moral contexts. It investigates disorientations of illness, trauma, queerness, and migration, drawing on first-person, philosophical, and empirical accounts of cancer, chronic illness, fatal disease, sexual violence, coming out, queer activism, migrant life, and “world-travelling”. It shows how, in some cases, these disorientations generate capacities for living unprepared, sensing vulnerabilities, “in-this-togetherness,” and living against the grain of norms, and argues for the (...) moral and political benefit of these capacities. In coming to live unprepared, sense vulnerability, relate to others as though we are in-this-together and live partly against the grain of oppressive norms, individuals demonstrate shifted expectations which more accurately reflect the conditions of oppressive society and prepare individuals to function within conditions of unpredictability, vulnerability, and interdependence. (shrink)

Lisa Tessman's When Doing the Right Thing is Impossible offers an engaging and accessible exploration of the complex philosophical issues surrounding moral dilemmas and moral failure. Are there genuine moral conflicts? Is it true that in some situations a moral agent cannot help but fail? Tessman offers her own answer–yes, in some situations, moral failure is unavoidable–while guiding readers through the debates surrounding these questions, clarifying the various positions sympathetically and carefully.Part of what makes the book so immediately gripping is (...) the case study it begins with in Chapter One: Tessman focuses on the case Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. During the storm, the... (shrink)

One branch of bioethics assumes that mainly agents of the state are responsible for public health. Following Susan Sherwin’s relational ethics, we suggest moving away from a “state-centered” approach toward a more thoroughly relational approach. Indeed, certain agents must be reconstituted in and through shifting relations with others, complicating discussions of responsibility for public health. Drawing on two case studies—the health politics and activism of the Black Panther Party and the work of the Common Ground Collective in post-Katrina New Orleans—we (...) argue for the need to attend more carefully to the limitations of states and state-driven public health programs. (shrink)

Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, -1641--Criticism and interpretation. ; Islamic philosophy.

This book contains readings of canonical Western philosophical texts from the viewpoint of current feminist thinking. The contributors focus specifically on the ways in which modern Western philosophy constructs genders and analyzes gender relations. They provide a detailed analysis of modern philosophers’ conceptions of masculinity and femininity and call attention to the intertwining of gender with conceptual schema and networks.

(2001). How important is truth to epistemology and knowledge? Some answers from comparative philosophy. Social Epistemology: Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 275-283.

The adventure I am now undertaking is an appraisal of my profession, philosophy, of my fellow professionals, the philosophers, and, finally of myself at least ...

This essay expresses ambivalence about the use of the term "evil" in analyses of terrorism in light of the association of the two in speeches intended to justify the United States' "war on terrorism." At the same time, the essay suggests that terrorism can be regarded as "evil" but only when considered among a multiplicity of "evils" comparable to it, for example: rape, war crimes, and repression.

Accounts of human beings as essentially social have had a long history in philosophy as reflected in the Ancient Greeks; in African and Asian philosophy; in Modern European thinkers such as Mary Wo...

A prevalent scholarly view holds that Orthodox Judaism in the twentieth century was opposing or challenging modernity, since it refused to assign religion its appropriate modern place as a distinct sphere of values. The goal of this review essay is to reconsider the connection between Orthodox Judaism and modernity. Based on four recent works on Orthodox Judaism during the first decades of twentieth century, which are devoted to political mobilization, gender, theocracy, and law, the essay explores, first, the modern methods (...) whereby Orthodoxy attempted to gain a foothold in the public sphere and, second, the political philosophy of Orthodoxy, which challenges the separation of religion and state. It argues that Orthodox Judaism is a project of an alternative modernity, which strives to gain power in order to conduct a promethean reconfiguration of its surroundings. (shrink)

An introduction to comparative philosophy relates European and Oriental philosophies and brings to light such aspects of Eastern philosophy as intellectuality, reasoning, and logical analysis usually associated with Western thought.

Abstracts of the theses on scientific methodology; papers presented in un-known conference (s).