In 1936 Samuel Beckett wrote a letter to Sergei Eisenstein - the legendary director of such films as Battleship Potemkin - expressing his own desire to work in the lost tradition of silent film. Drawing on substantial archival material, this is the first book to examine comprehensively the full extent of Beckett's engagement with cinema and its influence on his work for stage and screen. Examining his writing on second wave modernist cinema, including the work of directors such as Eisenstein, (...) Godard, Griffith and Bresson as well as performers such as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo, the book reveals film art to be central to Beckett's modernist aesthetic. In this way, Beckett is revealed to be part of a wider modernist theatrical tradition that stood as an inheritor of early 20th century cinema, alongside Meyerhold, Brecht and Artaud. (shrink)

In this essay I defend the view that Henry Sidgwick’s moral epistemology is a form of intuitionist foundationalism that grants common-sense morality no evidentiary role. In §1, I outline both the problematic of The Methods of Ethics and the main elements of its argument for utilitarianism. In §§2-4 I provide my interpretation of Sidgwick’s moral epistemology. In §§ 5-8 I refute rival interpretations, including the Rawlsian view that Sidgwick endorses some version of reflective equilibrium and the view that he is (...) committed to some kind of pluralistic epistemology. In§ 9 I contend with some remaining objections to my view. (shrink)

The Unspeakable Girl is more important for Agamben’s thought than its short length, antiquarianism, and belletristic format suggest. In discussing ancient initiation rites through an analysis of the figure of the Kore – the unspeakable girl – it suggests how we might conceive of initiation into form-of-life, thus addressing a pressing question that emerges from Agamben’s Homo Sacer project: if Agamben’s thought aims at the demystification of philosophy, yet mystery is the essence of philosophical initiation as traditionally conceived and philosophy (...) needs some kind of initiation, how could one conceive of an initiation into that which is without mystery – into the profane. Yet by insisting on an opposition between “authentic” interior gestures and their vulgar betrayal, Agamben undermines his own most radical insight. Such a distinction can never be drawn, and hence a different kind of initiation must be envisioned: not into the critical spectatorship of the dance, but into the dance itself. (shrink)

This collection of prize-winning essays addresses the controversial question of how meaning and goals can emerge in a physical world governed by mathematical laws. What are the prerequisites for a system to have goals? What makes a physical process into a signal? Does eliminating the homunculus solve the problem? The three first-prize winners, Larissa Albantakis, Carlo Rovelli and Jochen Szangolies tackle exactly these challenges, while many other aspects feature in the other award winning contributions. All contributions are accessible to non-specialists. (...) These seventeen stimulating and often entertaining essays are enhanced versions of the prize-winning entries to the FQXi essay competition in 2017.The Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources. (shrink)

Does the export orientation of a firm affect the likelihood that it adopts an environmental management certification? We use meta-regression methods to analyze systematically the corpus of published research on export-led adoption of the largest and most prominent certification, ISO 14001. We show that the explanatory variables authors choose to include in their models reflect the tenets of stakeholder and institutional theories. We also find that the literature suffers from substantial publication bias but that, once this is accounted for appropriately, (...) a genuine effect remains. The evidence from 20 years of published studies taken as a whole is that export does incentivize the adoption of the standard as often hypothesized by proponents of voluntary approaches and self-regulation. (shrink)

_Orwell's Faded Lion_ traces the history of Britain from the end of the Second World War, during the darkest days of which George Orwell wrote _The Lion and the Unicorn_, calling for a British revolution, to the present. The book confronts the actual direction taken by British society against the background of the high hopes of the generation that survived the war. The book also considers Britain alongside its European neighbours, drawing upon personal experiences of living and travelling widely in (...) Europe, as well as experience of left-wing party politics and of the Northern Ireland situation in the 1980s. (shrink)

An abridged and translated edition of two of Wolfgang Ernst’s major works, representing the ambitious claim of a comprehensive knowledge-oriented analysis of media temporalities.

The Sustainable Development Goals are an opportunity to address major social and environmental challenges. As a widely agreed framework they offer a potential way to mobilise stakeholders on a global scale. The manner in which the goals, with time-based targets and specific metrics, are set out within a voluntary reporting process adopted by both governments and business, provides a fascinating and important case for organisational studies. It is both about advancing performance measurement and evidence-based policy-making for sustainable development, and also (...) participation and consultation at a wider, more global scale, than has ever been possible before. This paper contributes to the notion of SDGs as a wicked problem, answering calls for deeper theorisation, via synthesis with core ideas in the management field of decision theory. A case study on the wicked problem of deforestation and its links to supply chains, multi-stakeholder initiatives and SDG reporting, provides an illustration of the relevance of the application of decision theory to wicked problems, presented using a novel conceptual framework. This helps to illustrate new avenues for research and practical application regarding the balance of technocratic and participative approaches for sustainable development. (shrink)

This research work examines Heidegger's (1889-1976) contention that phenomenology can inspire, illuminate, motivate, reinforce and guide (human) individual's actions. It achieves this by adapting Heidegger's phenomenological approach to analyze and interpret representative everyday factical experiences of nepotism, selfishness and mass mentality in the (Nigerian) society. Doing this helps to ascertain whether these experiences have any phenomenological link with inauthenticity. Also, it provides a close reading and interpretation of Heidegger's treatment of authentic existence, and explores the possibility of complimenting it with (...) the phenomenology of Commensality, as a mode of care and a way to authenticity. In this manner, it strategically explores possible ways of inspiring individual Daseins to authenticity, and with it engendering a positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. Presenting and elaborating the phenomenology of Commensality, the work highlights the relationship and the differences between the phenomenology of Commensality and the ontical or sociological understanding of commensality as obtained in African traditional societies. Phenomenology of Commensality argues for the 'renaissance' of Commensality, concretely expressed as Onyenkeanyi, and not just for its 'revival'. The research work further develops the phenomenology of education for Commensality, discussing the possible content and focus of its curriculum, while differentiating it from ethics. The proper implementation of phenomenology of education for Commensality could inspire and illuminate individual Daseins to authenticity, and thereby becomes an improvement strategy for the positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. As a phenomenology, it is appropriate that the people and places analyzed take on a definite character, which is why the Nigerian society is used. However, it is expected that the implications of the findings presented here will be general and accurate enough to allow application to any number of similar situations. (shrink)

Doing theology with children, in a systematic and focused way, is a new practice. This article contributes to this theological practice by examining its emergence, nature and mission and proposing multimodal narrativity as a practical theological methodology for doing such theology. The article argues, from a practical theological standpoint, that doing theology with children should be understood as a synodal event – a journeying together with children about their faith; as a way of seeing the mysteries of God through the (...) eyes of the child and of encouraging a robust understanding of God and God’s plan for humanity and the entire creation; and as a way of seeing the faces of children and hearing their voices, thereby accounting for their suffering and hope. Children themselves are sources and disruptors of hope. The use of multimodal narrativity creates space for these narratives and disruptions of hope and encourages children to theologise their experiences in the midst of their different communities. (shrink)

Rejecting the tendency to regard Fichte as merely a transitional figure in the development of German idealism, the following paper argues that, in the years following his dismissal from Jena, Fichte will come to map out a unique and compelling philosophical trajectory. This will be demonstrated, in particular, through a close reading of the Erlanger lectures Institutiones omnis philisophiae of 1805: in these texts, which undertake the pedagogical task of introducing his students to philosophy and indeed achieving a “transformation” of (...) perspective, Fichte makes a fundamental philosophical breakthrough. This becomes possible precisely because his focus on the pedagogical task draws his attention to the most fundamental subjective or even “existential” conditions of philosophical insight, leading him, in turn, to a theorization of the capacity of understanding, by producing contradictions, to open up a space of negativity; a negativity that is itself the essence of human freedom, and through which truth is yielded rather than either discovered or produced. Whereas Hegel and Schelling regard Kant’s residual dualism as a philosophical scandal, Fichte, through this notion of a radical freedom born from the unresolved negativity of the understanding, will seek not to overcome dualism through a higher perspective but to recognize its absolutely binding character. (shrink)

The inquiry into the nature of truth plays an important role in Fichte's thought, especially following his departure from Jena, and indeed in the WL-1804-ii the doctrine of truth emerges as the centerpiece of the WL. The following paper argues that the conception of truth evolves significantly after the WL-1804-ii, and that, in such texts as the Erlanger Metaphysik, the Spekulation zu Koppenhagen, and the 1812 WL, Fichte, building on the account of the hiatus in the WL-1804-ii while moving away (...) from its notion of absolute truth, seeks to understand truth in terms of freedom, or indeed, as what »yields to freedom«, wherein freedom, through the negativity of the concept, produces an emptiness, a clearing, that is »fulfilled« with truth. Anticipating the phenomenological account of truth yet without abandoning a strong sense of normativity, Fichte’s alethology remains a compelling alternative to contemporary positions. (shrink)

This paper attempts a philosophically rigorous interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s tales. Through a radically conceived sentimentality – the unmediated juxtaposition of the abjection of things, conceived as a paradoxical “desire for desire” having no place in the world, with a cruel, apathetic gaze – Andersen challenges the existence of the soul or subjectivity as what, by combining the theoretical gaze with contemplative pleasure, grants coherence to experience. Thus undermining not only Romantic self-reflection, and its suturing of philosophy to criticism, but (...) Plato’s erotic psychology, Andersen inaugurates a new philosophical literature: a writing for children cultivating an openness. (shrink)

Are there truly fundamental entities in nature? Or are the things that we regard as fundamental in our theories – for example space, time or the masses of elementary particles – merely awaiting a derivation from a new, yet to be discovered theory based on elements that are more fundamental? This was the central question posed in the 2018 FQXi essay competition, which drew more than 200 entries from professional physicists, philosophers, and other scholars. This volume presents enhanced versions of (...) the fifteen award-winning essays, giving a spectrum of views and insights on this fascinating topic. From a prescription for “when to stop digging” to the case for strong emergence, the reader will find here a plethora of stimulating and challenging ideas - presented in a largely non-technical manner - on which to sharpen their understanding of the language of physics and even the nature of reality. (shrink)

With the aid of computers, it is becoming possible to clarify some longstanding disputes over Biblical authorship. Using statistical analysis of linguistic usage, Kenny reexamines the authorship of Revelation, the relationship between Luke and the Acts, and the complex problem of the Pauline corpus. He also comments on the general merits of the stylometric approach to textual analysis.

Pathological morphogenesis on leaves of Fraxinus ornus (ash) and Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) under the influence of mites (Aceria fraxinivora and Eriophyes cladophthirus respectively) leads to a range of structures whose morphology and development cannot be reduced to the classical categories of plant morphology, but present a heterogeneous continuum which links fundamental structural categories. These findings support the pyramid model of plant construction.