J. Anthony Blair is a prominent international figure in argumentation studies. He is among the originators of informal logic, an author of textbooks on the informal logic approach to argument analysis and evaluation and on critical thinking, and a founder and editor of the journal Informal Logic. Blair is widely recognized among the leaders in the field for contributing formative ideas to the argumentation literature of the last few decades. This selection of key works provides insights into the (...) history of the field of argumentation theory and various related disciplines. It illuminates the central debates and presents core ideas in four main areas: Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, Argument Theory and Logic, Dialectic and Rhetoric. (shrink)

Critical thinking deserves both imaginative teaching and serious theoretical attention. Studies in Critical Thinking assembles an all-star cast to serve both.

We make three suggestions with regard to Mealey's work. First, her lack of a cognitive analysis of the sociopath results in underspecified mappings between sociobiology and behavior. Second, the developmental literature indicates that Mealey's implicit assumption, that moral socialisation is achieved through punishment, is invalid. Third, we advance the use of causal modelling to map the developmental relationships between biology, cognition, and behaviour.

Is lasting happiness possible? Everyone wants happiness. We chase after it daily, looking for it in relationships, careers, financial security, good health... In other people. Happiness is so conditional, depending on circumstances over which we have no control. No wonder it eludes us. What if there were a way to be happy all the time... to experience joy without conditions? Touch of Joy shows how to find that joy.

As I sat down to sketch this review of Richard Kearney’s new book on touch, I happened to have received just then in the post a record I had ordered some time ago. It was an album by the French gro...

The United States is at a crossroad in its treatment of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, which deals with reorganization of bankrupt organizations. It is vital that the issues surrounding the debate be properly framed. This paper attempts to do just that by reviewing the evolution of bankruptcy law, assessing the impact of Chapter 11 leniency on societal stakeholders, considering bankruptcy as a strategic option, and addressing the ethical and societal issues that arise from the use of Chapter 11 (...) to avoid massive litigation or to abrogate labor contracts. Serious threats to the underlying fibers of the American system of enterprise are exposed and an assessment of these threats is offered. (shrink)

Bishop Desmond Tutu's call, in 2013, for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes, led to much reporting and comment in the online pages of UK newspapers. At first sight, it was a topic that seemed particularly conducive to the attraction of trolling, flaming and Ebile in the comments posted below journalistic pieces. Both Tutu and Blair are controversial and divisive characters, and the context of the Iraq War seemed fertile ground for heated (...) exchanges. A content analysis of 2,476 comments and 27,970 likes/dislikes offered a fairly substantial for identification of and evaluation of the value this discourse. In the event, trolling, flaming and Ebile were rare in the context of this political discourse, suggesting, at least a form of discourse closer to the ideals of Habermas. (shrink)

This volume republishes sixty-two of Dewey⿿s writings from the years 1942 to 1948; four other items are published here for the first time. A focal point of this volume is Dewey⿿s introduction to his collective volume Problems of Men. Exchanges in the Journal of Philosophy with Donald C. Mackay, Philip Blair Rice, and with Alexander Meiklejohn in Fortune appear here, along with Dewey⿿s letters to editors of various publications and his forewords to colleagues⿿ books. Because 1942 was the centenary (...) of the birth of William James, four articles about James are also included in this volume. (shrink)

Differences in infant caregiving behavior between cultures have long been noted, although the quantified comparison of touch-based caregiving using uniform standardized methodology has been much more limited. The Parent-Infant Caregiving Touch scale was developed for this purpose and programming effects of early parental tactile stimulation on infant hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal -axis functioning, cardiovascular regulation and behavioral outcomes, similar to that reported in animals, have now been demonstrated. In order to inform future studies examining such programming effects in India, we first aimed (...) to describe and examine, using parametric and non-parametric item-response methods, the item-response frequencies and characteristics of responses on the PICTS, and evidence for cross-cultural differential item functioning in the United Kingdom and India. Second, in the context of a cultural favoring of male children in India, we also aimed to test the association between the sex of the infant and infant “stroking” in both cultural settings. The PICTS was administered at 8–12 weeks postpartum to mothers in two-cohort studies: The Wirral Child Health and Development Study, United Kingdom and the Bangalore Child Health and Development Study, India. Mokken scale analysis, parametric item-response analysis, and structural equation modeling for categorical items were used. Items for two dimensions, one for stroking behavior and one for holding behavior, could be identified as meeting many of the criteria required for Mokken scales in the United Kingdom, only the stroking scale met these criteria in the sample from India. Thus, while a comparison between the two cultures was possible for the stroking construct, comparisons for the other non-verbal parenting constructs within PICTS were not. Analyses revealed higher rates of early stroking being reported for the United Kingdom than India, but no sex differences in rates in either country and no differential sex difference by culture. We conclude that PICTS items can be used reliably in both countries to conduct further research on the role of early tactile stimulation in shaping important child development outcomes. (shrink)

The language of partnership has emerged as a reaction against neo-liberal visions of HE as a marketplace with student customers and HE providers. Partnership is presented as the culmination and highest form of student engagement with even the Quality Assurance Agency defining it as shared working ‘based on the values of: openness; trust and honesty; agreed shared goals and values; and regular communication between the partners’. So is the echo of Freire in the pedagogies of partnership intentional? This paper will (...) explore the potential offered by the pedagogies of partnership to engage UK HE with the ideas and ideals of Paulo Freire but will also warn of the perils of domestication into ‘marketized’ HE practices. (shrink)

In this paper, we delve into the significant impact of recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future landscape of work. We discuss the looming possibility of mass unemployment triggered by AI and the societal repercussions of this transition. Despite the challenges this shift presents, we argue that it also unveils opportunities to mitigate social inequalities, combat global poverty, and empower individuals to follow their passions. Amidst this discussion, we also touch upon the existential question of the purpose of (...) human life in a world where machines predominantly perform work. Additionally, we explore the contentious issue of the moral status and rights of AI entities, contemplating the scenario where machines evolve to become sapient and sentient. The paper concludes with a call to action, emphasizing the necessity to acknowledge these potential outcomes and proactively seek solutions, as part of an inevitable journey through the evolution of human society shared with intelligent machines. (shrink)

In our time of increasing reliance on digital media the history of the book has a special role to play in studying the codex form and the persistence of old media alongside the growth of new ones. As a contribution to recent work on the continued use of manuscript in the handpress era, I focus on some examples of manuscripts copied from printed books in the Rylands Library and discuss the motivations for making them. Some of these manuscripts were luxury (...) items signalling wealth and prestige, others were made for practical reasons – to own a copy of a book that was hard to buy, or a copy that could be customized in the process of copying. The act of copying itself was also considered to have devotional and/or pedagogical value. (shrink)

Pursuing Jacques Derrida's reflections on the possibility of "religion without religion," John Llewelyn makes room for a sense of the religious that does not depend on the religions or traditional notions of God or gods. Beginning with Derrida's statement that it was Kierkegaard to whom he remained most faithful, Llewelyn reads Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Deleuze, Marion, as well as Kierkegaard and Derrida, in original and compelling ways. Llewelyn puts religiousness in vital touch with the struggles (...) of the human condition, finding religious space in the margins between the secular and the religions, transcendence and immanence, faith and knowledge, affirmation and despair, lucidity and madness. This provocative and philosophically rich account shows why and where the religious matters. (shrink)

This paper argues for the importance of the distinction between internal and external negation over expressions for belief. The common fallacy is to confuse statement like (1) and (2): (1) John believes that the school is not closed on Tuesday; (2) John does not believe that the school is closed on Tuesday. The fallacy has ramifications in teaching, reasoning, and argumentation. Analysis of the fallacy and suggestions for teaching are offered.

Playing on the various meanings of Seeing Through God, John Llewelyn explores the act of looking in the wake of the death of the transcendent God of metaphysics. Taking up strategies developed by the Western sciences for seeing and observing, he finds that the so-called tough-minded practices of the physical sciences are very much at home with the so-called tender-minded practices of Eastern religions. Instead of opposing East and West, Llewelyn thinks that blending these spheres leads to a better (...) understanding of aesthetic experience and imagination. In this blending, he presents a phenomenological description of the imagination and the ethical and religious dimensions of the act of imagining. Seeing Through God touches on themes of salvation, the preservation of the environment, and the role of God in our temptation to dishonor the earth. This unique book presents Llewelyn as one of the leading interpreters of the environmental phenomenology movement. (shrink)

Numerous studies in the past fifty years have shown that Parmenides made extensive use of Homeric vocabulary in the composition of his poem. These studies, however, have generally regarded the Homeric touches as embellishments, and as not having significance for the meaning of the poem. This disposition apparently arose from a long-standing belief that ancient sources were unanimous in condemning Parmenides' poetic skills, and, perhaps, from an eagerness to get beyond the poetry so as to grapple directly with the philosophic (...) content of the poem. ;This dissertation demonstrates, first, that the ancient sources have, in fact, been misunderstood, and that the consensus of the ancients was that Parmenides was not only a capable poet, but one of exceptional skill. Next, it goes on to explore the traditional uses of a large number of the Homeric words in the poem, both revealing a number of passages to which Parmenides appears to be specifically alluding, and demonstrating that many of the words of the poem are traditionally used with ironic force. By incorporating these allusions and ironic meanings into one's understanding of the poem, one finds that Parmenides was not a simplistic dogmatist, but a complex thinker concerned with the dichotomy between physics and metaphysics, and the implications of our inability to reconcile the two. ;The dissertation also includes a biography of Parmenides, an integration of Parmenides' poem into the history of thought in his era, a critique of modern interpretations of the poem, and in-depth discussions of many passages and words from Homer, Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and related traditional poetry, as well as insights into Plato's works, especially his Sophist, Timaeus, and Parmenides. The dissertation demonstrates a method for the close reading of a text and can serve as a resource for those interested in exploring the use of allusion in ancient Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy. (shrink)

Originally published in 1931, Muirhead’s study aims to challenge the view that Locke’s empiricism is the main philosophical thought to come out of England, suggesting that the Platonic tradition is much more prominent. These views are explored in detail in this text as well as touching on its development in the nineteenth century from Coleridge to Bradley and discussions on Transcendentalism in the United States. This title will be of interest to students of Philosophy.

While philosophy believes it is impossible to have an experience of God without the senses, theology claims that such an experience is possible, though potentially idolatrous. In this engagingly creative book, John Panteleimon Manoussakis ends the impasse by proposing an aesthetic allowing for a sensuous experience of God that is not subordinated to imposed categories or concepts. Manoussakis draws upon the theological traditions of the Eastern Church, including patristic and liturgical resources, to build a theological aesthetic founded on the (...) inverted gaze of icons, the augmented language of hymns, and the reciprocity of touch. Manoussakis explores how a relational interpretation of being develops a fuller and more meaningful view of the phenomenology of religious experience beyond metaphysics and onto-theology. (shrink)

The topic of laws of nature provides a kind of Rorschach test for philosophy. Some philosophers see in laws only Humean regularities; others see a kind of physical necessity; others see a necessity closer to logical necessity; others see expressions of causal powers; others see inference tickets; still others see relations between universals; ... ; and some see only a messy inkblot. We can also perform a meta-Rorschach test on the results of the first test. When van Fraassen and I (...) submit ourselves to this meta-test we both recoil with shock and horror. Where we differ is in drawing morals from this un- pleasant experience. For me the opprobrium falls mainly on the way philos- ophy is practiced. For van Fraassen, the disgrace also touches the practice, but for him the source is the rottenness of the concept of laws. (shrink)

For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, freedom functions as a foundational value for his entire political philosophy. Parallel to this emphasis is his deep and abiding condemnation of “slavery”, at least the slavery that he claims marked the social existence of his European contemporaries living under unrepresentative monarchical systems. However, the striking aspect of Rousseau's work is his virtually complete silence concerning the institution of chattel slavery of his day. Despite his ubiquitous condemnation of the “slavery” of his “civilized” contemporaries, Rousseau wrote next (...) to nothing about the actual enslavement of millions of people who pervaded the social landscape of the European–African–American triangle in the 18th century. In this paper, I trace out the various passages in Rousseau that could be seen as touching on the subject of contemporary slavery practices and show how very scant they were. I also discuss his views on the relation between climate, character, and persons' fitness for democratic forms of government (and hence freedom). I combine these points to draw particular lessons about the dangers of neglect and exclusion inherent in Rousseau's views of democratic freedom, suggesting how similar dangers lurk for contemporary visions of democracy inspired by his views. (shrink)

This paper continues the debate about how to distinguish metaphor from metonymy, and whether this can be done. It examines some of the differences that have been alleged to exist, and augments the already existing doubt about them. The main differences addressed are the similarity/contiguity distinction and the issue of whether source-target links are part of the message in metonymy or metaphor. In particular, the paper argues that metaphorical links can always be used metonymically and regarded as contiguities, and conversely (...) that two particular, central types of metonymic contiguity essentially involve similarity. The paper also touches briefly on how metaphor and metonymy interact with domains, frames, etc. and on the role of imaginary identification/categorization of target as/under source items. With the possible exception of this last issue, the paper suggests that no combination of the alleged differences addressed can serve cleanly to categorize source/target associations into metaphorical ones and metonymic ones. It also suggests that it can be more profitable to analyse utterances at the level of the dimensions involved in the differences than at the higher level of metaphor and metonymy as such. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Has Metaphysics to Do with Wisdom?John HaldaneThere are two loci of ambiguity in the title of the symposium from which this essay derives—"Is Belief in God Reasonable? Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles in a Contemporary Context."1 The first concerns the opening question, "is belief in God reasonable?" and the second the closing clause "in a contemporary context." I observe this not in the spirit of pedantry, but because (...) I want to consider certain interpretations of what is at issue, ones which may be different from those of other contributors but which are relevant to Aquinas's circumstances and interests and to ours. So far as the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] is concerned, I will touch mainly on issues discussed by Thomas at the outset of book I, in chapters 1–15, which deal with philosophical knowledge of first principles and arguments to the existence of God. First, however, the general issue of reasonable belief.IConcerning the first locus of ambiguity, the question of the reasonability of belief in God is multiply interpretable. It may be treated as relative to a subject's other beliefs and attitudes, where that subject e may be an individual or a group. Given that S believes p and q (and these can each be conjunctions of any number of propositions), is it reasonable for S to believe r? This aspect of relative credibility is itself ambiguous because it [End Page 1249] can be viewed narrowly, without regard to the status of those antecedent beliefs and attitudes, or broadly, as also asking whether those are themselves reasonable. In a court setting, for example, it may be asked whether it was reasonable for someone to have believed (or done) something given their antecedent beliefs, but it may well be countered that this is an insufficient standard of reasonability, since the prior attitudes may be incredible, or credible but irresponsibly held. The issue of reasonable belief, foresight and foreseeability are common courtroom examples.In these respects, then, it may be granted by someone A, who holds that believing in God is not reasonable, that it was nevertheless reasonable for S to do so given S's antecedent beliefs. This need not be a matter of condescension, however, since A may grant that the prior beliefs were themselves reasonable for S to hold, and would also have been reasonable by some more objective standard prevailing at the time or in the circumstances.A "rationalist" objector may counter, however, that this is all beside the point, since the question to consider is not the relative, but the absolute one: is belief in God reasonable? Full stop. I agree that there is nothing to be gained by unconstrained relativizing, but if "absolutism" is the implied contrast, it is over-stated. First, if reasonability is related to having (or having access to) reasons, and to the "quality" of those reasons, then some degree of relativity is entailed, and the only standard of reasonability that can be applied is a contextual one. To ask simpliciter whether it is reasonable to believe p carries an unacknowledged implicit reference either to something such as prevailing commonly held beliefs and associated normal cognitive processes or to an idealized thinker with access to relevant proofs or evidence. On further consideration, however, the latter, somewhat like Adam Smith's "impartial spectator" in ethics,2 tends just to be a more abstract version of the contextually reasonable thinker. There is perhaps a step beyond this, namely to the Omniscient Reasoner (OR) but it is a sophistical move, since it amounts to saying that a belief is reasonable if and only if it would be held by someone who knows everything relevant to its justification. which given that we cannot know antecedently the range of relevant considerations, is for us an inapplicably high standard. There is also some irony in asking if OR would judge belief in God Reasonable since OR would be God or at least God-like in respect of being all-knowing. [End Page 1250]IIThe other respect in which the question "is belief in God reasonable?" is ambiguous (in this first of the two areas ambiguity noted at the... (shrink)

Do spatial features appear the same whether they are perceived through vision or touch? This question is at stake in the puzzle that William Molyneux posed to John Locke, concerning whether a man born blind whose sight was restored would be able immediately to identify the shapes of the things he saw. A recent study purports to answer the question negatively, but I argue here that the subjects of the study likely could not see well enough for the result (...) to have been meaningful. I then propose a way to improve the study, by including cues from object motion. (shrink)

We can provisionally distinguish inference as logically drawing some new result out of given information from argument as advancing reasons in support of a challenged claim. Blair and Johnson place inference beyond the scope of informal logic, and Tou lmin considers inference to be the connection of premises with conclusion in a strong argument. Both approaches are inadequate to inference as distinguished here, and partly as a consequence argument analysts tend unwittingly to mark the distinction as t hat between (...) linked and convergent arguments. Here I urge that there are advantages to treating inference as inference. (shrink)

Imagine yourself sitting on your front porch, sipping your morning coffee and admiring the scene before you. You see trees, houses, people, automobiles; you see a cat running across the road, and a bee buzzing among the flowers. You see that the flowers are yellow, and blowing in the wind. You see that the people are moving about, many of them on bicycles. You see that the houses are painted different colors, mostly earth tones, and most are one-story but a (...) few are two-story. It is a beautiful morning. Thus the world interfaces with your mind through your senses. There is a strong intuition that we are not disconnected from the world. We and the other things we see around us are part of a continuous whole, and we have direct access to them through vision, touch, etc. However, the philosophical tradition tries to drive a wedge between us and the world by insisting that the information we get from perception is the result of inference from indirect evidence that is about how things look and feel to us. The philosophical problem of perception is then to explain what justifies these inferences. We will focus on visual perception. Figure one presents a crude diagram of the cognitive system of an agent capable of forming beliefs on the basis of visual perception. Cognition begins with the stimulation of the rods and cones on the retina. From that physical input, some kind of visual processing produces an introspectible visual image. In response to the production of the visual image, the cognizer forms beliefs about his or her surroundings. Some beliefs the perceptual beliefs are formed as direct responses to the visual input, and other beliefs are inferred from the perceptual beliefs. The perceptual beliefs are, at the very least, caused or causally influenced by having the image. This is signified by the dashed arrow marked with a large question mark. We will refer to this as the mystery link. Figure one makes it apparent that in order to fully understand how knowledge is based on perception, we need three different theories.. (shrink)

The Spiritual Dimension offers a new model for the philosophy of religion, bringing together emotional and intellectual aspects of our human experience, and embracing practical as well as theoretical concerns. It shows how a religious worldview is best understood not as an isolated set of doctrines, but as intimately related to spiritual praxis and to the search for self-understanding and moral growth. It argues that the religious quest requires a certain emotional openness, but can be pursued without sacrificing our philosophical (...) integrity. Touching on many important debates in contemporary philosophy and theology, but accessible to general readers, The Spiritual Dimension covers a range of central topics in the philosophy of religion, including scientific cosmology and the problem of evil; ethical theory and the objectivity of goodness; psychoanalytic thought, self-discovery and virtue; the multi-layered nature of religious discourse; and the relation between faith and evidence. (shrink)

Excerpt from Psychology Simplified The dormant condition of the avenues in the brain is the only thing intervening between man and the solution of psychic manifestations. Mind can remove the existing conditions in the brain and put man in touch with the solu tion of these things. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to (...) digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The story of the end of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783, is linked with that of the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh , both of which were given Royal Charters sealed on 6 May 1783. It is a story which has been admirably told by Steven Shapin. He persuasively argued that the P.S.E. was a casualty of bitter quarrels rooted in local Edinburgh politics, in personal animosities and in disputes (...) about the control of cultural property and intellectual leadership. In all this he was surely correct just as he was in finding the principal actors in this controversy to be: David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan; the Reverend Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh University; Dr William Cullen, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice-President of the P.S.E.; Mr William Smellie, Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; Henry Home, Lord Kames, S.C.J. and President of the P.S.E.; Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Vice-President of the P.S.E.; John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Secretary to the P.S.E.; Edinburgh University's Principal, William Robertson; the Curators of the Advocates Library: Ilay Campbell, Robert Blair, Alexander Abercromby, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Public Law; Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate and M.P. for Midlothian. In a peripheral way, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons were probably also involved; so too were Lord Buchan's brothers, Henry and Thomas Erskine, Foxite Whigs who opposed Dundas politically. Henry Erskine displaced Dundas as Lord Advocate in August 1783. After the change of ministry on 18 December 1783 he was ousted, but became Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1785. National as well as burgh politics touched these disputes and gave the parties of the Erskines and Dundas and his friends some leverage in London. (shrink)

Pictures are tactile as well as visual. Outline pictures stand for the same kinds of surface features in touch and vision. Vantage point geometry is used by blind and sighted perceivers in pictures. Limits of pictures may be comparable for the blind and sighted, and transcended in useful ways. Introduction In keeping with a conference on the multimodality of human communication, the purpose of this paper is to show that some aspects of pictures are tangible as well as visual. Many (...) means of communication are often considered to be exclusively visual or auditory, but the exclusionary view requires radical revision, the evidence from pictures tells us. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DIKTAT OR DIALOGUE? ON GADAMER'S CONCEPT OF THE ART WORK'S CLAIM by John Pizer How do we experience a work of art? Put another way, how does die work of art engage and address us? Hans-Georg Gadamer devoted much of his magnum opus, Truth and Method, to answering these questions, and he takes up the task again in a brief essay entided "Aesthetics and Hermeneutics" (1964). Earlier positions (...) on the nature of hermeneutical reflection, the historical context of aesthetic interpretation and the linguistic character underlying the apprehension of all modes of art are reformulated here. At first glance, the essay appears to be more the summary of a previous epistemology than a venture into new terrain. There is, in fact, almost nothing in this work which seems to contradict Gadamer's previous view. Nevertheless, the closing lines of the essay give his concept of art a dimension not directly perceptible in Truth and Method. This is the notion that the work of art challenges us, on a personal level, to change the course of our existence: "The intimacy with which the work of art touches us is at the same time, in enigmatic fashion, a shattering and a demolition of the familiar. It is not only the 'This art thou!' disclosed in ajoyous and frightening shock; it also says to us: 'Thou must alter thy life'!" {PH, p. 104).1 Whereas Truth and Method focuses on the heightened reflexivity gained in a dialogue with an aesthetic object, Gadamer's citation of Rilke's admonition would appear to turn the dialogue into a command, or at least an unmediated personal challenge, issued by the work of art. 272 John Pizer273 This is not to say that Truth andMethod is free ofpowerful, even violent language in its description of aesthetic experience. In discussing the concept of "Erlebnis" as it came to be the dominant term in phenomenological investigations ofconsciousness, Gadamer represents aesthetic experience as paradigmatic of all experience. Like the hermeneutic circle, consciousness is grounded in the interplay of discrete, individual experience and the experience oflife as a whole. Life as a whole consists of unique, episodic experiences, and yet these experiences only acquire meaning in the context of life in its totality. As Joel Weinsheimer puts it: "An experience is something the meaning ofwhich accompanies one through life, determining that life and being determined by it."2 An exceptional experience is an adventure, which gives a disruptivejolt to the even flow of life. But it allows one to experience life in its richness, fullness, and totality even as it tears one from life's quotidian context. In this, the aesthetic experience has the character ofan adventure: "The work of art seems destined to become an aesthetic experience. This means the person experiencing it is wrenched at one blow from the context of his life while at the same time he is related back to the whole of his existence" {WM, p. 66).3 But while Gadamer's terminology here in describing the experience of art is as violent as that of "Aesthetics and Hermeneutics," he does not suggest in Truth and Method that the work of art issues a command or injunction. Rather, by reflecting on the essence of experience as the dialectic of "exile and reunion," 4 our dialogue with the art work enriches our ability to understand and find truth in life as a whole. Of course, even in Truth and Method Gadamer distinguishes clearly between the silent dialogue between art work and spectator, particularly between reader and text, and the colloquy of individuals engaged in conversation. Nevertheless, he makes it clear that in both cases an openended dialectic ofquestion and answer motivates the engagement. Does the notion that a work of art "shatters" the familiar and admonishes us to change our lives contradict the earlier, seemingly more democratic parameters established by Gadamer as defining the search for ontological truth, and, more narrowly, the attempt at legitimate interpretation? The purpose of this paper will be to demonstrate that it does not. First ofall, we must note Gadamer's concept ofexperience {Erfahrung) in relationship to the text implies an openness to it rather than a detached, objective... (shrink)

This article examines the issues surrounding transcendence, the Other and base materialism in relation to Georges Bataille’s heterology and Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of the face of the Other as infinity and transcendence. The article concludes that there is no facet of human existence – including work and the economy – which is not touched by transcendence, and that the idea that there are societies based in subsistence and in nothing but a ‘struggle for existence’ is a prejudice of modernity.

There can be reasons for belief, for action, and for feeling. In each case, knowledge of such reasons requires non-empirical knowledge of some truths about them: these will be truths about what there is reason to believe, to feel, or to do – either outright or on condition of certain facts obtaining. Call these a priori truths about reasons, ‘norms’. Norms are a priori true propositions about reasons.It's an epistemic norm that if something's a good explanation that's a reason to (...) believe it. It's an evaluative norm that if someone's cheated you that's a reason to be annoyed with them. There are many evaluative norms, relating to a variety of feelings. Equally, there may be various epistemic norms, even though in this case they all relate to belief. My concern here, however, is with practical norms: a priori truths about what there is reason to do.I have a suggestion about what fundamental practical norms there are, which I would like to describe and explain. It is that there are just three distinct kinds of practical norm governing what there is reason to do – three categories or generic sources of practical normativity, one may say. I call them the Bridge principle, the principle of Good, and the Demand principle – Bridge, Good and Demand for short. I have said more about them in my book, The Domain of Reasons;1 here my aim is simply to set them out and sketch some questions to which this ‘triplism of practical reason’2 gives rise. In particular, since these norms are about practical reasons, not about morality, a question I'll touch on is how moral obligation comes onto the scene. (shrink)

Louis I. Kahn is one of the most influential and poetic architects of the twentieth century, a figure whose appeal extends beyond the realm of specialists. In this book, noted Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn's focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy. Kahn's work clearly conveys a kind of transcendent rootedness, a rootedness in the fundamentals of architecture that also asks soaring questions about our (...) experience of light and space, and even how we fit into the world. In Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture, John Lobell seeks to reveal how Kahn's buildings speak to grand humanistic concerns. Through examinations of five of Kahn's great buildings, the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia; the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla; the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Lobell presents a clear but detailed look at how the way these buildings are put together presents Kahn's philosophy, including how Kahn wishes us to experience them. An architecture book that touches on topics that addresses the universal human interests of consciousness and creativity, Louis Kahn: The Philosophy of Architecture helps us understand our place and the nature of well-being in the built environment. (shrink)

In this paper John White argues that there has been a decline in interest in and support for liberalism in British philosophy of education. He provides examples of work by leading figures in the field that demonstrates scepticism about the key liberal value of autonomy and offers an analysis of new influences in the field that have contributed to this decline. In particular he notes the increase of work from a religious perspective. Doubts are expressed about the practical relevance (...) to education of some of these avenues of thought, and the suggestion is made that they cause those within the field to be more out of touch with society at large, in which liberal values have continued to be the major source of animation. The paper is followed by short responses from four philosophers of education whose work he criticises. (shrink)