This study seeks to articulate the universality of the eschatological expectation, in its specifically Christian form, by interpreting it from the perspective of a radical embodiment. This can be understood in a twofold manner. Firstly, the mysterious reality of the eschatological reign of God is rooted in – and thus can be more adequately grasped through the lens of – Jesus’ own body seen as distinct yet not separate from his risen body and, mutatis mutandis, from his extended body, both (...) ecclesial and cosmic. Secondly, for the eschatological expectation to be lived out in an incarnational way, it must be ‘enfleshed’ in actions aimed at social and ecological liberation.The article consists of four sections. Firstly, we explain in what sense body – and more specifically Jesus’ body – is used in our analysis as a hermeneutic key to notions such as ‘risen body’, ‘spiritual body’, ‘extended body’, ‘social body’, ‘ecclesial body’, ‘cosmic body’, basar/kol basar, and ‘life’. Then, the universality of the eschatological expectation is being articulated on two levels, namely, with regard to the social, and in particular the ecclesial, body, and with regard to the cosmic body, with ecological implications inherent in such perspective. Finally, we close the loop by briefly revisiting the notion of Jesus’ body. (shrink)

With this study, we seek to contribute to the theological discussion regarding the nature and the meaning of the Christian eschaton. We will argue that the dynamics of God’s reign provide a hermeneutic key to Jesus’ ‘eschatological expectation’. It is not possible to grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ urgent expectation of the end unless one realises that God’s action is always eschatological. That is to say, right from creation, God is always acting in history in an eschatological way, though (...) only in Jesus does this action reach its ultimate goal. By critically examining the multifaceted views of selected contemporary theologians, we will suggest that Jesus’ eschatological expectation may be adequately interpreted only in light of God’s ‘eschatological reign’. In this context, the tension between the already present and not yet fully realised dimensions of God’s reign appears as a promising hermeneutic key to Jesus’ teaching in general and his eschatological expectation in particular. The article consists of two sections. Firstly, we will give a brief account of the dynamics of God’s reign, interpreted according to the ‘middle way’ between consistent and realised eschatology. In the second part, our focus will be on the eschatological expectation: its development in the Jewish tradition; on how Jesus applied, or rather re-appropriated, it in his mission; and whether or not his emphasis on the imminence of an eschaton was a result of him being mistaken. (shrink)

Late British Empiricism was a research project built around a two-part psychological theory: that thoughts represent their objects by qualitatively resembling them and that thought proceeds by traversing associative links between ideas. The work of Hume, and then of Mill, were the project's highwater marks ; twentieth-century philosophers no longer find the psychology convincing. The problem, as far as the philosophers were concerned, was not so much that the account seemed false upon introspection, nor that the discipline of psychology had (...) itself moved on, but that the psychological theory did not make good on its explanatory obligations: most importantly, a thought's being a mental picture is not a satisfactory account of why it has the content it does. But this reason for rejecting Empiricist psychology, that it could not do its assigned philosophical job, leaves open the possibility of minds for which it is nonetheless a satisfactory description. (shrink)

With the flowering of postcolonialism, we return to Frantz Fanon, a leading theorist of the struggle against colonialism. In this thorough reinterpretation of Fanon's texts, Ato Sekyi-Otu ensures that we return to him fully aware of the unsuspected formal complexity and substantive richness of his work. A Caribbean psychiatrist trained in France after World War II and an eloquent observer of the effects of French colonialism on its subjects from Algeria to Indochina, Fanon was a controversial figure--advocating national liberation and (...) resistance to colonial power in his bestsellers, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. But the controversies attending his life--and death, which some ascribed to the CIA--are small in comparison to those surrounding his work. Where admirers and detractors alike have seen his ideas as an incoherent mixture of Existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Sekyi-Otu restores order to Fanon's oeuvre by reading it as one dramatic dialectical narrative. Fanon's Dialectic of Experience invites us to see Fanon as a dramatist enacting a movement of experience--the drama of social agents in the colonial context and its aftermath--in a manner idiosyncratically patterned on the narrative structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. By recognizing the centrality of experience to Fanon's work, Sekyi-Otu allows us to comprehend this much misunderstood figure within the tradition of political philosophy from Aristotle to Arendt. Reviews of this book: "The goal of this often brilliant and always engaging book is to 'read Fanon's texts as though they formed one dramatic dialectical narrative'; the principal subject of this dramatic narrative, according to Sekyi-Otu, is 'political experience'. It is his deployment of a dialectical analysis of Fanon's 'dramatic personae' that permits Sekyi-Otu's fresh and insightful readings to take place." DD--Anthony C. Alessandrini, Minnesota Review "Ato Sekyi-Otu departs from the postmodernist paradigm and ushers in an alternative hermeneutic that primarily considers Fanon's texts as forming 'one dramatic dialectical narrative,' that is a narrative whose complexity is correlative of the intricate configurations of African social experience during the post-independent era...[His] book is an invaluable contribution that offers broader scope for a new appreciation of Fanon's political thinking." DD--Marc Mve Bekale, Revue AFRAM Review [UK] "[I]mportant...The author succeeds in...revealing the complexity and nuanced character of Fanon's thought." DD--Choice "Those who would dismiss or exult Fanon as the high priest of revolutionary violence will be chastened by this patient and completely convincing exposition of his work. Sekyi-Otu produces a reflexive, 'Gramscian' Fanon who, working as a 'detective of the politics of truth,' has produced insights that need to be taken over into the core of democratic political thought." DD--Paul Gilroy, University of London. (shrink)

Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays presents a defense of universalism as the foundation of moral and political arguments and commitments. Consisting of five intertwined essays, the book claims that centering such arguments and commitments on a particular place, in this instance the African world, is entirely compatible with that foundational universalism. Ato Sekyi-Otu thus proposes a less conventional mode of Africacentrism, one that rejects the usual hostility to universalism as an imperialist Eurocentric hoax. Sekyi-Otu argues that universalism is an inescapable presupposition (...) of ethical judgment in general and critique in particular, and that it is especially indispensable for radical criticism of conditions of existence in postcolonial society and for vindicating visions of social regeneration. The constituent chapters of the book are exhibits of that argument and question some fashionable conceptual oppositions and value apartheids. (shrink)

Elijah Chudnoff elaborates and defends a view of intuition according to which intuition purports to, and reveals, how matters stand in abstract reality by making us aware of that reality through the intellect. He explores the experience of having an intuition; justification for beliefs that derives from intuition; and contact with abstract reality.

Menopause, with its physical and emotional changes, appears to be an inevitable road for women to travel. The moment of choice for women at menopause involves not only whether they will embrace the new self or try to cling to identities from earlier life but also how the society in which they live views women after menopause. Amongst other things, many African marriages face difficulties when the moment of menopause arrives. This situation is often characterised by a second marriage or (...) a situation where husband and wife no longer share a room. Whenever this happens, it testifies to the idea that the sole purpose of marriage amongst African people is procreation - hence, when the period for that is passed, the bedroom setup changes. This is one of the ways in which senior women are deemed unfit for sexual encounters, a gender-equality concern. This article aims to unveil and discuss how some Africans use menopause as an excuse to exclude women from sexual intercourse, and how pastoral caregivers can help in such situations. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The prevalence of antibiotic resistant microbes has led to a call for new antibiotics development. Due to the irresponsible practices of the medical community in prescribing antibiotics, much of the demand for new antibiotics is suspect. I argue that the social contract, which properly includes human relationships with laboratory animals, requires a conservative attitude toward new antibiotics development. This attitude places limits on the justificatory role of demand in determining whether a particular research project meets the conditions for morally justified (...) research, as defined by Rollin’s utilitarian principle. (shrink)

I argue that complete metaphysical grounds need not amount to metaphysically sufficient conditions for what they ground. I presented this at the Pacific APA in 2011. A version was R&Red somewhere but I never got around to Ring it, so it remains unpublished. It is cited every once in a while, so I'm uploading it here.

Recent works in the philosophy of mathematical practice and mathematical education have challenged orthodox views of mathematical explanation by developing Understanding-first accounts according to which mathematical explanation should be cashed out in terms of understanding. In this article, we explore two arguments that might have motivated this move, (i) the context-sensitivity argument and (ii) the inadequacy of knowing why argument. We show that although these arguments are derived from compelling observations, they ultimately rest on a misunderstanding of what Explanation-first accounts (...) are committed to and an underestimation of the resources available to them. By clarifying the terms at play in the debate and distinguishing different objects of evaluation, we show that the insightful observations about practice and education made by challengers to the orthodoxy are in fact best accounted for within the traditional Explanation-first framework. (shrink)

Ambitious intellectual endeavours often include methodological preliminaries. Such preliminaries give their authors the opportunity to clarify aims, set terms of evaluation, orient readers for the...

Phenomenology is about subjective aspects of the mind, such as the conscious states associated with vision and touch, and the conscious states associated with emotions and moods, such as feelings of elation or sadness. These states have a distinctive first-person ‘feel’ to them, called their phenomenal character. In this respect they are often taken to be radically different from mental states and processes associated with thought. This is the first book to fully question this orthodoxy and explore the prospects of (...) cognitive phenomenology, applying phenomenology to the study of thought and cognition. Does cognition have its own phenomenal character? Can introspection tell us either way? If consciousness flows in an unbroken ‘stream’ as William James argued, how might a punctuated sequence of thoughts fit into it? Elijah Chudnoff begins with a clarification of the nature of the debate about cognitive phenomenology and the network of concepts and theses that are involved in it. He then examines the following topics: • Introspection and knowledge of our own thoughts • Phenomenal contrast arguments • The value of consciousness • The temporal structure of experience • The holistic character of experience and the interdependence of sensory and cognitive states • The relationship between phenomenal character and mental representation -/- Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative introduction to and assessment of cognitive phenomenology, whether philosophy student or advanced researcher. It will also be valuable reading for those in related subjects such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and epistemology. (shrink)

Published for the first time from a unique manuscript housed in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. With source notes, commentary, and detailed indices of sources and subjects. Preceded by two lengthy introductions, one dealing with the manuscript, the work and its contents, and the second dealing with the life and time of R. Capsali, and his communal leadership. Me'ah She'arim includes 100 chapters dedicated to the subject of kibbud av va'em, the commandment to honor and respect one's parents. In (...) addition, the end chapters deal with the education of one's children and Jewish family relations. The author's style of writing is very elegant and flowery, rich in allusion to Biblical phraseology, Midrash and liturgy. The book has enjoyed, and is still enjoying, great acceptance. It is quoted by halakhic decisors and cited in scholarly historical treatises the world over. (shrink)

This book is simultaneously an exercise in biography-one with a tragic narrative, to boot-and a novel reconstruction and reframing of some of the central theories and texts of our canon. And it attempts to look at the theory of rationality from an unusual angle, by asking this question: what difference does it make to the shape and progress of someone's life whether he has one or another understanding of practical reasoning-that is, of how one ought to reason about what to (...) do? (shrink)

You can be convinced that something is true but still desire to see it for yourself. A trusted critic makes some observations about a movie, now you want to watch it with them in mind. A proof demonstrates the validity of a formula, but you are not satisfied until you see how the formula works. In these cases, we place special value on knowing by what Sosa (2021) calls “firsthand insight” a truth that we might already know in some other (...) way such as by testimony, the balance of evidence, or proof. This phenomenon raises two questions. First, what is the nature of firsthand insight? Second, what value motivates us to pursue firsthand insight when other kinds of knowledge are readily available? In the two central parts of this paper, I develop answers to these questions. I argue that firsthand insight that a proposition is true is knowledge based on experience of what makes that proposition true, and I argue that desires for firsthand insight are motivated by concerns with alienation. In a concluding section, I briefly illustrate how the resulting view of the nature and value of firsthand insight might bear on broader topics in the theory of value. (shrink)

Human beings have always been specialists, but over the past two centuries division of labor has become deeper, ubiquitous, and much more fluid. The form it now takes brings in its wake a series of problems that are simultaneously philosophical and practical, having to do with coordinating the activities of experts in different disciplines who do not understand one another. Because these problems are unrecognized, and because we do not have solutions for them, we are on the verge of an (...) age in which decisions that depend on understanding more than one discipline at a time will be made badly. Since so many decisions do require multidisciplinary knowledge, these philosophical problems are urgent.Some of the puzzles that have traditionally been on philosophers' agendas have to do with intellectual devices developed to handle less extreme forms of specialization. Two of these, necessity and the practical `ought', are given extended treatment in Elijah Millgram's The Great Endarkenment. In this collection of essays, both previously published and new, Millgram pays special attention to ways a focus on cognitive function reframes familiar debates in metaethics and metaphysics. Consequences of hyperspecialization for the theory of practical rationality, for our conception of agency, and for ethics are laid out and discussed. An Afterword considers whether and how philosophers can contribute to solving the very pressing problems created by contemporary division of labor."These always interesting, often brilliant, and contentious essays focus on the question of how we need to reason practically, if we are to flourish, given Millgram's account of our human nature and of the environments that we inhabit. The originality of his thought is matched by his clarity and his wit."--Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11.

Moral distress is now being recognized as a frequent experience for many health care providers, and there's good evidence that it has a negative impact on the health care work environment. However, contemporary discussions of moral distress have several problems. First, they tend to rely on inadequate characterizations of moral distress. As a result, subsequent investigations regarding the frequency and consequences of moral distress often proceed without a clear understanding of the phenomenon being discussed, and thereby risk substantially misrepresenting the (...) nature, frequency, and possible consequences of moral distress. These discussions also minimize the intrinsically harmful aspects of moral distress. This is a serious omission. Moral distress doesn't just have a negative impact on the health care work environment; it also directly harms the one who experiences it. In this paper, I claim that these problems can be addressed by first clarifying our understanding of moral distress, and then identifying what makes moral distress intrinsically harmful. I begin by identifying three common mistakes that characterizations of moral distress tend to make, and explaining why these mistakes are problematic. Next, I offer an account of moral distress that avoids these mistakes. Then, I defend the claim that moral distress is intrinsically harmful to the subject who experiences it. I conclude by explaining how acknowledging this aspect of moral distress should reshape our discussions about how best to deal with this phenomenon. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Recent Work on Pluralism Action and Process Control Acknowledgments References.

Perceptually secured knowledge consists of beliefs that amount to knowledge just because they are based on suitable perceptual states. Relationism about the ground of perceptually secured knowledge is the view that if a perceptual state can make a belief based on it amount to knowledge, then it can do that because it constitutes an appropriate kind of relational state, e.g., a state of perceptual acquaintance. I explore the prospects of both maintaining that some beliefs amount to perceptually secured knowledge and (...) developing a relationist account of their ground. (shrink)

According to proponents of irreducible cognitive phenomenology some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. One of the main approaches to defending the view that there is irreducible cognitive phenomenology is to give a phenomenal contrast argument. In this paper I distinguish three kinds of phenomenal contrast argument: what I call pure--represented by Strawson’s Jack/Jacques argument --hypothetical-- represented by Kriegel’s Zoe argument --and glossed-- first developed here. I argue that pure and hypothetical phenomenal (...) contrast arguments face significant difficulties, but that there is a sound glossed phenomenal contrast argument for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

The claim that "'is' does not entail 'ought"' is so closely associated with Hume that it has been called 'Hume's Law'. 1 The interpretation of the passage in Hume's Treatise of Human Nature that is the locus classicus of the claim is controversial. But the passage is preceded by three main bodies of argument, and, on the working assumption that the passage in question is closely connected to the argumentation that leads up to it, I will here examine the third (...) of these, running from T 463:7 to.. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.9 11.10 11.11.

This chapter contains sections titled: 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9.

Nietzsche did his philosophizing while he was coming apart at the seams. His writing is hard for readers to find their way around because he was all over the place when he produced it. But it's philosophy of coming apart at the seams and being all over the place, and also philosophy as a way of coping with that predicament-which makes it both fascinating and important. Why Didn't Nietzsche Get His Act Together? has three main tasks on its agenda. Nietzsche (...) is hard to make sense of; this is a guide, a book that shows you how to read him for yourself. Second, Nietzsche coped with his disintegrating self by philosophizing, and so this is a work that takes up disunified agency through Nietzsche's own engagement with the topic. Third and finally, Nietzsche managed his fragmenting personality by inventing one after another meaning of life for himself; examining those inventions and the job they did for him is an occasion to ask what a meaning of life is for. (shrink)

John Searle claims that social-scientific laws are impossible because social phenomena are physically open-ended. William Butchard and Robert D’Amico have recently argued that, by Searle’s own lights, money is a social phenomena that is physically closed. However, Butchard and D’Amico rely on a limited set of data in order to draw this conclusion, and fail to appreciate the implications of Searle’s theory of social ontology with regard to the physical open-endedness of money. Money is not physically open-ended in the strong (...) sense that Butchard and D’Amico require, and their argument for the possibility of social-scientific laws fails as a result. (shrink)

Perception and intuition are our basic sources of knowledge. They are also capacities we deliberately improve in ways that draw on our knowledge. Elijah Chudnoff explores how this happens, developing an account of the epistemology of expert perception and expert intuition, and a rationalist view of the role of intuition in philosophy.

Among the crimes in the South African black townships, mob justice has become a growing concern. Some questions that need to be asked are: Is our police force doing enough to protect the ordinary citizens of this country? If the situation continues, will all suspects be killed in the same manner or will there be a solution to change the situation? What is the impact of mob justice on the families of the victims and the witnesses of the brutal acts? (...) How long are we going to live as a traumatised nation as a result of these violent acts? Is there any hope that our nation will ever have the peace it deserves in the context of democracy? This article intends to investigate the impact of the mob justice system and find out what the role of the Christian church should be in the midst of this escalating violence. This study aims to unveil the negative impact of mob justice on the lives of many township South Africans and giving pastoral-biblical suggestions of the church's role in the elimination of this kind of brutality. (shrink)

The inception of democracy in South Africa faced the oppression of women as one of the challenges. The duty to improve women’s position in society is not the responsibility of a few people alone, but of everyone. According to the researcher, the church has not done enough pastorally in this regard. In denouncing the oppression of women, the Christian community should also support the victims of abuse. This article intends to unmask collusion with patriarchal societies including the Jewish society in (...) Jesus’ time by mapping out the forms of harassment and embarrassment inflicted upon women. The study shows how pastoral care can help victims of oppression. A re-reading of John 8:1–11 will inform the, how can the verses above be used in counselling the victims of gender oppression. This study will formulate pastoral guidelines from Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, the Scribes and the woman. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology—and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, (...) and I make a case for thinking that it is present in a wide variety of logical, mathematical, and philosophical intuitions. (shrink)

What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The (...) upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument. (shrink)