Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion Jeffrey L. Kosky Reveals the interplay of phenomenology and religion in Levinas’s thought. "Kosky examines Levinas’s thought from the perspective of the philosophy of religion and he does so in a way that is attentive to the philosophical nuances of Levinas’s argument.... an insightful, well written, and carefully documented study... that uniquely illuminates Levinas’s work." —John D. Caputo For readers who suspect there is no place for religion and morality in postmodern philosophy, (...) class='Hi'>Jeffrey L. Kosky suggests otherwise in this skillful interpretation of the ethical and religious dimensions of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought. Placing Levinas in relation to Hegel and Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, Derrida and Marion, Kosky develops religious themes found in Levinas’s work and offers a way to think and speak about ethics and morality within the horizons of contemporary philosophy of religion. Kosky embraces the entire scope of Levinas’s writings, from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise than Being, contrasting Levinas’s early religious and moral thought with that of his later works while exploring the nature of phenomenological reduction, the relation of religion and philosophy, the question of whether Levinas can be considered a Jewish thinker, and the religious and theological import of Levinas’s phenomenology. Kosky stresses that Levinas is first and foremost a phenomenologist and that the relationship between religion and philosophy in his ethics should cast doubt on the assumption that a natural or inevitable link exists between deconstruction and atheism. Jeffrey L. Kosky is translator of On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought by Jean-Luc Marion. He has taught at Williams College. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion—Merold Westphal, general editor May 2001 272 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index, append. cloth 0-253-33925-1 $39.95 s / £30.50. (shrink)

An exploration of how the writings of Jürgen Habermas lend philosophical support to the universal validity of reason, thus reinforcing the foundation of humanism.

Individuals vary in the way they navigate through space. Some take novel shortcuts, while others rely on known routes to find their way around. We wondered how and why there is so much variation in the population. To address this, we first compared the trajectories of 368 human subjects navigating a virtual maze with simulated trajectories. The simulated trajectories were generated by strategy-based path planning algorithms from robotics. Based on the similarities between human trajectories and different strategy-based simulated trajectories, we (...) found that there is a variation in the type of strategy individuals apply to navigate space, as well as variation within individuals on a trial-by-trial basis. Moreover, we observed variation within a trial when subjects occasionally switched the navigation strategies halfway through a trajectory. In these cases, subjects started with a route strategy, in which they followed a familiar path, and then switched to a survey strategy, in which they took shortcuts by considering the layout of the environment. Then we simulated a second set of trajectories using five different but comparable artificial maps. These trajectories produced the similar pattern of strategy variation within and between trials. Furthermore, we varied the relative cost, that is, the assumed mental effort or required timesteps to choose a learned route over alternative paths. When the learned route was relatively costly, the simulated agents tended to take shortcuts. Conversely, when the learned route was less costly, the simulated agents showed preference toward a route strategy. We suggest that cost or assumed mental effort may be the reason why in previous studies, subjects used survey knowledge when instructed to take the shortest path. We suggest that this variation we observe in humans may be beneficial for robotic swarms or collections of autonomous agents during information gathering. (shrink)

Kant insists in the Rechtslehre that the right of possession is intelligible and abstracts from all sensible conditions but often maintains in his earlier drafts that empirical possession serves as the schema of intelligible possession. This paper addresses the questions, Why does Kant think in the early drafts that the right of possession requires a schematism? What work is this schematism meant to do? How does it operate in detail? What similarities between the schematism of possession and the first Critique (...) schematism justify calling them by the same name? The investigation reveals that, without the schematism of possession, no objects of choice would be available to be possessed. At the same time, the schematism must not be confused with the concept of intelligible possession. In the Rechtslehre itself, Kant retreats from a schematism of possession to a construction of right on analogy with the reciprocal relation of physical forces, and I speculate about the reasons for this change. (shrink)

Time underlies many interesting human behaviors. Thus, the question of how to represent time in connectionist models is very important. One approach is to represent time implicitly by its effects on processing rather than explicitly (as in a spatial representation). The current report develops a proposal along these lines first described by Jordan (1986) which involves the use of recurrent links in order to provide networks with a dynamic memory. In this approach, hidden unit patterns are fed back to themselves: (...) the internal representations which develop thus reflect task demands in the context of prior internal states. A set of simulations is reported which range from relatively simple problems (temporal version of XOR) to discovering syntactic/semantic features for words. The networks are able to learn interesting internal representations which incorporate task demands with memory demands: indeed, in this approach the notion of memory is inextricably bound up with task processing. These representations reveal a rich structure, which allows them to be highly context‐dependent, while also expressing generalizations across classes of items. These representations suggest a method for representing lexical categories and the type/token distinction. (shrink)

All ethics codes serve an argumentativefunction to improve public opinion, avoid government regulation, and produce ethical behavior among members. The National Religious Broadcasters' increased eforts to enforce its code illustrates the potential for three dificnlties to surface when organizations use codes to justify their activities. Organizations tend to limit public discussions to the code 's existence, and shorthand descriptions of it, fail to address enforceability problems, and assume that the code will change corporate culture. To overcome these problems, ongoing maintenance (...) of the code in relationship to its public context is required. (shrink)

Technology has expanded genomic research and the complexity of extracted gene-related information. Health-related genomic incidental findings pose new dilemmas for nurse researchers regarding the ethical application of disclosure to participants. Consequently, informed consent specific to incidental findings is recommended. Critical Social Theory is used as a guide in recognition of the changing meaning of informed consent and to serve as a framework to inform nursing of the ethical application of disclosure consent in genomic nursing research practices.

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 231-237, June 2011.

From their own practices, the authors offer insight into potential ethical dilemmas that may frequently develop in an applied psychology setting in which sport psychology is also being practiced. Specific ethical situations offered for the reader's consideration include confidentiality with coaches, administration, parents, and athlete-clients; accountability in ethical billing practices and accurate diagnosing; identification of ethical boundaries in nontraditional practice settings (locker room, field, rink, etc.); and establishment of professional competence as it relates to professional practice and marketing.

The dissertation focuses on the work of Emmanuel Levinas. In claiming "ethics is first philosophy," Levinas helps overcome the perceived indifference to ethical concerns among post-modern thinkers. However, it is often overlooked that this claim is as much about philosophy as it is about the importance of ethics. The dissertation explains why Levinas' philosophy turns to ethics and what philosophy is capable of once it has adopted this ethical figure. ;The first section is devoted to Levinas' Totality and Infinity. There, (...) Levinas argues that ethics reorients philosophy by accomplishing the metaphysical desire for beings as such, what Levinas calls the absolutely other. A reading of Jacques Derrida's essay "Violence and Metaphysics" shows that Totality and Infinity is profoundly determined by a theological conceptuality and correlatively by forgetting the ontological difference. This suggests that the primacy of ethics depends on an anterior instance, thus rendering Levinas' first philosophy secondary. ;The second section of the dissertation positions Levinas' ethical philosophy within the tradition of phenomenological philosophy and its quest for a subject who is first or ultimate. Whereas Husserl practiced the reduction to the point where it reached consciousness, Levinas practices it to a point beyond that: responsibility. Ethics intervenes as a supplement to Husserl's phenomenology: ethics is added to phenomenology in order to explain its possibility at the same time as it replaces phenomenology with ethical descriptions. This section concludes by contesting the privilege that Levinas accords to ethics in the phenomenology of the subject. It does so by showing that Heidegger's Dasein analytic offers phenomenological philosophy a similar subject. ;The third section argues that in responsibility, phenomena appear which do not appear when the subject is consciousness. These include religious phenomena. The phenomenology of responsibility can thus be the basis for a philosophy of religion. Like the modern philosophy of religion figured in Hegel and Nietzsche, it articulates the rationality or significance of religious phenomena without recourse to the dogmatic authority of faith or historical tradition. However, a philosophy of religion issued from Levinas surpasses the origin of this tradition in the death of God and end of metaphysics. (shrink)

Exploring the concepts of ethics, morality, and decision-making for the law enforcement community, Decision Point: Real-Life Ethical Dilemmas in Law Enforcement offers an inside look at the difficult challenges officers confront every day as they face ethical decisions that could drastically alter the course of their careers. Through a series of real-life vignettes, the book reviews specific scenarios, the actual decisions that were made, and the consequences and implications of these decisions. Focusing on the critical thinking needed for making appropriate (...) decisions, it retrospectively discusses considerations that were or should have been evaluated at the time. An engaging text ideal for classroom use, the book offers discussion questions at the end of each chapter that can be used as assignments, group breakout discussions, or professor-facilitated discussions. (shrink)

In a contemporary world where political, environmental, and personal crises succeed one another without respite, it is no surprise that many resort to either nihilism or despair. From the Heart gives us reasons why we should still care--about anything. It finds support in authors as diverse as Friedrich Nietzsche and Saint Augustine, Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Ove Knausgaard, and in modern and contemporary artists such as Tehching Hsieh, Bas Jan Ader, and Christian Boltanski-all of whom provide material for a rich, (...) rewarding, heartfelt meditation. It speaks personally about "big questions," drawing on memoir, the arts, philosophy, religious traditions, and science. What does it mean for a heart to fail, to break, and what does it take to recover? Jeffrey Kosky shows us that attentive immersion in the natural and social worlds brings joy in both sickness and health, dying and living. (shrink)

Even the most casual observer of Chinese society is aware of the tremendous significance of Confucianism as a linchpin of both ancient and modern Chinese identity. Furthermore, the Confucian tradition has exercised enormous influence over the values and institutions of the other cultures of East Asia, an influence that continues to be important in the global Asian diaspora. If forecasters are correct in labeling the 21st century 'the Chinese century,' teachers and scholars of religious studies and theology will be called (...) upon to illuminate the history, character, and role of Confucianism as a religious tradition in Chinese and Chinese-influenced societies. The essays in this volume will address the specifically pedagogical challenges of introducing Confucian material to non-East Asian scholars and students. Informed by the latest scholarship as well as practical experience in the religious studies and theology classroom, the essays are attentive to the various settings within which religious material is taught and sensitive to the needs of both experts in Confucian studies and those with no background in Asian studies who are charged with teaching these traditions. The authors represent all the arenas of Confucian studies, from the ancient to the modern. Courses involving Confucius and Confucianism have proliferated across the disciplinary map of the modern university. This volume will be an invaluable resource for instructors not only in religious studies departments and theological schools, but also teachers of world philosophy, non-Western philosophy, Asian studies, and world history. (shrink)

La pensée de Lévinas, du début jusqu’à la fin, est animée par le souci de libérer le moi du « mal de l’être » – c’est-à-dire, de l’expérience de l’être anonyme et irrémissible, sans fin ni commencement, que Lévinas nomme il y a. Dans les premiers ouvrages , l’autofondation du sujet répond à ce souci, mais cette tentative de libération échoue en tant qu’elle condamne le sujet à la présence toujours présente de lui-même et à sa persévérance dans l’effort d’être. (...) La notion de substitution que développera pleinement Autrement qu’être réussit là où la tentative des premiers ouvrages a échoué. La substitution dans la responsabilité libère la subjectivité mais, selon un paradoxe essentiel, la libère en la rendant otage de l’autre. Si la substitution dans la responsabilité est en effet l’événement de la subjectivation, comme le soutient Lévinas, alors il n’y a pas d’éthique sans libération et pas de libération sans éthique.Levinas’ thought, form start to finish, was animated by a concern for liberation of the self form the « evil of Being » – that is, form the experience of anonymous, irremissible Being without start or finish, which Levins names there is. In the early works , the autofoundation of the subject responds to this concern, but this attempt at liberation falls short as it condemns the subject to the ever present presence of itself and its perseverance in the effort of existing. The notion of substituion, developed most fully in Autrement qu’être, then succeeds xhere the aerlier effort failed. Substitution in responsibility liberates subjectivity, but, according to an essential paradox, liberates it as hostage of the other. If substitution in responsibility is indeed the event of subjectification, as Levinas argues, then there is no ethics without liberation, and no liberation without ethics. (shrink)

What might be thought of as religious longings, he argues, are crucial aspects of enchanting secularity when developed through encounters with these works of art.

We take our bearings from Francesco Negri — Although many persons attribute the origin of letter writing to various causes, I however believe that one to be closer to the truth that we have received, handed down by memory, from the ancient stories of Turpilius: namely, that the letter was invented for no other purpose than that we should make absent friends once more present [absentes amicos presentes redderemus] and that by regarding [intuentes] their letters we mightfor a time restore (...) the friendship interrupted by intervals of time and space; for since friendship is accustomed to making its foundation in daily companionship,when this thing is missing it seems indeed to weaken not a little.and hear in this passage the resonance of Aristotle:Is it then the same way with friends as with lovers, for whom seeing [to horon] the beloved is their greatest contentment, and the thing they choose over the other senses, since it is especially through seeing that love is present and comes to be present, so that for friends, too, living together [suzèn] is the most choiceworthy thing? For friendship is a sharing in common [koinònia]. (EN 1171b29–33)The audible connection with Aristotle is faint. Negri’s work is securely placed against the background of the increasing formalization of the art of letter writing in the Middle Ages and its Renaissance development, in which he figured prominently. The genealogy that he proposes, whose forebear is an all but forgotten Roman playwright, belongs to an account of literary tradition in which Cicero is the exemplary figure. Nonetheless, it is in St. Jerome that he finds the likely source of his attribution. (shrink)

Mitochondria are essential subcellular organelles containing an extranuclear genome (mtDNA). Mutations in mtDNA have recently been identified as causing a variety of human hereditary diseases. In most of these cases, the tissues of the affected individual contain a mixture of mutant and normal mtDNA, with this ratio determining the severity of symptoms. Stochastic factors alone have generally been believed to determine this ratio. Jenuth et al.(1), however, examining mice that contain a mixture of mtDNA types, show evidence of strong selective (...) forces at work in favoring one mtDNA variant over another in some tissues. (shrink)

This article contrasts St. Thomas More's theoretical work on the role of faith and history in biblical exegesis with that of Fr. Richard Simon. I argue that, although Simon's work appears to be a critique of his more skeptical contemporaries like Hobbes and Spinoza, in reality he is carrying their work forward. I argue that More's union of faith and reason, theology and history, is more promising than Simon's for Catholic theological biblical exegesis.

Although for many years a sharp distinction has been made in language research between rules and words—with primary interest on rules—this distinction is now blurred in many theories. If anything, the focus of attention has shifted in recent years in favor of words. Results from many different areas of language research suggest that the lexicon is representationally rich, that it is the source of much productive behavior, and that lexically specific information plays a critical and early role in the interpretation (...) of grammatical structure. But how much information can or should be placed in the lexicon? This is the question I address here. I review a set of studies whose results indicate that event knowledge plays a significant role in early stages of sentence processing and structural analysis. This poses a conundrum for traditional views of the lexicon. Either the lexicon must be expanded to include factors that do not plausibly seem to belong there; or else virtually all information about word meaning is removed, leaving the lexicon impoverished. I suggest a third alternative, which provides a way to account for lexical knowledge without a mental lexicon. (shrink)

This study investigates whether local gambling norms are associated with audit pricing. Using a religion-based measure of local social gambling norms, we find strong evidence that public firms located in U.S. counties with more liberal gambling norms exhibit higher levels of audit fees. This result is consistent with our view that, as an important external risk factor, clients’ local gambling norms influence audit pricing decisions. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including non-religion based measures of liberal (...) gambling norms and a natural experiment. (shrink)

Kant repeatedly uses the biangle as an example of an impossible figure. In this paper, I offer an account of these passages and their significance for the possibility of geometry as a science. According to Kant, the constructibility of the biangle would signal the failure of geometry. Whereas Wolff derives the no-biangle proposition from the axiom that between two points there can be only one straight line, Kant gives it axiomatic status as a synthetic a priori principle possessing immediate certainty. (...) Because we are unable to generate a schema for the biangle, the failure of the attempt to construct it is intuitively clear. The parallel between mathematical and empirical concepts is instructive because both involve the synthesis of disparate intuitions into a unity. We do not, strictly speaking, even possess a well-formed concept of the biangle, because its representation cannot fulfill certain basic requirements of concept formation. (shrink)

Does Descartes belong to metaphysics? What do we mean when we say "metaphysics"? These questions form the point of departure for Jean-Luc Marion's groundbreaking study of Cartesian thought. Analyses of Descartes' notion of the _ego_ and his idea of God show that if Descartes represents the fullest example of metaphysics, he no less transgresses its limits. Writing as philosopher and historian of philosophy, Marion uses Heidegger's concept of metaphysics to interpret the Cartesian corpus—an interpretation strangely omitted from Heidegger's own history (...) of philosophy. This interpretation complicates and deepens the Heideggerian concept of metaphysics, a concept that has dominated twentieth-century philosophy. Examinations of Descartes' predecessors and his successors clarify the meaning of the Cartesian revolution in philosophy. Expertly translated by Jeffrey Kosky, this work will appeal to historians of philosophy, students of religion, and anyone interested in the genealogy of contemporary thought and its contradictions. (shrink)

This essay concerns various difficulties encountered in the attempt to assess the relation between Heidegger and Nietzsche. More specifically, those difficulties are due to the notion and function of repetition in the texts of both Heidegger and Nietzsche. I attempt to provide an analysis of repetition in the Heidegger of Being and Time and surrounding texts (e.g., Plato’s Sophist and Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie). Following this attempt, I then examine the transformed notion of repetition operative in the now famous text (...) written at the time of the Nietzsche lectures, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), a repetition that goes by the name of crossing (Übergang). In my presentation of crossing, I attempt to draw Heidegger and Nietzsche together through the repetition of crossing and that of eternal recurrence of the same. Finally, I argue that what draws Heidegger and Nietzsche together is also what prevents us from distinguishing them in any traditional way, a distinction that could then be followed by any number of judgments regarding historical influence. That is, that what draws the two to thinking is what both draws them together, which is abyssal repetition, and problematizes any attempt to distinguish them. (shrink)