This article reviews professional mental health publications before and after the Eichmann trial. Psychiatrists rejected the massive denial of survivors' emotional reactions that was prevalent in Israeli society at the time. The Eichmann trial permitted the opening up of survivors' experiences in public. Legal procedure enabled the witnesses to speak about what they had hidden until then. The judge's presence gave legitimacy and power to the accusations, transforming the survivors from outlaws to partners in justice. The audience came to support (...) this stronger survivor identity. Through a slow process, it became a valid issue for psychotherapy, allowing the weaker aspects of the survivors' personalities to be addressed. This article reviews professional mental health publications before and after the Eichmann trial. Psychiatrists rejected the massive denial of survivors' emotional reactions that was prevalent in Israeli society at the time. The Eichmann trial permitted the opening up of survivors' experiences in public. Legal procedure enabled the witnesses to speak about what they had hidden until then. The judge's presence gave legitimacy and power to the accusations, transforming the survivors from outlaws to partners in justice. The audience came to support this stronger survivor identity. Through a slow process, it became a valid issue for psychotherapy, allowing the weaker aspects of the survivors' personalities to be addressed. (shrink)

The deconstruction of the subject associated with postmodernism cannot be said to have simply carried the day. Opponents and critics of postmodernism have held that we must return to the subject and to autonomy as a necessary condition of thinking about ethics, politics, agency and responsibility. Indeed, Peter Dews has recently argued that efforts to displace the subject repeat rather than dissolve the problems generated by subject-centered theories, a charge he takes to be devastating. The implications of this return to (...) the subject, and the power of the critique which motivates it, will be my focus here. I consider especially Judith Butler's performative account of agency and her recent discussion of reflexivity, and argue that they afford us a means of obviating the critique while providing for the reflexive agency that proponents of the return to the subject think necessary. Key Words: agency • autonomy • Seyla Benhabib • Judith Butler • Dieter Henrich • power • reflexivity • subjectivation • subjectivity. (shrink)

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. Soul and Form was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukács laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For (...) this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukács wrote at the time of Soul and Form, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukács's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukácsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience. (shrink)

György Lukacs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer, and literary critic who shaped mainstream European Communist thought. _Soul and Form_ was his first book, published in 1910, and it established his reputation, treating questions of linguistic expressivity and literary style in the works of Plato, Kierkegaard, Novalis, Sterne, and others. By isolating the formal techniques these thinkers developed, Lukács laid the groundwork for his later work in Marxist aesthetics, a field that introduced the historical and political implications of text. For (...) this centennial edition, John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis add a dialogue entitled "On Poverty of Spirit," which Lukács wrote at the time of _Soul and Form_, and an introduction by Judith Butler, which compares Lukács's key claims to his later work and subsequent movements in literary theory and criticism. In an afterword, Terezakis continues to trace the Lukácsian system within his writing and other fields. These essays explore problems of alienation and isolation and the curative quality of aesthetic form, which communicates both individuality and a shared human condition. They investigate the elements that give rise to form, the history that form implies, and the historicity that form embodies. Taken together, they showcase the breakdown, in modern times, of an objective aesthetics, and the rise of a new art born from lived experience. (shrink)

Taking a developmental perspective, experience is divided into three domains: the pre- reflexive; and two reflexive domains, the non-verbal reflexive and the verbal reflexive. This splitting of the reflexive domain is done in part because infants spend the first two years of life with only the pre-reflexive and non-verbal reflexive modes during which so many basic interpersonal skills are learned. The structure of experience in these first two domains is very rich. In particular, the role of 'dynamic forms of vitality' (...) as a global organizer of interpersonal experience is presented as playing a major role in the structuring of pre-reflexive experience. The process of the passage of experience between all three domains is also explored, with the following question in mind: what is special about the passage into the verbal reflexive domain? We suggest this process requires acts of 'soft assembly', as described by dynamic systems theory. The soft assembly process, however, is not unique to the verbal reflexive domain but is needed in all passages between domains to link different modes of experience. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein's treatment of private language has received more attention than any other aspect of his philosophy. Yet, for more than fifty years, a remarkably self-contained exegetical tradition has defined the terms of debate and the principal positions that are discussed. Orthodox interpreters hold that the proof that a private language is impossible turns on showing it is ruled out by some set of systematic philosophical commitments about logic, meaning, and knowledge. Leading candidates for this ground on which the argument (...) depends have included the analysis of concepts, the grammar of our everyday language, the logic of criteria, or the nature of our rule-following, practical activity, or form of life. This article introduces an alternative interpretive tradition, which not only rejects the orthodox methodology, but also rejects the presupposition that Wittgenstein's principal aim is to provide a deductive proof that the idea of a private language leads to contradiction. Finally, it examines some of the leading readings of Philosophical Investigations §258, the passage most frequently discussed by orthodox interpreters. -/- . (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s writings and lectures during the first half of the 1930s play a crucial role in any interpretation of the relationship between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations . G. E. Moore’s notes of Wittgenstein’s Cambridge lectures, 1930-1933, offer us a remarkably careful and conscientious record of what Wittgenstein said at the time, and are much more detailed and reliable than previously published notes from those lectures. The co-authors are currently editing these notes of Wittgenstein’s lectures for a book to (...) be published by Cambridge University Press. We describe the materials that make up Moore’s notes, explain their unique value, review the principal editorial challenges that these materials present, and provide a brief outline of our editorial project. (shrink)

Norman Daniels' proposal to distribute health care on the basis of fair equality of opportunity is, in this writer's opinion, unworkable. His concepts of species-typical activity and normal opportunity range are unclear; so is the relationship between them. His view that justice accords disease a better claim on the health dollar than other causes of death, pain and disability, commits him unknowingly to the indefensible positions on particular sorts of health issues, such as the care of the aging and of (...) pregnant women. Daniels' concept of opportunity is so inclusive, his notion of balancing opportunities so vague, that his theory loses systematic power. I offer a different account from Daniels' concerning why health care needs are objective and of special importance. I also argue for a voucher system which levels out class inequalities and which finances current medical practices more or less uncritically, but allows for change through a diversity of insurance plans available to consumers. This system is just, and more practical than rating health care needs by impact on opportunity. Keywords: justice, right to health care, equality, opportunity CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to consider one of Peirce's criticisms of Hegel, namely, that Hegel was a nominalist. Of the various criticisms of Hegel that Peirce offers, this has been little discussed, perhaps because it is puzzling to find Peirce making it at all. For, Peirce also criticises Hegel for his overzealous enthusiasm for Thirdness, where it is then hard to see how Hegel can have both faults: how can anyone who acknowledges the significance of Thirdness in Peirce's (...) sense also fail to be a realist? I will begin by setting out this difficulty and showing how it can be resolved, and will then consider the justice of Peirce's criticism once we have a clear idea of what it amounts to. I will suggest that this criticism is unwarranted, and that in some respects it is curious to find Peirce making it, when he could just as easily have treated Hegel as an ally in the bmggle with nominalism. The issue therefore takes us to the heart of Peircean and Hegelian metaphysics, and in a way that relates to questions that are central to contemporary philosophical debates concerning the nature of realism, idealism, and anti-realism. (shrink)

The article studies the way in which Henri de Lubac approaches and studies the mystery of the Church, which he considered more difficult to believe than that of Christ. What is according to him the essential structure of the Church? What spiritual experience does belonging to the Church procure? The article also asks whether the cautions expressed by the Cardinal after Vatican II imply a step backward in comparison with his previous writings in ecclesiology.

A fragment of a relief icon, made of steatite plaque, depicting a female saint,was recently found in Acre (Akko) in northern Israel. The plaque has lost the head of the saint, but enough is left of the figure to discern that the pose of the female saint is typically Byzantine. Moreover, the drapery shows stylistic affinities with Komnenian art. The plaque is the first steatite icon found in Palestine and could have arrived in Acre from abroad. The archeological context suggests (...) that it might have been venerated in Acre anytime between the Crusader and the Ottoman periods. (shrink)

In this new interpretation of Plato's Phaedo, Paul Stern considers the dialogue as an invaluable source for understanding the distinctive character of Socratic rationalism. First, he demonstrates, contrary to the charge of such thinkers as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Rorty, that Socrates' rationalism does not rest on the dogmatic presumption of the rationality of nature. Second, he shows that the distinctively Socratic mode of philosophizing is formulated precisely with a view to vindicating the philosophic life in the face of these (...) uncertainties. And finally, he argues that this vindication results in a mode of inquiry that finds its ground in a clear understanding of the problematical but enduring human situation. Stern concludes that Socratic rationalism, aware as it is of the limits of reason, still provides a nondogmatic and nonarbitrary basis for human understanding. (shrink)

Laurent Stern here provides a concise account of the difficulties that arise within the interpretive process and in the context of interpretive conflict. Speakers and agents are expected by others to be occasionally insincere. Attempting to be tolerant of alternative interpretations, and dealing with the insincerity of others, often motivates interpreters themselves to become insincere. Accordingly, moral issues emerge for both speakers and interpreters. Interpretive Reasoning discusses such issues in the literature on interpretation. Stern offers a carefully argued (...) account of the very idea of interpretation. What are the constraints on interpretations? What are our grounds for demanding that others agree with our interpretations? How do we support our interpretations? What are the types of interpretations we encounter? How are problems of first-person authority and self-knowledge connected with interpreting? While the author argues for interpretations supported by principles rather than by the consensus of interpreters, he also shows that even well-supported interpretations may be mistaken, and that some interpretive conflicts are interminable. Although this is a book in philosophy, scholars and students in the humanities, the social sciences, and disciplines concerned with interpretive reasoning can read it profitably. (shrink)

Il n'y a pas de beauté sans «contraires unis», c'est-à-dire sans coexistence à l'intérieur d'une même oeuvre de tendances antithétiques pour l'intellect, mais fondues d'une manière intime. La Beauté éclate quand ce qui est intellectuellement séparé ne forme plus qu'une unité profondément éprouvée. Ainsi les oeuvres les plus belles sont celles où s'interpénètrent un grand nombre de tendances, comme si les divergences s'effaçaient lorsqu'on s'achemine vers le plus profond.

This paper is a discussion of Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas . It focuses on three topics central to Bevir's book: his weak intentionalism; his anthropological epistemology; and his priority claim regarding sincere, conscious, and rational beliefs. It is argued that Bevir's position on these issues is problematic in certain important respects, and that some of his related critical claims against Pocock, Skinner and others are misconceived.

Songs in early modern playbooks—printed books of the plays of Shakespeare and other authors—differ from the surrounding dialogue in a number of ways. They are often in italic though the dialogue tends to be in roman lettering; and they are frequently topped with the heading “Song,” self-evident information that is a statement rather than a stage direction. On other occasions, songs are missing from the text altogether, leaving a stranded heading, “Song,” though no words are supplied at all. This article (...) asks why it is that songs have a different story from their surrounding dialogue. In so doing, it considers how playwrights conveyed their songs to composers and composers conveyed their songs to player-singers. Moments of textual oddity in printed and manuscript plays, it is argued (with numerous examples), are revelatory about performance even when the songs themselves are absent from the text. (shrink)