In a series of incisive readings of signature historical works, Mark Poster charts the move from social history to new practices of cultural history that are drawing strength from poststructuralist interpretive strategies and raising issues found in feminist and postcolonialist discourse. In the process, he sets forth an outline for a postmodern historiography that can negotiate the contested terrain between the ambiguities of discourse and the pull of the "real." As Poster provides close readings of leading historians and theorists (...) such as Lawrence Stone, Francois Furet, Michel de Certeau, and Michel Foucault, key themes animate his work: the often irreducible difference between past and present; the relationship of writing and representation to power and domination; the dissolving distinctions between high and low culture, production and consumption, and reality and fiction; and, most important, a new perspective on human agency and the construction of political subjects. (shrink)

Dasein and being-in-the-world -- The world -- The structure of being-in-the-world, pt. 1: Disposedness and moods -- The structure of being-in-the-world, pt. 2: Understanding and interpretation -- Everydayness and the 'one' -- Death and authenticity -- Truth and art -- Language -- Technology -- Our mortal dwelling with things.

The arts of rule cover the exercise of power by princes and popular sovereigns, but they range beyond the domain of government itself, extending to civil associations, political parties, and religious institutions. Making full use of political philosophy from a range of backgrounds, this festschrift for Harvey Mansfield recognizes that although the arts of rule are comprehensive, the best government is a limited one.

Critical Reasoning & Philosophy is an innovative and clearly written handbook that teaches studnets how to read critically, think critically while they read, and write thoughtful, sound arguments in response.

a Mathematicians, like Proust and everyone else, are at their best when writing about their first lovea (TM) a ] They are among the very best we have; and their best is very good indeed. a ] One approaches this book with high hopes. Happily, one is not disappointed. a ]In paperback it might well have become a best seller. a ]read it. From The Mathematical Intelligencer Mathematics is shaped by the consistent concerns and styles of powerful minds a (...) three of which are represented here. Kaca (TM)s work is marked by deep commitment and breadth of inquiry. Rota is the easiest of these authors to reada ]a delight: witty and urbane, with a clear and interesting agenda and an astonishing intellectual range. To read him is to be a part of a pleasant and rewarding conversation. Jacob T. Schwartz attacks problems ina ]computer science, mathematical economics, computer and instructional a ] No matter how slippery the problem, Schwartz manages to capture a substantial chunk of it in his mathematical net. a Mathematics Magazine This is a volume of essays and reviews that delightfully explore mathematics in all its moods a from the light and the witty, and humorous to serious, rational, and cerebral. Topics include: logic, combinatorics, statistics, economics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and applications of mathematics broadly. You will also find history and philosophy covered, including discussion of the work of Ulam, Kant, Heidegger among others. (shrink)

The Enarrationes in Psalmos are an important source for understanding the Augustinian theology of desire, linking it to his systematic theology and his pastoral practice. In this paper I illustrate by overviewing the expositions on Psalms 11 (12), 12 (13), 23 (24), and 26 (27). These Psalms teach us to love, trust, and seek God only, a failure to do which marks the Donatist schism. Augustine mingles ideas from pagan philosophy’s quest for eudaimonia or beata vita—the good, happy, and blessed (...) life—with biblical ideas. We want a stable happiness, and we must pursue wisdom; we can find stability in the rock that is Christ, to follow whom is to pursue wisdom rightly. Our desires must be converted to God, the only complete and perfect good and the source of eternal happiness, whom we must single-mindedly pursue with prayer and faith. While we must desire the eschaton and look to no earthly satisfaction, earthly goods may be received as gifts from God. One thing we can learn from studying the Enarrationes is how closely connected are the ideas of right love, the right church, and the right end; all three go together in Augustine’s theology. (shrink)

Reading and Writing in Babylon. By Dominique Charpin. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. xv + 315, illus. $29.95.

_Gale_ Academic OneFile includes Environmentalism: death and resurrection by Mark Sagoff. Read the beginning or sign in for the full text.

It is possible to read Gramsci ? and through him, the tradition of historical materialism ? in such a way that we are enabled to realise a potentially transformative politics of solidarity in a world where capitalist relations are extending and deepening, but which is nonetheless plural. A Gramscian?inflected historical materialism enables an understanding of globalising capitalism, its relations of power and structures of governance, as the product of struggles ? at once material and ideological ? among concretely situated (...) social agents. When viewed in terms of a dialectical reading of Gramsci, these struggles may be seen as reassertions of situated knowledges and process?based understandings of social reality, antithetical to the abstract individualism residing in capitalism?s core, and embodying possibilities for critical engagement, dialogue, and transformative politics in an era of globalising capitalism. (shrink)

This study investigates how dispute-mediators handle impasse in the re-negotiation of divorce decrees by divorced couples. Three sources of impasse and three strategies for handling impasse are identified based on analysis of mediation transcripts. The concern here lies not so much in the disputant's arguments but in the discussion procedures dispute-mediators use to craft the disputant's argumentation into a tool to solve conflict. Their moves are understood here as a practice of reconstructing argumentative discourse that is neither naïve nor critical (...) but reconstruction as design. Mediator's reconstruction reveals a type of communication work in contemporary societies involved in the crafting of forums and formats that mediate argumentative communication. This work is often invisible and strategic which makes its interpretation, judgment, and development a challenge for pragma-dialectical theory. How reconstruction as design can be understood is discussed by building on prior pragma-dialectical theory and research. (shrink)

CONDUCT AND CHARACTER is a concise anthology of readings in ethical theory that covers the major schools of thought as well as a handful of fundamental topics in ethical theory. Reading selections in the chapters provide coverage of both classical and contemporary philosophical writings, representing a spectrum of viewpoints on each theory or topic. The readings include brief introductions to assist students in identifying key ideas and have been selected and edited in order to optimize student comprehension. This collection is (...) perfect for ethics courses that focus on theory, as well as a supplementary text for applied ethics courses. Because of short, self-contained chapters it also works very well for an ethics component in introductory philosophy courses. (shrink)

Mark Miller's innovative study argues that Chaucer's Canterbury Tales represent an extended mediation on agency, autonomy and practical reason. This philosophical aspect of Chaucer's interests can help us understand what is both sophisticated and disturbing about his explorations of love, sex and gender. Partly through fresh readings of the Consolation of Philosophy and the Romance of the Rose, Miller charts Chaucer's position in relation to the association in the Christian West between problems of autonomy and problems of sexuality and (...) reconstructs how medieval philosophers and literary writers approached psychological phenomena often thought of as distinctively modern. The literary experiments of the Canterbury Tales represent a distinctive philosophical achievement that remains vital to our own attempts to understand agency, desire and their histories. (shrink)

Henri Bergson was one of the most celebrated and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He was awarded in 1928 the Nobel prize for literature for his philosophical work, and his controversial ideas about time, memory and life shaped generations of thinkers, writers and artists. In this clear and engaging introduction, Mark Sinclair examines the full range of Bergson's work. The book sheds new light on familiar aspects of Bergson's thought, but also examines often ignored aspects of his work, (...) such as his philosophy of art, his philosophy of technology and the relation of his philosophical doctrines to his political commitments. After an illuminating overview of his life and work, chapters are devoted to the following topics: the experience of time as duration the experience of freedom memory mind and body laughter and humour knowledge art and creativity the élan vitalas a theory of biological life ethics, religion, war and modern technology. With a final chapter on his legacy, Bergsonis an outstanding guide to one of the great philosophers. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, it is essential reading for those interested in metaphysics, time, free will, aesthetics, the philosophy of biology, continental philosophy, and the role of European intellectuals in WWI. lt;/LI> laughter and humour knowledge art and creativity the élan vitalas a theory of biological life ethics, religion, war and modern technology. With a final chapter on his legacy, Bergsonis an outstanding guide to one of the great philosophers. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, it is essential reading for those interested in metaphysics, time, free will, aesthetics, the philosophy of biology, continental philosophy, and the role of European intellectuals in WWI. (shrink)

"Religion," Mark C. Taylor maintains, "is most interesting where it is least obvious." From global financial networks to the casinos of Las Vegas, from images flickering on computer terminals to steel sculpture, material culture bears unexpected traces of the divine. In a world where the economies of faith are obscure, yet pervasive, Taylor shows that approaching religion directly is less instructive than thinking about it. Traveling from high culture to pop culture and back again, About Religion approaches cyberspace and (...) Las Vegas through Hegel and Kant and reads Melville's The Confidence-Man through the film Wall Street. As astonishing juxtapositions and associations proliferate, formerly uncharted territories of virtual culture disclose theological vestiges, showing that faith in contemporary culture is as unavoidable as it is elusive. The most accessible presentation of Taylor's revolutionary ideas to date, About Religion gives us a dazzling and disturbing vision of life at the end of the old and beginning of the new millennium. (shrink)

This paper raises three questions: (1) Can Nietzsche provide a satisfactory account of how the slave revolt could have begun to "poison the consciences" of masters? (2) Does Nietzsche's affinity for "master values" preclude him from acknowledging claims of justice that rest upon a sense of equality among human beings? and (3) How does Nietzsche's story fare when looked on as (at least in part) an empirical hypothesis? The first question is answered in the affirmative, the second in the negative, (...) and the third with the verdict "quite well". Nietzsche's interpretation of Socrates is held to vindicate the affirmative answer to question one; his conception of nobility as spontaneously self-affirming to justify the negative answer to question two, and historical, anthropological and etymological evidence to support the favorable answer to question three. (shrink)

In the fall of 2005, Mark C. Taylor, the controversial public intellectual and widely respected scholar, suddenly fell critically ill. For two days a team of forty doctors, many of whom thought he would not live, fought to save him. Taylor would eventually recover, but only to face a new threat: surgery for cancer. "These experiences have changed me in ways I am still struggling to understand," Taylor writes in this absorbing memoir. "After the past year, I am persuaded (...) that I have done enough fieldwork to write a book that combines philosophical and theological reflection with autobiographical narrative. Writing is not only possible but actually seems necessary." _Field Notes from Elsewhere_ is Taylor's unforgettable, inverted journey from death to life. Each of his memoir's fifty-two chapters and accompanying photographs recounts a morning-to-evening experience with sickness and convalescence, mingling humor and hope with a deep exploration of human frailty and, conversely, resilience. When we confront the end of life, Taylor explains, the axis of the lived world shifts, and everything must be reevaluated. As Taylor sorts through his remembrances, much that once seemed familiar becomes strange, paradoxical, and contradictory. He reads his experience with and against ghosts from his past, recasting the meaning of mortality, sacrifice, solitude, and abandonment, along with a host of other issues, in light of modern ways of dying. "You never come back from elsewhere," Taylor concludes, "because elsewhere always comes back with you.". (shrink)

Five experiments explored how source reliability influences people’s tendency to rate statements as more credible when they were encountered earlier . Undergraduates read statements from one reliable source and one unreliable source. Statements read multiple times were perceived as more valid and were more often correctly identified on a general knowledge test than statements read once or not at all. This occurred at varying retention intervals whether the statements originated from a reliable or unreliable source, when people (...) had little memory for the statements themselves or their source, and when the discrediting information about the sources came either before or after reading the facts. While repetition aided recognition and source accuracy, both were unaffected by the reliability of the source. Consistent with the source monitoring framework, familiarity may create an illusion of truth for statements when people lack source-specifying cues, especially cues regarding the reliability of the source. (shrink)

Mark Eli Kalderon argues that morality is a fiction by means of which our emotional attitudes are conveyed. This is an improvement on the standard noncognitivist view, which denies that moral judgement is belief but claims instead that it is the expression of an emotional attitude. Noncognitivists tend to deny that moral sentences even purport to represent moral reality, and so they have developed non-standard semantics for moral discourse. Kalderon's fictionalism shows that noncognitivism can manage without such controversial semantics. (...) His book will be essential reading for anyone working in moral philosophy, and for many others working on meaning and knowledge. (shrink)

This article has already been published in Techné : Research in Philosophy and Technology, 19:3, pp. 358–380.: This article explores the relevance of Georg Simmel's phenomenology of money and interpretation of modernity for understanding and evaluating contemporary financial information and communication technologies. It reads Simmel as a philosopher of technology and phenomenologist whose view of money as a medium, a “pure” tool, and a social institution can - Sociologie – Nouvel article.

In _The Meaning of the Body_, Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic _Metaphors We Live By_. Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, and (...) metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. He concludes that the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and that studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking meaning's bodily sources. Throughout, Johnson puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. “Mark Johnson demonstrates that the aesthetic and emotional aspects of meaning are fundamental—central to conceptual meaning and reason, and that the arts show meaning-making in its fullest realization. If you were raised with the idea that art and emotion were external to ideas and reason, you must read this book. It grounds philosophy in our most visceral experience.”—George Lakoff, author of _Moral Politics_. (shrink)

This paper is the submitted version. The published version of the paper is available using the DOI number 10.1111/heyj.14007.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Utopia and the Contemporary British Novel by Caroline EdwardsMark SchmittCaroline Edwards. Utopia and the Contemporary British Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 277 pp. Paperback, ISBN 9781108712392.The development of the novel as a literary form is closely linked to the representational mode of realism and how it can convey the human experience of time. That the novel distinguishes itself substantially from earlier forms of literature in how it (...) attempts to capture temporality through means of literary realism has been acknowledged ever since Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel (1957). As such, the novel form underwent dramatic changes throughout the periods of modernity and postmodernity, with modernist and postmodernist techniques of representation mirroring shifts in the temporal experience. But how can the contemporary novel—a category itself loaded with implication and definitional problems—of the twenty-first century confront the particular representational challenges of its time? This is the question that Caroline Edwards addresses in her study Utopia and the Contemporary British Novel. Edwards is concerned with the wider repercussions of the post-postmodernist notion of the Fukuyaman thesis of the “end of history” and the profound challenges to this thesis in the face of the post-9/11 unfolding of the twenty-first century. The temporal experience of this century is marked by what Edwards calls “non-contemporaneity,” that is, a “political, and even ontological uncertainty” (9). In the context of contemporary literature, the resulting “temporal disjointedness that marks our experience in the twenty-first century” has “given rise to different expressions of the unevenness of the contemporary, at the level of novelistic structure, prose style, generic sampling and non-mimetic interventions into otherwise realist narratives and juxtaposed timescales” (9). The notion of non-contemporaneity is drawn from Ernst Bloch’s concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit, which Edwards considers to be “productive to thinking about the complexity of [End Page 595] utopian times and the different kinds of pasts and futures that circulate within our own present moment of contemporaneity, which is inescapably non-contemporaneous with itself ” (30). Edwards considers this noncontemporaneity as a prevalent temporal register in contemporary British fiction that speak to the crises of temporality associated with a range of political, social, and economic events and processes that have marked the first decades of the twenty-first century. The seemingly natural unfolding of the “the linear progressive time of neoliberalism” (8), what Mark Fisher has called “capitalist realism,” has increasingly been put into question, not least due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (158). Similarly, Edwards identifies the 2016 Brexit referendum as symptomatic of a nationalism that must, following Michael Gardiner, always appear to be “out of time” (8). Such crises are thus indicative of anachronistic unevenness and conflicting temporalities. Consequently, a literary fiction that wants to adequately represent these struggles with temporality cannot confine itself to the pitfalls of literary realism, but it would be equally ill-suited by resorting to postmodernist metafiction and irony. Rather, as Edwards contends, the twenty-first-century fictions that she discusses attempt to complicate realist modes by using disruptive and experimental narrative techniques that amount to “non-mimetic experiments with narrative voice and structure” and “delinearised” temporalities (4). With this approach, Edwards argues, these texts interrogate the present as unstable.The four main chapters of Edwards’s book proceed by first establishing the dominant philosophical and theoretical concepts underlying her hypothesis. Chapter 2 (“Reading Fictions of the Not Yet”) is a theoretical and methodological chapter and offers an in-depth engagement with theories of temporality and narratology. Edwards’s aim here is to advocate for an updating of conventional narratology to account for the multilayered narrative experiments with time since modernism and especially in contemporary fiction. Her approach to theorization and analysis is inspired by Elizabeth Freeman’s Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (2010) in the decision to focus on close readings of a small number of primary texts and read them as texts or aesthetic artifacts that develop “theories of their own” (29). The chapter offers an in-depth engagement with Bloch’s philosophy of utopianism and his concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit.Another cornerstone for Edwards’s theory and method is the work of... (shrink)

The United Nations' (UN) adoption of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is intended to mark a fundamental ethical turn in the relationships between indigenous peoples and the community of sovereign states. This moment is the result of decades of discussion and negotiation, largely revolving around states' discomfort with notion of indigenous self-determination. Member states of the UN have feared that an ethic of indigenous self-determination would undermine the principles of state sovereignty on which the UN is (...) itself grounded. However, such fears are the result of very poor understandings of the ethical principles under which the relations between indigenous peoples and nation-states already have been formed under centuries of European colonialism. The principle of self-determination embraced in this Declaration does not diverge from colonial norms; it entrenches these norms as international policy. Without doubt, indigenous peoples are more likely to benefit than suffer from states' observance of the Articles within this Declaration. Reducing the challenge of indigenous peoples' rights to the notion of self-determination set out in this document, though, misses an extraordinarily important opportunity to critically investigate the ethic of rights that has produced an opposition between nation-states and indigenous peoples to begin with. A true turn in the ethics of this relationship would see not simply the institution of a right to self-determination but, rather, indigenous peoples' right to first determine the nature of self for themselves. (shrink)

Covenant Theology brings together a number of perspectives on this important feature of Christian tradition from across the theological discipline. Based on four lectures delivered at the University of Liverpool, each address is followed by a response, allowing respected scholars of the field to engage in lively and public debate. The progression from Old Testament to New Testament, then to systematic theology and pastoral theology is intentional, as readers are encouraged to view theology as an integrative discipline rather than a (...) series of fragmented specialisms with little or no relation to one another. With contributions from Stephen Clark, James Dunn, Gary Badcock, and Robin Gill, this academic book combines fresh insights with more traditional approaches and makes for an informed and interesting read. · Lively public debate from key scholars responding to each point. · Discussions from the full length of the Bible. · Practical in its application. · Wide view of theological debate. · Links theology to other disciplines. · Encourages everyone to join the debate. (shrink)

Paul uses the hapax legomenon ίλαστήριον in Romans 3:25. Pauline scholars have discussed the background for Paul’s use of the word, whether from the LXX, Second Temple practice or pagan inscriptions. Two altars were found in the Asian city of Metropolis in the early 1990s with the dedication Καίσαρος ἱλαστηρίου. This article discusses their discovery, the history of Metropolis and the possible relationship of Paul to the city. It explores the date of the erection of the altars by establishing a (...) viable sitz im leben early in the reign of Augustus. It then traces the semantic history of the ίλαστήριον and attempts to establish its possible meaning within Pauline theology. Finally, the question whether ίλαστήριον should be added to the vocabulary of imperial ideology in Paul’s writings is addressed. (shrink)

This collection of thirty-one cases and commentaries addresses ethical problems commonly encountered by the average health care professional, not just those working on such high-tech specialties as organ transplants or genetic engineering. It deals with familiar issues that are rarely considered in ethics casebooks, including such fundamental matters as informed consent, patient decision-making capacity, the role of the family, and end-of-life decisions. It also provides resources for basic but neglected ethical issues involving placement decisions for elderly or technologically dependent patients, (...) rehabilitation care, confidentiality regarding AIDS, professional responsibility, and organizational and institutional ethics. The authors describe in detail the perspectives of each party to the case, the kind of language that ethicists use to discuss the issues, and the outcome of the case. A short bibliography suggests useful articles for further reading or curriculum development. Easily understood by readers with no prior training in ethics, this book offers guidance on everyday problems from across the broad continuum of care. It will be valuable for health-care professionals, hospital ethics committees, and for students preparing for careers in health-care professions. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) challenged earlier thinking about the basic structures of human being, our involvement in practical affairs, and our understanding of history, time, and being. Blitz clarifies Heidegger’s discussions, offers alternative analyses of phenomena central to Heidegger’s argument, and examines the connection between Heidegger’s position in Being and Time and his support of Nazism. As Blitz explains in his new afterword, “When I began to study Martin Heidegger nearly fifty years ago, my goal was to explore (...) the meaning of Being and Time for political philosophy. I wished to discover what it might offer for clarifying the grounds on which the basic concepts and alternatives of political philosophy rest. Would a close reading of it help us understand the questions of justice, freedom, the common good, natural rights, virtue, human happiness, and the philosophic life? These questions are as important today as they were then.” Although Blitz often questions and criticizes Heidegger’s views, he presents them with scrupulous care and clarity. Specialists and students in the areas of political theory, phenomenology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy will find Heidegger’s Being and Time & the Possibility of Political Philosophy an invaluable resource. (shrink)

In The Politics of Exodus, Mark Dooley offers a lively interpretation of Kierkegaard as a precursor of the ethical and political insights of Jacques Derrida. While many connections have been forged in recent years between these two quintessentially "Continental" figures, Dooley's book argues that these affiliations run much deeper than any previous commentators have suggested. Indeed, his most controversial claim is that Kierkegaard is anything but a proponent of asocial individualism, but is one whose writings bear witness to the (...) notion of an "open quasi-community" which has driven much of Derrida's work over the past decade. In vigorously challenging conventional wisdom surrounding the place of Kierkegaard in contemporary thought and political theory, Dooley shows how powerfully postmodern and politically charged the latter's specifically 'religious' ideas are. As such, Kierkegaard ought to be read as someone who anticipated Derrida's claim that genuine responsibility in the political sphere depends upon a phophetic call for justice on behalf of the least among us. will appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of religion and postmodernism, as well as to those with interests in ethics and politics from a Continental perspective. It will undoubtedly change the way we read Kierkegaard in the new millennium. (shrink)