In the decade that followed 1972, the journal _boundary 2_ consistently published many of the most distinguished and most influential statements of an emerging literary postmodernism. Recognizing postmodernism as a dominant force in culture, particularly in the literary and narrative imagination, the journal appeared when literary critical study in the United States was in a period of theory-induced ferment. The fundamental relations between postmodernism and poststructuralism were being initially examined and the effort to formulate a critical sense of the postmodern (...) was underway. In this volume, Paul A. Bové, the current editor of _boundary 2_, has gathered many of those foundational essays and, as such, has assembled a basic text in the history of postmodernism. Essays by noted cultural and literary theorists join with Bové’s contemporary preface to represent the important and unique moment in recent intellectual history when postmodernism was no longer seen primarily as an architectural term, had not yet come to describe the wide range of culture it does now, but was finding power and place in the literary realm. These essays show that the history of postmodernism and its attendant critical theories are both more complex and more deeply bound with literary criticism than often is acknowledged today. _Early Postmodernism_ demonstrates not only the significance of these literary studies, but also the role played by literary critical postmodernism in making possible newer forms of critical and cultural studies. _Contributors_. Barry Alpert, Charles Altieri, David Antin, Harold Bloom, Paul A. Bové, Hélène Cixous, Gerald Gillespie, Ihab Hassan, Joseph N. Riddel, William, V. Spanos, Catharine R. Stimpson, Cornel West. (shrink)

_Gendered Agents_, edited by Silvestra Mariniello andPaul A. Bové, presents essays by influential feminist theorists who challenge traditional Western epistemology and suggest new directions for feminism. By examining both literary and historical discourses, such critics as Gayatri Spivak, Hortense Spillers, and Lauren Berlant assess questions of sexuality, ethics, race, psychoanalysis, subjectivity, and identity. Gathered from various issues of the journal _boundary 2_, the essays in _Gendered Agents_ seek to transform the model of Western academic knowledge by restructuring its priorities and (...) values. In the introduction, Mariniello urges feminists to begin anew but take as their starting place the achievements of feminism and feminist theory: an understanding of language that considers the implications of silence, the motivation to decompartmentalize experience, and the acknowledgement that everything is political._ _Challenging both a canonical organization of knowledge and the persistently self-referential "ghettoization" of feminism, contributors subsequently tackle subjects as diverse as pre-Marxist France, the American fetus, black intellectuals, queer nationality, and the art of literary interpretation. _Contributors_. Lauren Berlant, Karen Brennan, Margaret Cohen, Nancy Fraser, Elizabeth Freeman, Carol Jacobs, Silvestra Mariniello, Larysa Mykyta, Laura Rice, Ivy Schweitzer, Doris Sommer, Hortense J. Spillers, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Judith Wilt. (shrink)

This volume begins to show why the current period in humanistic studies could be known as "The Age of Edward Said." The collection brings together outstanding intellectuals from the wide variety of fields to which Edward Said, the most important humanist of his generation, has made contributions: literary criticism, postcolonial studies, musicology, Middle Eastern Studies, anthropology, and journalism. Featured is a new interview with Said, conducted by W. J. T. Mitchell, in which Said discusses the importance of the visual to (...) his thinking, specifically the works of Goya and Caravaggio, which in turn made possible Said's valuable contributions to our understanding of photography and painting. Other contributions reflect on Said's influences on the American public sphere; the subtle personal politics that inform the relationship between music and emotion; Said's importance to a thinking about "race before racism" and the disappearance of the American; and jazz man Jim Merod reflects on Said's "sublime lyrical abstractions." Covering with insight the many debates Said so deftly entered and formed, the distinguished contributors to this volume reflect upon his oeuvre to create an atmosphere of thoughtfulness, questioning, and interactivity. (shrink)

Compatibilism combines an externalist view of mental content with a doctrine of privileged self‐knowledge. The essay presents a reductio of compatibilism by arguing that if compatibilism were true, we would be in a position to know certain facts about the world a priori, facts that no one can reasonably believe are knowable a priori. Whether this should be taken to cast doubt on externalism or privileged self‐knowledge is not discussed. Consideration is given to the ’empty case’—the case in which a (...) thinker expresses what he takes to be a genuine thought concerning a natural kind but where there is in fact no relevant natural kind, so that the putative natural kind term fails to refer. It is argued that, in such a case, on an externalist conception of natural kind terms, the thinker is deluded in taking himself to be expressing a complete thought, and that such delusions are not compatible with privileged self‐knowledge. (shrink)

I believe that the notion of epistemic transparency does play an important role in our ordinary conception of mental content and I want to say what that role is. Unfortunately, the task is a large one; here I am able only to begin on its outline. I shall proceed somewhat indirectly, beginning with a discussion of externalist conceptions of mental content. I shall show that such conceptions violate epistemic transparency to an extent that has not been fully appreciated. Subsequently, I (...) shall look at the implications of this violation and at the reconstructive project that a rejection of transparency entails. I am inclined to think it unlikely that we will get a conception of propositional content that underwrites epistemic transparency. But I am concerned that we have not fully appreciated the role that transparency currently plays and the work that would need to be done were we to discard it. (shrink)

These essays examine the ways in which the consideration of ethical questions is shaped by the structures of knowledge and communication at work in clinical ...

The question I want to look at in this paper is this: To what extent does an externalist conception of mental content threaten our ability to know the contents of our thoughts? I shall argue that, in an important sense, externalism is inconsistent with the thesis that we have authoritative first-person knowledge of thought content: in particular, I shall argue, it is inconsistent with the thesis that our thought contents are epistemically transparent to us. I shall further argue that this (...) is true in a sense that falsifies another important and traditionally fundamental view —that we can detect a priori whether our inferences are logically valid or not. I shall leave for another occasion the question whether these results reflect badly on epistemic transparency or on externalism. (shrink)

It is very common these days to come across the claim that the notions of mental content and linguistic meaning are normative notions. In the work of many philosophers, it plays a pivotal role. Saul Kripke made it the centerpiece of his influential discussion of Wittgenstein’s treatment of rulefollowing and private language; he used it to argue that the notions of meaning and content cannot be understood in naturalistic terms. Kripke’s formulations tend to be in terms of the notion of (...) linguistic meaning, but his argumentative strategy makes it clear that he holds both versions of the claim.... (shrink)

Philosophers and ethicists debate this controversial moral principle illustrating its application to current moral dilemmas such as war, suicide, nuclear power, affirmative action, and morphine use for terminal cancer patients.

For nearly a century, and until very recently, the majority of U.S. states required a blood test for marriage license applicants. The tests identified people with conditions formerly designated as "venereal diseases," most importantly gonorrhea and syphilis. Those who tested positive were barred from civil marriage. Although the premarital testing requirement is no longer a feature of state law, numerous related enactments are common features of law in most states.The historical literature describing the rise and fall of laws prescribing marriage (...) restrictions related to VD has treated those enactments as public health measures, meant primarily to forestall the spread of disease to intimate partners. But laws to... (shrink)

The paper asks under what conditions deductive reasoning transmits justification from its premises to its conclusion. It argues that both standard externalist and standard internalist accounts of this phenomenon fail. The nature of this failure is taken to indicate the way forward: basic forms of deductive reasoning must justify by being instances of 'blind but blameless' reasoning. Finally, the paper explores the suggestion that an inferentialist account of the logical constants can help explain how such reasoning is possible.

An irrealist conception of a given region of discourse is the view that no real properties answer to the central predicates of the region in question. Any such conception emerges, invariably, as the result of the interaction of two forces. An account of the meaning of the central predicates, along with a conception of the sorts of property the world may contain, conspire to show that, if the predicates of the region are taken to express properties, their extensions would have (...) to be deemed uniformly empty. The question then becomes whether the predicates are best understood as expressing properties, and hence as founded on error, or whether they ought to be understood along non-factualist lines.z Historically, irrealist models were developed primarily in connection with evaluative discourse, although as physicalism has flourished and as reductionist programs have failed, their application has been extended to many other domains. Indeed, it is one of the more influential suggestions in contemporary philosophy of mind that they apply even to ordinary belief/desire psychology. A correct understanding of the semantics and metaphysics of content-based psychology leaves us, so the proponents of the in-. (shrink)

This article briefly review the fundamentals of structural equation modeling for readers unfamiliar with the technique then goes on to offer a review of the Martin and Cullen paper. In summary, a number of fit indices reported by the authors reveal that the data do not fit their theoretical model and thus the conclusion of the authors that the model was “promising” are unwarranted.

In this article, I show how it is possible, working from a Thomistic perspective, to affirm the existence of animal rights. To start, I show how it is possible to ascribe indirect rights to animals—in particular, the indirect right to not be treated cruelly by us. Then, I show how it is possible to ascribe some direct rights to animals using the same reasoning that Aquinas offers in defending the claim that animals have indirect rights. Next, I draw on elements (...) of Aquinas’s metaphysical worldview in order to buttress the claim that animals have direct rights. I then respond to an attempt to ground the ethical treatment of animals, but not direct rights for animals, in natural law. In conclusion, I affirm that it is permissible to use animals to further the human good so long as in doing so we respect the direct rights that they possess. (shrink)

The term "viewing stones" is primarily associated with two traditions of stone appreciation: Chinese Gongshi and Japanese suiseki. Today, viewing-stone associations around the world take inspiration from these traditions and are creating new ways of displaying stones. Petraphiles, whether ancient or contemporary, are often drawn to express their appreciation of favored stones in writing.The Petraphiles represented in this virtual exhibition are diverse in their expressions of geo-affection. They are, by turns, both scholarly and poetic. In each entry there is a (...) sense of discovery. Thomas Elias finds his Liaoshan Green Stone talking to him about the vicissitudes of life. Kemin Hu's research on a... (shrink)

This volume presents a series of influential essays by Paul Boghossian on the theory of content and on its relation to the phenomenon of a priori knowledge. The essays are organized under four headings: the nature of content; content and self-knowledge; knowledge, content, and the a priori; and colour concepts.

The Supreme Court decided Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky in 2019. Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in the case claimed there was a direct connection between the legalization of abortion, in the late 20th Century, and the beginnings of the birth control movement a full three quarters of a century earlier. “Many eugenicists,” Thomas argued, “supported legalizing abortion.”Justice Samuel Alito highlighted similar claims in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, citing a brief entitled “The Eugenic Era Lives on through (...) the Abortion Movement.” That brief was an echo of Justice Thomas’ misguided attempt at history in the Box opinion. Similar claims reoccur in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion in the Texas mifepristone case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.These false claims are the focus of this article. There is no evidence that early leaders of the eugenics movement supported abortion as part of the movement for birth control. It is accurate to describe those leaders as anti-abortion, and their followers as people who condemned abortion for moral, legal, and medical reasons. (shrink)

The fact that we can hear a particular passage of music as expressing a “tranquil gratitude” is a central aspect of the phenomenology of musical experience; without it we would be hard pressed to explain how purely instrumental music could move us in the way that it does. The trouble, here as so often elsewhere in philosophy, is that what seems necessary also seems impossible: for how could a mere series of nonlinguistic sounds, however lovely, express a state of mind? (...) One of the central tasks of the philosophy of music is to remove this mystery.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 233-244 [Access article in PDF] Joseph Butler on Forgiveness: A Presupposed Theory of Emotion Paul A. Newberry "I forgive him as far as humanity can forgive. I would do him no injury." Mrs. Dale in Anthony Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867. In the recent philosophical literature on forgiveness, a topic of great concern is the proper characterization of (...) forgiveness or, said in another way, the proper definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness has been defined in a multitude of ways: among others, as the overcoming of resentment, the overcoming of moral hatred, as a speech act, and as forbearance. Of these definitions the one that enjoys anything close to a kind of consensus is that forgiveness is the overcoming of resentment. This position, with various qualifications and stipulations, is held by numerous philosophers, among them R. S. Downie, Kathleen Dean Moore, A. C. Ewing, Martin Hughes, and Jeffrie Murphy. 1 The progenitor of this view is widely acknowledged to be Joseph Butler, who wrote sermons on both resentment and forgiveness nearly three hundred years ago. 2In this paper I will demonstrate that the attribution of this definition of forgiveness to Butler is in error: he did not define forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment but rather as the checking of revenge, or forbearance. Aside from the goal of setting the historical record straight, I have a broader and more important purpose in this essay. One sees that such an interpretation of Butler must provoke two questions. First, why did Butler define forgiveness only in terms of how one is to act, therefore paying no attention, apparently, to how one feels? Second, how do Murphy and the others incorrectly attribute this view to Butler? [End Page 233] I contend that these answers can be addressed if we take a close look at the role of emotions and theories of emotion in the definitions offered by Butler and Murphy (as representative of the group). I will attempt to establish that Butler's definition of forgiveness as the checking of revenge presupposes a feeling theory of emotions which is distinct from and in conflict with--in many ways pertinent to forgiveness--the cognitive theory of emotions presupposed by Murphy's definition. If I am successful in showing this claim to be plausible, then I will also have demonstrated that more attention needs to be paid to theories of emotion underlying work on forgiveness. But since the misinterpretation of Butler is widespread among contemporary writers on forgiveness and not peculiar to Murphy, my claim is a gesture toward what I take to be a problem greater than mere misinterpretation. Given the fact that a feeling theory of emotions was the predominant theory among philosophers in Butler's day until the end of the nineteenth century and that cognitive theory is currently a dominant philosophical theory, I fear that what has happened is that modern commentators on Butler are unaware that they are imposing their own presupposed theories of emotion onto a text from an earlier historical period.The plan of the paper is first to show by careful exegesis how Butler characterizes forgiveness and then, after a brief sketch of the difference between feeling theory and cognitive theory, to demonstrate how Butler's definition presupposes the former and Murphy's the latter. I will conclude with a few remarks about the import of these findings.Joseph Butler's treatment of forgiveness is found in a collection of his sermons first published as Fifteen Sermons in 1726. 3 Included in this collection are two sermons of primary importance to the topic of forgiveness: a sermon on resentment (Sermon VIII) and a subsequent sermon on forgiveness (Sermon IX). An understanding of Butler's definition of forgiveness properly begins with his sermon on resentment in which he distinguishes between two different kinds of resentment. One kind he calls "hasty and sudden" resentment, the other "settled and deliberate" resentment. 4 Hasty and sudden resentment is generally (and naturally) the result of sudden hurt or violence. 5... (shrink)

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity to visual experience (...) is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the twentieth century and a major impetus for the recent resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. His views, however, have not been well understood. Critics charge that Quine’s naturalized epistemology is circular and that it cannot be normative. Yet, such criticisms stem from a cluster of fundamental traditional assumptions regarding language, theory, and the knowing subject – the very presuppositions that Quine is at (...) pains to reject. Through investigation of Quine’s views regarding language, knowledge, and reality, the author offers a new interpretation of Quine’s naturalism. The naturalism/antinaturalism debate can be advanced only by acknowledging and critiquing the substantial theoretical commitments implicit in the traditional view. Gregory argues that the responses to the circularity and non-normativity objections do just that. His analysis further reveals that Quine’s departure from the tradition penetrates the conception of the knowing subject, and he thus offers a new and engaging defence of Quine’s naturalism. (shrink)

I argue that when we interpret a literary work, we engage with at least two different kinds of meaning, each requiring a distinct mode of interpretation. These kinds of meaning are literary varieties of what Paul Grice called nonnatural and natural meaning. The long-standing debate that began with Beardsley and Wimsatt's attack on the intentional fallacy is, I argue, really a debate about nonnatural meaning in literature. I contend that natural meaning has been largely neglected in our theorizing about (...) literary interpretation and that this comes at a serious cost, resulting in an inadequate account of what interpretation involves. I argue, first, that by recognizing that literary meaning includes both nonnatural and natural meaning, we are better placed to understand the interpreter's relationship with the author, and, second, that recognition of the distinction between nonnatural and natural meaning advances the established debate about literary meaning, offering support for actual intentionalism. The more inclusive view of literary meaning helps resolve an apparent difficulty raised by Noël Carroll. (shrink)

L'étude de la communication peut offrir une perspective sur le contexte de la théologie, un examen de sa structure, et une reflexion sur son contenu. La communication est primordiale pour la société contemporaine, affectant la façon dont les gens utilisent leur temps, façonnant les informations qu'ils reçoivent, influençant la manière dont ils pensent , et les rendant plus soupçonneux vis à vis de l'autorité. L'histoire de la théologie montre les effets des formes de communication, reflétant la narration, la rhétorique, et (...) les structures polémiques des cultures orales, aussi bien que les instruments analytiques de l'écriture et l'imprimerie. Finalement, l'étude de la communication suggère une façon différente de considérer des sujets théologiques traditionnels. Le salut divin, par exemple, peut se concentrer sur la communication en interprètant l'histoire du salut comme une histoire de l'auto-communication de Dieu et la restauration de la communication humaine. (shrink)

In over 200 separately-authored entries, this reference surveys both the historical and contemporary relations between religion and society. A selection of the world's leading scholars from varying disciplines and denominations cover all aspects of philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, economics and government, providing a brief definition of each term, a description of the principal ideas behind it, its history, development and contemporary relevance, and a detailed bibliography giving the major sources in the field. The Dictionary is prefaced by an introduction outlining (...) the scope and diversity of coverage. * Synthesizes theology, social thought, social philosophy and ethics * Prestigious editors and an international team of Consulting Editors * Selected entries include: AIDS, Domestic Violence, Madness, Prophecy, Terrorism, Women's Ordination, Fundamentalist Liberation Theology, Surrogacy. (shrink)

In this article, I show how traditional Thomistic claims about the creation and fall of the first human beings—or “Adam”—are compatible with the claims of evolutionary science concerning human origins. Aquinas claims that God created Adam in a state or condition of original justice, wholly subject to God and so fully virtuous, as well as internally immune to bodily corruption, suffering, and natural death. In defense of “Aquinas's Adam,” I first argue that affirming that the prelapsarian Adam was internally immune (...) to suffering and death does not require denying that these things predated his emergence within evolutionary history, or that he would have faced real challenges posed to him by his natural environment. Next, I rebut the claim that Adam must have been spiritually and morally fragile, given the traits he inherited from his evolutionary ancestors. Finally, I dispute the claim that Adam only could have fallen if he existed in a spiritually and morally fragile state. (shrink)

This article reflects on the assumption underlying the argument of Little et al. that "contested understandings" in the clinic are susceptible to reconciliation within a liberal framework described as "pragmatic pluralism". It is argued that no such reconciliation is possible or desirable because it is of the nature of the clinic that it provides a forum for multiple voices, ethical and cultural perspectives, and conceptual frameworks, and this is the source of its fecundity and creativity. Medicine itself cannot be represented (...) by a single discourse, precisely because it is itself an unruly collection of practices that, despite their heterogeneity, are able to engage in productive dialogues with each other. The heteroglossia of the clinic, therefore, is not a problem to be overcome. Rather, it is a rich resource to be mobilized in accordance with its multiple inherent purposes. (shrink)