In this essay, I will critically examine Collin Turbayne and Philip Wheelwright's approaches to the theory of metaphor. Through criticism of their views I will arrive at Paul Ricoeur's theory which I consider is the most comprehensive one. Ricoeur retains what is fruitful from the above mentioned theories and tries to make them part of a very ambitious project which is represented by his monumental work The Rule of Metaphor (1977). He manages to open a new dimension in the (...) analysis of metaphor by linking it through a special use of imagination to the phenomenal world, by according it the status of statement (redefining Frege's sense and reference polarity) and by pointing out the idea that metaphors have an emotional meaning as well. Thus, I will start with the two different views on this issue, first that of Collin Turbayne, who develops a theory of metaphor based on the "as if" prescription and thus brings the whole discussion on metaphor into the field of reflective judgment. Then there is Philip Weelwright's theory which considers that metaphorical language, through its fluidity and tensiveness, is closely connected to "what is", that is, to the real. Using these two theories as dialectical counterparts, I will try to bring them together in an act of synthesis, arriving finally at Paul Ricoeur's theory of metaphor. (shrink)

Many have offered accounts of the procreative asymmetry, the claim that one has no moral reason to create a life just because it would be happy, but one has moral reason not to create a life just because it would be miserable. I suggest a new approach. Instead of looking at the procreative asymmetry on its own, we can situate it within a broader landscape of asymmetries. Specifically, there are two other analogous asymmetries in the prudential and epistemic domains. The (...) prudential asymmetry says that one has no prudential reason to acquire a desire just because it would be satisfied, but one has prudential reason not to acquire a desire just because it would be frustrated. The epistemic asymmetry says that one has no epistemic reason to acquire a belief just because it is true, but one has epistemic reason not to acquire a belief just because it is false. The existence of these analogous asymmetries in these normative domains suggests the possibility of a unified account of all three asymmetries as instances of a more fundamental asymmetry of value-based reasons. This paper develops a working model of what such a unified account might look like. Such an account can give us a unified explanation of a variety of phenomena, reinforce the plausibility of each of these asymmetries, and give us a novel picture of how value gives us reasons that might extend beyond these three applications. (shrink)

The _Platform Sutra_ records the teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, who is revered as one of the two great figures in the founding of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism. This translation is the definitive English version of the eighth-century Ch'an classic. Phillip B. Yampolsky has based his translation on the Tun-huang manuscript, the earliest extant version of the work. A critical edition of the Chinese text is given at the end of the volume. Dr. Yampolsky also furnishes a lengthy and detailed (...) historical introduction which contains much information hitherto unavailable even to scholars, and provides the context essential to an understanding of Hui-neng's work. He gives an account of the history and legends of Ch'an Buddhism, with particular attention to the traditions associated with Hui-neng, quoting or summarizing the most important narratives. He then discusses the various texts of the _Platform Sutra_, and analyzes its contents. (shrink)

It is great honor to be even a virtual part of an event to celebrate the work of Leslie Zines, and especially to celebrate it in such august company. Leslie was a colleague that I greatly admired and liked. The disciplinary divide between us was not any bar to affection, though Leslie never let me forget that the constitutional-law terrain was sacred ground on which outsiders ventured at their peril. I particularly enjoyed the way that he, like our mutual, recently (...) departed friend, Paul Finn, gently mocked the pretensions of a philosopher to declaim on topics jurisprudential. I fear I’m going to tread on his ground again in this little paper and I can only beg his, and Paul’s, posthumous indulgence. My topic is the dispersion of power within the state. This ideal has a long history but has ceased to be much celebrated by those who endorse it and has come in for fierce attack among populist opponents. It’s not an exaggeration to say, in Yeats’s words, that on this subject ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity’. In this short paper I would like to rehearse reasons why we should warmly endorse the dispersive ideal. And endorse it, regardless of how we dub it: whether, for example, we describe it in a mainly twentieth-century formula, as the separation of powers; in an eighteenth-century antecedent as a regime of checks and balances; in an earlier name that goes back to the Roman Republic as a mixed constitution; or in a term I myself favor as a polycentric arrangement or system. (shrink)

CHAPTER I DEWEY'S CONCEPT OF EXPERIENCE AND NATURE John Dewey, ever the celebrant of experience, did not attempt to write a formal work in aesthetics until ...

Paul L. Lehmann (1906–1994) was one of the leading Protestant theologians and ethicists of his generation. Working directly from archival sources and early writings, this article offers an account of the formation of key features of his distinctive theological perspective up to and including the first decades of his professional career. It argues that Lehmann prosecutes a distinctive and markedly Protestant form of public theology, centred on an understanding of the Word of God as a present, dynamic and humanising power, (...) to which Christian faith, life and thought give witness and serve catalytically. In this, Lehmann shows himself to be a premier advocate for lines of thinking he first encountered in the work of Karl Barth and of his friend, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (shrink)

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in (...) their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'. (shrink)

Christian ethicist Nancy Duff has suggested that an apocalyptic hearing of the gospel elicits a parabolic understanding of the Christian moral life. How might the theological basis and rationale of this claim be elaborated? What is it about human life funded by the gospel of God’s apocalypse in Jesus Christ that makes ‘parable’ an apt description of the quality of its action? And how might these notions be elaborated to enrich our understanding of responsible moral action more generally? This article (...) explores these questions by way of a running conversation with the work of J. Louis Martyn, Christopher Morse and Paul Ricoeur. It concludes by showing the salience of these themes in relation to Bonhoeffer’s later reflections upon the distinctive quality of Christian life in the wreckage of Christendom. Overall, the solid currency of a parabolic construal of the character of Christian moral action for the present pursuit of theological ethics is recommended. (shrink)

This paper argues that Calvin provides an account of the radical unmaking of the human moral subject at the hands of sin and its even more radical remaking at the hands of divine grace. The moral significance of human continuity during this soteriological transit, including such things as reason and will as such, is shown to be overreached by that of what becomes of the human creature in its history at the hands of both sin and God’s grace. Calvin’s treatment (...) of the first and third uses of the law confirms and illumines this claim decisively. Insight into this matter is aided by consideration of J. Louis Martyn’s discussion of the status of the moral subject in Pauline paraenesis A Reformed theological ethic that takes its cues from Calvin’s teaching in this regard will thus regard the adventitious realities of sin and grace, and their serial consequences for the constitution of the human moral agent, to represent the most important meta-ethical realities to be considered. (shrink)

Reflecting on some distinctive contributions of the tradition of Reformed theology to our understanding of the nature and prospects of humans qua creatures within the economy of salvation, this article looks to draw out key themes which may serve to orient contemporary Christian engagements with the discourse of transhumanism.

Arendt Contra Sociology re-assesses the relationship between Hannah Arendt's work and the theoretical foundations of sociology, bringing her insights to bear on key themes within contemporary theoretical sociology. Departing from the view of Arendt as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from society, and political theory from the social sciences, this book re-examines her distinctions between labour, fabrication and action as a theory of the fundamental ontology of human societies, revisiting her criticism of the tendency of many sociological (...) paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. (shrink)

I argue that moral dialogue concerning an agent’s standing to blame facilitates moral understanding about the purported wrongdoing that her blame targets. Challenges to a blamer’s standing serve a communicative function: they initiate dialogue or reflection meant to align the moral understanding of the blamer and challenger. On standard accounts of standing to blame, challenges to standing facilitate shared moral understanding about the blamer herself: it matters per se whether the blamer has a stake in the purported wrongdoing at issue, (...) is blaming hypocritically, or is complicit in the wrongdoing at issue. In contrast, I argue that three widely recognized conditions on standing to blame—the business, non-hypocrisy, and non-complicity conditions—serve as epistemically tractable proxies through which we evaluate the accuracy and proportionality of blame. Standing matters because, and to the extent that, it indirectly informs our understanding of the purported wrongdoing that an act of blaming targets. (shrink)

How can Ordinary Language Philosophy (OLP) help us understand poetry? Against John L. Austin’s exclusion of poetic utterances as parasitical, Philip Mills explores how contemporary poetics broadens the aims and scope of OLP. Through the analysis of French and American poetry that reinterprets notions such as illocution, perlocution, and language-games, Mills develops a poetic philosophy of language, revealing its viral and transformative nature. Poetry, Performativity, and Ordinary Language Philosophy bridges philosophy and poetry, showing how poetry contaminates and reshapes our (...) ways of thinking and being in the world, and combining the poetic and the ethical in the notion of ‘poethics.’ This Open Access book offers a new perspective on the poetic and literary potential of OLP and the intersections between the philosophy of language and poetry. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines how Christians who had been deprived of the direct sponsorship of the state articulated their claims for political and religious freedom. I examine four cases from the fifth and sixth century in the Eastern Roman Empire and Sasanian Iran. Here I argue that Scriptural models provided an important reservoir of political ideas that could be used by clerics to undermine state authority, whether to underscore the conditional nature of Roman claims to authority or to deny an equality (...) of religious freedom to non-Christian co-citizens. (shrink)

In recent times, the idea of popular sovereignty has figured prominently in the rhetoric of neo-populist thinkers and activists who argue that legal and political authority must be concentrated in one single body or individual elected by the people to act in its name. The thesis of this article is that, while the notion of popular sovereignty may seem to offer some support to the neo-populist image of democracy, it serves more persuasively to support the idea of a polycentric, constitutional (...) democracy. The constitutional state can be polycentric and yet feature a sovereign. And if this constitutional state is democratic in the sense of distributing power relatively equally amongst individual citizens, thus empowering the people-several, then it will establish the people-corporate in the role of sovereign.. (shrink)

The consensus among philosophers is that indirect control is the only plausible type of control that individuals can exercise over implicit bias. By contrast, direct control over implicit bias is dismissed as implausible. It is dismissed on two grounds. First, direct control is susceptible to the rebound effect. Second, the nature of implicit bias belies direct control. This paper grates against the prevailing philosophical consensus by defending direct control against its dismissal. Accordingly, I argue that the rebound effect is not (...) a knock-down-drag-out phenomenon against direct control. I further argue that philosophers have an unnuanced view of the rebound effect and represent it in ways that betray inaccuracies. I argue that this opens up some space to develop a moderate view of direct control over implicit bias. The view I develop is rooted in dual-system theory and the findings of experimental social psychology and neuroscience. Taken together, the evidence suggests two things: (1) the nature of implicit bias does not always belie direct control, and (2) that a moderate type of direct control over implicit bias is plausible. I end with a caution against treating indirect control as the standard-bearer for control over implicit bias. Indirect control is secured by undertaking control-based intervention techniques. But evidence suggests that the effects of these techniques fade over time. I do not suggest, however, that indirect control be jettisoned. Instead, I propose that it be used as a strategy along with moderate direct control such that no ameliorative avenue is foreclosed. (shrink)

Ethicists generally agree that there are supererogatory acts, which are morally good, but not morally obligatory. It is sometimes claimed that, in addition to supererogatory acts, there are suberogatory acts, which are morally bad, but not morally impermissible. According to Julia Driver (1992), the distinction between impermissible acts and suberogatory acts is legitimate and unjustly neglected by ethicists. She argues that certain cases are best explained in terms of the suberogatory. Hallie Rose Liberto (2012) denies the suberogatory on the grounds (...) that Driver's cases can be explained without invoking it. In order to make good on this claim, Liberto suggests an account of moral impermissibility that purportedly eliminates the need to posit suberogatory acts. We defend the suberogatory. Our defense is twofold. First, we argue that Liberto's account of moral impermissibility is dubious. Second, we attempt to show that it is possible to construct an argument against the supererogatory that is exactly analogous to Liberto's argument against the suberogatory. The upshot is that if the suberogatory is denied for the reasons that Liberto suggests, then the supererogatory should be denied as well. Few ethicists, however, are willing to deny the supererogatory. (shrink)

Moti Mizrahi has argued that Gettier cases are misleading, since they involve a certain kind of semantic failure. In a recent paper, I criticized Mizrahi’s argument. Mizrahi has since responded. This is a response to his response.

Editorial for the Special Issue on Nietzsche by Yvanka B. Raynova.

This special issue of the Journal of Philosophy in Schools is based on papers presented at the Federation of Asia-Pacific Philosophy in Schools Associations (FAPSA) conference on Communities of Inquiry: Significance, Cultural Change and the Ongoing Relationship to P4C, and held at the University of Melbourne from 1 to 3 October 2022.

Nietzsche’s analysis of society—its decadence and nihilism—has been quite influential among 20th century art movements; his diagnostic of culture and his response to it inspired many artists and still does nowadays. His critique of traditional culture—and this concerns as much morality, science, religion, philosophy than art—calls for a revaluation of all values, that is a profound modification of the foundations of culture. One of the most influential art movements which was inspired by this idea is Dada, an art movement born (...) in 1916, at the height of World War One. Dada rose in a context of European crisis and one of its most terrible symptoms: war. Dada, like Nietzsche, aims to overcome traditional culture and society. More than a hundred years after Dada’s birth, Europe is in no less a crisis (even though it takes a different form) and the response Dada offered—and Nietzsche’s influence on it—might be some place to which return. Inasmuch as Nietzsche returned to the Greeks looking for a rebirth of tragedy, we might need a rebirth of Dada to respond to the contemporary crisis. Dada’s attitude towards society and tradition—and Nietzsche’s attitude towards culture—can be characterised as warlike. And this warlike attitude does not mean that war is the solution, quite the contrary as Dada attempts to escape the on-going war, but that in order to overcome society and create something new, we must take risks. Against the destruction that was surrounding them, Dada’s founders engaged in a playful and joyful creation through the undermining of traditional forms of art. Culture should not follow the ways of tradition but express a break with it by creating new traditions. My paper therefore focuses on three aspects: first on Nietzsche’s and Dada’s diagnostic of culture, secondly on their response to the crisis they diagnose, and thirdly on the answer they offer to exit the crisis and the role of the joyful creation of art in this undertaking. (shrink)

This paper develops a 'conceptual map' by which to chart contemporary developments in policy on school diversity. In part this has been prompted by the prospect in England of (private) Steiner schools becoming more closely involved in mainstream state-funded education. Whilst generated principally by policy developments within the UK, the conceptual thinking may also have wider applicability. We conceptualise diversity in the context of a differentiating public domain and a concern with existential questions which, arguably, persists in educational policy even (...) where narrow 'performative' criteria are dominant. Four diversity models are outlined and a policy path over time suggested in relation to these. We suggest that this may be leading towards diversity policy which affords greater recognition to different conceptions of valued learning and encourages co-operative exploration of these, though it is acknowledged that there remain strong contrary pressures. (shrink)

This paper is underpinned by an epistemological question: What are the types and ways of knowing that can be entailed in reflective leadership in its fullest sense? The question is explored through a mapping exercise which outlines a geography of reflective leadership in terms of three variables: type of knowledge, problem focus, and mode of learning (incorporating the notion of embodied learning). Particular attention is given to recognising within the terrain of reflective leadership the epistemic credentials of spiritual learning and (...) experiential awareness of spirituality. This paper was given the award of best paper at the Philosophy of Management Conference, University of Oxford, 11th–14th July 2008. (shrink)