This interdisciplinary analysis presents an innovative examination of the nature of pride and humility, including all their slippery nuances and points of connection. By combining insights from visual art, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and psychology, this volume adapts a complementary rather than an oppositional approach to examine how pride and humility reinforce and inform one another. This method produces a robust, substantial, and meaningful description of these important concepts. The analysis takes into account key elements of pride and humility, including (...) self-esteem and self-confidence, human interconnectedness, power's function and limitations, and the role of fear. Shawn R. Tucker explores the many inflections of these terms, inflections that cast them by turns as positive or negative, emboldening or discouraging, and salubrious or vicious depending upon the context and manner in which they are used. (shrink)

Develops Heidegger’s understanding of the Greek gods in the summer 1943 lecture course on Heraclitus. Of particular note is Heidegger’s assertion at the beginning of the lecture course that “there is no Greek religion,” though Heraclitus is said to “have” gods. Heidegger holds that the essential activity of gods consists in "giving signs." An explanation of the connection between gods and their signs gains clarification by a study of how Heidegger understands the Greek concepts of theoi and daimones in the (...) earlier but related Parmenides course of winter 1942-43. (shrink)

Do firms respond to changes in economic growth by altering their corporate social responsibility programs? If they do respond, are their responses simply neglect of areas associated with corporate social performance or do they also cut back on positive programs such as profit sharing, public/private housing programs, or charitable contributions? In this paper, we argue that because CSP-related actions and programs tend to be discretionary, they are likely to receive less attention during tough economic times, a result of cost-cutting efforts. (...) However, the various CSP performance areas vary in terms of their resource requirements and their influence on financial performance, which suggests that firms may respond differently depending on area. Consequently, in addition to examining CSP concerns separately from positive actions and programs, we also examine the influence of economic growth across the five areas of diversity, employee relations, the environment, product quality/safety, and the community. Based on data from 837 firms over 15 years, our results suggest that firms neglect some areas associated with CSP during economic downturns, resulting in increased concerns about community and employee relations, product safety/quality, and the environment. However, this relationship does not apply to positive actions and programs. Instead, firms tend to increase their positive CSP programs in areas such as diversity, employee relations, and the environment during periods of slow economic growth and reduce them when the economy picks up. We offer potential explanations for our findings and discuss their importance to research on CSP. (shrink)

Presence suggests that adapting the experiences of leading innovators may address a nightmare scenario of environmental destruction, a growing divide between the rich and poor, and escalating violence around the world. Innovation occurs by transforming sensing to identify limitations in existing solution sets, transforming perception to envision an entire whole, and transforming action to realize the future seeking to emerge from the whole. This U sequence follows the rite-of-passage phases of separation, liminality, and reincorporation documented by Victor Turner. By ending (...) in spontaneous communitas and avoiding a normative model, the U does not discuss how to mobilize resources and develop systems of social control. This omission, as well as depending on the constructive power of human ritual without recognition of its destructive potential, significantly limits the U’s analytic validity. Despite these limitations, Presence is an encouraging set of stories of attempts within the industrial context to mitigate the nightmare scenario and work toward a sustainable future. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers often construe mercy as a supererogatory notion or a matter of punitive leniency. Yet it is false that no merciful actions are obligatory. Further, it is questionable whether mercy is really about punitive leniency, either exclusively or primarily. As an alternative to these accounts, I consider the view offered by St. Thomas Aquinas. He rejects the claim that we are never obligated to be merciful. Also, his view of mercy is not restricted to legal contexts. For him, mercy's (...) scope is considerably broader, as it concerns a wide range of needs and hardships to which human beings are vulnerable. Such a view, I submit, affords a kind of normative depth lacking in many contemporary accounts. Unlike those views that construe mercy as either a supererogatory or legal concept, Aquinas's account illuminates mercy's obligatory nature and encourages us to make mercy a more salient fixture of our moral lives. (shrink)

While Sylvia Wynter emphasizes the written word’s capacity to transform our systems of organizing knowledge, she repeatedly questions the extent to which novels can have this transformative capacity. Both her theoretical writing and the plot of her 1962 novel The Hills of Hebron emphasize the novel’s limitations. However, Wynter does not totally reject the form. Instead, she reimagines the novel through the idea of the “counter-novel,” developed in conjunction with her close reading of Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. This essay (...) considers The Hills of Hebron as a counter-novel by analyzing the connections between novel’s two artist characters, The Hills of Hebron, and Wynter’s reading of The Invisible Man. Through this analysis, I argue that Wynter’s novel can be read as a substantial contribution to her theoretical corpus that has continued relevance to her challenge to transform dominant systems of knowledge production. (shrink)

Harold Sonny Ladoo’s 1972 novel No Pain Like This Body has been analyzed for its seminal representation of the traumas experienced by a formerly indentured Indo-Trinidadian family in the early twentieth century. However, relatively little attention has been given to Ladoo’s experimentation with multiple languages, particularly English, Trinidadian Creole, and Hindi. This article argues that Ladoo’s multilingualism offers a guide for approaching the traumatic experiences he represents. While some aspects of the novel, such as its glossary, make the characters’ language (...) more comprehensible, others, such as the orthography Ladoo chooses to represent Creole speech, deliberately distance the reader. Using decolonial theorists of language, particularly Édouard Glissant's writing on multi­lingualism and opacity, this article considers Ladoo’s use of multilingualism both as a limit to readers’ understanding as well as an invitation to continued engagement with those aspects of the text that are resistant to easy comprehension. This article contrasts opacity as a reading methodology with some of the dominant paradigms for understanding linguistic difference in the field of comparative literature, which rely on linguistic and textual mastery. Ultimately, the article proposes reading multilingual texts through opacity as a model for decolonial reading in which creative, active engagement with the text can produce solidarity without requiring complete transparency. (shrink)

What underlies Zhuangzi’s thought is the fundamental finitude of the self, meaning that we cannot and should not alter or control things around us at whim or solely in our favour. Consequently, Zhuangzi recommends that we remain open to things instead of going against them, leading to a fulfilled life. This article discusses Zhuangzi’s underlying philosophy of openness, noting that he proposes two different strategies to do so with a distinction between the natural and the human. The former primarily appears (...) in Zhuangzi’s discussions of life and death. To overcome the fear of death, Zhuangzi calls on us to see it in the light of the ‘heavenly patterns’ or processes that can be grasped through the circularity of life and death. Yet, this picture reveals only half of Zhuangzi’s thoughts—he also shares his wisdom on how to address human affairs that are barely discernable or absent in such patterns. Here, Zhuangzi urges us to apply a different strategy: closely and attentively sensing the situations and their vicissitudes and preparing our actions as per such (shifting) data. (shrink)

What underlies Zhuangzi’s thought is the fundamental finitude of the self, meaning that we cannot and should not alter or control things around us at whim or solely in our favour. Consequently, Zhuangzi recommends that we remain open to things instead of going against them, leading to a fulfilled life. This article discusses Zhuangzi’s underlying philosophy of openness, noting that he proposes two different strategies to do so with a distinction between the natural and the human. The former primarily appears (...) in Zhuangzi’s discussions of life and death. To overcome the fear of death, Zhuangzi calls on us to see it in the light of the ‘heavenly patterns’ or processes that can be grasped through the circularity of life and death. Yet, this picture reveals only half of Zhuangzi’s thoughts—he also shares his wisdom on how to address human affairs that are barely discernable or absent in such patterns. Here, Zhuangzi urges us to apply a different strategy: closely and attentively sensing the situations and their vicissitudes and preparing our actions as per such (shifting) data. (shrink)

This paper examines philosophical foundations of Mircea Eliade's creative hermeneutics. Analyzing his concept of “terror of history” and autobiography, I will argue that his philosophy of religion is useful for Korean scholars to recognize the meaning of Korean religions, which have been overlooked by Western scholars of religions. Paying attention to the continuities between his life and thought, I will explain Eliade’s “primitive ontology” and defend recent criticisms of his method and theory. His views on “new humanism” and “cosmic religion” (...) are also included in the paper. (shrink)

One of the basic intuitions guiding Sartre's phenomenological works is that phenomena cannot be reduced to essences that are separate from appearances. Such a separation leads to a type of semiotic profusion that Sartre criticizes in L'Etre et le néant by evoking the example of Proust. Sartre's ontology must avoid this infinite proliferation of meaning without falling into a type of essentialism where things are merely what they appear to be. Sartre's references to Proust demonstrate not only the pitfalls of (...) essentialism and unlimited semiosis, but also why Sartre found it necessary to invent existential psychoanalysis as a response to the twin phenomenological challenge of situating intentional meaning neither on the side of the object, nor of the subject, but somewhere in between. The unsatisfactory nature of Sartre's solution is palpable in the contradictions we discover in his observations on Proust. (shrink)

[1] Yotse la-or ʻal yede ṭalmidaṿ shomʻe liḳḥo be-yerakh ha-eṭanim di-shenaṭ 2016 -- [2] Yotse la-or ʻal yede ṭalmidaṿ shomʻe liḳḥo be-yerakh ha-eṭanim di-shenaṭ 2018.

This article aims to elucidate the Chinese literatus Su Shi's painting theory using French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's concepts of “capturing forces” and “becoming.” In the relevant scholarship, Su Shi's esthetic thought has been illustrated as going beyond the truthful representation of forms, thereby capturing the underlying vitality of the targeted objects, which paved the way for what came to be known as “literati painting.” This artistic approach has been thought to express the artist's lofty and virtuous personality through the liveliness (...) of the objects. I fully embrace the “capturing vitality” part of the literature, further fleshing it out not just by closely analyzing some of Su Shi's extant writings on painting but also by assessing them side by side with such European painters as Paul Cézanne and Francis Bacon. However, I find the “expressing personality” counterpart to be rather limited for interpreting Su Shi's esthetic thought and instead suggest the artistic effect of “becoming” as central to his ultimate esthetic aims. (shrink)

Paul de Man’s interpretation of Proust’s metafigural argument is fundamentally correct. Both critics of this interpretation and some of de Man’s defenders have misunderstood how metaphor functions in Proust’s reminiscence of summer, which uses resemblance to evoke reconciliatory totalities. Proust’s passage contains classical metaphors—not synecdoches that merely resemble metaphors. But de Man’s attempts to justify his interpretation are unpersuasive. Indeed, they are so unpersuasive that they become allegorical: though he claims that there is an undoing of metaphor by metonymy in (...) Proust’s text, de Man’s own text relies on metaphor. Detractors like John Guillory are wrong about Proustian metaphor, but they discern some of the genuinely aberrant features of de Man’s discourse. Allegories of Reading allegorically subverts claims made for de Man’s rigour, which is a dead metaphor susceptible to the kind of rhetorical reading he performs on Proust. (shrink)

How different were the claims of Assyrian royal inscriptions from actual Neo-Assyrian practice? This essay explores this question by examining two unusual claims made by Sargon II in relation to his rule of Samaria. The first claim, which appears both in the Khorsabad annals and in a Nimrud prism, should be translated “I again settled Samaria, more than previously.” Based on the historical reconstruction derived from archaeological data, I argue that this phrase refers to the movement of exiles into areas (...) in the western part of the province of Samaria. These areas in the western part of the province, around the sites of Aphek, Hadid, and Gezer, experienced significant population increases in the Assyrian period. The second passage, in Sargon’s Great Display Inscription from Khorsabad, refers to Sargon’s treatment of non-deported Samaritans. It should be translated “I trained the remnant in their crafts.” The historical reality behind this claim is the shift in agricultural techniques and activities in Samaria as a result of the Assyrian conquest. The Assyrian domination of Samaria required the production of grain surpluses, which needed to be made available in the Aphek-Gezer region in the western part of the province of Samaria. In each of the claims from the royal inscriptions examined in this essay, we see that the royal inscriptions credit the king with activities performed by the provincial governor. They change the description of the activity to make it “fit for royalty.”. (shrink)

Emerging from the growing swell of recent literature concerning Kant's practical philosophy, one interpretation of his procedure for testing maxims has crested above others. The influential interpretation to which I refer believes that the categorical imperative guides a procedure that finds maxims impermissible when they cannot be universalized without producing a 'practical' contradiction. As a major proponent of the practical contradiction interpretation, Christine Korsgaard claims that, while there is textual support for this point of view, she is more concerned with (...) developing a defensible interpretation of maxim testing for a ‘Kantian’ system of morality. Accordingly, one cannot simply attempt to evaluate such a theory solely by considering its various incongruities with Kant's specific claims and arguments. Instead, my evaluation of the practical contradiction interpretation will examine: whether it is a procedure that is applicable to a full range of maxims; whether it maintains a distinct advantage over the alternative readings; and whether it is an internally coherent and consistent model for testing maxims. I propose, here, that regardless of the practical contradiction test's many advantages, it fails with regard to all three of these questions. (shrink)

The purpose of this coauthored research is to develop a Christian ethical argument that better addresses the various social ills of financial neoliberalism, especially the growing wealth gap between the haves—the top 1%—and the have-nots—the bottom 50%. We find that a more progressive and integrative approach to monetary and fiscal policy is necessary. First, we critically review the histories of United States and Swedish monetary policies. We then provide a theological perspective regarding how Christian ethicists should engage with neoliberal structural (...) injustice. Finally, we propose an ethical principle of justice for use in the state's macroeconomic management of money: the accumulation of financial capital should also promote the increase of social capital. Put negatively, the accumulation of financial capital should not be achieved at the expense of depleting social capital. (shrink)

An “insightful” and in-depth look at anti-science politics and its deadly results (Maria Konnikova, New York Times–bestselling author of The Biggest Bluff). Thomas Jefferson said, “Wherever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” But what happens when they aren’t? From climate change to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to defense, we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of scientific progress—and a simultaneous expansion of danger. At the very time we need them (...) most, scientists and the very idea of objective knowledge are being bombarded by a vast, well-funded war on science, and the results are deadly. Whether it’s driven by identity politics, ideology, or industry, the result is an unprecedented erosion of thought in Western democracies as voters, policymakers, and justices actively ignore scientific evidence, leaving major policy decisions to be based more on the demands of the most strident voices. This compelling book investigates the historical, social, philosophical, political, and emotional reasons why evidence-based politics are in decline and authoritarian politics are once again on the rise on both left and right—and provides some compelling solutions to bring us to our collective senses, before it's too late. “If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism, if you care about biased media coverage and shake-your-head political tomfoolery, this book is for you.”—The Guardian. (shrink)

Many existing theories of intellectual humility primarily focus on what it is to be a good learner. But learner is not the only epistemic role. An epistemic agent can frequently perform the role of a teacher who transmits rather than receives knowledge, or the role of a collaborator who works with others collectively on an intellectual project. I argue that there are fruitful ways of understanding intellectual humility that can account for how one excels at performing these alternative epistemic roles. (...) Specifically, I propose and defend a “selective self-decentering account” of intellectual humility: an individual is an intellectually humble person just in case that she is motivated to perform each of her epistemic roles well, is motivated to balance her epistemic roles well against each other, and has a strong disposition to decenter selective aspects of herself because of these motivations. This account allows intellectual humility to have both a basic form and various role-differentiated forms, and it is well-equipped to explain how an intellectually humble individual’s motivations and dispositions are properly sensitive to her epistemic role. (shrink)

Aquinas claims that sacred doctrine is a science, or scientia. All scientiae involve demonstrations containing principles which yield conclusions that are necessary and certain. The principles leading to sacred scientia are the articles of faith. Those articles are contained in Scripture and constitute the premises of demonstrations the conclusions of which form sacred doctrine's content. Because of those articles' divine origin, we can expect them to yield conclusions the truth of which is guaranteed. According to William Abraham, however, Aquinas must (...) demonstrate Scripture's divine origin as a condition for achieving a sacred scientia. In the absence of such a demonstration, we cannot be certain that the articles contained in Scripture are God‐breathed, nor can we be certain that the conclusions deduced from them belong to sacred doctrine. Abraham argues that Aquinas's putative demonstration of Scripture's divine origin fails and—consequently—so does his attempt to establish a sacred scientia. In this paper, I will show that Aquinas never intended to provide such a demonstration, nor does he need to in order to secure sacred doctrine's status as a scientia. Furthermore, I will show that achieving sacred scientia is not, pace Abraham, an epistemological undertaking but a spiritual discipline that eventuates in knowledge of and love for God. (shrink)

In Steve Jobs and Philosophy, sixteen philosophers take a close look at the inspiring yet often baffling world of Steve Jobs. What can we learn about business ethics from the example of Jobs? What are the major virtues of a creative innovator? How could Jobs successfully defy and challenge conventional business practices? How did Jobs combine values and attitudes previously believed to be unmixable? What does it really mean to “think different”? Can entrepreneurs be made or are they just born? (...) If Jobs didn’t make any major inventions, just what was his contribution? How is Jobs’s life illuminated by Buddhism? How does a counter-culture transform mainstream culture? What does Jobs teach us about the notions of simplicity and functionality in design? How do Jobs’s achievements alter the way we think about technology in relation to human life? (shrink)

In the aftermath of World War II, the government of the United States provided considerable funding for military projects that promised to provide a technological edge during the nascent Cold War. The most famous example is likely the V-2 rocket-testing program that began in the late 1940s. The 67 rockets launched from White Sands developed a knowledge base that was critically important to the launch of the first U.S. satellite in 1958 and to the subsequent manned space program. Less well (...) known are the large-scale information technology projects, undertaken in the 1950s and early 1960s, that provided a significant catalyst for research into digital computing, information processing, and the. (shrink)

This article responds to critical views of John Rhym, Martin Rossouw, Ludo de Roo, and Annie Sandrussi on my 2017 book Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience. The article also takes up positive footholds from the analyses of Chiara Quaranta and Jason Wirth. The main topics addressed include Martin Heidegger’s ontic-ontological distinction; the notion of film-as-philosophy; being-in-the-world read as being-in-the-film-world; and questions surrounding the facticity and identity of the film viewer.

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust and reciprocity builds primarily (...) through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)

When asked which of our concepts are normative concepts, metaethicists would be quick to list such concepts as GOOD, OUGHT, and REASON. When asked why such concepts belong on the list, metaethicists would be much slower to respond. Matti Eklund is a notable exception. In his recent book, Choosing Normative Concepts, Eklund argues by elimination for “the Normative Role view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of having a “normative role” or being “used normatively”. One view that Eklund aims (...) to eliminate is “the Metaphysical view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of referring to normative properties. In addition to arguing that Eklund’s objection looks doubtful by its own lights, we argue that there are several plausible versions of the Metaphysical view that Eklund doesn’t eliminate, defending various claims about normative concepts and their relationships to deliberation, competence, reference, and possession along the way. (shrink)

While traditionally Plato has been read as a critic of democracy and an advocate of philosopher-kingship, a number of more recent interpretations have argued that Plato’s views about these issues changed over the course of his life. Several scholars argue that Plato shifts from an authoritarian outlook in “middle period” dialogues, such as the Republic, to a more democratic view in “late” dialogues, such as the Laws. In contrast to these scholars, this article argues that Plato’s attitude towards authority and (...) democracy is consistent in his “middle” and “late” periods. I show that Plato defines law as the writing of political experts, and that the Laws turns to written law as a second-best method for instituting the rule of the wise. This interpretation enables us to understand the Laws as a dialogue about the political use of writing, which helps illuminate some of the more peculiar features of the Laws and account for its place in the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

As local food activities expand and grow, an important question to answer is how various participants contribute to a local food system’s overall vitality and strength. This paper does so by focusing on the relationships between locally-oriented farm and retail actors and assessing what the configuration of these relationships tells us about the workings of the broader local food system. Such an analysis reveals two things. Empirically, it shows the important role food retailers play in the overall vibrancy of local (...) food exchanges: food retailers form crucial links holding the broader system together and significantly expanding consumer access to local foods. Further, different retailer types have distinct impacts on network configurations, each serving particular roles in the development and maintenance of local food systems. Methodologically, this paper shows the value of applying social network analysis techniques to the study of local food systems: such an approach yields insights that may not be as readily assessable from other strategies. In this paper, I overview common network analysis techniques and apply them to a case study of local food activities in New England, suggesting how such an approach might be applied to local food systems in other places. (shrink)

This paper will develop ideas from [44]. We will generalize their work in two directions. First, we provide axioms for justification logics over the base logic B and show that the logic permits a proof of the internalization theorem. Second, we provide alternative frames that more closely resemble the standard versions of the ternary relational frames, as well as a more general approach to the completeness proof. We prove that soundness and completeness hold for justification logics over a wide variety (...) of base logics. Finally, we will strengthen Belnap’s variable sharing for the justification logic context, demonstrating that the justifications are properly relevant justifications. (shrink)

Few debates in environmental philosophy have been more heated than the one over the nature of wilderness. And yet, when one surveys the present scene, one finds that a variety of different conceptions of wilderness are still quite popular – some more so in certain professions than others. In this paper, I look at three popular conceptions of wilderness with an eye toward sussing out the good and the bad them. I look at what I call (1) the folk view (...) of wilderness, (2) Leopold’s conception of wilderness, and (3) the legal conception of wilderness (as found in the Wilderness Act of 1964). In the final part of the paper, I sketch out a sort of spectrum account of wilderness, one that I argue allows us to capture more cases of wilderness and might serve as a useful tool in future conservation efforts. (shrink)

Provides an account of philosophy adopted from Being and Time and later works of Heidegger in order to respond to key questions in the film-as-philosophy debate. I follow the school of Stanley Cavell, Robert Sinnerbrink, and Stephen Mulhall in the view that philosophy occurs in film in phenomenological ways that transcend mere argumentative discourse and logical analysis. Some of the views I counter include those of Bruce Russell and Paisley Livingston.

POHLMAN S, CIBULKA NJ, PALMER JL, LORENZ RA and SMITHBATTLE L. Nursing Inquiry 2013; 20: 71–81 The placebo puzzle: examining the discordant space between biomedical science and illness/healingThe placebo response presents an enigma to biomedical science: how can ‘inert’ or ‘sham’ procedures reduce symptoms and produce physiological changes that are comparable to prescribed treatments? In this study, we examine this puzzle by explicating the discordant space between the prevailing biomedical paradigm, which focuses on a technical understanding of diagnosis and treatment, (...) and a broader understanding of illness and healing as relational and embodied. Although biomedical achievements are impressive, the knowledge resulting from this paradigm is limited by its ontological and epistemological assumptions. When the body and world are objectified, illness meanings, therapeutic relationships, and healing practices are dismissed or distorted. In spite of a robust critique of the tenets of biomedicine for guiding practice, the biomedical paradigm retains a tenacious hold on evidence-based medicine and nursing, downplaying our clinical understanding of the sentient body, patients’ life-worlds, and illness and healing. In reality, skilled nurses rely on multiple forms of knowledge in providing high-quality care to particular patients. Clinically wise nurses integrate their experience and knowledge of patients’ priorities, fears, and illness trajectories along with biomedical findings to make astute judgments and promote health and healing. (shrink)

The operational semantics of Urquhart is a deep and important part of the development of relevant logics. In this paper, I present an overview of work on Urquhart’s operational semantics. I then present the basics of collection frames. Finally, I show how one kind of collection frame, namely, functional set frames, is equivalent to Urquhart’s semilattice semantics.