In this essay, we examine certain key aspects of Nietzsche’s contribution to the ongoing debate concerning the nature and status of philosophical wisdom. We argue that, for Nietzsche, philosophical wisdom is tantamount to a “disruptive wisdom” which is expressed in a “permanent critique of ourselves” and our entire mode of existence. Philosophical wisdom, so construed, is not a matter of finding “metaphysical comfort” in consoling theories, images, or ideas; nor is it a matter of offering consolation for frustration and suffering. (...) Instead, it is about disrupting or rupturing those prevailing “human, all too human” myths and illusions that perpetuate human frustration and suffering—especially the myths and illusions associated with what Nietzsche terms the “hitherto reigning ascetic ideal” in the West. By disturbing our “dogmatic slumber” in common-place beliefs and values, Nietzsche’s “untimely” atopic philosophers of “disruptive wisdom” evoke the promise of alternate forms of humanity: new ways of valuing the earth and our life on it, new paradigms for a way of life to be achieved in the future. Disruptive philosophers and the wisdom they impart, help liberate and inspire us to experiment with new ways of thinking and valuing, all of which contribute, as Nietzsche sees it, to the reconstituting and “fashioning of the self” as a transformed “second nature”. (shrink)

In this critical review essay, we examine Rüdiger Safranski’s “philosophical biography” approach to interpreting Nietzsche. We analyze Safranski’s various attempts tobring the biographical facts of Nietzsche’s life to bear on the philosophical narration in order to shed light on the development of Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking. We argue that there are a number of limitations to Safranski’s “philosophical biography” approach to reading Nietzsche, such as Safranski’s tendency to focus almost exclusively on the earlier stages in the development of Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking. (...) However, we also try to show that the one redeeming virtue of Safranski’s book is that it focuses on the intriguing, but often overlooked, concept of “self-configuration” or “selffashioning”, and it treats this concept as a unifying thread that runs throughout the maze of Nietzsche’s various multifarious writings. We argue, in conclusion, that Safranski successfully connects Nietzsche’s “highly personal philosophy” to the multifaceted “maneuvers of self-configuration” and to the overall Nietzschean project of “fashioning one’s own identity” in an otherwise meaningless world. (shrink)

Alexander Rosenberg has played a large role in creating the philosophy of economics as a distinct area of philosophy. But since the publication of Microeconomic Laws in 1976, Professor Rosenberg's thinking about economics has been casting the subject in an increasingly uncomplimentary light. This development is reflected in Rosenberg's new book Economics–Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? In this stimulating work Rosenberg endorses the view that economics does not constitute scientific empirical knowledge. He says.

Two recent articles in this journal – one by Morris, the other by Pfleegor & Rosenberg – have revived the philosophical discussion of the ethics of deception in sport which had largely laid dormant since the 1973 publication of Pearson’s ‘Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics’. Morris and Pfleegor & Rosenberg both share with Pearson the view that ethical deceptive sport acts are those that relate to sport-specific skills. However, whereas Pearson ultimately grounds this view in the agreement she takes (...) to obtain amongst sport participants, both recent treatments overlook this fundamental aspect of her account and offer alternative justifications for that view. I argue, though, that in both cases the arguments offered are incomplete precisely because they require an appeal to the agreement amongst participants that lies at the foundation of Pearson’s account. On all three treatments, I argue, what ultimately determines an action’s ethical status is not its relation to sport-specific skills, but its conformit... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 132-133 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology Donn Welton. The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi + 496. Cloth, $54.95. Few philosophers have been as ill-served by their reception as Husserl. The books he managed to publish during his lifetime provide a very limited perspective (...) on his thought but have determined what Donn Welton, in this magnificent treatise, calls the "Standard Interpretation," shared by analytic and deconstructionist readers alike, in which Husserl is a neo-Cartesian wedded to epistemological immanentism, methodological solipsism, and ontological idealism. That a very different Husserl is found in his vast Nachlass has long been known, but because of its sheer volume and relative inaccessibility it has had little impact on the Husserl-reception beyond a small circle of specialists. Hence in recovering the "Other" Husserl, Welton's aim is not the usual historical one of stripping away anachronistic readings to arrive at an original reception, but one of negating this Rezeptionsgeschichte to reveal a philosophy that has, in a certain sense, never been present.In this, the book succeeds wonderfully. Welton threads through the tangle of the Nachlass to reconstruct the unfulfilled "great systematic work" that occupied Husserl off and on from about 1920 until his death, uncovering thereby the revolutionary implications of Husserl's move from "static" to "genetic" phenomenology that force us to reconsider the Standard Interpretation point by point. While admitting that Husserl never abandoned his Cartesian proclivities altogether, Welton shows how these can be read as dependent moments in a system of "transcendental phenomenology" that ends up "much closer to Heidegger's approach than is usually thought" (233). The relevance for current debates in philosophy is made plain, such that Husserl is, at last, our contemporary.Briefly reviewing a book as ambitious as this inevitably distorts it, but let me comment on its central methodological claim. Transcendental phenomenology emerged from the pre-transcendental phenomenology of the Logische Untersuchungen when Husserl began seeking the "ultimate ground" for scientific cognition (chapters 1-4). This approach, dubbed the "Cartesian Way" by Husserl himself, generated the "Cartesian Enclosures" (chapter 5) of the Standard Interpretation: demanding evidence that is apodictic, adequate, and directly intuitive, Husserl identifies "transcendental subjectivity" with the individual, indeed solipsistic, "stream of consciousness" and interprets this ontologically as the "relativity" of the world. In his pivotal chapter 6, however, Welton shows that Husserl's reflections on time and memory forced him to admit that the "transcendental field" could not be secured by appeal to "adequate evidence" (154). Hence Husserl adopted a "Kantian Way" (158) that supplements intuitive evidence with elements of transcendental "construction" (148). The concept of transcendental "subjectivity" is thereby transformed from an egocentric stream of consciousness to an intersubjective, communicative, embodied, and historical site of the "transcendental genesis" of meaning.Chapters 7-9 detail how Husserl's increasing interest in the genesis of meaning in the 1920s calls forth this transformation. Tracing the problem on the levels of "speech" and "experience," Welton carefully elucidates how, in moving from static through constitutive to genetic analyses, Husserl came increasingly to see that his original "leading clue"--the phenomenon of cognitive act-intentionality--depended upon the passive syntheses and contexts of "motivation" that make up the world-horizon of pre-cognitive "life." Chapters 10 and 12 argue that Husserl's desire to force these insights into a Cartesian framework yielded the dead-end of "transcendental psychologism" and the dubious teleology of an ethico-political "one-worldism." Meanwhile in chapters 13-15, Welton sketches a phenomenologically more defensible concept of world as "horizon"--a nonperceptual, inherently plural, space of meaning structured as "context" (speech) and "background" (embodiment).Chapter 11 is central to the argument, since it describes how the Kantian notion of transcendental deduction ("construction") is to be integrated into phenomenological method. Things move very quickly. Welton relies heavily on Jay Rosenberg's idea that transcendental deduction is a species of "practical reasoning," and on Charles Taylor's... (shrink)

The American Medical Association enacted its Code of Ethics in 1847, the first such national codification. In this volume, a distinguished group of experts from the fields of medicine, bioethics, and history of medicine reflect on the development of medical ethics in the United States, using historical analyses as a springboard for discussions of the problems of the present, including what the editors call "a sense of moral crisis precipitated by the shift from a system of fee-for-service medicine to a (...) system of fee-for-system medicine, better known as 'managed care.'" The authors begin with a look at how the medical profession began to consider ethical issues in the 1800s and subsequent developments in the 1900s. They then address the sociological, historical, ethical, and legal aspects of the practice of medicine. Later chapters discuss current and future challenges to medical ethics and professional values. Appendixes display various versions of the AMA's Code of Ethics as it has evolved over time. Contributors: George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ph.D., Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., Chester R. Burns, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., Alexander Morgan Capron, J.D., Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Eliot L. Freidson, Ph.D., Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Stephen R. Latham, J.D., Ph.D., Susan E. Lederer, Ph.D., Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Charles E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Mark Siegler, M.D., Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., Robert M. Tenery, Jr., M.D., Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., John Harley Warner, Ph.D., Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control over (...) them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices. (shrink)

Massive geopolitical shifts and dramatic developments in computerization and biotechnology are heralding the transformation from the modern to the postmodern age. We are confronted with altered modes of work, communication, and entertainment; new postindustrial and political networks; novel approaches to warfare; genetic engineering; and even cloning. This compelling book explores the challenges to theory, politics, and human identity that we face on the threshold of the third millennium. It follows on the success of Best and Kellner s two previous books: (...) Postmodern Theory, acclaimed as the best critical introduction to the field, and The Postmodern Turn, which provides a powerful mapping of postmodern developments in the arts, politics, science, and theory. In The Postmodern Adventure, Best and Kellner analyze a broad array of literary, cultural, and political phenomena--from fiction, film, science, and the Internet, to globalization and the rise of a transnational image culture. They use the best of modern and postmodern perspectives to illuminate contemporary life and to strive for a just and viable future. Gold Medal Winner in Philosophy--ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards. (shrink)

Decision making is the physician's major activity. Every day, in doctors' offices throughout the world, patients describe their symptoms and com plaints while doctors perform examinations, order tests, and, on the basis of these data, decide what is wrong and what should be done. Although the process may appear routine-even to the physicians in volved-each step in the sequence requires skilled clinical judgment. Physicians must decide: which symptoms are important, whether any laboratory tests should be done, how the various items (...) of clinical data should be combined, and, finally, which of several treatments (including doing nothing) is indicated. Although much of the information used in clinical decision making is objective, the physician's values (a belief that pain relief is more important than potential addiction to pain-killing drugs, for example) and subjectivity are as much a part of the clinical process as the objective findings of laboratory tests. In recent years, both physicians and psychologists have come to realize that patient management decisions are not only subjective but also prob abilistic (although this is not always acknowledged overtly). When doc tors argue that an operation is fairly safe because it has a mortality rate of only 1 %, they are at least implicitly admitting that the outcome of their decision is based on probability. (shrink)

This book attempts to explicate and expand upon Frank Ramsey's notion of the realistic spirit. In so doing, it provides a systematic reading of his work, and demonstrates the extent of Ramsey's genius as evinced by both his responses to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , and the impact he had on Wittgenstein's later philosophical insights.

"First Published in 1990, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".

The first comprehensive, psychological theory in over a century--Reiss picks up where William James left off. This ground breaking work will change the way we understand religion. Religion is about the values motivated by the sixteen basic desires of human nature. It has mass appeal because it accommodates the values of people with opposite personality traits. This is the first comprehensive theory of the psychology of religion that can be scientifically verified.

As we move into a new millennium fraught with terror and danger, a global postmodern cosmopolis is unfolding in the midst of rapid evolutionary and social changes co-constructed by science, technology, and the restructuring of global capital. We are quickly morphing into a new biological and social existence that is ever-more mediated and shaped by computers, mass media, and biotechnology, all driven by the logic of capital and a powerful emergent technoscience. In this global context, science is no longer merely (...) an interpretation of the natural and social worlds, rather it has become an active force in changing them and the very nature of life. In an era where life can be created and redesigned in a petri dish, and genetic codes can be edited like a digital text, the distinction between “natural” and “artificial” has become greatly complexified. The new techniques of manipulation call into question existing definitions of life and death, demand a rethinking of fundamental notions of ethics and moral value, and pose unique challenges for democracy. (shrink)

In a recent book, Asymmetries in Time, Paul Horwich presents a systematic account of various temporal asymmetries, including a neo-Reichenbachian account of the (apparent) fact that we know more about the past than the future, the epistemological time asymmetry. I find some obscurities in Horwich's presentation, however, and I argue that when his view is understood in a way that I shall propose, it does represent an advance on Reichenbach's, but it fails to vindicate Horwich's "main point...that our special knowledge (...) of the past derives from the fork asymmetry. (shrink)

The postmodern turn which has so marked social and cultural theory also involves conflicts between modern and postmodern politics. In this essay, we articulate the differences between modern and postmodern politics and argue against one-sided positions which dogmatically reject one tradition or the other in favor of partisanship for either the modern or the postmodern. Arguing for a politics of alliance and solidarity, we claim that this project is best served by drawing on the most progressive elements of both the (...) modern and postmodern traditions. Developing a new politics involves overcoming the limitations of certain versions of modern politics and postmodern identity politics in order to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to the challenges of the coming millennium. (shrink)

Objects of Hope brings ranging scholarship and refreshing candor to bear on the knotty issue of what can and cannot be achieved in the course of psychoanalytic therapy. It will be valued not only as an exemplary exercise in comparative psychoanaly.

This volume surveys the interpretation of St. Paul by patristic and medieval exegetes. It also examines the use of Paul by medieval reformers, canon lawyers, and spiritual teachers and Paul’s portrayal in medieval literature and art.

The Nothing That Is and the Nothing That Is Not is the final volume in a trilogy on interpretations of otherness in the postmodern era. The first two volumes are A Do-It-Yourself Dystopia: The Americanization of Big Brother and Leopards in the Temple: Selected Essays 1990-2000.

The past several decades have exhibited vertiginous change, surprising novelties, and upheaval in an era marked by technological revolution and the global restructuring of capitalism.1 This "great transformation," comparable in scope to the shifts produced by the Industrial Revolution, is moving the world into a postindustrial, infotainment, and biotech mode of global capitalism, organized around new information, communications, and genetic technologies. The scientific-technological-economic revolutions of the era and spread of the global economy are providing new financial opportunities, openings for political (...) amelioration, and a wealth of ingenious products and technologies that might improve the human condition. Yet these developments are accompanied by explosive conflict, crisis, and even catastrophe. The post-September 11 world reveals the contradictory dialectic of globalization in which the wide-reaching circulation of people, technology, media, and ideologies can have destructive as well as beneficial consequences. Hence, the turbulent transmutations of the contemporary situation are highly contradictory and ambiguous, with both hopeful and threatening features being played out on political, economic, social, and cultural fronts. (shrink)

The claim to truth has been common to both positive science and philosophy. But at present there is no consensus concerning what this claim to truth can mean for philosophical inquiry. Can a given philosophical position be regarded as true or false? Is it still possible to say that philosophical inquiry aims at truth at all? I argue that philosophy must be seen as oriented toward the disclosure of truth if it is to retain that critical dimension in which alone (...) constructive disagreement is possible. At the same time, I argue that the concept of truth which regulates philosophical inquiry is not that of the traditional correspondence theory. Rightly interpreted, the correspondence theory describes the meaning of truth for the positive sciences, which are concerned with facts; but it is adequate for an understanding of philosophy, which as a reflective enterprise is concerned with the meaning of facts. The aim of the dissertation, then, is to demonstrate the reflective connection between truth and meaning by exploring the concept of truth as developed in transcendental logic--the enterprise which thematizes the conditions which make knowledge of objects possible. ;In light of this problem, it is possible to see Heidegger's concept of truth in Being and Time as an important contribution to our understanding of the meaning of truth for reflection. Heidegger's theory of truth is often misinterpreted as an attempt to subvert the critical theory of truth as correspondence. However, it is in fact an attempt to situate the concept of propositional truth within a wider notion of truth as the disclosure of meaning as such, a notion which is necessary in order to understand the possibility of propositional truth. ;To show this, the dissertation traces the origin of Heidegger's concept of truth to its source in problems arising from the tradition of transcendental logic. This involves an examination of Heidegger's works prior to Being and Time, as well as a discussion of those philosophers from whom these works derive their inspiration. Most important among them are Emil Lask, whose revision of Kant's doctrine of categories led to a reflective identification of the object as such with meaning; and Edmund Husserl, whose concept of intuition and evidence allows us to see how such "original" meaning is given. But both Lask and Husserl remain tied to a correspondence theory in their attempts to explicate the relation between meaning and truth. Having subscribed to this position in his early works, Heidegger's reflection on the origin of meaning leads finally to the recognition that truth is first of all the historical disclosure of an horizon of meaning or intelligibility, within which alone it is possible to understand how a statement can "correspond" to the entity as it is in itself. ;The dissertation thus aims at establishing two points: that Heidegger's theory of truth is meant to describe a concept of truth adequate to the claims of philosophical reflection; and that this concept of truth must be seen as an answer to specific problems which arise from the theory of truth developed in the tradition of transcendental logic. (shrink)

This new, complete translation of Kant’s Groundwork makes a challenging foundational work of moral philosophy accessible to all readers. Remaining faithful to the original German, the text is rendered clearly to promote reader comprehension. An inviting introduction, running commentary, and glossary further support study and interpretation.