Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, (...) Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them. (shrink)

Liberal articulations of the right to die generally focus on balancing individual rights against state interests, but this approach does not take full advantage of the disruptive potential of this contested right. This article develops an alternative to the liberal approach to the right to die by engaging the seemingly discordant philosophical perspectives of Michel Foucault and Thomas Hobbes. Despite Foucault’s objections, a rapprochement between these perspectives is established by focusing on their shared emphasis on the role that death (...) plays in the order of modernity. After the article has established the complementarity of Foucault and Hobbes, Hobbes’ unique stance toward suicide is first viewed in the context of the early-modern hostility toward suicide, and then contrasted with Foucault’s Stoic-inspired affirmation of suicide. This comparison of these two philosophers’ positions on suicide opens to contestation dimensions of modern subjects that remain undisturbed by liberal approaches to the right to die Key Words: bio-power • Michel Foucault • governmentality • Thomas Hobbes • liberalism • right to die • self-preservation • Seneca • Stoicism • suicide. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 214 Seiten: 409-438.

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. (...) More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation. (shrink)

My personal relation with Polanyi, discussions with him in Oxford, contribution to the International Academy of the Philosophy of Science, the relevance of his innovative thought for Christian worship and theology, Magda and Michael in Oxford, the role of his literary executor.

When Darwin's theory of natural selection threatened to put Paley's Designer out of a job, one response was to reemploy God as the author of the evolutionary process itself. This idea requires an account of how God might be understood to act in biological history. I approach this question in two stages: first, by considering God's action as creator of the world as a whole, and second, by exploring the idea of particular divine action in the course of evolution. As (...) creator ex nihilo God acts directly in every event as its sustaining ground. Because God structures the world as a lawful order of natural causes, God also acts indirectly by means of creatures. More controversially, God might act directly within the world to affect the course of events; this action need not take the form of a miraculous intervention, if the natural order includes the right sort of indeterministic chance. In each of these ways God's purposes can shape evolutionary processes. (shrink)

We show that every nonzero $\Sigma _{2}^{0}$ enumeration degree bounds a nonsplitting nonzero enumeration degree.

In his first research project, Greimas developed and applied new methods in the historical lexicology of modern French. His theoretical articles formulate a sociological approach that analyses vocabulary as a history of culture, illustrated in his two dissertations on fashion in 1830. In the 1980s, from the perspective of his semiotics, Greimas dismissed his early scholarship as failed experiments that taught him what not to do. In the changed epistemological context of the 21st century, the work appears as pioneering research (...) in cultural studies which possesses clear scholarly value. Greimas’ philological and lexicological training bore fruit directly and indirectly throughout his career. Two decades before he launched his semiotics, his project for lexicology proposes a semantic methodology, envisions the construction of an organon for the human sciences, and explicitly calls for a multi-generational collaborative enterprise. Like his structural semantics and semiotics, this lexicology entails three inseparable components: epistemological foundations, concrete methodologies, and robust applications. Moreover, a focus on the lexeme characterizes Greimas’ structural semantics and persists in his semiotics.В своей первой научно-исследовательской работе Греймас разработал и применил новые методы в исторической лексикологии современного французского языка. В его теоретических статьях сформулирован социологический подход, который анализирует лексику как историю культуры. Это иллюстрируют две диссертации Греймаса о моде в 1830 году. В 1980-х годах он отошел от своих ранних работ, считая их неудачными. Но в изменившемся эпистемологическом контексте 21-го века эти работы выглядят в культурных исследованиях новаторскими, обладающими несомненными академическими достоинствами. Филологическое и лексикологическое образование Греймаса давало прямые и косвенные результаты в течение всей его карьеры. За два десятилетия до начала семиотических исследований Греймас предлагает в своем лексикологическом проекте семантическую методологию, строительство органона для гуманитарных наук, а также призывает к междисциплинарному сотрудничеству. Как и структурная семантика и семиотика Греймаса, эта лексикология включает в себя три неразделимых компонента: эпистемологические основы, конкретные методологии и возможности применения. Кроме того, внимание к лексеме характеризует всю структурную семантику Греймаса и сохраняется в его семиотике. Oma esimeses teadusprojektis tootas Greimas valja nuudisprantsuse keele ajaloolise leksikoloogia uued meetodid ning rakendas neid. Tema teoreetilistes artiklites sonastatakse sotsioloogiline lahenemine, mis analuusib sonavara kui kultuuriajalugu ja mida illustreerivad tema kaks vaitekirja 1830ndate aastate moe kohta. 1980ndatel aastatel taandus Greimas oma varajastest uurimustest kui ebaonnestunud katsetustest. 21. sajandi muutunud epistemolooglises kontekstis osutub tema looming teedrajavaks uurimistooks kultuuriuuringute vallas. Greimase fi loloogiline ja leksikoloogiline ettevalmistus kandis kogu tema karjaari valtel vilja nii otseselt kui kaudselt. Kaks aastakummet enne seda, kui ta tuli valja oma semiootikaga, pakkus tema leksikoloogiaprojekt valja semantilise metoodika, nagi ette humanitaarteaduste organoni loomist ning kutsus otsesonu ules multidistsiplinaarsele koostoole. Nagu tema strukturaalne semantika ja semiootika sisaldab ka see leksikoloogia kolme uksteisest lahutamatut komponenti: epistemoloogilisi aluseid, konkreetseid meetodeid ja julgeid rakendusi. Lisaks iseloomustab lekseemile keskendumine Greimase strukturaalset semantikat ning jaab pusima tema semiootikas. (shrink)

The emergence of ethical controversy -- First embryo research regimes -- The ethics of embryonic stem cell research -- Stem cell and cloning politics.

This chapter attempts to look into a number of epistemological issues that are of significance to modern thought. The title of this chapter is adopted from Martin Buber's book wherein he drew attention to some of the key issues in what is referred to as the ‘new theology’ of Harry Williams, Pail Van Buren, and other such theologians, and also in William Hamilton and Thomas Altizer's ‘God is dead’ theology. As Buber asserts that the eclipse is something that concerns (...) our eyes and the sun, and not the sun itself, the eclipse of God that this chapter attempts to explain involves our own selfhood. The main problem faced by new theologians entails how they are not able to differentiate between God and their own subjectivity. This chapter looks into various controversies such as Gnosticism, Arianism, and other debates regarding the knowledge of God. (shrink)

To judge people's true character, pay careful attention to what they do, not to what they say; to develop human resources successfully, first develop your own skills and resources; be exacting without being needlessly demanding; and don't dwell on the present but always look to future goals. These are just a few of the insights revealed in this basic course on how to recognize, organize, and develop human resources. Drawing on essential sources - such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, (...) and the I Ching - Thomas Cleary shows what today's business executives, personnel managers, and political leaders can learn from these ancient Asian traditions about the inner dynamics of human interaction. Among the selections are passages from an important but less well-known work, The Thirty-six Strategies, which summarizes the powerful techniques of the Asian "art of advantage". Also provided are short, accessible introductions to Confucianism, Taoism, The Art of War, and the I Ching, along with lists of resources for further reading. (shrink)

An accessible volume of writings on Taoist approaches to the dynamic between individuals and society includes famous prose and verse entries from a variety of ...

Findings in dynamic unit formation suggest that completion processes reflect the optics of our world. Dynamic unit formation may depend on patterns of motion signals that are consistent with the causes of optical changes. In addition, dynamic completion conforms to a local curvature minimization constraint. Such relational aspects of vision are important to consider in linking perceptual experience and neural activity.

Comparative research enriches semiotics and deepens its exchanges with other sciences. The work can also highlight inductive methods and socio-historically specific forms and practices, thereby helping to develop a general semiotics and a semiotics of cultures. This article compares the morphology by Vladimir Propp that inspired the Greimassian narrative schema to a small sample of narrative forms, then to Aristotle's Poetics and to a model of Hollywood films. Certain motifs and subgenres represent elementary schemas with two or three actants and (...) functions that rely on role reversal and emotions. A half dozen subgenres can be differentiated by the different affects that they aim to elicit. Greek tragedy is to evoke intense emotional states, and reveals a close interdependence between characteristics of the hero, modulations of the critical action, and the emotive effect produced. In the films, the variation of the affective intensity constitutes a key element of the narrative rhythm, and two main sequences supply opposing and complementary axiologies. A conclusion suggests the value of bringing together the semiotics of the passions, recent research on the history of the emotions, and comparative studies of how different cultures express feelings. (shrink)

This essay contributes to critical reflection on the extensive role that medicine has played, and continues to play, in establishing and maintaining the uniquely modern form of social order that Foucault described as “governmentality.” It does so by linking Foucault’s later work on governmentality and biopower, from his courses at the Collège de France in the late-1970s, with his early work on the crucial role that pathological anatomy played in founding modern medicine, which was presented in one of his first (...) books, The Birth of the Clinic (1963). The link between these two stages of Foucault’s work is the central role that death has played in the development of both modern medicine and the art of governing populations. After establishing this connection, I extend Foucault’s analysis by examining the anatomical practices of the three centuries prior to the period upon which he focused in The Birth of the Clinic. This examination of anatomical practices from the sixteenth through the turn of the nineteenth century not only expands the temporal framework through which Foucault examined modern medicine, but also provides a clear and instructive example of the historical development of governmentality. This expansion of Foucault's analysis further illuminates the unique historical configuration of death, medicine, and power upon which modernity is grounded, and suggests ways in which many recent bio-ethical dilemmas, such as the right to die movement, may disrupt this configuration. (shrink)

In this letter, we argue against a recurring idea that early word learning in infants is related to the low-level capacity for backward associations—a notion that suggests a cognitive gap with other animal species. Because backward associations entail the formation of bidirectional associations between sequentially perceived stimulus pairs, they seemingly mirror the label-referent bidirectional mental relations underlying the lexicon of natural language. This appealing but spurious resemblance has led to various speculations on language acquisition, in particular regarding early word learning, (...) which we deconstruct here. (shrink)