The question of selfhood is a very old question; however, only in contemporary philosophy on the foundations of the philosophy of life, philosophy of existence and phenomenology, it is possible to find an adequate method that could enable us to approach the understanding of selfhood. To accomplish this task, the advantages and disadvantages of Husserl's phenomenology must be demonstrated. Here, the research of the structures of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity performs an important role in the interpretation of selfhood. Nevertheless, it (...) has been shown that it is necessary to reverse Husserl’s method from pure subjectivity to fragmented subjectivity in which the anticipatory role of consciousness is being re-discovered. This is important for the interpretation of selfhood not just in a theoretical way, but also in showing that selfhood could be understood only in relation to others. Actions of the self can never be understood from the position of pure subjectivity because the question of motives is a question of personality that is always a concrete historical subject. The crucial point in understanding the selfhood is showing the way in which it understands itself in the chain of intersubjective relations. From this point, it is possible to distinguish “ideal” from sinful man, the difference which has been emphasized in Nietzsche's philosophy. The only method by which we can approach the question of selfhood is the hermeneutical method. It can’t be understood by description or in the attempts to deduce it on formalism and norms. Our relationship towards others and towards ourselves should be again and again re-constructed, not only because the experience itself dictates new patterns of life, but also because only the selfhood has the ability to change the way in which the situation is interpreted and thereby it can authentically determine itself in the world. (shrink)

No topic has caused more discussion in recent philosophy and political theory than sovereignty. From late Foucault to Agamben, and from Guantanamo Bay to the 'war on terror,' the issue of the extent and the nature of the sovereign has given theoretical debates their currency and urgency. New thinking on sovereignty has always imagined the styles of human selfhood that each regime involves. Each denomination of sovereignty requires a specific mode of subjectivity to explain its meaning and facilitate its operation. (...) The aim of this book is to help outline Jacques Derrida's thinking on sovereignty - a theme which increasingly attracted Derrida towards the end of his career - in its relationship to subjectivity. It investigates the late work Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, as not only Derrida's fullest statement of his thinking on sovereignty, but also as the destination of his career-long interest in questions of politics and self-identity. The book argues that in Derrida's thinking of the relationship between sovereignty and subjectivity - and the related themes of unconditionality and ipseity - we can detect the outline of Bataille's adaptation of Freud. Freud completed his 'metapsychology,' by defining the 'economic' nature of subjectivity. In Bataille's hands, this economic theory became a key to the nature of inter-relationship in general, specifically the complex and shifting relationship between subjectivity and power. In playing with Bataille's legacy, Derrida connects not only with the irrepressibly outrageous thinking of philosophy's most self-consciously transgressive thinker, but with the early twentieth century scientific revolution through which 'energy' became ontology. As with so many of the forebears who influenced him, Derrida echoes and adapts Bataille's thinking while radically de-literalising it. The results are crucial for understanding Derrida's views on power, subjectivity and representation, as well as all of the other key themes in late Derrida: hospitality, justice, otherness and the gift. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Finding My Compass*Laura Inter+I was born in the 1980s, and much to my parents surprise, the doctors could not say whether I was a boy or a girl because my body had ambiguous genitalia. They then conducted a chromosome test and the result was XX chromosomes. I was assigned female and only later was diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Fortunately for me the endocrinologist who treated me (...) did not mention the option of surgery, so my medical treatment consisted only of taking cortisol. Apart from this, from the time I turned one, I was subjected to genital examinations twice a year, during which the endocrinologist would touch my genitals and look to see how they were developing.These unnecessary and intrusive examinations had a profound effect on me. As a young child, I did not understand why I had to lower my pants in front of a stranger—the endocrinologist—and let him touch me. The fact that my mother was present, and approved of this was something that made me feel completely helpless. All this seemed very strange to me; I found it confusing, and terribly uncomfortable, and I just felt it wasn’t right.I remember the doctor always spoke as if I wasn’t right there, and I did not always understand everything the doctor said when I was young, because of all the medical terms he used. I grew up with a feeling of being “inadequate,” of having a sense that something was wrong with me, though I didn’t know exactly what. These exams lasted until I was about 12 years old. Years later, as I began my adult, sexual life, I realized how much those displays had affected me emotionally.I discovered what was “wrong” with me during sex education classes in the first year of high school. There was a class session in which two images were shown: one displaying the external female sex organs, and the other the male sex organs. I noticed that my body was not like either of them. I was very distressed, thinking “I have deformed genitals!” I feared I could not perform sexually as either a man or a woman. I became very depressed. I was sure nobody would want me, that I would never have a relationship. I was unacceptable, “abnormal,” or at least that is what the doctors had said. And in any case my parents never spoke of it, and I didn’t know that I had CAH.Skip forward a few years: I was still looking for answers, I found my medical file and read in the documents “pseudo–hermaphrodite,” and [End Page 95] “congenital adrenal hyperplasia.” I searched the internet, but only found medical opinions that said that in the case of genital ambiguity, the best option was surgery. I wondered to myself: “Why didn’t they operate on me?”I put the question to my parents, and, at fifteen, I found myself being examined once more in the doctor’s office, this time to consider the possibility of a genital surgery which might once and for all, I believed, make me a “normal” person.I have never told anyone outside my family before, but one of those exams was the most humiliating experiences of my life. One doctor wanted to speak with me alone, so she made my mother wait outside the exam room. My mother agreed, thinking that after the doctor talked with me, my mother would be able to be present during the rest of the exam. The doctor asked me questions, some of which made me very uncomfortable: “Do you feel good about being a woman”? Did you ever feel like a man? Why don’t you dress up more, use more makeup? Are you a lesbian? Have you ever had sex? She then said she wanted to see my genitals. I felt awful and wanted my mother present, but I also wanted it to be over quickly, and said nothing. Examining my genitals, the doctor told me they “would not be adequate for sex,” and that she needed to “perform surgery.” Something else that made me uncomfortable was the presence of another doctor in... (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz presents the idea of monads, as non-communicative, self-actuating system of beings that are windowless, closed, eternal, deterministic and individualistic. For him, the whole universe and its constituents are monads and that includes humans. In fact, any ‘body’, such as the ‘body’ of an animal or man has, according to Leibniz, one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad, he often refers to as the soul. If Leibniz’s conception of monads is accepted, it merely (...) establishes human subjectivity, idiosyncrasies, biases, prejudices and individual points of view as the norm. How then do we ensure inter-subjectivity and the kind of social interaction requisite for the achievement of social order, since Leibniz’s system forecloses the possibility of interaction and communication among monads? In this essay, we argue that just as Leibniz’s monads synchronize only through the Supreme Monad (Monas Monadum), humans as social monads should also interact through a matrix of ideals like truth, honesty, sincerity, integrity, altruism, impartiality, compassion and trust. Since social order is actualised only within the context of linked social structures, relations and values, these utopian ideals would form the fulcrum through which humans relate and the very foundation that would anchor a viable social order. Our aim here is to establish a relationship between Leibniz’s metaphysics and the physical domains of life by showing that metaphysical constructs can impinge on human social relations and wellbeing. The study employed the qualitative method of research through critical analysis of texts, library and archival materials. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the oppositional politics expressed in the historical geography of the Persian and Urdu poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), showing how it emerges from, and breaks with, Urdu and Persian travelogues and poetry of the nineteenth century. It explores the complex relationships between the politics of Muslim separatism in South Asia and European imperialist discourses. There are two defining tensions within this politics. The first is between territorial nationalism and the global imaginings of religious identity, and the (...) second is between the homogenizing imperatives of nationalism and the subjectivity of individual selfhood. These tensions are reflected in the composite geography of Iqbal's work, which contains three elements: a sacred space, a political territoriality and the interiority of subjectivity. But these elements are in conflict with each other; in particular, the space of interiority in his poetry conflicts with the realm of politics in the external world. (shrink)

Abstract This paper examines a convergence between Heidegger's reconceptualization of subjectivity and intersubjectivity and some recent work in feminist philosophy on relational autonomy. Both view the concept of autonomy to be misguided, given that our capacity to be self-directed is dependent upon our ability to enter into and sustain meaningful relationships. Both attempt to overturn the notion of a subject as an isolated, atomistic individual and to show that selfhood requires, and is based upon, one's relation to and dependence upon (...) others. The paper argues that Heidegger's notion of authentic Mitsein (being-with) rejects traditional notions of autonomy and subjectivity in favor of a relational model of selfhood. Ultimately, it provides a new point of entry into contemporary debates within feminist philosophy on Heidegger's thinking and defends Heidegger from certain feminist critiques. (shrink)

The history of Credit Rating Agencies [CRAs], commonly called Rating Agencies, has a long and distinguished trajectory marked by influence, reputation and power. Due to the ability of this field to instigate significant changes in market regulations and actions of economic actors, this subject is extensively debated within the literature. In economic sociology, while some studies have focused on perceptions of performativity and market devices to understand how the calculability of its methods influences the economy, others, along relational lines of (...) sociology, aim to understand them through a more complex constructive process. In this study, we attempt to fill a gap by exploring the complementarity between two theoretical approaches to sociology: theory of fields and performativity. Thus, we mobilize theory of fields to understand the inter-field relationship between the State and CRAs. Specifically, this paper sets out to i) analyze the co-constitution of the state and market fields with the field of CRAs; ii) describe the existing regulation and situate the CRAs and their classification devices in the broader history of the State and the market; iii) analyze how the legitimation of the CRAs by the State generates broader social contexts that assist in the performative work of the CRAs. Based on historical documentary research, we analyze some of the main milestones and regulatory events in the field of CRAs. This research reaffirms the assumption that even after credibility crises, the State is the most significant predictor of legitimacy, power, and influence that CRAs hold to date. The legitimacy of this power and influence has yet to be exhausted because the reputation of CRAs is rooted in the reputation of the State itself. This happens because the State provides essential actions (such as regulations) for the existence of the financial market. Thus, results suggest that the State, through regulatory measures, can engage several other fields to promote the legitimacy of performative work of the CRAs, whose purpose is to provide calculation tools to shape markets. (shrink)

Although effectively the idea of selfhood receives scant attention in much current educational policy, it is an idea that is central to understanding education in the Western tradition. This paper evaluates the implications of a growing movement in educational philosophy and theory to see the self as relational to the extent that it possesses little or no internally maintained steady identity and is constantly reconstituted by external agencies in a variety of ways. A well-worked-through view that draws on the work (...) of Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas amongst others and that is taken to be representative of this wider movement is examined. It is argued that while important issues concerning the relationship between education and individual subjectivities are raised in ways that invite productive discussion, ultimately the decentred and de-nucleated conception of the self to which its argument leads is both phenomenologically untenable and educationally stultifying. (shrink)

Recruiting patients into clinical research is essential for the advancement of medical knowledge. However, when the physician undertaking the care of the patient is also responsible for recruitment into clinical research, a situation arises of an inter-role breach of confidentiality which is distinguishable from other conflicts of interest. Such discord arises as the physician utilizes confidential information obtained within the therapeutic relationship beyond its primary objective, and safeguards ought to be observed in order to avert this important, and generally (...) overlooked, problem. The moral worth of the pledge of confidentiality is based not on its innate value but on its being a promise on which subsequent interactions and disclosures are founded. Within the patient-doctor interaction, confidentiality is an important facet of the promised fidelity and, as such, a loose interpretation of the notion threatens the essence of the relationship, and any violation thereof requires compelling moral justification. To avoid conflict, patients' confidential information ought not be used for the purpose of recruitment, which needs to be undertaken through general education and non-directed appeals, and a preliminary consent to be approached for research should be obtained from the patient prior to her being identified as a suitable research subject. Securing this prior consent would avoid one source of potential, albeit unintended, coercion. (shrink)

The article examines the challenge of achieving sustainable mediational equilibrium within the Self–Other relationship. It argues that the mere pursuit of mutual understanding among dialogue participants is insufficient to guarantee productive communication, particularly in contexts where interactions are driven by competition for scarce resources and opportunities. Under such conditions, subjects risk becoming dependent on instrumental reason – the logic of control and suppression – which transforms both the Self and the Other from fully-fledged personalities into functions of reified rationality. The (...) analysis introduces a distinction between two roles of the individual: the person as a bearer of unique values and meanings, and the individual as a subject of social relations, an actor immersed in practical interactions. It is demonstrated that the capacity of the former to exert control over the latter is limited, and that interactions are shaped not only by the personal qualities of the participants but also by the impersonal logic of instrumental reason. This logic is conceptualized as a kind of third subjectivity that mediates the dialogue between the Self and the Other. Achieving mediational equilibrium becomes possible through the development of autonomy among the parties, through their transformation, mutual recognition, and the search for a measure of compatibility. This approach is traced through examples from A.S. Akhiezer’s theory of sociocultural mediation, A.P. Davydov’s concept of inter-subjective dialogue, and R. Bush and J. Folger’s theory of transformative mediation. Key concepts in the latter include empowerment (strengthening participants’ ability to clearly recognize their goals and make responsible decisions) and recognition (willingness to hear and understand the Other’s perspective). The essence of transformative mediation lies in the transition from imposing one party’s position to a collaborative search for new possibilities, allowing the realization of both Self and Other’s interests through dialogue. In conclusion, the article asserts the importance of overcoming the logic of mutual accusations by shifting the focus from the opponent’s personality to the impersonal structures limiting the self-determination of all parties. (shrink)

What does it mean “playing music together”? Is this action guided by cognitive or pre-inferential skills? The aim of this paper is to unveil the different components that are implied in a collective action such as “playing music together”. The idea which will be supported is that embodiment and temporality are the main important structures that guide the subject. In the first part, we will emphasize the centrality of corporeality in the development of self-awareness and intercorporeal understanding. In particular, drawing (...) on Merleau-Ponty’s work, we will argue that the cognitive layer of our consciousness and the pre-inferential one are simply the product of our being embodied. Another central structure for the development of selfhood and intersubjectivity is temporality: as we will show, our selfhood and our attunement with the world can be also described in terms of rhythm, whereby implicit body memory allows for the sedimentation of habits, and synchrony, when my bodily and temporalized self is able to automatically tune in with others. In the second part, we will show how these components are at stake in an action like “playing music together”: attending music therapy sessions with patients who suffer indeed from an (inter)corporeal detachment allowed us to observe the centrality of those components described in the first part of our work, that is, to show how pre-reflective features (such as implicit body memory, intercorporeality, rhythm and synchrony) are necessary for the development of higher social (and cognitive) abilities.In fact, first person reports collected through a qualitative interview applied to patients allow to support the priority of the pre-reflective, affective and (inter)bodily components over the reflective ones. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop a post-reflexive philosophical account of self-knowing subjectivity. I argue that ambiguity, not clarity, is the hallmark of intersubjective being and knowing, and that ambiguous being is particularly evident precisely where subjectivity occupies a central place: in theory. To illustrate this claim, I turn to the ubiquitous and indispensable technology of the glassy mirror, a material object and discursive trope which I use to enliven the Beauvoirean concept of situation: a lived ambiguity of being both subject (...) and object, both universal and particular, both for-self and for-others. Far from eschewing the historical importance of precision and determinacy in Western views of knowing well, my appeal to mirrors in this project allows me to read such values as sedimented in knowers’ ways of making sense of the world – of themselves and their objects of knowledge, as these are expressed through theoretical engagements. (shrink)

Levinas is a thinker for the future, concerned with the future. He inverts the priority of the declaration of the French Revolution "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood", by designating "brotherhood" first among modern European society's most cherished values. Levinas sees brotherhood as the fundamental condition of our shared humanity and as the foundation of freedom and equality. Thus, he presents himself as a Western thinker who sets modern thought on its head and at the same time enriches it. His radical view of (...) the other, responsibility, subjectivity and the Infinite remains a challenge, today more than ever. Calling out to both religious and secular seekers alike, Levinas asks for an alert and critical dialogue of the ethical and metaphysical meaning of our inter-human and social relationships. In this work, a new generation of philosophers, ethicists and theologians embark on a conversation with Levians, with due appreciation for his genius and uninhibitedness in their questioning. The intermediaries in this provocative dialogue are: Hannah Arendt, Henri Bergson, Anders Nygren, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The following themes are thus treated: - ethics as liberation and redemption beyond the self - time, duration and alterity - freedom, society and politics - desire between eros and agape - 'good enough' parenting and family ethics - conversational processes and pastoral counselling - asymmetry and reciprocity between the self and the other - modern humanism vs. post-modern anti-humanism as an inspiration for a renewed secular humanism - suffering, death and euthanasia - perspectives and boundaries of interreligious dialogue - the (im)possibility of a Christian interpretation of Levinas' Jewish-inspired thought - a new Christian theology of Trinitarian praxis. This volume likewise includes contributions by: Roger Burggraeve, W. Wolf Diedrich, Annemie Dillen, Thomas Folens, Glen Morrison, Marianne Moyaert, Marina Riemslagh, Anya Topolski, Emilie Van Daele, Jean Vanheessen, Sophie Veulemans and Torben Wolfs. In this book Levinas is presented as an 'extra-ordinary' other who awakes into vigilance the conscience of not only the contributors, but the readers as well: one speaks and the other responds differently. (shrink)

This paper proposes a view on epistemic relativism that arises from the problem of the criterion, keeping in consideration that the assessment of criterion standards always occurs in a certain context. The main idea is that the epistemic value of the assertion “S knows that p” depends not only on the criterion adopted within an epistemic framework and the relationship between said criterion and a meta-criterion, but also from the collaboration with other subjects who share the same standards. Thus, one (...) can choose between particularist and methodist criteria according to the context of assessment. This position has the advantage of presenting a new perspective concerning both the criterion problem and the problem of inter-contextuality in the evaluation of different epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

With the rapid development of modern technology, people has stepped into an risky era. Ethical stipulation is the important means to reduce the risks. But in reality, ethical stipulation of technology always face some kind of dilemma which mainly come from two aspects: one is that when we try to regulate the subject oftechnology, we find that it always difficult to distinguish the responsibilities. The other aspect is that when we try to limit the result of technology, we often have (...) to give up because of lacking feasibility, which means we sink into the famous “Collingridge dilemma”. Are we able to get out of the dilemma? What should we doif we want to got out of it? First, in the modern technological system, individual’s action is taken over by group’s action according to the technological criterion. Any part of the modern technology need multiple subjects finish his job during the course. Therefore a new form of responsibility named group responsibility has been formed. Like Johnas said, in this ethics, ‘I’ will be replaced by ‘we’ and decision will be the business of a group. So it is difficult for us to find out that “I” from “us” once the technological risks happened. We lost the object of ethical stipulation as the result of no convinced standard and principals of prescribing the group responsibility. Second, when we try to stimulate some certain results of technology, we find we lack not only the wisdom of precisely judging or assessingtechnology itself, but also the ability of correcting the bad results if it has. Here again do we fall into the dilemma. This make it difficult for us to stipulate technology with ethic. From above discussion we can see, the stipulation, no matter from the aspect of technological responsibility or from aspect of the application of technology, has been sure to meet the dilemma. If the conflicts between a hypothesis and experiment cannot be eliminated, we have to rethink the theoryand come back again to technology itself and pursue the essence of technology again. Technology is a process from inventing, designing to forming material technological products; is a process from invisible technology to visible technology; is a process potential technology to real-life technology or intellective technology to reallife technology. Technology exists in process. The essential and innate characteristic is it’s process and dynamics. The transition oftechnological form involves many factors of economic, social, historical, constitutional and cultural. Technological creation of intellectual form is the duty of inventor or technologist. And it is entrepreneur’s job to use the technology or invention, and make them in large quantity, apply them in reality or get economic or other profit. Although there need be interaction, understanding, cooperation, support, coordination among scientist, technologist and enterpriser, they have different responsibility and delimitation. Technology exists in process, no doubt, so does modern technology. This decides that the ethical stipulation of modern technology should be a process stipulation. The essence of modern technological is not only the limitation of subject of technology either not only controlthe object of technology. It is the ethical stipulation in the unity of subject and object of technological dynamic process. This is basic point of understanding ethical stipulation of modern technology. Responsibility ethics consider that the group responsibility as the premise of technological stipulation.It noticed the static structure of modern technological system, but neglect the dynamic linkage between factors. And it only analysed the special construction, neglected the evolution of system of technological responsibility and the inter relationship between space dimension and time dimension. If we unfold the group responsibility along with the process of technology, we will see the different responsibility belong to different subject in different stage of the process. We can also see that different actors obey different norm or criteria according to their task. In this case, we can distinct the distribution of the group responsibility. Collingridge fixed the effective control on the two points of “before ”and ”after” the process of the technological action, namely, the stipulation for the staring point and stipulation of terminal point. But the whole process was neglected. According to the point of view of process stipulation.it is not the sudden occurrence for technology from “nothing ”to “having”. There are time and space during the process. From middle experiment to industrial experiment, the most characters of the result of technology will havebeen shown gradually, so will the social results. So we can give the small quantity an ethical evaluation and ethical choice which is possible and feasible. Over all, if we confirm the ethical stipulation of modern technology is a process regulation, we can delimitate the responsibility of the subjects of technology and also settle the prestipulation of the application of technology. At the end, we can eliminate the dilemma of ethical regulation of modern technology. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic value (...) is broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)

Prendendo le mosse dall’esame del ciclo pianistico Quatre études de rythme, di Olivier Messiaen , scritto fra il 1949 e il 1950, l’articolo delinea un sintetico confronto fra due differenti espressioni dell’arte musicale. Da un lato una composizione della metà del Novecento: repertorio profano, strumentale, frutto di concezioni individuali, testimonianza della fase post-tonale del pensiero musicale. Dall’altro la monodia gregoriana: repertorio sacro, vocale, anonimo, che esprime concetti formali pre-tonali. Occasione di tale raffronto è l’indagine sulla portata concettuale e tecnica di (...) termini chiave come “modo” e “neuma”, che Messiaen mutua dalla teoria musicale medioevale facendone oggetto di riflessione teorica e principio di concezioni tecniche. L’articolo tenta di sondare la complessa trama di rapporti mediante la quale due espressioni artistiche apparentemente agli antipodi entrano in contatto e si illuminano a vicenda. Expanding on the study of the piano cycle Quatre Études de Rythme by Olivier Messiaen , composed in 1949–1950, this article provides a brief comparison between two different expressions of art music. On the one hand we have a composition dating back to the mid-1900s: profane instrumental music, the result of individual conceptions, bearing witness to the post-tonal development in musical thought. On the other, Gregorian monody: sacred vocal music, anonymous, expressing formal pre-tonal concepts. This comparison is developed by looking at the conceptual and technical meaning of key terms, such as “mode” and “neume”, which Messiaen turned from Mediaeval musical theory into subjects for theoretical reflection and a principle of technical conceptions. The article sets out to discuss their complex inter-relationships whereby these two artistic, seemingly opposing, expressions converge and are thus reciprocally enhanced. (shrink)

The Theory of Intersubjectivity in the Work of Alfred Schutz. The world of daily life is based on intersubjectivity, on the daily social interactions of the members of the community who live in common, each besides the others, undertaking a multitude of meaningful inter-relating activities sharing in the same time (the living present) and space. The intersubjectivity of the social world is built together with and for the others, whom I may effectively know by directly interacting with them, or (...) whom I may not know at all. My relationship with these others may be of different degrees of closeness (when my experience of another is of a We-type relationship) or of foreignness (when my experience of my contemporary is of a They-type relationship).I’m directly experiencing the other, having immediate access to his subjectivity when we are engaged in a face-to-face interaction, which requires that we share a common sector of space and time. (shrink)

How does the clinical encounter work? To tackle this question, the present study centers on the paradigmatic clinical encounter, namely, psychoanalysis, paradigmatic in that it is structured by the encounter itself. Our question thus becomes: how does the clinical encounter work, when its only modality is speech? By reading Jacques Lacan and Emmanuel Levinas together, we better identify how speech sets up as subjects those who address one another and how this subjectivation touches the suffering body specifically. In this framework, (...) a definition of the encounter is put to work: The encounter of a sufferer and a listener, that is, the clinical encounter, is the opening of an inter-human space beyond suffering. This conception of the encounter permits a specifying of the violence it avoids—respecting the transcendence of the other irreducibly other—but also the violence that it mobilizes—through a presumption of subjectivity imposed upon the other, by which the subjectivation at work in the encounter is, by definition, a subjection to the other. This outlines, then, an ethics of the clinical encounter: a relationship of man to man commanded by one sensing body to another, i.e. a minimal and therefore radical ethics that is structured as a sensible ethics between speaking bodies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An I for an I: Projection, Subjection, and Christian Antisemitism in The Service for RepresentingAdam1 Richard J. Prystowsky Irvine Valley College You know well enough how to look in a mirror: Now look at this hand for me, and tell If my heart is sick or healthy. The Servicefor Representing Adam Far from experience producing his idea of the Jew, it was the latter which explained his experience. If (...) the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him. Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew These wretched Jews, my own kindred, /... have more to be unhappy about than other peoples. The Holy Resurrection No modern theorist has done more to help us understand the nature of inter- and intra-personal and communal violence than has René Girard. Perhaps his most important insight into the workings of such violence, an insight grounding his other provocative discoveries concerning human conflict, is that the antagonistic participants in acts ofinter- and intra-personal and communal violence are "doubles" of each other. By demonstrating that 1 In their hyphenated forms, the terms "anti-Semite," "anti-Semitism," and "anti-Semitic" have sometimes proved more problematic than helpful. In order to avoid "fosterfing] the false impression that there is a wider ethnic entity against which 'anti-Semitism' is leveled" (Telushkin 467), and in light of the importance of the concept of antisemitism to the history of Jewhating, throughout this essay I follow the lead of those scholars who do not hyphenate the words "antisemite," "antisemitism," or "antisemitic." For more information concerning this issue, see Telushkin. 140Richard J. Prystowsky people fight not because they are different, but because they are the same, Girard has shown us how "violence is a great leveler of men" and has helped us to understand the serious consequences that either follow or can follow from mimetic rivalry (Violence 79). For example, he has helped us see how the internal violence occurring in a community in which differentiation has broken down finds its outlet in scapegoating, that mechanism by means of which a community in conflict with itself attempts to save itselfby sacrificing an expendable, arbitrary victim (who lacks a champion but whose real guilt or innocence is irrelevant) onto whom the collective victimizers have projected their own guilt, their own mimetically-oriented self-hatred—their own "sins," we might say. Among other things, Girard's critique of the mimetic rivalry characteristic of what we might call "the conflicted communal Self" also sheds light on the nature of the violence and victimization that we find in the history of Christian persecution of Jews. Without referring to Girard's ideas, the eminent historian Léon Poliakov nevertheless captures a Girardian view of this tragic history when he writes that "to massacre first, and then, from fear of revenge, to accuse afterward; to attribute to the victims one's own aggressive intentions; to impute to them one's own cruelty: from country to country and from century to century, under various disguises, this is the device we find" (106-7). In the present essay, I will attempt to show that such vengeance-laden acts of Christian persecution of Jews, of the Jew-as-Other, derive from antisemitic Christians' mimetic rivalry with Jews—an "I" for an "I," as this essay's title would suggest—and that underlying this rivalry is the introjection ofreal or imagined Jewish self-hatred.2 1 hope to demonstrate that this projected intra-victimization is marked, in part, by Christians' mimetic appropriations of fantasized or real acts of Jewish self-incrimination, punishment, or more generalized suffering. Ultimately, I will try to provide support for the idea that, despite its obvious promise and appeal of love, peace, and brotherhood, Christianity cannot wrest itself entirely from its moorings in real or fantasized Jewish self-hatred, that is, in an appropriation of enacted or imagined Judaism against itself. If my contentions prove even partially legitimate, then an overwhelming question for good-faith Christians is whether or not the peculiar brand of antisemitism discussed above is endemic to Christianity and, if it is, whether 2Sander L. Oilman's Jewish Self-Hatredremains the preeminent work on the relationship between Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism. Among... (shrink)

Upshot: Self and Other takes on an ambitious task of articulating an account of selfhood that would do justice both to the experiential and the intersubjectively constructed aspect of the self. We claim that Zahavi argues convincingly against the possibility of reducing the former to the latter, but that he needs to develop his position further in order to offer a convincing account of their interconnectedness.

The use of evidence to resolve uncertainties is key to many endeavours, most conspicuously science and law. Despite this, the logic of uncertainty is seldom taught explicitly, and often seems misunderstood. Traditional educational practice even fails to encourage students to identify uncertainty when they express knowledge, though mark schemes that reward the identification of reliable and uncertain responses have long been shown to encourage more insightful understanding. In our information-rich society the ability to identify uncertainty is often more important than (...) the possession of knowledge itself. In both science and law there are fundamentally different kinds of uncertainty at issue. There is uncertainty whether a particular hypothesis is correct, and there is uncertainty about observable data that may be generated if a particular hypothesis is correct. Both are expressed in terms of probabilities. Each has its own domain of application and its own logic, but the inter-relationship is complex and sometimes misunderstood. Hypothesis probabilities are always open to error through possible failure to take account of realistic alternatives, while the proper inferences that can be drawn from data probabilities (often in the context of significance testing) are quite limited and easily over-interpreted. When considering these two kinds of probability in a court of law it is possible to interpret the phrase 'reasonable doubt' in different ways. It can be seen as addressing data uncertainty: whether such incriminating evidence might with reasonable probability arise to confront an innocent person. Or (the more conventional view) it can be seen as some sort of threshold level on the probability that the defendant is guilty (a hypothesis probability). Each typically involves elements of subjective judgement, but fewer issues and uncertainties arise when considering the data probability and it is argued that this is often the more critical and proper issue for a jury to address. This has particular repercussions for cases involving identification of a suspect through trawl of a DNA or other database. (shrink)

This paper intends to give a critical reading of Jean-Paul Sartre’s treatment of inter-consciousness relationship as presented in his work L'être et le néant, namely in the chapter L'existence d'autrui. Our main objective is to understand the treatment Sartre gave the referred issue in that particular work, but also to show that his theoretical standpoint falls short on a true determination of the meaning of the experience of Otherness for consciousness. Our method for approaching Sartre’s views stands on (...) a detailed reading of the author’s own analyses, trying to show their limited scope and providing a different, less conflictual treatment and interpretation for the presented data. In Sartre’s view, consciousness is not inhabited by an ego, that is, it doesn’t have an ego until one becomes an object to it, similar to the remaining objects of the world, which occurs with the Other’s entry in the world. That being, Sartre’s fundamental problem is to know how is it possible for consciousness to constitute an ego as an object - as an object among other objects, but whose experience is, for consciousness, different from the one it makes of all other objects -, and, on a second step, to state its identity with that ego, i.e., to be that ego, without loosing, in the process, its subjective spontaneity and freedom. Taken as a subject/object kind of relation, as Sartre affirms it, the inter-consciousness relationship is condemned to failure, doomed to be a permanent struggle for domination of one over an other. Our analysis of the sartrian data as put forward in L'Être et le néant will show that Sartre’s thesis about inter-consciousness relationship is one-sided and that a more comprehensive interpretation of the above-mentioned relationship is possible, an interpretation based in the view that envisaging the Other as an object is founded on an anticipation of its subjectivity and of consciousness’ own subjectivity, that is, on a founding intersubjective relationship. According to our viewpoint, if it is true that an ego can be an object, it is already as a degraded ego and not as the ego properly said, born out of a relationship between subjects. The experience of Othemess shows consciousness, originally and immediately, what it can and should be, and that being has a positivity that remains an other for a concrete, knowable ego. That founding experience, which takes place at an affective level, has the meaning of an experience of the limits which, when surpassed, will allow consciousness to reach a higher dignity of being. Therefore it is as anticipation and project, as desire, as afectivity, that the relationship to an other takes place, as a pure relationality without masks, and not as a dialectical conflict, as Sartre intends to show with his occasionally convincing arguments. (shrink)

The relationship of self, and self-awareness, and experience: exploring classical phenomenological analyses and their relevance to contemporary discussions in ...

A feminist perspective on selfhood – bound to a perspective on otherness – is the main concern of this article. The resonance of this notion of selfhood both with ethical philosophy and with the language of humanism enables a deeper understanding of a feminist ethics as well as its internal tensions. The article considers the relationship of feminism and humanism as one of “paradoxical fluidity” rather than antithetical polarization, to explore the ways in which feminism’s alliance with contemporary ethics (...) exemplifies its paradoxical relation to humanism. The study then underlines the vital contribution of feminist discourse to an ethical understanding of selfhood and intersubjectivity. Finally, it examines the work of experimental Canadian poet Lola Lemire Tostevin, who reveals the importance of an ethical, feminist version of selfhood that highlights the insufficiency as well as the potential of both humanist and postmodern versions of subjectivity. (shrink)

This paper argues that relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust) contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. -/- Love is important for the quality of human life. Not only do everyday experiences and analyses of pop culture and world literature attest to this; scientific research does as well. How exactly does love contribute to well-being? This chapter discusses the suggestion that it not only matters for the experiential quality of life, or for successful agency, but (...) that it actualizes our nature as “relational selves” (Chen, Boucher & Kraus 2011). I defend a hybrid or pluralist theory, which sees humans not only as subjects of experiences, or agents, or valuers, but also as relational selves. Expanding from love to other interpersonal relations, thriving relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust), contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. The paper will start by putting forward the proposal (Section 2), and then discussing it in relation to important alternatives. The focus is on alternatives which hold that love, and other forms of mutual recognition, are important for well-being, but only indirectly. One kind of challenge against the constitutive role of relations to others for well-being comes from the traditional theories that accommodate relations in some indirect ways (Section 3). A second kind of challenge admits that perhaps love is central to well-being in a direct way, but do we have reason to believe that other forms of mutual recognition are as well? (Section 4) Yet another kind of challenge is that love matters for the quality of lives in some other way than contributing to its prudential value: love is good, but is it good for us? (Section 5) A fourth kind of challenge concerns what we are, and the nature of “essentialism” involved in the approach stressing relational selfhood: cannot, say, motherhood contribute to one’s good life even if motherhood is contingent and not essential? (Section 6). In debates on recognition the idea that mutual recognition is also relevant for well-being has been put forward, for example in Axel Honneth’s (1992, ch.9 ) ”formal” theory of good life. Whatever else constitutes good life, relations of recognition form its backbone (cf. Ikäheimo 2014). Surprisingly little however is written about mutual recognition and well-being in detail, or recognition in comparison to traditional theories of well-being. This chapter aims to fill some of that void, and at the same time defend the view that well-being is one of the normative notions with which mutual recognition has a constitutive relationship. (shrink)

This article explores the representational practices of feminist theorising around gender and violence. Adapting Liz Kelly’s notion of the continuum of women’s experiences of sexual violence, I argue that ‘continuum thinking’ can offer important interventions which unsettle binaries, recognise grey areas in women’s experiences and avoid ‘othering’ specific communities. Continuum thinking allows us to understand connections whilst nevertheless maintaining distinctions that are important conceptually, politically and legally. However, this is dependent upon recognising the multiplicity of continuums in feminist theorising – (...) as well as in policy contexts – and the different ways in which they operate. A discussion of contemporary theory and policy suggests that this multiplicity is not always recognised, resulting in a flattening of distinctions which can make it difficult to recognise the specifically gendered patterns of violence and experience. I conclude by considering how focusing on men’s behaviour might offer one way of unsettling the contemporary orthodoxy which equates gender-based violence and violence against women. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that many of the core phenomenological insights, including the emphasis on direct perception, are a necessary but not sufficient condition for an adequate account of inter-subjectivity today. I take it that an adequate account of inter-subjectivity must involve substantial interaction with empirical studies, notwithstanding the putative methodological differences between phenomenological description and scientific explanation. As such, I will need to explicate what kind of phenomenology survives, and indeed, thrives, in a milieu that necessitates (...) engagement with the relevant sciences, albeit not necessarily deference to them. -/- There will be two central aims to this paper: 1. to defend the centrality and vitality of phenomenological treatments of inter-subjectivity via a consideration of some remarks in Sartre - which I do think possess a non-trivial unity amongst the various interlocutors - and the manner in which they in fact serve to provide the basis for a better explanation of an array of empirical data than existing inferentialist or mindreading accounts of social cognition (notably Theory Theory, Simulation Theory, and hybrid versions); 2. to offer the methodological resources for renewing phenomenology in a manner that acknowledges ostensibly non-phenomenological moments in theory production - which involve explanation, inference to the best explanation, etc. - but does not abandon phenomenology for all that, allowing it to be simply absorbed into empirical explanation or other forms of philosophical analysis without remainder. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

This book proposes replacing the philosophical tradition inaugurated by Descartes and Locke which is inherently idealist and, says the author, prone to impoverished notions of rationality and creativity with human ontology. This latter understands human being as nothing but the complex inter-relations between its biological constitution and the natural, social and linguistic worlds in which it is embedded and the emergent properties such as conciousness, subjectivity and selfhood which arise from these. Drawing on the phenomenologies of Merleau Ponty and (...) Heidegger but placing them in this naturalistic context the study shows how knowledge, rationality and creativity arise from within the human relationship to the world. Only on such a basis, it is argued, can the existence of a world independent of human conciousness be sustained along with the rationality of science and coherent theories of the self and truth. (shrink)

This paper argues that Karoline von Günderrode’s unique account of the socially constructed self provides a model for satisfying relationships and a stable self on the basis of a fragmented and untransparent subjectivity. Günderrode views experience as a discontinuous series of moments out of which a self can be constructed in two ways, both involving interactions with others. One of these is narrative; the other is a form of immediate experience, including experiencing together with others, that precedes narrative accounts of (...) identity. For Günderrode, the most important ways of interacting with others involve sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences without attempting to integrate these into a more holistic image of, or story about, the person with whom one is interacting. The result is a model for relationships between transitory, opaque selves that creates a basis for social interaction and the construction of identity that can survive and flourish without a stable self that is completely known to itself and others. -/- This journal is open access and includes so many wonderful articles. (shrink)

This encyclopedia is the first of its kind in bringing together philosophy and the social sciences. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. -/- The subject of this encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to (...) mark out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. -/- The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems. (shrink)

The volume addresses a variety of issues on Stance and Inter/Subjectivity, and the expression of Identity in discourse. It focuses on the multifaceted nature of stance, and the use of resources of epistemicity, effectivity, and evaluation and metaphor, as well as other dimensions within the domain of stance, such as mirativity, emotion and attribution. In this way it provides a more in-depth and a wider perspective into the nature of stance. The contributions feature the use of stance resources in (...) several languages, and in various discourse domains and genres, such as oral discourse, political and newspaper discourse, and science popularization and medical research articles, as well as online fora on social issues, mental health and peer support platforms. (shrink)

It has limitations to understand “fidelity” of the Analects of Confucius in the thinking pattern of subject-object. The interpretation patterns of self-other and private-public ethics can’t also completely explain the philosophical meaning of “fidelity” in the Analects of Confucius. “Fidelity”, in Confucian theory and practice, has important place, therefore, the paper will try to explore the philosophical meaning of “fidelity” of Confucius from the following suppositions in order to find a new way of philosophical explanation. The suppositions are as the (...) following: First of all, “fidelity” can’t be understood, in Chinese, as a verb which means “faithful to sb”. It is a noun or a gerund. Basing on the distinction of “material world” and “meaning world”, the paper holds that the connotation of “fidelity” has its inner regulation and its meaning is, first of all, regulated not by the material world but by the other contextual logic categories, in this way, it has the characteristic of independence and transcendence. The core meaning of “fidelity” is “center”, the paper calls it as “the centric wisdom” from the epistemological perspective. Wesuppose that Confucius has presupposed that every life has enough wisdom to know what the affirmative value is. For Confucius, his philosophical thinking on “fidelity” has both traditional heritage and personal innovation. We should pay attention to the latter. Basing on the understanding that takes “fidelity ”as “the centric wisdom”, the paper holds that one of the meanings of “fidelity”, as an ethical concept, in the Analects of Confucius, is personal ethics which includes thereorganization of individual values. One part of the individual value is to recognize and practice the value which is independent of social value. Another part of the value is to practice and exhibit the wisdom of “fidelity” in personal speech and behavior including the spiritual activities. The “fidelity” of the Analects of Confucius, as an ethical concept, has another meaning, i.e. the inter-personal relationship which shows the affirmative value under the guidance of wisdom. The inter-personal relationship under the guidance of wisdom can exhibit the affirmative value and can be called as the “ethical” relation. The main requirements are as the following: we have to bring the reflective factor of “wisdom” into inter-personal relation and, under the guidance of wisdom, try to take our social responsibilities required by the social role, or to abide by the public or the professional ethics. We have to maintain positive value direction in the verticalinter-personal relation which means supervision so as to realize the political affirmation. In the horizontal interpersonal relationship, basing on the individual wisdom, we have to keep the keen feeling of morality so as to realize our affirmative values. The understanding of these meanings concerning the word of “fidelity” is naturally resulted from our concern for the inner logic relation in the Analects of Confucius and for the form of idea-expressing of Confucius. (shrink)

Historians and cultural critics face special challenges when treating the nonhuman natural world in the medieval and early modern periods. Their most daunting problem is that in both the visual and written records of the time, nature seems to be both everywhere and nowhere. In the broadest sense, nature was everywhere, for it was vital to human survival. Agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine, and the patterns of human settlement all have their basis in natural settings. Humans also marked personal, community, and (...) seasonal events by natural occurrences and built their cultural explanations around the workings of nature, which formed the unspoken backdrop for every historical event and document of the time. Yet in spite of the ubiquity of nature's continual presence in the physical surroundings and the artistic and literary cultures of these periods, overt discussion of nature is often hard to find. Until the sixteenth century, responses to nature were quite often recorded only in the course of investigating other subjects. In a very real sense, nature went without saying. As a result, modern scholars analyzing the concept of nature in the history of medieval and early modern Europe must often work in deeply interdisciplinary ways. This challenge is deftly handled by the contributors to Engaging with Nature, whose essays provide insights into such topics as concepts of animal/human relationships; environmental and ecological history; medieval hunting; early modern collections of natural objects; the relationship of religion and nature; the rise of science; and the artistic representations of exotic plants and animals produced by Europeans encountering the New World. "As scholars of medieval and early modern Europe increasingly embrace environmental perspectives and animal studies, Engaging with Nature will be recognized as a landmark collection in the field. Taken together, the essays in this volume provide a synthetic overview of critical developments in the many disciplines that are now incorporating the approaches of natural and environmental studies. Each essay represents a substantial advance in scholarship and thought in its particular field. This is an essential collection for literary and cultural historians, and for historians of economy and society, art and ideas." --Rita Copeland, University of Pennsylvania "Engaging with Nature vividly captures the breadth and depth of human interactions with the natural world in premodern Europe. Its multidisciplinary approach generates new questions about how Europeans understood and connected with nature and delves into issues that will interest the specialist and the general reader alike. The book challenges readers to rethink not just the history of human engagement with nature but also the many ways the past has influenced our modern conceptions of ecology and environment." --James Masschaele, Rutgers University "This substantial collection of articles is far more than a response to current obsessions with climate change. It is a thought-provoking demonstration of the inter-disciplinary character of research on medieval history and culture. Students of medieval and early-modern society and economy, literature, philosophy, and art, will find much that is new in these essays, and much to provoke their own thinking about the vexed relationship of human societies with their natural surroundings." --Fredric Cheyette, Emeritus professor of history, Amherst College "Engaging with Nature is a deeply pleasurable volume to read. Using an incredible range of primary and secondary sources, the authors richly realize the methodological promise inherent in the emergent field of medieval and pre-modern studies on the history of nature." --Kathleen Biddick, Temple University "Engaging with Nature is a collection of impeccable scholarship that will make a highly original contribution to the emergent field of medieval and pre-modern studies on the history of nature." --Claire Sponsler, University of Iowa. (shrink)

This encyclopedia is the first of its kind in bringing together philosophy and the social sciences. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. The subject of this encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to mark (...) out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems. (shrink)

In the last decade, the migrant population in Chile has substantially increased, where the rates have not only increased in the adult population, but also among children and adolescents, creating a potential for social and cultural development in the educational system. The present work analyzes the relationship between self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in native and migrant adolescents in Santiago de Chile. The sample consisted of 406 students, 56.65% women, with an age range that fluctuated between 12 and 16 years, (...) with an average of 13.36 years. Student’s t-tests were used to compare the average of the constructs evaluated between natives/migrants and boys/girls participants. Subsequently, two multivariate models of simple mediation were constructed, one for natives and another for migrants, which assumed subjective well-being as a dependent variable, academic self-concept as an independent variable and the general self-efficacy as a mediating variable. In both models, gender was considered as a control variable. Results show that migrant students present higher levels of academic self-concept and general self-efficacy than native students. There are no differences with regard to well-being. In the case of gender, differences are observed only for the case of general self-efficacy, where boys present higher levels. On the other hand, a partial mediation is observed for the model of native students and a total mediation for the model of migrant students. The study yielded interesting results regarding the differences in the evaluation of the constructs of self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in both groups. Such data can be used as inputs for the development of public policies for adolescents. (shrink)

Dan Zahavi engages with classical phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and a range of empirical disciplines to explore the nature of selfhood. He argues that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed or dependent upon others, but accepts that certain dimensions of the self and types of self-experience are other-mediated.

Objective. Study of the Covid-19 related quarantine concept as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. -/- Materials & Methods. The strategy of the study is based on the logical and methodological concept of inductivism. Respondents were asked to write down their own understanding of the quarantine, formulate an appropriate definition and describe the situation, which in their opinion is the exact opposite to quarantine. Respondents also assessed how much their psychological well-being, their daily lifestyle during quarantine had changed, (...) and ranked their preferences for the quarantine strategies proposed to them. A discursive analysis was applied to the obtained texts, as a result of which nine discourses were identified. These data, along with some socio-demographic characteristics were subjected to multidimensional mathematical and statistical processing. -/- Results. Covid-19 related quarantine is represented in the linguistic consciousness of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by a discursive field, which includes at least nine recognizable, semantically autonomous discourses. Empirically discovered such phenomenon as – inter-discourse semantic dissociation. Its essence is a statistically significant reduction in the probability of some discourses appearing in the texts when others are being actualized there. This feature is associated with the innate negativity of the language and determines the semantic biasing of the quarantine concept. Inter-discourse semantic dissociation, as well as the influence of non-discursive factors constitute the discursive formation of the quarantine concept, which is qualitatively characterized by the hierarchical relationship of its components. At the same time, it was revealed that part of the discourses interacting “horizontally” are indirectly associated “vertically”, which forms the stable semantic core of the quarantine concept. Partial empirical confirmation has been found of the previously put forward assumptions about: a) the existence of such a relationship between discourses and psychological defense mechanisms (as character-forming factors) that contributes to the hierarchical structure construction of discursive formations; b) the differential nature of discourses and mechanisms of psychological defenses interaction, which makes it possible to single out the discursive aspect in a characterological profile and consider a discourse as an operator of characterological semantics. -/- Conclusions. An empirical study made it possible to form a primary idea of the substantive and structural semantic features of the quarantine concept, as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. The results obtained have a potentially useful application perspective. Thus, when implementing anti-epidemiological measures, it is important to consider the studied features of the discursive formation hierarchical structure of the quarantine concept, since discursive semantics are associated with cognitive focusing, which, in turn, affects the behavior direction and its upshots. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of authenticity and its relevance in education, from a philosophical perspective. Under the heading of educational authenticity, I critique Fred Newmann’s views on authentic pedagogy and intellectual work. I argue against the notion that authentic engagement is usefully analyzed in terms of a relationship between school work and: “real” work. I also seek to clarify the increasingly problematic concept of constructivism, arguing that there are two distinct constructivist theses, only one of which deserves serious attention. (...) I explain that the correspondence view of authenticity pays insufficient attention to the reality that the presence of “real world” connections does not guarantee that teaching and learning will be truly authentic. As a bridge to a philosophically acceptable understanding of authenticity, I reflect on John Dewey, who famously strove to base his views on education on the experience of the child, while rejecting that such experience requires validation from the “real” world. And Jean Jacques Rousseau offers several clues as to how the search for an authentic self might proceed beyond the Romanticist vision of an inner essence. These include the idea of the self as constructed inter-subjectively, which I capture by the term “one among others” and which, in turn, reveals persons as dialogically engaged in working out who they are and what they stand for. There is a clear affinity here with the imperative proposed by Newmann. I embrace the idea that the cultivation of dialogue should be a key priority in classrooms, because dialogue drives each individual to seek meaning in the context of seeing her/himself as one among others. I highlight the role of the classroom community of inquiry as an environment which has the dual function of cultivating disciplined inquiry and facilitating the kind of personal development that can, most properly, be termed “authentic”. (shrink)

This article investigates the aesthetic experience within telematic space, using terms introduced by kleinian psychoanalysis. We argue that the object of the aesthetic experience in multi-sensory interactive installations can be analysed within a spatial context of a dual nature, involving both the physical space of the installation and the virtual space of the participating subject’s perception, a hybrid space. Therefore, we discuss the aesthetic experience of interactive artworks as an intersubjective relationship between the artist and the audience, where the aesthetic (...) object becomes the subjective perceptual experience of this process of interaction. The space, where the visitor ‘meets’ the artist, is the place of the aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience takes place in both the physical and the ‘potential’ world of our internal representations, the internalized, ‘mental space’ of projected fantasies: our unconscious. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the mainstream ‘Standard Story’ of action – according to which actions are bodily motions with the right internal mental states as their causal triggers (e.g., ‘belief-desire-pairs’, ‘intentions’) – gives rise to a deeply problematic conception of inter-subjective action-understanding. For the Standard Story, since motivating reasons are internal mental states and bodily motions are not intrinsically intentional, an observer must ascribe internal states to others to make rational sense of their outwardly observable bodily motions. (...) I argue this is both phenomenologically distorted and requires, on pain of infinite regress, a deeper, non-inferential, practical-perceptual form of understanding: ‘knowledge-how’, in a broadly Rylean sense. Recognizing the irreducible role of practical-perceptual knowledge-how in inter-subjective understanding, I argue, undermines core assumptions of the Standard Story concerning what an agent can directly perceive in interacting with others, and how our everyday practices of explaining actions with reasons function – and this opens the space for a radically opposed alternative view of inter-subjective action understanding. (shrink)

This encyclopedia is the first of its kind in bringing together philosophy and the social sciences. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. The subject of this encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to mark (...) out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems. (shrink)

My title echoes Levinas' 1951 “Is ontology fundamental?” – a seminal piece that paved the way for his justly famous Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being. I suggest that the characteristically enthusiastic, uncritical reception of these works may not be due primarily to their originality and sheer intellectual brilliance, but rather to something in Levinas' position that deeply resonates with the spirit of our times and our preoccupation with the fate of “the Other.” My claim, however, is that accepting (...) a Levinassian ethics, in which the Other has priority over the self, comes at too high a price, for it implies definitions of otherness and selfhood that fail to address precisely the problems that prompted preoccupation with otherness in the first place. I suggest that our struggles with racism, sexism, cultural bias point to frictions in (inter-)subjectivity that are inappropriately ethicized when treated, ala Levinas, simply as examples of an unwillingness to open up to the Other. In Levinas' universe, it is impossible not to hear the Other's appeal, but I argue that this view ignores the existence of a dimension of selfhood that cannot be absorbed into intersubjectivity. A metaphysical loneliness is thus implied here that our age seems unwilling to bear, preferring to cover it up with an ethics that makes us always responsible – that is, in response, connected to the Other. I develop this criticism by analyzing what I call a non-privative notion of irresponsibility whose roots are neither ethical nor ontological. (shrink)

Inspired by earthquakes in the world, I attempt to clarify the relationship between human beings and Nature. Many architects, such as Tange and Isozaki from 1963 until 2005, built modern cities under the idea of urbanism. However, in Eco-ethica, we propose a new concept “urbanica.” It suggests a new relationship—not “city-center and suburbs” but free relations among communities. New relationships must be clarified in ethics. I try to make clear the relationship between inter-subjectivity and inter-objectivity. I analyze this (...) through a Noh play, “Yamanba,” which is a symbol of one natural phenomenon, “wind”: a personified figure of “wind” should link inter-subjectivity and inter-objectivity. Nature itself makes reality, the real world, by the potential movement of wind. (shrink)

En la obra dramática A puerta cerrada (1944), el filósofo y literato Jean-Paul Sartre plantea la relación interpersonal como plena de conflicto e imposibilidad para llevar a cabalidad los ideales dialógicos. Las conclusiones a las que llega Sartre serán confrontadas con la propuesta del filósofo judío Emmanuel Levinas, con el fin de vislumbrar sus tesis en torno a la alteridad, mostrando cómo, en vez de acuerdos racionales que superen lo diverso y lo engloben en la totalidad, habrá que recibir al (...) Otro y responderle en la trascendencia que exige su infinitud. The Philosopher and Writer Jean-Paul Sartre, in the dramatic work No Exit (1944), claims the inter-subjective relationship is full of conflict and that it is impossible to reach the dialogical ideal. We will confront Sartre´s conclusions from the proposal of the jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in order to see his thesis about otherness. We will explain how, instead of some rational agreements that overcome the diversity inside totality, it is necessary to receive the other and respond to him in the transcendence that Infinity requires. (shrink)

In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, triggers the perception of strange faces, a new visual illusion that has been named ‘strange-face in the mirror’. Individuals see huge distortions of their own faces, but they often see monstrous beings, archetypal faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals. In the experiment described here, strange-face illusions were perceived when two individuals, in a dimly lit room, gazed at each (...) other in the face. Inter-subjective gazing compared to mirror-gazing produced a higher number of different strange-faces. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions were always dissociative of the subject’s self and supported moderate feeling of their reality, indicating a temporary lost of self-agency. Unconscious synchronization of event-related responses to illusions was found between members in some pairs. Synchrony of illusions may indicate that unconscious response–coordination is caused by the illusion–conjunction of crossed dissociative strange-faces, which are perceived as projections into each other’s visual face of reciprocal embodied representations within the pair. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions may be explained by the subject’s embodied representations and the other’s visual face binding. Unconscious facial mimicry may promote inter-subjective illusion–conjunction, then unconscious joint-action and response–coordination. (shrink)

Levinas claims that "morality is not a branch of philosophy, but first philosophy" and if he is right about this, might ethics also serve as a first _psychology_?_ _This possibility is explored by the authors in this volume who seek to bring the "ethical turn" into the world of psychoanalysis. This phenomenologically rich and socially conscious ethics has taken centre stage in a variety of academic disciplines, inspired by the work of philosophers and theologians concerned with the moral fabric of (...) subjectivity, human relationship, and socio-political life. At the heart of this movement is a reconsideration of the other person, and the dangers created when the question of the "Other" is subsumed by grander themes. The authors showcased here represent the exceptional work being done by both scholars and practitioners working at the crossroads between psychology and philosophy in order to rethink the foundations of their disciplines. _The Ethical Turn: __Otherness and subjectivity in contemporary psychoanalysis _guides readers into the heart of this fresh and exciting movement and includes contributions from many leading thinkers, who provide fascinating new avenues for enriching our responses to suffering and understandings of human identity. It will be of use to psychoanalysts, professionals in psychology, postgraduate students, professors and other academics in the field. (shrink)