Entre tradiciones y procesos de transformación, asistimos a una poética del pensar del poema extenso en las Antillas hispanas. Desde la “décima”, venida de Europa, se desarrolla una creatividad lingüística por medio de una apertura pragmática, en estrecha relación con la particularidad colonial: entre mito del progreso y mito de la edad de oro. Para entender la inventiva caribeña, recordamos la práctica del Neobarroco, elaborado a base de las confluencias de lo heterogéneo. Vemos como a través de una heteroglosia discursiva, (...) el poema extenso se asienta en este espacio cultural que son las islas antillanas y subrayamos su papel actual en el relato de historias mínimas que alimentan por otro cariz la historia universal. (shrink)

A leader in the modern commentary on ethics and philosophy, Mary Warnock casts a critical eye over her life and times.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. (...) A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

Explores the teaching and learning of issues relating to the impact of science in society. This title offers practical guidance in devising learning goals and suitable learning and assessment strategies. It helps teachers to provide students with the skills and understanding needed to address these multi-faceted issues.

In this chapter, Mary Collins Swabey critiques G. E. Moore's discussion of sense data.

What are the driving forces of cultural macroevolution, the evolution of cultural traits that characterize societies or populations? This question has engaged anthropologists for more than a century, with little consensus regarding the answer. We develop and fit autologistic models, built upon both spatial and linguistic neighbor graphs, for 44 cultural traits of 172 societies in the Western North American Indian (WNAI) database. For each trait, we compare models including or excluding one or both neighbor graphs, and for the majority (...) of traits we find strong evidence in favor of a model which uses both spatial and linguistic neighbors to predict a trait’s distribution. Our results run counter to the assertion that cultural trait distributions can be explained largely by the transmission of traits from parent to daughter populations and are thus best analyzed with phylogenies. In contrast, we show that vertical and horizontal transmission pathways can be incorporated in a single model, that both transmission modes may indeed operate on the same trait, and that for most traits in the WNAI database, accounting for only one mode of transmission would result in a loss of information. (shrink)

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

The growing importance of researching online activities, such as cyber-deviance and cyber-crime, as well as the use of online tools (e.g. questionnaires, games, and other interactive tools) has created new ethical and legal challenges for researchers, which can be even more complicated when researching adolescents. In this article, we highlight the risks emerging from the current European legal and ethical landscape when researching potentially vulnerable groups, with a special focus on online research. It is not always clear how to differentiate (...) research ethics consent from consent for data processing activities: when can an adolescent independently consent to research, or when is parental consent needed? Additional problems emerge when parents do not consent to research activities, but their adolescent children do. A serious ethical challenge can arise when the parents do not communicate with researchers, but the adolescent wishes to participate, especially when weak parental oversight is coupled with research on sensitive topics. We offer some guidance on what to keep in mind when conducting online research with adolescents and highlight possible ways that these issues can be dealt with in pan-European projects. (shrink)

The unity of aesthetic and teleological judgment, the third and earlier Critiques, is based on Kant′s discovery of a “heuristic method” for applying judgments regarding sense phenomena to abstract thought, a “second attention” which enables an “idea of the whole”. Synthetic judgment, basis for cognition and human action, depends on efficacy of non-empirical insights: the transcendental standpoint, “regulative” ideas, consciousness of “ought” and the reality of freedom, universality of natural mechanism, the principle of “fortuitous” purposiveness. The activity of reflective judgment (...) in the encounter with the beautiful, sublime, living, and two paradigmatic types of explanation, inspired by Spinoza′s distinction of extensio and cogitatio, permit Kant to bridge the gap between freedom and necessity, theoretical knowledge and morality. (shrink)

Introduction: Wonder and the births of philosophy -- Socrates' small difficulty -- The wound of wonder -- The death and resurrection of Thaumazein -- The Thales dilemma -- Repetition : Martin Heidegger -- Metaphysics small difficulty -- Wonder and the first beginning -- Wonder and the other beginning -- Theaetetus redux : the ghost of the Pseudes Doxa -- Once again to the cave -- Rethinking Thaumazein -- Openness : Emmanuel Levinas -- Passivity and responsibility -- The ethics of the (...) cave -- Infinity and astonishment -- Opening out : from existent to existence -- Closing down : from existence to existent -- Locking up : totality and infinity -- The phantom of the autrement -- Awakening -- Relation : Jean-Luc Nancy -- The problem of Mitsein -- Mitsein as essential inessentiality -- The myth of essentialism -- Unworking -- Interruption -- Repetition -- Decision : Jacques Derrida -- Thaumazein, the irresponsible, and the undecidable -- Hospitality -- Undecidability revisited -- Much madness is divinest sense (or, who comes after the decision?) -- How to avoid the subject (or, that's not my hedgehog!) -- Undecidability, take three : think here of Kierkegaard -- Mysterium tremendum -- Postlude: Possibility. (shrink)

_Strange Wonder_ confronts Western philosophy's ambivalent relationship to the Platonic "wonder" that reveals the strangeness of the everyday. On the one hand, this wonder is said to be the origin of all philosophy. On the other hand, it is associated with a kind of ignorance that ought to be extinguished as swiftly as possible. By endeavoring to resolve wonder's indeterminacy into certainty and calculability, philosophy paradoxically secures itself at the expense of its own condition of possibility. _Strange Wonder_ locates a (...) reopening of wonder's primordial uncertainty in the work of Martin Heidegger, for whom wonder is first experienced as the shock at the groundlessness of things and then as an astonishment that things nevertheless _are_. Mary-Jane Rubenstein traces this double movement through the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Derrida, ultimately thematizing wonder as the awesome, awful opening that exposes thinking to devastation as well as transformation. Rubenstein's study shows that wonder reveals the extraordinary in and through the ordinary, and is therefore crucial to the task of reimagining political, religious, and ethical terrain. (shrink)

_Strange Wonder_ confronts Western philosophy's ambivalent relationship to the Platonic "wonder" that reveals the strangeness of the everyday. On the one hand, this wonder is said to be the origin of all philosophy. On the other hand, it is associated with a kind of ignorance that ought to be extinguished as swiftly as possible. By endeavoring to resolve wonder's indeterminacy into certainty and calculability, philosophy paradoxically secures itself at the expense of its own condition of possibility. _Strange Wonder_ locates a (...) reopening of wonder's primordial uncertainty in the work of Martin Heidegger, for whom wonder is first experienced as the shock at the groundlessness of things and then as an astonishment that things nevertheless _are_. Mary-Jane Rubenstein traces this double movement through the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Derrida, ultimately thematizing wonder as the awesome, awful opening that exposes thinking to devastation as well as transformation. Rubenstein's study shows that wonder reveals the extraordinary in and through the ordinary, and is therefore crucial to the task of reimagining political, religious, and ethical terrain. (shrink)

When it comes to liberalism, the usual story in postwar America is one of decline, accompanied by the subplot of conservatism’s ascendance. But take a longer view—look beyond and below politics—and it is the unchallenged triumph of liberalism and its philosophical assumptions that ought to command our attention. The triumph of liberalism means the tyranny of liberalism, explains James Kalb in this illuminating book, for liberalism is the extension into the sociopolitical realm of modern scientific thought and technological rationality. (...) These modes of thinking are regarded by nearly everyone today as uniquely authoritative; those institutions and beliefs which do not conform are regarded at best as annoyances, and at worst as evil. Furthermore, Kalb shows how liberalism is an expression of the interests and outlook of commercial and managerial elites, who are suspicious of less rationalized and controllable forms of social organization like the family. Kalb does not merely rehearse a tale of woe, nor is he content simply to analyze the current situation. With reference to concrete issues such as the debate surrounding same-sex marriage, he outlines the kind of traditionalist response to liberalism that is likely to be most effective. He argues that traditional, decentralized, and nonliberal forms of social organization are ultimately impossible to eradicate, and he shows how more human forms of association than those favored by liberalism might once again be brought into being. (shrink)

Dante, au Paradis, demande à son élue : " Pourquoi tu fus toi seule prédestinée? ". En guise de réponse, il n'aura qu'un cri résonnant comme le tonnerre qui le dissuadera de questionner plus avant... Nietzsche et Schopenhauer, eux, n'auront pas peur de cette question qui met en jeu indissociablement leur identité singulière et leur statut de philosophe. Le premier, au péril de sa raison, gère l'héritage de la mort de Dieu, en assumant la disparition du Père. Nous devons à (...) l'un et à l'autre la considération de la valeur de la singularité, valeur ineffable, accessible seulement à l'amour électif, divin ou humain. Le classement des hommes en genres, espèces, races, n'en est que la caricature ; l'individualisme contemporain en est sans doute la décomposition. (shrink)

«L'Enseignement oral de Platon» est la première grande synthèse consacrée en France à ce que l'on appelle l'École de Tübingen, c'est-à-dire une nouvelle interprétation de Platon qui a provoqué de vifs débats, un renouveau des études platoniciennes et de toute la conception de la philosophie antique.L'École de Tübingen admet que Platon a enseigné des doctrines qu'il s'était volontairement abstenu de consigner dans ses dialogues et que l'on peut reconstituer grâce aux témoignages des traditions aristotélicienne, platonicienne et doxographique. Cette hypothèse permet (...) de mieux comprendre le milieu de l'Académie platonicienne et la problématique de la pensée aristotélicienne. (shrink)

This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

Should we feel inadequate when we fail to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is it realistic or even desirable to strive for such an existential equilibrium? Condemning our current cultural obsession with cheerfulness and "positive thinking," Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honors our more eccentric frequencies and argues that sometimes a tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be rewarding. Ruti critiques the search for personal meaning and pragmatic attempts to normalize human beings' unruly and idiosyncratic natures. (...) Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasizes the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. She also shows what matters is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but our courage to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken. We are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, Ruti warns, leaving us feeling less "real" and less connected and unable to process a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character means acknowledging the marginalized, chaotic aspects of our being, and it is precisely these creative qualities that make us inimitable and irreplaceable. (shrink)

Hans Jonas bénéficie de la reconnaissance de ses pairs comme de la notoriété auprès d'un large public. L'auteur du " Principe responsabilité " est aussi un spécialiste de la religion gnostique, un philosophe de la vie analysant la dynamique de l'organisme et de l'esprit. La notion de liberté est un fil conducteur herméneutique pour exposer une pensée éclectique mais unitaire et originale.

"Multiverse" cosmologies imagine our universe as just one of a vast number of others. While this idea has captivated philosophy, religion, and literature for millennia, it is now being considered as a scientific hypothesis--with different models emerging from cosmology, quantum mechanics, and string theory. Beginning with ancient Atomist and Stoic philosophies, Mary-Jane Rubenstein links contemporary models of the multiverse to their forerunners and explores the reasons for their recent appearance. One concerns the so-called fine-tuning of the universe: nature's constants are (...) so delicately calibrated that it seems they have been set just right to allow life to emerge. For some thinkers, these "fine-tunings" are evidence of the existence of God; for others, however, and for most physicists, "God" is an insufficient scientific explanation. Hence the allure of the multiverse: if all possible worlds exist somewhere, then like monkeys hammering out Shakespeare, one universe is bound to be suitable for life. Of course, this hypothesis replaces God with an equally baffling article of faith: the existence of universes beyond, before, or after our own, eternally generated yet forever inaccessible to observation or experiment. In their very efforts to sidestep metaphysics, theoretical physicists propose multiverse scenarios that collide with it and even produce counter-theological narratives. Far from invalidating multiverse hypotheses, Rubenstein argues, this interdisciplinary collision actually secures their scientific viability. We may therefore be witnessing a radical reconfiguration of physics, philosophy, and religion in the modern turn to the multiverse. (shrink)

We are conditioned to think that love heals wounds, makes us happy, and gives our lives meaning. When the opposite occurs and love causes fracturing, disenchantment, and existential turmoil, we suffer deeply, especially if we feel that love has failed us or that we have failed to experience what others seem so effortlessly to enjoy. In this eloquently argued, psychologically informed book, Mari Ruti portrays love as a much more complex, multifaceted phenomenon than we tend to appreciate--an experience that helps (...) us encounter the depths of human existence. Love's ruptures are as important as its triumphs, and sometimes love succeeds because it fails. At the heart of Ruti's argument is a meditation on interpersonal ethics that acknowledges the inherent opacity of human interiority and the difficulty of taking responsibility for what we cannot fully understand. Yet the fact that humans are often irrational in love does not absolve us of ethical accountability. In Ruti's view, we must work harder to map the unconscious patterns motivating our romantic behavior. As opposed to popular spiritual approaches urging us to live fully in the now, Ruti treats the past as a living component of the present. Only when we catch ourselves at those moments when the past speaks in the present can we keep ourselves from hurting the ones we love. Equally important, Ruti emphasizes transcending our individual histories of pain, an act that allows us to face the unconscious demons that dictate our relational choices. Written with substance and compassion, _The Summons of Love_ restores the enlivening and transformative possibilities of romance. (shrink)

For centuries, many have turned to Confucianism for its wisdom on ethics and politics, while its distinctive contribution to spirituality has often been overlooked. In this remarkable collection, leading scholars of Confucianism explore this spiritual and religious dimension more deeply. Now available for the first time in English are insights into the Confucian understanding of themes such as holism, divinity, piety, religious virtue, and spiritual progress. Volume One of this collection offers as overview of Confucianism, its formation and rituals. The (...) forthcoming Volume Two examines self-cultivation, the development of the tradition, and Confucianism's flowering in our world today. Book jacket. (shrink)

"Multiverse" cosmologies imagine our universe as just one of a vast number of others. While this idea has captivated philosophy, religion, and literature for millennia, it is now being considered as a scientific hypothesis--with different models emerging from cosmology, quantum mechanics, and string theory. Beginning with ancient Atomist and Stoic philosophies, Mary-Jane Rubenstein links contemporary models of the multiverse to their forerunners and explores the reasons for their recent appearance. One concerns the so-called fine-tuning of the universe: nature's constants are (...) so delicately calibrated that it seems they have been set just right to allow life to emerge. For some thinkers, these "fine-tunings" are evidence of the existence of God; for others, however, and for most physicists, "God" is an insufficient scientific explanation. Hence the allure of the multiverse: if all possible worlds exist somewhere, then like monkeys hammering out Shakespeare, one universe is bound to be suitable for life. Of course, this hypothesis replaces God with an equally baffling article of faith: the existence of universes beyond, before, or after our own, eternally generated yet forever inaccessible to observation or experiment. In their very efforts to sidestep metaphysics, theoretical physicists propose multiverse scenarios that collide with it and even produce counter-theological narratives. Far from invalidating multiverse hypotheses, Rubenstein argues, this interdisciplinary collision actually secures their scientific viability. We may therefore be witnessing a radical reconfiguration of physics, philosophy, and religion in the modern turn to the multiverse. (shrink)

What is liberalism and is it good or bad? Its pervasiveness makes it difficult to gain the perspective needed to decide such issues. Many current writers treat it as relativistic, individualistic, and hubristic, and the man who is now Benedict XVI has gone so far as to describe the situation in the liberal West as a “dictatorship of relativism.”1 Christopher Insole, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge University, disagrees. His academic position has made him quite familiar with the complaints, and (...) he begins his book by observing that recent theological critics have described liberalism as Against such objections, he defends…. (shrink)

Hebb's theory of cell assemblies is a precursor of the neural network approach used as an implicit hypothesis by most contemporary neuroscientists. Applying this model to language representation leads to demanding predictions about the organization of semantic categories. Other implications of a Hebbian approach to language representation, however, may prove problematic with respect to both neurolinguistic concepts and the results of neuroimaging studies.

Si la reprise de la recherche philosophique demande aujourd'hui à être menée d'une manière radicale, il ne suffit pas de compléter une philosophie déjà existante en y intégrant certains problèmes actuels. En effet, c'est l'esprit lui-même qui a été comme cassé. Le primat de la négation est allé si loin que l'intelligence, dans son fondement, dans sa relation même avec l'être, est véritablement brisée. Aussi est-il nécessaire de redécouvrir en premier lieu le point de départ de toute démarche philosophique, au-delà (...) de cette rupture. Chacun aujourd'hui doit s'interroger sur ce qu'il est comme personne humaine. Dépassant les idéologies pour retrouver le réalisme d'une authentique recherche de la vérité, il doit redécouvrir, à partir de ses propres expériences, ce qui donne à sa vie un sens. (shrink)