A Truthful Way to Live? Objectivity, Ethics and Psychoanalysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
Michael Lacewing

AbstractIs there a best way to live? If so, is this a form of ethical life? The answer, I believe, turns on what we can say about the nature and place of the passions – emotions and desires – in our lives, including in particular, our ability to be truthful about our passions and our relations with other people. I approach the question through the work of Bernard Williams. I consider first what it might be for a way of life to be ‘objectively’ best, before looking more closely at the psychological conditions of such a life, using ideas from psychoanalysis on the way we hide our true passions from ourselves and the effect this can have on our understanding of both ourselves and others. I end by considering whether we can say that a truthful life is the best life, and whether it places universal and material constraints on how best to live.

Author(s):  
John J. Collins
Keyword(s):  

Judaism is often understood as the way of life defined by the Torah of Moses, but it was not always so. This book identifies key moments in the rise of the Torah, beginning with the formation of Deuteronomy, advancing through the reform of Ezra, the impact of the suppression of the Torah by Antiochus Epiphanes and the consequent Maccabean revolt, and the rise of Jewish sectarianism. It also discusses variant forms of Judaism, some of which are not Torah-centered and others which construe the Torah through the lenses of Hellenistic culture or through higher, apocalyptic, revelation. It concludes with the critique of the Torah in the writings of Paul.


2020 ◽  
Vol 152 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-449
Author(s):  
Yuriy NESTERUK ◽  
Nazariy NESTERUK
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Elvina Syahrir

The study aims to describe  about abstinence forbids of Belantik Malay community and to obtain  to  know  meaning  and  value  that  contained  in  the  abstinence  forbids.  The  writer found that there were twenty three abstinence forbids of the Belantik Malay community. By applying qualitative descriptive method, it is obtained that the abstinence forbids observed in Belantik Malay contain in terms of the religion, education, custom, and health. In fact, the  abstinence  forbids  had  a  magic  power  that  used  as  a  guidance  the  way  of  life  of Belantik Malay community. They believe that they will get side effects if they disobey them individually and in their group.AbstrakPenelitian  ini  bertujuan    untuk  mendeskripsikan  ungkapan  pantang  larang  dalam masyarakat  Melayu  Belantik.  Selain  itu,  tulisan  ini  juga  bertujuan  untuk  mengetahui makna  dan  nilai  yang  terkandung  dalam  ungkapan  pantang  larang  tersebut.  Penulis menemukan terdapat  dua  puluh  tiga  ungkapan  pantang  larang  dalam masyarakat Melayu Belantik. Melalui metode  deskriptif  kualitatif  tergambar  bahwa  ungkapan  pantang  larang dalam  masyarakat  Melayu  Belantik mengandung  nilai  agama,  pendidikan,  adat,  dan kesehatan.  Ungkapan  pantang  larang  memiliki  “kekuatan  (gaib/ajaib)”  sebagai  penuntun hidup  dan  pedoman  bagi  masyarakat  Melayu  Belantik.  Masyarakat  Melayu  Belantik percaya bahwa peristiwa tersebut apabila mereka langgar atau abaikan akan berakibat bagi kehidupan pribadi atau bahkan masyarakatnya.


2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
Maria Esformes

One of the most fascinating memoirs to appear in recent years is that of Elias Canetti, recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature. his three-volume spiritual and intellectual autobiography is a complex and insightful rendering of his personal background and his creative development as a novelist, philosopher, and social critic. However, Canetti's autobiography is much more than a compelling account of the development of a great artist – it is a portrait of the tragic character of an entire era that witnessed the destruction of cultures and the way of life o many Jewish communities throughout Europe.


Author(s):  
Timothy Larsen

At this point, Mill meets the great, passionate partner of his life, Harriet Taylor. This chapter endeavours to explain the complex relationship and way of life that they created for themselves during the lifetime of her first husband, John Taylor. The choice of celibacy is investigated. Even for freethinkers, chaste affairs were often pursued in this time period and milieu, including by people close to Mill such as W. J. Fox (with Eliza Flower) and Auguste Comte (with Clotilde de Vaux). This chapter also reveals the way that Harriet became a kind of substitute deity and religion for Mill. He frequently applied religious language to her, including deeming her judgement to be ‘perfect’ and ‘infallible’. With Harriet, Mill’s devotional sense finally found an outlet.


Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR

Abstract Bernard Williams argues that philosophy is in some deep way akin to history. This article is a novel exploration and defense of the Williams thesis (as I call it)—though in a way anathema to Williams himself. The key idea is to apply a central moral from what is sometimes called the analytic philosophy of history of the 1960s to the philosophy of philosophy of today, namely, the separation of explanation and laws. I suggest that an account of causal explanation offered by David Lewis may be modified to bring out the way in which this moral applies to philosophy, and so to defend the Williams thesis. I discuss in detail the consequences of the thesis for the issue of philosophical progress and note also several further implications: for the larger context of contemporary metaphilosophy, for the relation of philosophy to other subjects, and for explaining, or explaining away, the belief that success in philosophy requires a field-specific ability or brilliance.


Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-243
Author(s):  
Tim Heysse

How should we look back on the history and the origins of our ethical outlook and our way of life? We know that in the past, strange and appalling ethical views and practices have enjoyed widespread and sincere support. Yet we do not regard our contemporary outlook – to the extent that we do, at the present, have a common outlook – as one option among many. However bemused we may feel in ethical matters, at least on some issues we claim to have reasons that are good (enough). If we do not object to the use of the predicate ‘true’ in ethics, we may say that we are confronted with the (ethical) truth of an outlook. Or, to echo a provocative expression of David Wiggins, we claim that ‘there is nothing else to think’.


2020 ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Yeng Chen Mong

In the context of deep social and economic transformations in the country, the contradiction between the growing need of the society for active and healthy people and the catastrophic deterioration of children’s health becomes more acute. Complex studies show that the chronic pathology of schoolchildren is at an extremely high level. Against the backdrop of social insecurity, the problem of alcoholization and drug addiction of children and adolescents is growing, which poses a threat of moral decay to young people. Children’s health is affected by a number of negative factors: a decline in the standard of living in the country as a whole, a widespread deterioration of the environmental situation, and negative changes in the financial situation and the educational potential of the family. Unfortunately, the share of guilt for the current situation today is assigned to the school, which does not meet the modern requirements of hygiene and natural sciences of age physiology, causes disruption of adaptation, chronic fatigue of children and provokes the growth of diseases. Educational potential of school is considerably reduced: “...educational practice stays in a condition of influence on it of casual reference points, elements of positive, and even more negative, influences and uncontrollability”. In these conditions, the problem of maintaining health and education for a healthy lifestyle in schoolchildren is of particular interest to researchers. In the process of upbringing of children of primary school age the role of significant others - teachers and parents - is great. However, for the effectiveness of education for a healthy lifestyle is not enough readiness of the teacher, as the categories of lifestyle, lifestyle is largely associated with the family, with the way of life, with traditions, with the way of life of parents. Parents act as a role model for younger students, so in the process of upbringing important factors are personal, purely individual characteristics of parents, which include health status, physical culture, and attitude to health, culture of communication, ethical culture and experience of a healthy lifestyle.


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