Understanding Irrationality

1985 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Cavell
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Primary Process ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Wish Fulfillment

AbstractRecent philosophical work attempts to understand irrational acts on the model of practical reasoning. Such acts are regarded as intelligible in the light of ordinary propositional attitudes which are nevertheless conjoined in a way that explains the irrationality. It is here argued that some irrational acts cannot be so understood; that they are not actions, per se; and that Freud’s notion of “primary process”, particularly in its emphasis on hallucinatory wish-fulfillment and on what he calls “omnipotence of thought”, provides a useful description of such acts. Where hallucinatory wish-fulfillment (or phantasy) is operative, an anxiety or need causes an agent to see the world as one in which the anxiety-provoking state does not exist or has- somehow been dealt with satisfactorily. The need or lack is not acknowledged, as it is when one can properly speak of desire and of a reasoning that attempts to implement it.

Caribbean French-African Creole and African Metaphysics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanétha Vété-Congolo
Keyword(s):  
African Language ◽  
The West ◽  
French Empire ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Per Se

The Euro-enslavement enterprise in America expanded the European geography temporarily, and, more lastingly, its culturo-linguistic and philosophical influence. The deportation of millions of Africans within that enterprise similarly extended the African presence in this part of the world, especially in the Caribbean. Africans deported by the French Empire spoke languages of the West Atlantic Mande, Kwa, or Voltaic groups. They arrived in their new and final location with their languages. However, no African language wholly survived the ordeal of enslavement in the Caribbean. This signals language as perhaps the most important political and philosophical instrument of colonization. I am therefore interested in “Pawòl,” that is, the ethical, human, and humanist responses Africans brought to their situation through language per se and African languages principally. I am also interested in the metaphysical value of “Pawòl.”

Hegel's Interpretation of the Religions of the World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
First Century ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel treats the religions of the world under the rubric “the determinate religion.” This is a part of his corpus that has traditionally been neglected, since scholars have struggled to understand what philosophical work it is supposed to do. The present study argues that Hegel’s rich analyses of Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Egyptian and Greek polytheism, and the Roman religion are not simply irrelevant historical material, as is often thought. Instead, they play a central role in Hegel’s argument for what he regards as the truth of Christianity. Hegel believes that the different conceptions of the gods in the world religions are reflections of individual peoples at specific periods in history. These conceptions might at first glance appear random and chaotic, but there is, Hegel claims, a discernible logic in them. Simultaneously a theory of mythology, history, and philosophical anthropology, Hegel’s account of the world religions goes far beyond the field of philosophy of religion. The controversial issues surrounding his treatment of the non-European religions are still very much with us today and make his account of religion an issue of continued topicality in the academic landscape of the twenty-first century.

Refraction and recognition

Target ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainier Grutman
Keyword(s):  
Relative Position ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Minority Writers ◽  
Multilingual Literature

Texts foregrounding different languages pose unusual challenges for translators and translation scholars alike. This article seeks to provide some insights into what happens to multilingual literature in translation. First, Antoine Berman’s writings on translation are used to reframe questions of semantic loss in terms of the ideological underpinnings of translation as a cultural practice. This leads to a wider consideration of contextual aspects involved in the “refraction” of foreign languages, such as the translating literature’s relative position in the “World Republic of Letters” (Casanova). Drawing on a Canadian case-study (Marie-Claire Blais in English translation), it is suggested that asymmetrical relations between dominating and dominated literatures need not be negative per se, but can lead to the recognition of minority writers.

Between the pure and the impure: The peculiar case of the homo sacer

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 219-228
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Peculiar Case

Abstract According to Durkheim, the notion of ‘sacred’ is per se ambivalent, because it includes antinomic notions such as the pure and the impure. This theory would be justified by the original ambiguity of the Latin sacer. Only one case is always quoted: the peculiar condition of the homo sacer, a criminal consecrated to the gods. But the ambiguity of the sacer is not a problem for the Romans. The uncertainties of modern interpretation stem from the fact that this consecratio of a criminal is often explained as a sacrifice, but the destiny of the homo sacer is more analogous to the fate reserved for the violators of international treaties: on the profane side, the culprit is deprived of his citizenship and becomes a foreigner. Nor, however, is he accepted by enemies. In the same way, from an anthropological point of view, the consecrated person stays on a liminal stage: he remains forever in an uncertain gap between the sphere of men and the world of the gods. There is no ambiguity of the sacred because the homo sacer could not really reach the gods or pollute them.

Experiment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uljana Feest ◽  
Friedrich Steinle
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Entity Realism ◽  
Experimental Systems ◽  
The World

The authors provide an overview of philosophical discussions about the roles of experiment in science. First, they cover two approaches that took shape under the heading of “new experimentalism” in the 1980s and 1990s. One approach was primarily concerned with questions about entity realism, robustness, and epistemological strategies. The other has focused on exploratory experiments and the dynamic processes of experimental research as such, highlighting its iterative nature and drawing out the ways in which such research is grounded in experimental systems, concepts and operational definitions. Second, the authors look at more recent philosophical work on the epistemology of causal inference, in particular highlighting discussions in the philosophy of the behavioral and social sciences, concerning the extrapolation from laboratory contexts to the world.

scholarly journals Post-Earthquake Resurrection: Jurisprudential Diagnosis from the Standpoint of the Earthquake Victims

2017 ◽  
pp. 124-135
Author(s):  
Anil Kumar Shrestha
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Field Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
National Reconstruction ◽  
Geological Formations

Natural disaster is an ongoing phenomenon and among many, the earthquake is one. Nepal holds 11th position in the world as an earthquake prone country because of its geological formations. This paper endeavours to analyse the ongoing reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts taken by Nepal Government after the massive earthquake of 2015. The quest of Building Back Better (BBB) under the resurrection schemes for families, whose houses have been collapsed and challenges are encountered per se, following the statutory enactment and underlying opportunity and threats have been diagnosed in this paper. This study is based upon the field research done in course of conducting 90 different Community Mobile Legal Clinics (CMLCs) in the house of the earthquake victims in three most crisis hit districts i.e. Sindhupalchwok, Gorkha and Bhaktapur, where these clinics were designed to meet triad objectives of legal awareness, consultations and legal aids. The study further attempts to reflect the functions of National Reconstruction Authority for excelling the pace of reconstruction.

"China's Chernobyl": COVID-19 Narratives of Collapse and Global Domination

2021 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-706
Author(s):  
Barry Sautman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Biological Pollution ◽  
The Common ◽  
Wish Fulfillment ◽  
Party State

In COVID-19's first months, US politicians and media forecast that a contrast between Chinese deception and incapability and Western success against the pandemic might fatally sink internal confidence in China's party-state. They also predicted that it would diminish China externally, as it came to be seen as endangering the world by spreading biological pollution. A "China's Chernobyl" prediction became the latest "China collapse" wish-fulfillment. This speculation rests on two contradictory yet co-existing Yellow Peril tropes: "deceit and incompetence" and "world domination." However, no empirical basis exists for either notion: China prevailed against the pandemic and lacks the capacity for global hegemony. "China's Chernobyl" is most relevant then as a wish that creates a belief, that China should and could collapse. That in turn bolsters the US-led mobilization to counter China as a "strong competitor" and frames China as the common enemy, thereby promoting Western transnational and US internal cohesion.

Sixth/Twelfth-Century Zaydī Theologians of Yemen Debating Avicennan Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-269
Author(s):  
Hassan Ansari ◽  
Sabine Schmidtke
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
The World ◽  
Unidentified Source

Abstract This article offers critical editions of three texts by Zaydī theologians of sixth/twelfth-century Yemen refuting philosophical notions. The three texts are Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī’s (d. 573/1177-78) Kitāb al-Risāla al-munāṣifa li-l-mutakallimīn wa-l-falāsifa (Masʾalat al-nafs) and two tracts by al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188), al-Masʾala al-kāshifa ʿan buṭlān shubhat al-falāsifa, a refutation of the philosophers’ doctrine of the eternity of the world, and Masʾala fī ibṭāl al-qawl bi-talāzum al-hayūlā wa-l-ṣūra wa-anna l-jism murakkab minhumā, a refutation of hylomorphism. Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s tract, of which only a fragment has come down to us, contains four extensive quotations from an unidentified philosophical work. These are strikingly similar to those cited by Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141) in his Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn fī l-radd ʿalā l-falāsifa; likewise, Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s responses to the arguments of the philosophers closely resemble those given by Ibn al-Malāḥimī. However, a comparison of the relevant passages shows that the possibility that Qāḍī Jaʿfar had consulted Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s Tuḥfa as his source can safely be excluded. Both rather seemed to have relied on a common and so far unidentified source, possibly written by a Muʿtazilī author. Qāḍī Jaʿfar’s tract is thus another early Muʿtazilī critique of Avicennan philosophy that can shed some additional light on the reception of Ibn Sīnā’s (d. 428/1037) philosophy among the mutakallimūn before Ibn al-Malāḥimī.

What the World Is Watching

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-48
Author(s):  
Sharon Mazer
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Professional Wrestling ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Madison Square Garden

More than a vulgar parody of “real” sport, professional wrestling is a sophisticated theatricalized representation of the transgressive, violent urges generally repressed in everyday life. More than a staged fight between representatives of good and evil, at its heart is a Rabelaisian carnival, an invitation to every participant to share in expressions of excess and to celebrate the desire for, if not the acting upon, transgression against whatever cultural values are perceived as dominant and/or oppressive in everyday life. More than an elaborate con game in which spectators are seduced into accepting the illusion of “real” violence, wrestling activates and authorizes its audiences, makes them complicit in the performance. Matches can be described in conventional dramatic terms that remain consistent whether in Madison Square Garden or Gleason’s Arena. Because the fight is fixed, the contest is for heat—for the fans’ attention—rather than for victory per se.

Educational Reform

2019 ◽  
pp. 414-430
Author(s):  
Joseph Ezale Cobbinah ◽  
Michael Yamoah
Keyword(s):  
Educational Reform ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Entrepreneurial Skills ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Education Delivery

This chapter aims at examining the nature of educational reforms in general, access how they impact on the lives of the citizens, and identify some of the global perspectives of educational reforms. It examines how education could be reformed to make it equitable, address inequality and social injustice that still persists in our society. Educational programs in many parts of the world continue to undergo reformation due to governments' policy changes or ideology, yet so many people seem not to be satisfied with the nature of education delivery. The chapter concludes that educational reform should not only aim at introducing just new courses, restructure the curriculum per se but should aim at ensuring that it equips the citizenry to make them develop entrepreneurial skills, be able to find solutions to their problems and self-reliant. Reforms must also address the social inequality, social injustice, and lack of equity, social and racial discrimination that still persists in our societies today.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document