scholarly journals Humans as Animals, Animals as Humans in Seventeenth-Century Russia

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Charles J Halperin ◽  
Ann M Kleimola
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Visual Material ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
The One ◽  
Polar Opposite

The boundary between human and animal in seventeenth-century Russia was more porous than has been realized. In several witchcraft cases supposedly-bewitched humans were described as speaking like animals. Muscovite hagiography and miracle stories also portrayed the demon-possessed as speaking and acting like animals. This dehumanization of humans as animals constitutes the polar opposite of the anthropomorphizing of animals as humans in bestiaries, which depicted animals as possessing human characteristics. Visual evidence corroborates these connections between the bewitched and demon-possessed on the one hand, and animals on the other, by picturing demons and humans turning to sin with animal characteristics. Early demonic representations featured the eidalon, a Greek-based figure with animal features. This textual and visual material from seventeenth-century Muscovy zoomorphized the bewitched and demon-possessed by categorizing their behavior as beastly, as that of wild animals, and by projecting the attributes and emotions of animals onto human beings. Attributing human traits to an animal might be a compliment but ascribing traits to a human could only be a criticism, thus demonstrating and confirming the Muscovite premise of human superiority over animals.

scholarly journals Two Conceptions of Second Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
The One ◽  
First Nature

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.

Temporality and Truth

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Continuous Variation ◽  
Pure Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Time Image ◽  
Positive Light

This paper examines the intersecting of the themes of temporality and truth in Deleuze's philosophy. For the ancients, truth was something eternal: what was true was true in all times and in all places. Temporality (coming to be and passing away) was the realm of the mutable, not the eternal. In the seventeenth century, change began to be seen in a positive light (progress, evolution, and so on), but this change was seen to be possible only because of the immutable laws of nature that govern change. It was not until philosophers such as Bergson, James, Whitehead – and then Deleuze – that time began to be taken seriously on its own account. On the one hand, in Deleuze, time, freed from its subordination to movement, now becomes autonomous: it is the pure form of change (continuous variation) that lies at the basis of Deleuze's metaphysics in Difference and Repetition (and is explored more thematically in The Time-Image). As a result, on the other hand, the false, freed from its subordination to the form of the true, assumes a power of its own (the power of the false), which in turn implies a new ‘analytic of the concept’ that Deleuze develops in What Is Philosophy?

scholarly journals Carbon Valuation: Alternatives, Alternations and Lateral Measures?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Dalsgaard
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Offsets ◽  
The Other ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Carbon Markets ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The One ◽  
Selection Of

This article refers to carbon valuation as the practice of ascribing value to, and assessing the value of, actions and objects in terms of carbon emissions. Due to the pervasiveness of carbon emissions in the actions and objects of everyday lives of human beings, the making of carbon offsets and credits offers almost unlimited repertoires of alternatives to be included in contemporary carbon valuation schemes. Consequently, the article unpacks how discussions of carbon valuation are interpreted through different registers of alternatives - as the commensuration and substitution of variants on the one hand, and the confrontational comparison of radical difference on the other. Through the reading of a wide selection of the social science literature on carbon markets and trading, the article argues that the value of carbon emissions itself depends on the construction of alternative, hypothetical scenarios, and that emissions have become both a moral and a virtual measure pitting diverse forms of actualised actions or objects against each other or against corresponding nonactions and non-objects as alternatives.

scholarly journals Do Androids Dream of Electric Shocks?  Utilitarian Machine Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brendan Vize
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Machine Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
Electric Shocks ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
The One

<p>Consider Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the droid C3PO from Star Wars, or the Replicants that appear in Bladerunner: They can use language (or many languages), they are rational, they form relationships, they use language that suggests that they have a concept of self, and even language that suggests that they have “feelings” or emotional experience. In the films and TV shows that they appear, they are depicted as having frequent social interaction with human beings; but would we have any moral obligations to such a being if they really existed? What would we be permitted to do or not to do to them? On the one hand, a robot like Data has many of the attributes that we currently associate with a person. On the other hand, he has many of the attributes of the machines that we currently use as tools. He (and other science-fiction machines like him) closely resembles one of the things we value the most (a person), and at the same time, one of the things we value the least (an artefact), leading to an apparent ethical paradox. What is its solution?</p>

scholarly journals Do Androids Dream of Electric Shocks?  Utilitarian Machine Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brendan Vize
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Machine Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
Electric Shocks ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
The One

<p>Consider Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the droid C3PO from Star Wars, or the Replicants that appear in Bladerunner: They can use language (or many languages), they are rational, they form relationships, they use language that suggests that they have a concept of self, and even language that suggests that they have “feelings” or emotional experience. In the films and TV shows that they appear, they are depicted as having frequent social interaction with human beings; but would we have any moral obligations to such a being if they really existed? What would we be permitted to do or not to do to them? On the one hand, a robot like Data has many of the attributes that we currently associate with a person. On the other hand, he has many of the attributes of the machines that we currently use as tools. He (and other science-fiction machines like him) closely resembles one of the things we value the most (a person), and at the same time, one of the things we value the least (an artefact), leading to an apparent ethical paradox. What is its solution?</p>

scholarly journals Zwierzę w filozofii moralności

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-268
Author(s):  
Wiesław Dyk
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ecological Ethics ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
The One

The discussion about the rights of animals is always up-to-date. The dichotomy division into philoanimalists and philohominists, although reasonable, is not satisfactory to everyone. It is too strongly associated with the division into people and things in Roman law. To avoid this association in the context of biocentric trends in ecological ethics, accomplishments of evolutionary psychology and the concept of animal welfare, it is suggested that a third moral dimension dealing with creatures with highly developed nervous system be introduced between moral objectivity of creatures with high perception and moral subjectivity of people - creatures characterized by self-awareness and reflexive awareness. Human beings on the one hand are responsible for recognizing their rights given by nature and on the other hand, they are obliged to create a law to protect themselves.

scholarly journals The Bishop’s Role in Two Non-Catholic States

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Crucial Aspect ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The One ◽  
Catholic Reform

This paper contrasts the very different roles played by the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, on the one hand, and Turkish-occupied Hungary, on the other, in the movement of early modern religious reform. It suggests that the decision of Propaganda Fide to adopt an episcopal model of organisation in Ireland after 1618, despite the obvious difficulties posed by the Protestant nature of the state, was a crucial aspect of the consolidation of a Catholic confessional identity within the island. The importance of the hierarchy in leadership terms was subsequently demonstrated in the short-lived period of de facto independence during the 1640s and after the repression of the Cromwellian period the episcopal model was successfully revived in the later seventeenth century. The paper also offers a parallel examination of the case of Turkish Hungary, where an effective episcopal model of reform could not be adopted, principally because of the jurisdictional jealousy of the Habsburg Kings of Hungary, who continued to claim rights of nomination to Turkish controlled dioceses but whose nominees were unable to reside in their sees. Consequently, the hierarchy of Turkish-occupied Hungary played little or no role in the movement of Catholic reform, prior to the Habsburg reconquest.

Paradoxes of Christian Solitude in the Seventeenth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Louis Quantin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Status ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The One

AbstractIn seventeenth-century religious discourse, the status of solitude was deeply ambivalent: on the one hand, solitude was valued as a setting and preparation for self-knowledge and meditation; on the other hand, it had negative associations with singularity, pride and even schism. The ambiguity of solitude reflected a crucial tension between the temptation to withdraw from contemporary society, as hopelessly corrupt, and endeavours to reform it. Ecclesiastical movements which stood at the margins of confessional orthodoxies, such as Jansenism (especially in its moral dimension of Rigorism), Puritanism and Pietism, targeted individual conscience but also worked at controlling and disciplining popular behaviour. They may be understood as attempts to pursue simultaneously withdrawal and engagement.

scholarly journals Dynamics of Continuity and Change: Shifts in Labour Relations in the Potosí Mines (1680–1812)

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (S24) ◽  
pp. 93-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rossana Barragán Romano
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The One

AbstractLabour relations in the silver mines of Potosí are almost synonymous with the mita, a system of unfree work that lasted from the end of the sixteenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, behind this continuity there were important changes, but also other forms of work, both free and self-employed. The analysis here is focused on how the “polity” contributed to shape labour relations, especially from the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century. This article scrutinizes the labour policies of the Spanish monarchy on the one hand, which favoured certain economic sectors and regions to ensure revenue, and on the other the initiatives both of mine entrepreneurs and workers – unfree, free, and self-employed – who all contributed to changing the system of labour.

Filosofia, politica e società ai tempi della pandemia. Agamben e la «paranoia della ragione»

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 617-642
Author(s):  
Antonio Di Chiro
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One

In this essay we will try to analyze the thought of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben on the pandemic. The aim of the work is twofold. On the one hand, we will try to demonstrate that Agamben’s positions on the pandemic are not to be understood as mere extemporaneous statements, but as integral parts of his philosophy. On the other hand, we will try to show how these positions are based on a deeply paranoid and anti-scientific vision, since Agamben believes that the effects of the epidemic have been exaggerated by the centers of power in order to create a “state of exception” that allows to crumble social life and to use the fear of poverty as a tool to dominate society. We will try to demonstrate that it is precisely starting from the critique of Agamben’s positions that it is possible to rethink a philosophy and a politic to come and a new reorganization of social and intimate relations between human beings.

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