Against Intuitive Horribleness

Testimony by disabled people concerning the relationship between their experiences and overall well-being has long been an object of social scientific and humanistic study. Often discussed in terms of “the disability paradox,” these studies contrast the intuitive horribleness of certain impaired states against the testimonial evidence suggesting that people in such states do not in fact experience their lives as horrible. Explanations for why such testimonial evidence is suspect range from claims about adaptive preferences to issues of qualitative research methodology. In this paper, I argue that the problem lies not with the evidence, but the intuitions in question. Using the disability paradox as a case study, I further argue against the use of the concept of intuitive horribleness in social epistemology. I contend that testimonial and hermeneutical injustices are baked into most deployments of the concept, and even if one were to justify its use in select cases, it should be accompanied with prima facie suspicion. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of this analysis for the literature on transformative experience and also for the stakes of multi-cultural, historically informed philosophical analyses more generally.

El concepto de persona y la formación sacerdotal

La noción de persona es uno de los temas relevantes en el estudio humanístico, desde los griegos hasta la actualidad se le ha estudiado sumariamente y deja valoraciones comprensibles de acuerdo con el momento, de ahí que una clara definición es fundamento para una apreciación objetiva de los individuos. Abstract The notion of person is one of the relevant themes in humanistic study, from the Greeks to the present it has been studied summarily and leaves understandable assessments according to the moment, hence a clear definition is the basis for an objective appreciation of the individuals.

Vēsturiskā atmiņa Latvijas teātra jaunās paaudzes mākslinieku darbos: izrādes „Dvēseļu utenis” piemērs

The aim of the research “Historical Memory in the Works of the New Generation of Latvian Theater Artists: The Example of “The Flea Market of the Souls” is to focus on the current but at the same time little discussed topic in Latvian theater – the change of generations and the social processes connected to it, that are expressed on the level of world views, experiences, intergenerational relationships. Most directly, these changes are reflected in the phenomenon of historical memory. The concept of “postmemory” was defined by German professor Marianne Hirsch in 1992, suggesting that future generations are closely related to the personal and collective cultural traumas of previous generations, which are passing on the past experience through historical memory, thus affecting the present. Grotesque, self-irony, and focusing on socio-political, provocative questions and themes are the connecting point of the generation of young Latvian playwrights born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including such personalities as Jānis Balodis, Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce, Matīss Gricmanis, Justīne Kļava, etc. However, unlike Matīss Gricmanis or Janis Balodis who represent the aesthetics of political theater, in Justīne Kļava’s works, sociopolitical processes become the background of a generally humanistic study of the relationships between generations. This theme is represented not only in “The Flea Market of the Souls”, but also in other plays, like “Jubilee ‘98” and “Club “Paradise””. The tendency to investigate the traces left by the Soviet heritage allows to define these works as autobiographical researches of the identity of the post-Soviet generation, analyzing life in today's Latvia in terms of historical memory. Using the semiotic, hermeneutic, phenomenological approach, the play “The Flea Market of the Souls” and its production in Dirty Deal Teatro (2017) are analyzed as one of the most vivid works reflecting the phenomenon of historical memory in recent Latvian original drama.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities

How might law matter to the humanities? How might the humanities matter to law? In its approach to both of these questions, The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities shows how rich a resource the law is for humanistic study, as well as how and why the humanities are vital for understanding law. Tackling questions of method, key themes, and concepts and a variety of genres and areas of the law, this collection of chapters by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines illuminates new questions and articulates an exciting new agenda for scholarship in law and humanities.

Achiever of Higher Self: A Humanistic Study of Celie’s Character in the Novel, Color Purple

A. Maslow in his book Motivation and Personality (1954) presents the five-stage hierarchy Model, emphasizes on the fulfilment of needs to achieving higher self. Based on textual analysis, the study demonstrates how the protagonist Celie, from the novel Color Purple written by Alice Walker, follows the gratification of needs in edict to connect the higher self. The evolution of character’s personality has been appraised thoroughly at each level, gives an equal attentive of new visions into her conduct and relationships with other characters. The Colloquial African-American dialect of the text is taken metaphorically, formulates the scarcity of needs created by external milieu. It is inimitably distinguished to identify the one of the major forces after her unusual, capricious and incoherent behaviors are usual social human drives.

Formations of Belief

For decades, scholars and public intellectuals have been predicting the demise of religion in the face of secularization. Yet religion is undergoing an unprecedented resurgence in modern life—and secularization no longer appears so inevitable. This book brings together many of today's leading historians to shed critical light on secularism's origins, its present crisis, and whether it is as antithetical to religion as it is so often made out to be. The book offers a more nuanced understanding of the origins of secularist thought, demonstrating how Reformed Christianity and the Enlightenment were not the sole vessels of a worldview based on rationalism and individual autonomy. Taking readers from late antiquity to the contemporary era, the chapters show how secularism itself can be a form of belief and yet how its crisis today has been brought on by its apparent incapacity to satisfy people's spiritual needs. The book explores the rise of the humanistic study of religion in Europe, Jewish messianism, atheism and last rites in the Soviet Union, the cult of the saints in colonial Mexico, religious minorities and Islamic identity in Pakistan, the neuroscience of religion, and more.

Religion and the Public School Curriculum

This chapter provides background information on the relationship between religion and public schools and then describes the different kinds of religion courses currently offered in some public schools. While the US Supreme Court has banned compulsory devotional religious exercises, it has not banned the nondevotional teaching of religion. The different types of religion courses command different kinds of justifications, and the legal and educational merits of these justifications are presented. The author concludes by proposing a case for teaching religion that is both constitutionally and educationally acceptable. This case rests upon the importance of the development of autonomy to the liberal tradition, and it shows how the teaching of religion as a humanistic study can serve this ideal.