An Anatomy of the Collective Unconscious of Leading Women Writers

This article intends to explore the concept of feminism as presented in the works of Virginia Woolf, Mary Ann Evans, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Kamala Das and Maya Angelou.A selective study of their works is conducted to exhibit the ways in which they presented the woman characters in order to deal with socially relevant issues. Woman victimisation, racism, discrimination etc become the major focus of these writers. This article investigates the collective unconscious realm of these writers and how it influenced them in their writing. The writers’ individual conception of feminism is also studied and critiqued. The traditional conception of beauty, perfection in the works of writers like Petrarch had resulted in the general objection from the women writers and it led to the representation of women characters in their novel quite differently. The article brings to light the minute flaws in the approach of the women writers and concludes by highlighting their contribution to feminism.

Religion and Post-Socialism

Despite all the differences between different socialist states and different periods, one important feature of socialist ideology was a general objection to religion. Based on Marxist-Leninist-Maoist dogma, two main reasons were especially relevant. On the one hand, religion was considered to be a key obstacle to modernization and a major reason for backwardness. Thus, religion was perceived to be superstition. On the other hand, religion was used to legitimize the privileges of the ruling class and as a means to stay in command. Karl Marx’s famous interpretation of religion as the “opiate of the people” is the key phrase in this context. The influence of these two interpretations lost considerable ground and, with the demise of socialism, gave way to new readings. In this new reading, religion lost its negative connotations and gained more interest from the people and those in power. Religion reappeared in the public sphere and became one of the key topics for the post-socialist states. In the early 21st century, many people in these states understand the current situation by comparing it to the socialist past. Yet, the concept of post-socialism has diminishing explanatory power because the next generation has different points of reference. For the time being, however, socialism as a point of reference is still important and has left its mark on certain topics in particular. These topics are the possibility to express religious beliefs and practices in public; religious change; the interrelation among religion, politics, and the nation; the interrelation between religion and the economy; the introduction of religious education; and the interrelation between religion and morality.

Virtue Responsibilism

This chapter begins by marking the distinction between reliabilism and responsibilism in virtue epistemology. It then charts the development of virtue responsibilism through a number of authors, noting the subtle distinctions in their views. Varieties of virtue responsibilism are distinguished first, by their characterization of the intellectual virtues, and second, by the role (if any) they assign to the intellectual virtues in defining knowledge. A number of arguments against defining knowledge with reference to the intellectual virtues are surveyed. Situationism is then presented as a general objection to the very existence of either moral or intellectual virtues. It is argued that the empirical studies taken to support situationism do not demonstrate the lack of virtuous character traits when those traits are properly understood. Finally, there is a survey of the host of directions in which current approaches to virtue responsibilism are developing.

On the Nature, Existence and Significance of Organic Unities

Many philosophers have endorsed G. E. Moore’s principle of organic unities – according to which the value of a whole must not be assumed to be the same as the sum of the values of its parts – claiming this principle to be of fundamental importance to ethics. In this paper, I cast doubt on the principle. In Section 1, I provide a provisional reformulation of the principle of organic unities and contrast such unities with mere sums of value. In Section 2, I do some groundwork in order to arrive at an account of the part–whole relation with which the principle of organic unities is concerned. In so doing, I provide some further reformulations of that principle. In Section 3, I discuss the isolation method that Moore proposes for determining the value of something, and then, in Section 4, I begin an extended discussion of a particular example of an alleged organic unity, namely, Schadenfreude. I explain why some philosophers claim that such pleasure constitutes an organic unity, but I also present reasons for denying this claim. In Section 5, I pursue one of these reasons in particular, a reason that appeals to the concept of what I call evaluative inadequacy, and, in Section 6, I seek to motivate this appeal by drawing on the relation between value and fitting attitudes. In so doing, I provide still further reformulations of the principle of organic unities. In Section 7, I entertain objections to my account of Schadenfreude, one of which requires one final reformulation of the principle of organic unities, and then, in Section 8, I discuss the more general objection that, even if my reasons for denying that Schadenfreude constitutes an organic unity are cogent, these reasons do not extend to other alleged organic unities, such as the related phenomenon of Mitleid. In the final section, I address the significance of the debate about whether the principle of organic unities is true.

Aristotle on Co-causes of One’s Dispositions

In this paper I offer a close reading of Aristotle’s argument in the Nicomachean Ethics 3.5.1114a31–b25 and try to show that despite considerable interpretive difficulties, some clear structure can nevertheless be discerned. While Aristotle’s main concern in this passage is to refute the so-called asymmetry thesis – the thesis that virtue is voluntary, but vice is not – there is much more in it than just a dialectical encounter. Aristotle wants to respond to a more general objection, which has as its target the voluntariness of both virtue and vice, and which is provoked by some of his ideas in EN 3.4 and 3.5. Further, I will try to show why Aristotle thinks that we are only co-causes (sunaitioi) of our dispositions. In my opinion, his reasons have nothing to do with compatibilist or incompatibilist considerations as they are commonly understood in modern philosophy. In particular, he does not want to argue that nature (as well as social environment, early educators, etc.) is aitios of our dispositions just as ourselves are. Rather, we are co-causes of our dispositions because we are (efficient) causal origins of actions without which a certain good, which is the final cause of our actions and of our dispositions, cannot be achieved. Finally, I will try to show that Aristotle’s discussion implies that there is no more to the responsibility for dispositions than there is to the responsibility for actions.

Climacus and the Arguments for God’s Existence

This article offers an evaluation of Climacus’ objections to the arguments for the existence of God. With one exception (the critique of the ontological argument, which seems to anticipate the contemporary logico-empiricist position), these objections are found wanting. In the first general objection, Climacus seems to jump illegitimately from the objective reality of God’s existence (or non-existence) to the subjective conviction about God’s existence (or nonexistence). In the second, one might find exceptions to Climacus’ assertion that one can never deduce the existence of persons from the facts of the palpable world. Next, the objection against the teleological argument is inconclusive, since, in my opinion, Climacus does not offer a clear structure to-or critique of-this argument. Lastly, the ethico-religious objection fails because God’s existence- even if one would accept the reality of a sensus divinitatis-is not yet transparently evident to us. Nonetheless, in Climacus’ treatment of all these objections we observe similarities with certain ideas of contemporary reformed epistemology: a skepticism with regard to natural theology, a belief in a sensus divinitatis, and a positive assessment of the role of faith as an epistemological presupposition.

Epistemic Failures of Majority Rule: Real and Imagined

This chapter addresses a series of objections to the claimed epistemic properties of majority rule and, more generally, aggregation of judgments. It first considers a general objection to the epistemic approach to voting, which supposedly does not take seriously enough the possibility that politics is about aggregation of interests, rather than aggregation of judgments. The chapter also considers the objection from Arrow's Impossibility Theorem and the doctrinal paradox (or discursive dilemma). Next, the chapter addresses the problem of informational free riding supposedly afflicting citizens in mass democracies, as well as the problem of the voting paradox (as a by-product). Finally, the chapter turns to a refutation of the objection that citizens suffer from systematic biases that are amplified at the collective level.

Function 1: Defence

For much of the past two hundred years, a basic assumption has been that hillforts had a primarily defensive function. That they served also as settlements or for community gatherings, perhaps even for ritual or ceremonial activities such as seasonal festivals or inaugurations of kings, has been variously inferred, but it was not until relatively recently that the purpose of community defence within the framework of a hierarchical society was so fundamentally challenged. The reasons, however, were often based upon individual site circumstances, from which generalization hardly seems justified. At the Chesters, Drem in East Lothian (Figure 5.2a), for example, it was argued (Bowden and McOmish 1987) that the hillfort's defensive capability was compromised by being overlooked from the south by higher ground, from which missiles might have been projected into the enclosure. Tactically this seems odd, since the fort's multiple lines of enclosure, especially at its northwest- and east-facing entrances, makes it on plan one of the more complex multivallate hillforts in Britain. Whether these had realistic defensive capability or were intended primarily for display and status remains open to debate. Whilst it is certainly true in individual cases that hillforts were not sited topographically with tactical advantage as a paramount consideration, or that a regional class like the hill-slope forts of the south-west were apparently at a disadvantage from higher ground, or that the area enclosed by some hillforts was so great as to make their defence logistically impractical, equally we could cite hillforts where the enclosing earthworks by any standard would have been a very formidable barrier to assault. Every generation reads its archaeology in the conceptual context of its own time, and it is hardly surprising that a generation brought up with two world wars should have interpreted hillforts in terms of ‘invasions’. Wheeler's (1953: 12) description of Bindon Hill, Dorset, as a ‘beach-head’ could hardly have been conceived by anyone other than the brigadier who had fought through North Africa and the Salerno landing in Italy. Nevertheless it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the current challenge to the defensive role of hillforts stems not so much from individually anomalous sites as from a more general objection to the concept of conflict in prehistory, and is one facet of what has been noted earlier as the ‘pacification of the past’ (Keeley 1996: 23).

Agarose gel facilitates enzyme crystal soaking with a ligand analog

Orthorhombic crystals of the enzyme aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (AspRS) were prepared in agarose gel, a chemical alternative to microgravity or nano-volume drops. Besides providing a convection-free medium, the network of the polysaccharide improved the stability of the crystalline lattice during soaking with L-aspartol adenylate, a synthetic and non-hydrolysable analog of the catalytic intermediate aspartyl adenylate. When crystals were embedded in the polysaccharide matrix the ligand reached their surfaces more uniformly. Gel-grown crystals exhibited well defined reflections even at high resolution and low mosaicity values, despite their fairly high solvent content and the relatively harsh flash cooling procedure. By contrast, soaked AspRS crystals prepared in solution broke apart within 10–30 s after the ligand was introduced into the mother liquor, and subsequently these fragments became an amorphous precipitate. A general objection to the use of gels in protein crystallization is that chemical interactions may occur between the polysaccharide matrix and proteins or ligands. The example of AspRS shows that this is not a major concern. This method may be generally applicable to crystal soaking with other small molecules or heavy atoms.

The Standing is Slippery

This paper is a critical examination of the so-called slippery slope argument for the conservative position on abortion. The argument was discussed in the philosophic literature some time back, but has since fallen into disfavor.The argument is first exposed and a general objection to it is advanced, then rebutted. Rosalind Hursthouse's more detailed and stronger objection is next aired, but also found less than convincing. In the course of discussing her objection, the correct form of the argument is identified, and it's noted that rejection of the argument requires finding fault with its inductive premise. That, in turn, requires either (a) identifying and defending a cutoff point other than conception, or (b) not identifying a cutoff point but directly attacking the argument's conclusion. As far as (a) is concerned, all except one alternative cutoff point have severe problems that have been well discussed in the literature. The one that doesn't, the appearance of the ‘primitive streak’, is examined in detailed, but ultimately rejected. As for (b), five different grounds for rejecting the conclusion are identified and discussed, but none is found plausible.Variations on the slippery slope argument, concerning different conclusions that it may have, are then distinguished, related to each other, and critically discussed, and the paper ends with some cautionary remarks about the defense of the argument tendered.