Showing papers on "Eudaimonia published in 2000"

Pragmatism and Other Writings

Abstract: The writings of William James represent one of America's most original contributions to the history of ideas. Ranging from philosophy and psychology to religion and politics, James composed the most engaging formulation of American pragmatism. "Pragmatism" grew out of a set of lectures and the full text is included here along with "The Meaning of Truth", "Psychology", "The Will to Believe", and "Talks to Teachers on Psychology".

I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr

Abstract: Contents Preface "We as a People Will Get to the Promised Land": Martin and Us Introduction "You Don't Need to Go Out Saying Martin Luther King, Jr. Is a Saint": The American Hero Part I. IDEOLOGY Chapter 1 "I Saw That Dream Turn Into a Nightmare": From Color-Blindness to Black Compensation Chapter 2 "Most Americans Are Unconscious Racists": Beyond Liberalism Chapter 3 "As I Ponder the Madness of Vietnam": The Outlines of a Militant Pacifism Chapter 4 "America Must Move Toward a Democratic Socialism": A Progressive Social Blueprint Chapter 5 "We Did Engage in a Black Power Move": An Integrationist Embraces Enlightened Black Nationalism Part II. IDENTITY Chapter 6 "I Had to Know God for Myself": The Shape of a Radical Faith Chapter 7 "Somewhere I Read of the Freedom of Speech": Constructing a Unique Voice Chapter 8 "There Is a Civil War Going on Within All of Us": Sexual Personae in the Revolution Chapter 9 "I Have Walked Among the Desperate, Rejected, and Angry": Two Generations of the Young, Gifted, and Black Chapter 10 "The Primary Obligation of the Woman Is That of Motherhood": The Pitfalls of Patriarchy Part III. IMAGE Chapter 11 "Be True to What You Said on Paper": A Critical Patriotism Chapter 12 "I Won't Have Any Money to Leave Behind": The Ownership of a Great Man Chapter 13 "If I Have to Go Through This to Give the People a Symbol": The Burden of Representation Epilogue "Lil' Nigger, Just Where You Been?": Metaphors and Movements Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

In critical condition : polemical essays on cognitive science and the philosophy of mind

Abstract: Part 1 Metaphysics: review of John McDowell's "Mind and World" special sciences - still autonomous after all these years - a reply to Jaegwon Kim's "Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction". Part 2 Concepts: review of Christopher Peacocke's "A Study of Concepts" there are no recognitional concepts - not even RED there are no recognitional concepts - not even RED, part 2 - the plot thickens do we think in mentalese? remarks on some arguments of Peter Carruthers review of A.W. Moore's "Points of View". Part 3 Cognitive architecture: review of Paul Churchland's "The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul" connectionism and the problem of systematicity (continued) - why Smolensky's solution "still" doesn't work there and back again -a review of Annette Karmiloff-Smith's "Beyond Modularity" review of Jeff Elman et al, "Rethinking Innateness" review of Steven Mithen's "The Prehistory of the Mind". Part 4 Philosophical Darwinism: review of Richard Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable" deconstructing Dennett's Darwin is science biologically possible? comments on some arguments of Patricia Churchland and of Alvin Plantinga review of Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" and Henry Plotkin's "Evolution in Mind".

The hospitality of god : a reading of luke's gospel

Abstract: Luke portrays the life and ministry of Jesus as a divine visitation" to the world, seeking hospitality The One who comes as visitor and guest becomes host and offers a hospitality in which the entire world can become truly human, be at home, and know salvation in the depths of their hearts In The Hospitality of God Brendan Byrne, SJ, provides to-the-point commentary on those parts of Luke's Gospel that bring home to people a sense of the extravagance of God's love for them The Hospitality of God approaches Luke's Gospel through the interpretive key of "hospitality" It looks at the Gospel as a whole, yet lingers upon scenes where the theme of "hospitality" is particularly prominent, such as the infancy stories, Jesus at Nazareth, Jesus in the house of Simon, the Good Samaritan, Martha and Mary, the banquet in 14:1-35, the Prodigal Son, Jesus' visit to the tax collector Zacchaeus, the institution of the Eucharist, and the Emmaus event Byrne stresses that those in Luke's Gospel who readily offer hospitality - chiefly the marginalized and the poor - find themselves drawn into a much deeper sphere of hospitality, the hospitality of God Those who have difficulty sharing are challenged by Jesus to conversion so that they, too, may not be left out of the banquet of life to which God calls all human beings Luke's Gospel, ever interested in the process of human transformation, explores this resistance to God's gift and the ways in which individuals need to be converted if they are to come to "knowledge of salvation" Luke's Gospel is written out of faith in the risen Lord Its primary intent is to bring people of al subsequent Christian generations into saving encounter with the Lord who was raised from the dead and lives among us in the power of the Spirit Reading and hearing the Gospel in faith allows individuals and communities to access the hospitality of God brought by Jesus In this work, Byrne offers an invitation for all to join in the life-giving "hospitality of God" Chapters are "The Prologue: 1:1-4 and the Lukan Time Frame of Salvation," "The Infancy Stories I: Before the Birth of Jesus: 1:5-80," "The Infancy Stories II: The Birth and Childhood of Jesus: 2:1-52," "Prelude to the Ministry of Jesus: 3:1-4:13," "Hospitality and Inhospitality at Nazareth: Jesus Inaugurates His Mission: 4:16-30," "The Early Galilean Ministry: 4:31-6:11," "The Community of the Kingdom: 6:12-49," "Response to the Ministry of Jesus: 7:1-8:3," "Later Galilean Ministry: 8:4-9:17," "Climax of the Galilean Ministry: 9:18-50," "The Journey to Jerusalem Begins: 9:51-10:24," "The Way to Eternal Life: 10:25-11:13," "The Prophet Continues His Way I: 11:14-12:53," "The Prophet Continues His Way II: 12:54-14:35," "Celebrating God's Acceptance: 15:1-32," "The Hospitality of the Poor: Two Responses to Wealth: 16:1-31," "Towards the End of the Journey: 17:1-18:30," "Hospitality in Jericho: 18:31-19:27," "Jesus in Jerusalem: 19:28-21:4," "Hope and Endurance: Discourse on the Future: 21:5-38," "Jesus' Journey to God: The Passion Narrative I: 22:1-53," "Jesus' Journey to God: The Passion Narrative II: 22:54-23:56,"Hospitality Continues: The Community of the Risen Lord: 24:1-53" Brendan Byrne, SJ, is professor of New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, within the United Faculty of Theology, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia He is the author of the commentary Romans from the Sacra Pagina series, and Pal and the Christian Woman and is a contributor to the New Jerome Bible Handbook, published by The Liturgical Press He was Catholic Biblical Association Visiting Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome, and has also taught in Africa and East Asia Pope John Paul II named him a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1990 "

A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox

Abstract: EACH CHAPTER ENDS WITH "FOR REVIEW" AND "EXERCISES AND NOTES" SECTIONS PART I. GETTING STARTED 1. ETHICS AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE What Is Ethics? Why Study Ethics? Reading: Sarah Stillman, "Made by Us" 2. ETHICS-AVOIDANCE DISORDERS Flying by Instinct Offhand Self-Justification Dogmatism Relativism 3. ETHICS AND RELIGION An Approach to Religious Ethics Let the Stories Be Stories! Thinking for Yourself 4. ETHICAL TALK: GROUND RULES How to Have a Fruitless Debate How to Have a Useful Discussion Reading: Mary Jacksteit and Adrienne Kaufmann, The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, "Common Ground Rules" 5. SERVICE AND SERVICE-LEARNING Calls to Service Visits to a Homeless Shelter Reading: Danusha Veronica Goska, "Living Ideals" Reading: Courtney Martin, "The Ethics of Transformation" PART II. MORAL VALUES 6. TAKING VALUES SERIOUSLY Varieties of Values Attending to Values Readings for Analysis Alice Walker, "Am I Blue?" Ted Kerasote, from Bloodties 7. THE ETHICS OF THE PERSON Persons Face-to-Face Reading: Emmanuel Levinas, "Ethics and the Face" Made in the Image of God Reading: Pope John Paul II, from "Evangelium Vitae" Kant's Categorical Imperative Reading: Immanuel Kant, from Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals Rights, Equality, Justice 8. THE ETHICS OF HAPPINESS Hedonism Reading: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, from Flow Utilitarianism Reading: J. S. Mill, from Utilitarianism Reading: Bertrand Russell, from "The Harm that Good Men Do" Can Utility Be the Single Measure of Values? 9. THE ETHICS OF VIRTUE An Abundance of Virtues A Greek View of Virtue Reading: Aristotle, from Nicomachean Ethics Chinese Views of Virtue Reading: Lao Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching Cultivating Virtue Reading: John Sullivan, from Living Large 10. THE ETHICS OF RELATIONSHIPS Care Ethics Reading: Nel Noddings, from Caring Ethics and Community Reading: Kwasi Wiredu, from "The Moral Foundations of an African Culture" The Expanding Circle Reading: Aldo Leopold, from "The Land Ethic" PART III. ETHICAL PRACTICE 11. CRITICAL THINKING Facts and Sources Inferences Definitions 12. JUDGING LIKE CASES ALIKE Consistency Is a Challenge How to Restore Consistency Invented Cases Reading: Colin McGinn, "Speciesism" 13. MINDFUL SPEECH, BY SPOMA JOVANOVIC Words Matter! Deepening Ethical Dialogue Reading: Spoma Jovanovic and Roy V. Wood, from "Speaking from the Bedrock of Ethics" 14. WHEN VALUES CLASH Both Sides Could Be Right Integrating Values Big Decisions Reading: Roger Rosenblatt, "How to End the Abortion War" 15. CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING The Need for Inventiveness in Ethics Creative Exploration Creative Provocations 16. REFRAMING PROBLEMS Opening Up a Problem Reading: Fran Peavey, "Strategic Questioning" Three Methods Reframing the Abortion Debate 17. MORAL VISION Working from a Vision Environmental Visions? Reading for Analysis: Ursula K. Le Guin, "May's Lion" PART IV. MAKING A DIFFERENCE 18. YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE Self-Possession Sexual Choices Reading: Keith Clark, from Being Sexual ... and Celibate Reading: Carol Queen, from Real Live Nude Girl Eating 19. YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD The Power of One Becoming a Change-Maker Reading: Paxus Calta-Star, "Not Deterred" Reading: Ian Frazier, from On the Rez Reading: Vern Huffman, "Stories from the Cha Cha Cha" Reading: Fran Peavey, "Questioning the Media's View of Women" This Means You! 20. MAKING CHANGE TOGETHER Communities Making Change Joining a Change-Making Community Reading: Martin Fowler, "The Restorative Justice Movement" Reading: Luke Cole and Sheila Foster, "The Environmental Justice Movement" Notes for Teachers: The Toolbox in the Classroom Experiential Teaching in Ethics, by Sharon Hartline

The Erik Erikson Reader

Abstract: Erik Erikson is recognized as one of the world's leading figures in the field of pscyhoanalysis and human development. His ideas about the stages of development, the sources of identity, and the interdependence of individual growth and historical change have revised our understanding of the nature and course of psychological growth. Erikson, whose work first described the now familiar concepts of "identity crisis" and "life cycle", provided a framework for regarding the workings of the individual psyche within society and culture. Unveiling a dynamic process of psychological development, he emphasized the tendancy toward growth and the integration of multiple influences: the biological, social, psychological, cultural and historical. Erikson's work is a critical bridge for exploring the psychology of the individual in modern society. With writings from Erikson's entire career, inluding "Childhood and Society", "Insight and Responsibility", "Young Man Luther" and "Gandhi's Truth", this reader charts his influence on thinking on child psychology, the lifespan, leadership and moral growth.

I/O Psychology and the bridging of A. N. Leont'ev's activity theory.

Abstract: Soviet activity theory, largely developed by A. N. Leont'ev, can be seen as a European complement of American I/O psychology and an important current of action theories in general. This paper identifies the major strength of Leont'ev's theory as the bridging potential it achieves by situating activity between each of several major pairs of opposite poles: mind and matter or body (exemplified by thinking workers and their work tasks), subject and object, understanding and explanation, theory and practice, humanist psychology and behaviourism. Some implications of activity theory and its bridging potential are pursued in the contexts of I/O theory-construction and research methods, and in the substantive problem areas of job design, job analysis, organization development, and personnel training. An Overview of Activity Theory THE PRIMACY OF ACTIVITY "Die Tat ist alles - The deed is everything," wrote Johann Wolfgang Goethe in Faust, Part 2. For Martin Heidegger, the major problem of Western philosophy since Plato seems to have been the exclusive focus on abstractions and theory which obscure the practical activity and pre-theoretical knowledge out of which concepts and categories really evolve in the first place. G. W. F. Hegel moved away from static essences to dynamic processes, an orientation which greatly influenced the action- and revolution-oriented Karl Marx. In America, pragmatism is the philosophical school of thought most immediately associated with a focus on "the deed," on the Greek pragma ("act," "business"). Skinner (1989) reminded us that "to define" once meant "to mark the bounds or ends," that "to distinguish" was originally "to mark something by pricking it," and that "to determine" meant "to locate the end of something." On the level of human evolution, Dennett (1984, pp. 38-41) humorously traced the development of thought from overt acts of communication between "Bob" and "Alf" back in the early stone age, to internalized conversations with others and eventually with oneself. Activity theory is a conceptual framework based on the idea that activity is primary, that doing precedes thinking, that goals, images, cognitive models, intentions, and abstract notions like "definition" and "determinant" grow out of people doing things. What is unique about activity theory is that it pursues the ramifications of this idea in contexts ranging from broad philosophical issues such as the development of mind, to political economics, and to practical questions of how work impacts on the long term well-being of workers. THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND PRACTICAL FACES OF ACTIVITY THEORY Originated by L. S. Vygotsky, developed by A. N. Leont'ev (1978, 1981), influenced greatly by the general psychology of S. L. Rubinstein, and applied with vigour in both West and East Germany as well as in Scandinavia and Switzerland, activity theory can be seen as a European complement of American I/O psychology and the management practices it supports. In both Eastern and Western Europe, activity theory has emerged in two contexts. The first is the philosophical issue of the relationship between subject and object, the second is the issue of how work should be designed and executed. The two contexts overlap. Activity theory sees workers as deliberating subjects and promotes job and work design interventions which allow workers to engage in the human, i.e., thinking and reflecting, way of being. In concrete terms, activity theory seeks to increase two kinds of opportunities available to workers: Opportunities to regulate their own behaviour on the job and, in the long run, opportunities to learn and develop. Corresponding to the two contexts of the subject versus object dichotomy and the broad issue of how work should be designed, we pursue two related objectives in this article. The first is to examine this European way of looking at basic dichotomies that underlie psychological theorizing and practice with a view to bringing extremes closer together. …

Deconstruction and the 'Unfinished Project of Modernity'

Abstract: Deconstrcution "versus" postmodernism - epistemology, ethics, aesthetics postmodern ethics and the trouble with relativism deconstruction and the "unfinished project of modernity" deconstruction, postmodernism and philosophy of science "the idea of the university" - some interdisciplinary soundings ethics, autonomy and self-invention - debating Foucault "the night in which all cows are black" - Paul de Man, "mere reading" and indifference to philosophy conflict, compromise or complementarity - ideas of science in modern literary theory sexed equations and vexed physicists - the "two cultures" revisited.

Moral Relativism: A Reader

Abstract: Preface Introduciton I. GENERAL ISSUES 1. Richard Brandt, "Ethical Relativism" 2. Karl Popper, "Facts, Standards, and Truth: A Further Criticism of Relativism" 3. James Rachels, "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism" II. RELATIVISM AND MORAL DIVERSITY 4. William Graham Sumner, "Folkways" 5. Ruth Benedict, "Anthropology and the Abnormal" 6. W.D. Ross, "The Meaning of Right" 7. Michele Moody-Adams, "The Empirical Underdetermination of Descriptive Cultural Relativism" 8. Carl Wellman, "The Ethical Implications of Cultural Relativity" III. ON THE COHERENCE OF MORAL RELATIVISM 9. Betsy Postow, "Dishonest Relativism" 10. David Lyons, "Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence" 11. T.M. Scanlon, "Fear of Relativism" IV. DEFENCE AND CRITICISM 12. Gilbert Harman, "Is There a Single True Morality" 13. Philippa Foot, "Moral Relativism" 14. Martha Nussbaum, "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach" 15. Gordon Graham, "Tolerance, Pluralism, and Relativism" 16. Thomas Nagel, "Ethics" V. RELATIVISM, REALISM, AND RATIONALITY 17. J.L. Mackie, "The Subjectivity of Values" 18. Richard Brandt, "Relativism Refuted?" 19. Thomas Carson and Paul Moser, "Relativism and Normative Nonrealism: Basing Morality on Rationality" Bibliography

Teach Me Dreams: The Search for Self in the Revolutionary Era

Abstract: Illustrations xi Acknowledgment xv Introduction 3 1. "Teach me Dreams": Learning to Use Dreams to Refashion the~ Self 17 2. Whites' Black Alien Other 55 3. Blacks' White Enemy Other 106 4. "Making Men What They Should Be" 135 5. Women Seeking What They Would Be 164 Coda: "In Dreams Begins Responsibility" 206 Notes 243 Bibliography 313 Index 357

Passion, activity, and "the care of the self".

Abstract: As a way of beginning to think about Prozac, and about other "enhancement technologies" as well, let's consider these sentences from Michel Foucault's The Care of the Self, the third volume of his "History of Sexuality": In keeping with a tradition that goes back a very long way in Greek culture, the care of the self is in close correlation with medical thought and practice. This ancient correlation became increasingly strong, so much so that Plutarch is able to say, at the beginning of Advice about Keeping Well, that philosophy and medicine are concerned with a "single field" (mia chora). They do draw on a shared set of notions, whose central element is the concept of "pathos." It applies to passion as well as to physical illness, to the distress of the body and to the involuntary movement of the soul; and in both cases alike, it refers to a state of passivity, which for the body takes the form of a disorder which upsets the balance of its humors or its qualities and which for the soul takes the form of a movement capable of carrying it away in spite of itself. On the basis of this shared concept, it was possible to construct a grid of analysis that was valid for the ailments of the body and the soul.[1] In this account, ideas about passion and activity are deeply implicated in conceptions of disease and health, both physical and spiritual. The care of the self, which is the defining ambition of philosophy, and the care of the body, which is the defining ambition of medicine, are both characterized as the conquest--however temporary--of "pathos." The philosopher and the physician equally struggle against an "involuntary movement," a disorder that presses itself on one from "outside" (so to speak), upsetting the internally regulated and harmonious balance of forces that is, in the ideal, one's natural activity. Health, whether of the body or of the soul, is pictured here as a certain sort of imperviousness, a capacity to resist depredations on one's internal ordering of oneself; to be well is to exercise a particular sort of well-ordered self-determination. To be easily "moved," and especially to be subject to "involuntary movement," is dangerous; to submit to "pathos" is to open oneself to disturbance and disease. And this way of thinking is not just an historical artifact, now replaced by much more detailed and accurate physiological accounts of disease etiology. We still think in these ancient terms, especially at the level of trope (and what deeper level is there?). In the ordinary forms of our talk with one another, we constantly find ourselves picturing illness as something that besets us against our will, as a disequillibrating force from "outside" our natural ordering, a "foreign" entity against which we struggle to free ourselves. "Don't get too close; I'm fighting a cold," we caution our neighbor. Or we report, "John's depression really has him by the throat these days." Or as children we tell a silly joke to explain why we got sick: "I slept with the window open and in flew Enza." We "suffer" our illnesses, we say, and that doesn't (just) mean that they often cause us pain. It means that we bear them; they come to us as passions to be undergone, as burdens laid on us, willy-nilly, from outside our natural course of orderly and self-determined activity.[2] Even our words "pathology" and "pathogen" enshrine the ancient idea that "pathos" is essentially linked to disease. Enhancement Rightly Earned How might Foucault's analysis help us to think about Tess, the woman transformed by Prozac in one of Peter Kramer's most memorable case histories?[3] Well, when Tess was ill with her depression, she was in the grip of a "passion," an "involuntary movement" of body and soul; that is, she was "moved" off her normal (self-regulating, self-determining) course through life by a "force" from "outside" that slowed her down, sapped her energy and hope, deflected her from her ordinary aims, and diminished her capacity for self-possession. …

By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine

Abstract: By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine. By Ellen T Charry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. xiii + 264 pp. $16.95 (paper). This book corrects two distortions in Western Christian theology@ The first is the modem constriction of what is "reasonable" in theology to what can be empirically and rationally proven. The second is the premodern preoccupation with and anxiety over sin and whether one is pleasing to God. In response to both, Charry calls for a return to a patristic emphasis on "sapience," that is, the "engaged knowledge" of knowing and loving God. As a form of sapience, Christian doctrine functions as a "pastoral" pedagogy that engages the reader and listener in a life of "dignity and excellence." Charry locates her argument in relation to contemporary interest in literature as a source for moral guidance. She notes that this turn to fiction should encourage theologians to reclaim not only emotions in their reflection but such neglected sources as inference, experience, prayer, and worship. in addition, Charry draws an analogy between theology and the practical art of medicine. Like medicine, theology also requires not only "inferential knowledge" based on accumulated cases but "experimentation" and a high level of "trust" among its practitioners. Its purpose is to enable us to live more excellent lives. To support this point, Charry coins the word "aretegenic," meaning "conducive to virtue" (from the Greek arete, "virtue," and gennao, "to beget"). Christian doctrines are to be 11 aretegenic. " They exist not solely to provide correct information nor even certainty about the afterlife but "to change how we think and act-to remake us" (p. vii), And their effect on us is "salutary" Only the first and last chapters of this book make a formal defense of its thesis; the main portion develops a material argument by way of a close reading of classic texts. In this reading, Charry highlights how classical theologians were concerned with moral formation. She reads St. Paul in relation to his depiction of God's work of transforming believers, a work that is primarily public and social, and deeply ontological. Her reading of the Sermon on the Mount stresses how it calls Christians to a "new purity" and "perfection" patterned after the "model of God." She even reads early doctrinal development in this light. Athanasius's stress on the honwousios is only intelligible when set within the context of how the Incarnation restores our true nature and provides us with a standard of excellence. In turn, Basil of Caesarea makes the point that the Trinity is a "precise model of what we are to become" even as it is also "the means for its achievement" (p. 118). And Augustine's trinitarian theology is yet another pedagogy that "establishes the seeker's identity"in God's being, reassuring her that "a new and better self is both called for and possible" (p. 147). Charry is critical of the theology that comes after the patristic period for being overly preoccupied with sin and the certainty of one's salvation. Nonetheless, she is able to find even in medieval and Reformation theology indications of Christian doctrine's "salutary value." Anselm's stress on satisfaction (and honor and debt) is simply yet another strategy leading us to God's standard for us--the rescue of others for the sake of justice and mercy working in tandem" (p. …

Peirce, semiotics, and psychoanalysis

Abstract: James Phillips, "Peircean Reflections on Psychotic Discourse" John E. Gedo, "Protolinguistic Phenomena in Psychoanalysis" John Muller, "Hierarchical Models in Semiotics and Psychoanalysis" Joseph H. Smith, "Feeling and Firstness in Freud and Peirce" Wilfried Ver Eecke, "Peirce and Freud: The Role of Telling the Truth in Therapeutic Speech" Angela Moorjani, "Peirce and Psychopragmatics: Semiosis and Performativity" David Pettigrew, "Peirce and Derrida: From Sign to Sign" Vincent Colapietro, "Further Consequences of a Singular Capacity" Teresa de Lauretis, "Gender, Body, and Habit Change".

The Fear of Happiness Anthropological Motives

Abstract: Anthropologies are different – but Man has seldom been defined as a creature of happiness. Especially in German philosophy there has been a deep scepticism against happiness, most famously in Schopenhauer's pessimistic world view, but also in the desperate visions and in the heroic cynicism following from them in Nietzsche's philosophy. Although Kant and Hegel – influenced by liberal (‘English’) thoughts – have not under estimated the happiness of the single individual, the majority of philosophers – particularly the representatives of Philosophical Anthropology in the 20th century (Scheler, Plessner and Gehlen) – remained (as will be examined in this essay in more detail) sceptical about happiness as fulfilment. In this topos there is also an evident emotion against mass society and a cultural-critical aversion to the eudaimonia of consumerism. In this way, from the point of view of the educated elites, happiness in modern times can only be found in social and intellectual distance, e.g. in the ‘security’ of contemplation (especially after fascism with its promises of an activism bringing happiness). The dominant element seems to be a philosophical fear of happiness, of decadence and of ‘happy’ nivellement. Even Goethe had seen Dr. Faustus losing his life and eternal salvation when he was thinking of the moment as so beautiful that it should remain so forever. But in spite of all these attitudes and modes of sceptical thinking, it may be neither naive nor ‘uncritical’ to concur with Blaise Pascal: ‘That pleasure is good and suffering bad does not need further evidence. The heart feels it’.

Lolita's Loose Ends: Nabokov and the Boundless Novel

Abstract: Early reviews of Lolita (1958), from both admirers and detractors, concocted the perfect mixture for an American best-seller: with praise for the novel's writerly achievement and comedy mixed with condemnation of its "highbrow pornography" (Boyd 364), the popular groundswell that greeted "Hurricane Lolita" was almost inevitable. The novel and subsequent Stanley Kubrick film, with their pedophile narrator and his nymphet prey, soon entered the national mythology. And as the more recent film adaptation demonstrates, this story possesses a seemingly inexhaustible power to incite controversy. Because of this immediate and continual controversy, few readers have encountered the novel without some preconceptions about its salacious content. Merely cracking such a scandalous book cedes immense liberties to the author who then spirits us into a world where the principal character violates fundamental taboos, criminal laws, and social mores with more evident glee than disgust. Even the earliest, naive readers found a dmonitions enough in the "foreword" by fictional psychologist "John Ray, Jr., Ph.D.," who amply enumerates his disgust for the author of the "Confession" to follow: "No doubt, he is horrible," Ray writes, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy....A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. (5) Those inclined to skip prefatory remarks discover within three short paragraphs that the narrator's obsession is a diminutive ("four feet ten"), school-aged "girl-child" and Humbert himself, a "murderer." The reader, like Humbert on his cross-country tour and like Nabokov in creating such a fiction, enters a world where the most egregious offenses have already been conceded and "everything [is] allowed" (268). In this environment marked by severe initial crimes and admissions, Humbert's less severe transgressions, his everyday incivilities, become more humorous than damning as he comments devilishly on the superficial faults of people around him, fiddles with ridiculously "wrong" verbs, and dismisses one pompous and overzealous dentist with these words: "On second thoughts, I shall have it all done by Dr. Molnar. His price is higher, but he is of course a much better dentist than you." I do not know if any of my readers will ever have a chance to say that. It is a delicious dream feeling. (291) Humbert couples this disregard for taboos and the niceties of social interaction with an abuse of poetic license, the excesses of prose that become a badge of his outlaw status: "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style" (9), he writes. He defends these literary transgressions with the same excuses--his psychological instability, Lolita's irresistibility, and the relativity of tastes and mores--that he hopes will mitigate his crimes. With Lolita he feels "lost in an artist's dream" as he attempts to "fix" her unadulterated form in words and, while touring the American landscape, to evoke the "delicate beauty ever present in the margin" (152). The author's concluding remarks, "On a Book Entitled Lolita," affixed to every edition but the first, identifies the novel as a purely artistic enterprise designed to produce a state of "aesthetic bliss" (314). In response to an American critic who characterized it as the product of a "love affair with the romantic novel," Nabokov writes that "the subst itution of 'English language' for 'romantic novel' would make this elegant formula more correct" (316). Like Pale Fire (1962), Lolita begins with an immoderate conceit that allows its author and reader to explore the extravagant, pleasurable, and disturbing fringes of the language. But as Kauffman points out, Nabokov's commentary on Lolita has become as essential to the fiction as John Ray's more explicitly fictional foreword (131). Ray introduces the novel with promises of a "moral apotheosis" (5), and "an impersonation of Vladimir Nabokov" (311) polishes it off with an equally monologic elevation of art over morality. …

Identity and Substance in Hume and Kant

Abstract: According to Hume, the idea of a persisting, self-identical object, distinct from our impressions of it, and the idea of a duration of time, the mere passage of time without change, are mutually supporting "fictions". Each rests upon a "mistake", the commingling of "qualities of the imagination" or "impressions of reflection" with "external" impressions (perceptions), and, strictly speaking, we are conceptually and epistemically entitled to neither.

The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible's Writers

Abstract: The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible's Writers, by S. David Sperling. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History. New York/London: New York University Press,1998. Pp. xiv + 185. $40.00. The generating insight of this interesting and provocative book is that because "the authors of the Torah set their tales in times and places far removed from their own," its stories "are best described as allegories, narratives contrived to describe a second order of meaning from what they present on the surface" (p. 8). According to Sperling, the allegorical reading is not an option but a requirement "because [the Torah] cannot be read historically," critical scholarship having demonstrated that "nothing in the Torah is historical." It is this involvement with the results of historical critical study that differentiates Sperling's method from other, more traditional modes of allegorical reading. "I find myself secularizing Paul," he writes with reference to the use of typology in 1 Cor 10:11. "The things that supposedly `happened' were `symbolically recorded for us,' that is, if we understand `us' to be the earliest and primary audiences of the writers of the Torah" (p. 9). Sperling not only secularizes Paul; he also stands the apostle's method on its head. Whereas Paul, like all ancient allegorists, sought to show the applicability of the narratives beyond their own time, Sperling consistently and univocally restricts their meaning to the situation in which they were composed and, moreover, insists that the political function of the texts is their sole meaning. His reduction of significance to the realm of politics is so thoroughgoing that he can even assert that "[w]hen contemporary readers try to discover the ancient agenda, they are, in fact, coming closer to understanding [YHWH]," since "[YI-IwH] always stands for the agenda of the individual writer" (p. 136). In each of the six studies that comprise the core of the book, Sperling's method is twofold. He first demonstrates the lack of historicity in the pentateuchal narrative under discussion and then correlates the narrative with a later political situation that he thinks unlocks its real meaning. In chapter 3, "The Allegory of Servitude in Egypt and the Exodus," for example, he builds upon the absence of evidence for an origin of Israel outside Canaan and for an Israelite enslavement in Egypt to argue that these notions constitute the "ideological statement" of a group of dissident elements" in Late Bronze Age Canaan (pp. 47, 52). Pharaoh's imposition of corve (mas) on Israel for his forced-labor projects (sebel, Exod 1:11) thus does not refer to "institutions of subjugation in Egypt proper" at all. Rather, it is an allegorical representation of Israel's "withdrawing from the Egyptian system [of political domination in Canaan] . . . as a withdrawal from the land of Egypt itself" (p. 56). The "inspiration for the Israelite ideologues" lay in the arrival from abroad of Aramaeans and sea peoples (Amos 9:7; p. 57). Similarly, chapter 4 argues that the covenant of Israel with YHWH is properly understood as "the religious expression of the mundane cultic and military union of different groups that had merged to form the people of Israel" (p. 71). The fifth chapter develops multiple points of connection between Abraham and David, some of them novel and some not, in order to present the Abrahamic narratives as subservient to the political needs of David and his dynasty. The patriarch's covenant with Abimelech in Gen 21, for example, "serves as an apology for David's pact with the Philistines" (p. 89). On the basis of Jeroboam I's association with Penuel (1 Kgs 12:25), the site of Jacob's struggle with a divine being (Gen 32:23-33), Sperling maintains in chapter 6 that "Jacob serves here as an allegory of Jeroboam" (p. 93). But the same chapter sees the Joseph story, too, as "a thinly veiled allegory" of Jeroboam I, the northern king whose ascent to power was foretold by a prophet and who, like Joseph, "had been protected by Pharaoh and risen to great power under the ultimate protection of [YHWH]" ( 1 Kgs 11-12; p. …

German 20th century philosophy : the Frankfurt school

Abstract: This work contains writings of members of the Frankfurt School including: "On the Concept of Philosophy" by Max Horkheimer; "Reflections from Damaged Life" and selections from "Aesthetic Theory" by Theodor W. Adorno; "Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin; and "On Hedonism", "Solidarity", and "The Catastrophe of Liberation" by Herbert Marcuse; and "Adorno: The Primal History of Subjectivity", "Benjamin: Conciousness-Raising or Raising Technique", and "Marcuse: Psychic Thermidor" by Jurgen Habermas.

Godwin from "Metaphysician" to Novelist: "Political Justice", "Caleb Williams", and the Tension between Philosophical Argument and Narrative

Abstract: To William Hazlitt, the publication of William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams in 1794, only a year after Godwin had published his philosophical treatise An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, was something unprecedented: "It was a new and startling event in literary history," Hazlitt wrote, "for a metaphysician to write a popular romance."' What was remarkable was not just that a single person would write books in two such different modes but that the novel would clearly follow up the philosophical program expounded in the treatise. There may be no other case as prominent in which a novel succeeds a philosophical treatise so closely in time, is so closely connected to its concerns, and yet is so unprogrammatic. Accordingly, a number of critics have explored the relations between Caleb Williams and Political Justice, especially the complex ways in which the novel, while sharing and pursuing many of the political and philosophical positions of Political Justice, diverges from them. Yet there has been little discussion of what is arguably the central point of Hazlitt's comment: the difference in form between a narrative and a philosophical argument. Much of the incompatibility between Political Justice and Caleb Williams can be seen as arising from the conflict between the austerely logical approach of Political Justice and the narrative account of Caleb Williams. Political Justice proceeds as if proper (largely utilitarian) principles will enable us to make moral and political choices almost mathematically, as if we will be able to judge situations and persons in a straightforward way; it avoids narrative thinking. But Caleb Williams shows that situations and persons are understood by way of narratives, and (unlike Godwin's next novel, St. Leon [1799]) it emphasizes the problems inherent in

Ariska idoler: Den indoeuropeiska mytologin som ideologi och vetenskap

Abstract: By using ancient texts, medieval documents, philological observations, and archaeological artifacts, scholars have reconstructed a prehistorical world and religion. The people who upheld this culture have been named, inter alia, "Indo-Europeans", "Aryans", "Japhetites" and "Wiros". Yet, these people have not left any texts, no artifacts can with certainty be ascribed to them, nor do we know any individual "Indo-European" by name. Despite this, scholars have, with help from daring historical, linguistic and archaeological reconstructions, persistently tried to reach the ancient Indo-Europeans in hopes of finding the foundations for their own culture and religion. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that these pre-historical peoples have not occupied modern man because they were important as historical agents, but because they were, with the words of Claude Levi-Strauss, "good to think". The interest in "the Indo-Europeans", "the Aryans" and their "Others" — which latter group has at times been described as Jews, Savages, Orientals, Aristocrats, priests, matriarchal farmers, martial pastoralists, French liberals, and/or German nationalists — was (and still is) motivated by a wish to construct alternatives to those identities given by tradition. The study of the Indo-Europeans, their culture and religion, has been a way to produce new concepts, new identities and thus an alternative future. Chapter 1 describes how the concept of an Indo-European entity evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries out of speculations on the identity of different people mentioned in the Bible, out of the discovery of similarities between Indic and European languages, and out of romantic ideas about race and Volk. Chapter 2 deals with the first paradigm in the Indo-European studies, the Nature-Mythological school, and its relationship to Christianity, anti-Semitism and liberal-bourgeois mentality. Chapter 3 discusses the "primitivization" of the "Indo-Europeans" that developt at the end of the 19th century due to nationalism and vitalistic philosophy. Chapter 4 analyses the relationship between the study of Indo-Germanic or Aryan religion in the Third Reich and Nazi ideology. Chapter 5 treats theories that were created as alternative to Nazi scholarship by fascist, Catholic scholars. That chapter also deals with the developments in the study of Indo-European religion and culture during the last half of the 20th century

The Ethics of Suffering: Modern Law, Philosophy and Medicine

Abstract: Introduction: the premises - ethics, proximity, law the arguments, the theoretical context and the order of presentation of ideas. What's in a face? Law and the man without consciousness: the death of my other and the surviving "me" - non-sense and sensibility legal vision and the appropriation of death's absurdity the case of common law the other as "living thing" and legal closure - "freedom (from the other) or death!" Rights as compassion - law and the incompetent: Levinas' disinterested intensities and "good violence" the law on the consent of the incompetent the shame the guilt "empathy". Medicine, law and the non-sense of suffering: suffering as non-phenomenon in the matter of the right to procreate affective "sincerity" the exceptionalization of the doctor-patient relationship in medical law the scene of irresponsibility for suffering - scientific medicine. Medico-legal mysteries: legal ambivalence towards the doctor-patient relationship theoretical ambiguities towards the ethics of care shared treatment decision making false witness in the matter of "informed consent" - how the object of medico-legal interest is the patient's soul-less "being". The "naked being" - a face (non-persona) grata: the constitutive ethical perversity of modern law the redundant expulsion of ethical subjectivity ethical proximity in the ethics of alterity and the "aporia of justice" the Messiah is me. Neighbours: obsession with "informal justice" the other left in the cold and brought back to the fold between unwarranted optimism and despair "seeking ego without adversity" of pastors converting the being-for-the-other into "collective good" beyond formal-informal justice.

Plato and Platonism

Abstract: In this volume, a distinguished group of philosophers aims to offer fresh insight into Platonic studies. Combining research with analysis, the authors present 14 essays on various dimensions of Plato's thought. Most of Plato's dialogues are examined, from such Socratic texts as "Protagoras", "Euthyphro" and "Crito" to the allegedly late "Sophist", "Statesman" and "Laws". Several essays explore specific philosophical problems raised in a single Platonic dialogue. Some offer in-depth analysis of one dialogue - for instance, the volume includes two very different but highly provocative essays on "Timateus". Others pursue a topic or theme that runs throughout a number of dialogues, and others speak about the Platonic heritage and the thought of ancient philosophers who regarded themselves as faithfully preserving and transmitting the doctrines of their master. The major subject divisions of philosophy are covered, with considerable attention being paid to issues of Platonist methodology.

Sittlichkeit, Religion und Geschichte in der Philosophie Kants

Abstract: Dieser Beitrag verfolgt ein systematisches Ziel. Er will weder eine Entwicklung in Kants Denken noch die Gestalt aufzeigen, die es in einem bestimmten Werk Kants angenommen hat. Er basiert auf der Uberzeugung eines seit der Kritik der reinen Vernunft im wesentlichen konsistenten systematischen Zusammenhangs dieses Denkens. Unterschiede, die bei einem Vergleich zwischen den einzelnen Werken sichtbar werden, beruhen zumeist auf einer jeweils unterschiedlichen Aufgabenstellung und bestatigen bei naherer Betrachtung oft in verbluffender Weise eben jenen Zusammenhang. So erklart es sich auch, das in dem Beitrag haufig zum selben Punkt aus verschiedenen Schriften zitiert bzw. auf solche verwiesen wird. Summary The contribution starts with a concise account of Kant's moral philosophy. It is shown that a moral will is necessarily an autonomous will and that only the formal" character of the moral law can establish its universal validity. Some widespread misunderstandings are discussed, especially with regard to the alleged emptiness of the moral law; the relationship between duty and inclination; the role of natural incentives in a moral will; and the necessary objects of such a will. This leads to the idea of the highest good (happiness in proportion to worthiness) as the objective final end and duty of a finite rational being. Again, typical misunderstandings are dealt with: the reproach of eudaimonism, and heteronomy, and the role of the highest good as incentive; and an alleged inconsistency between Analytic and Dialectic of the Second Critique. In the then following discussion of Kant's doctrine of the postulates and his philosophy of religion, it is shown that religion is totally dependent on morality as philosophy of religion is on moral philosophy; that a belief in God is required neither for the validity of the moral law nor for the obedience to it; that the so-called moral proof is not a proof of God's existence, but only of the practical necessity of its assumption; and that the idea of the highest good refers throughout exclusively to another world. The last chapter first gives a concise account of Kant's teleological philosophy of history and then comes to the result of the whole inquiry: that there is a principle difference between philosophy of religion and philosophy of history which makes them not only independent of each other, but also keeps them in well distinguished fields. The philosophy of religion presupposes moral philosophy. Its main function is to determine what the idea of God morally means to man. Its achievement is to yield a reason of belief for the hope that the realization of the highest moral good is possible and that therefore the moral life of man is not necessarily pointless, as long as he fulfills his respective duty. It has (practical) meaning only for the one who is conscious of being subject to the moral law and ready to act accordingly. The philosophy of history on the other hand presupposes especially the doctrine of right. Its main function is to determine what the future of mankind on earth politically means to man. Its achievement is to yield empirical reasons for the hope that the realization of the highest political good is possible and that therefore the political life of man is not necessarily pointless, as long as he fulfills his respective duty. It has (practical) meaning only for the one who is conscious of being subject to the law of right and ready to act accordingly, although, it is true, the attainment of the historical aim itself is possible even by acting from purely prudential reasons.

Beyond the Left and the Right

Abstract: Literary and cultural criticism of the last twenty years has increasingly turned away from taxonomies of "Right" and "Left" and toward the problem of the relation of "global" to "local:' Paul Gilroy describes this shift with regard to the study of race in literature and culture in his interdisciplinary The Black Atlantic: Regardless of their affiliation to the right, left, or centre, groups have fallen back on the idea of cultural nationalism, on the overintegrated conceptions of culture which present immutable, ethnic differences as an absolute break in the histories and experiences of"black" and "white" people. Against this choice stands another, more difficult option: the theorisation of creolisation, m tissage, mestizaje, and hybridity. (Gilroy 1993, 2) Gilroy's project exemplifies a move in literary and cultural criticism towards an analysis of the relation of individual subjectivity to a network of groups that include, among others: race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and disability. The "more difficult option" that Gilroy proposes is to localize, to particularize the almost inherently bi-polar nature of the global. While it might appear (particularly in light of the near-disappearance of communism and the relative decline of socialism, especially in Europe) that criticism and theory have, in the main, become "post" political, they are instead concerned with a different politics, governed by a collage of seemingly postmodern "identities." The postmodern individual's relation to the social might seem to disintegrate, but Gilroy's point is that the locality of subject is composed of varying mixtures of global social forces, which amount to more than the sum of their parts. Left and Right, as they have been developed in the West, are of course spatial metaphors, which represent the domain of politics to be linear. Before modernity's preoccupation with representing politics in binary spatial metaphors in the late eighteenth century, politics was thought to negotiate the domains of the individual and the social. Aristotle opens his Politics with this definition: "Observation shows us, first, that every polis . . . is a species of association, and, secondly, that all associations are instituted for the purpose of attaining some good-for all men do all their acts with a view to achieving something which is, in their view, a good" (1946, 1). Prior to modernity, politics concerns the practice and development of a mutually beneficial relationship between society and those who qualify as individuals. Progressively collapsing the space between individual and society, the modern Left/Right political model finds its origin, in part, in the ancient, mythic conflict between sacred (valoriation and reification of tradition) and profane (revolution and leveling) that accompanies any development in what Aristotle calls "association." During their eighteenth-century formation, neither the Left nor the Right makes much attempt to distinguish between the individual and society; each is a function of the other in both conservative and revolutionary politics. In the ideology of the Right, the individual's "freedom" is championed, yet society retains the power to regulate certain necessities, such as private property and the "free" market. On the other hand, for the Left, the individual owes her existence to society-"individualism" is an ideological function of conservatism-yet the revolution is led by a privileged "vanguard" and the cult of personality The late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury "debate" in the rising international Left between "communists" and "anarchists" presages the late twentieth century critical shift from a taxonomy of Rightness and Leftness to analyzing distinctions between discourses of individual and society Poet lay Parini's Some Necessary Angels: Essays on Writing and Politics, literary historian Theodore Ziolkowski's The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises, and cultural critic Andrew Ross's Real Love: In Pursuit of Cultural Justice each represent one of the three major moves that dominate political, literary, and cultural criticism in the final twenty years of the twentieth century: valorizing subjectivity, balancing subject and society, and championing social identity. …

What's in a name? : A study of sobriquets in the Pesharim

Abstract: The present study addresses the problem of a simplistic historical interpretation of the sobriquetsin the pesharim. An alternative approach is advocated taking its beginning in perceiving themessage in the pesharim as primarily an ideological vindication of the Qumran community, theYahad. The role and function of the sobriquets comes in this context close to the phenomenonknown as nicknaming. A comparison is made with similar biblical designations, e.g. "king ofthe South" and `king of the North" in Daniel 11, Pompey in the Psalms of Solomon, "Babylon"in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, "the synagogue of Satan" and "the womanJezebel" in Revelation. On the basis of these analogies it is concluded that such inventedepithets are derived from biblical concepts and expressions. However, there is no intention ofsecrecy when designing such epithetsIn the case of three categories, namely sobriquets of enemies, honourable sobriquets andsobriquets of rulers, these designations are to be understood from a biblical angle and from theperspective of the Yahad. Thus "the Wicked Priest" has failed to fill his obligation as a priestand has become instead a physical danger towards the community. "The Man of the Lie", withhis second name "the Spreader of the Lie" imposes a direct authoritative threat against theYahad. Likewise "the Seekers of Smooth Things". This group has received its epithet mainlyfrom their alleged alliance with the ruling power in Jerusalem. Together with "Ephraim", "Manasseh", "the House of Peleg " "the traitors" and "the House of Absalom", the two latter, designations belongs to a sphere of groups and factions, which left the realm around the Yahad.The key to the meaning of their designations is betrayal. "The Teacher of Righteousness" is thedesignation of the founder and inspirer of the Yahad. This title reflects his crucial functions forthe Yahad. "The Doers of the Torah" designates the faithful adherents to the Teacher. Both theKittim and the Angry Lion are godly authorised retaliators of the wicked within the own People.A consequence of the investigation is that the sobriquets cannot be one-sidedly understood as anhistorical cipher. Even if the epithets originated in an historical situation, their primary functionis to evaluate different characters and groups.

"Erasing Angel": The Lucifer-Trickster Figure in Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction

Abstract: "A dimension taken away is one thing; a dimension added is another." --Flannery O'Connor, "The Fiction Writer and His Country" "The origins, liveliness, and durability of cultures," writes cultural historian Lewis Hyde, "require that there be space for figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that culture is based on" (9). In his excellent study Trikster Makes This World (1998), Hyde joins a long and distinguished line of critics examining the archetypal trickster-figure in world mythologies: a figure of mischievous disruption characterized by rule-breaking, lies, theft, shape-shifting, and wordplay; a citizen of contingencies and thresholds who, while subverting and denigrating existing orders, paradoxically thereby allows for a creative reanimation and restoration of social and metaphysical order. The fraternity of trickster-figures is a familiar one in folklore and myth: Hermes in Greek antiquity, the Chinese Monkey King, the Norse prankster Loki and East Africa's spider-god Anansi (transformed in American Gulla dialect to the folkloric "Aunt Nancy"), the Native American figures of Coyote and Raven, the Yoruba Eshu and the Maori trickster Maui, to mention just a few. From Puck to Prometheus, the pervasiveness of this image in human narrative suggests its centrality as an emblem for redemptive chaos and transformative disorder. Although Flannery O'Connor's short fiction has long been anchored in the genre of Christian allegory, I believe that viewing her works through the lens of this archetype can expand received readings of her fiction. It may offer new insights as well into O'Connor's unique blend of comedy and corruption that characterizes her rendition of evil in the world. Specifically, her caricatures of Lucifer in four of her more allegorical stories of the 1950s--Tom Shiftlet in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Manley Pointer in "Good Country People," The Misfit in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and Powell Boyd in "A Circle in the Fire"-- share much with the folkloric figure of Trickster, not merely in their individual aspects as agents of chaos, but in the paradoxically redemptive function they perform. Such folkloric and mythic elements in O'Connor have so far received scant critical attention. Of various genre studies, only one extended work --Ruthann Knechel Johansen's The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor: The Trickster as Interpreter (1994)--takes up at any length the figure of the trickster in O'Connor. However, I believe Johansen's depiction of this archetypal figure manages to be on the one hand too broad, and on the other too benign. In the context of a narratological analysis of O'Connor's prose, Johansen associates tricksters with "interpreters": Hebraic prophets, mediators, inspired "newsbearers," and facilitators who are "always on the side of human beings" (31)--and ultimately she sees trickster as an emblem of the narrative act itself, a psychic embodiment of "the ironic imagination." While hermeneutically interesting, this more benevolent expansion of the archetype downplays much of the disruptive, purposeless, and chaotic nature of both the mythic trickster and O'Connor's use of him. Far from being a "Christlike" seducer or helpful reconciler of conflicts (31), Trickster classically functions far more dynamically as the principle of disorder, a catalyst for subversion and loss. He is the "border breaker," the outlaw, the anomaly; deceiver and trick player, shape-shifter and situation-inverter; sacred messenger and "lewd bricoleur"(1)--one who, according to Joseph Campbell, "doesn't respect the values that you've set up for yourself, and smashes them" (qtd in Hynes and Doty 1). While Johansen does capture the essential ambiguity of this figure and acknowledges his "havoc-wreaking" as a ritual of renewal, in many ways her reading, when applied to O'Connor's fiction, becomes overly inclusive of all ironic or indeterminate figures. …

William Godwin's Foreign Language: Stories and Families in Caleb Williams and Political Justice

Abstract: IT IS NOW WIDELY ACCEPTED THAT BOTH GODWIN'S TREATISE, AN ENQUIRY Concerning Political Justice (1793) and his major work of narrative fiction, Things As They Are; Or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) are "designed to achieve change and also designed to refute the case for the status quo familiarised, above all, by Burke."(1) Nevertheless, the two books must be designed to fulfill this objective in different ways, if only because the design--the form--of a novel and a treatise are different. It has been convincingly argued--notably by Gary Kelly, Pamela Clemit and Jon Klancher--that Godwin was alert to the complexity of the relationship between politics and narrative form.(2) The present essay shares that view, while also making a number of further claims. The relationship between politics and narrative is in fact, I shall argue, a principal preoccupation of both Political Justice and Caleb Williams. I shall also argue, however, that Godwin's treatment of' this relationship is as interesting for its uncertainties as for its intelligence, uncertainties which derive in part from the semantic instability of the vocabulary available for its discussion. To focus a discussion of narrative and politics on "stories and families" is immediately to beg one of the questions it is my purpose to answer. That is, is a family a political institution? The answer to that question will clearly depend on what is meant by the word "family"; and it will also depend, I shah suggest, on what is meant by the word "story." In what follows I shall explore the relationship between stories and families in Caleb Williams and Political Justice by focusing on Godwin's often puzzling use of two groups of words: on the one hand, words used to describe narrative or features of narrative, including "story," "history," "character" and "narrative" itself; on the other hand, words for significant social relationships, including "family," "domestic," "servant" and "master." These words--the narrative words and the social words--have always been complex. They were especially complex in the period of Godwin's writing life because they were all undergoing semantic transformation. They are of course distinct lexical groups and a change of meaning within one group does not necessarily or immediately entail a shift of meaning in the other. The two groups are nevertheless connected, if only because changes in all these words helped to alter the way in which the distinction between public life and private life was conceived. Private life came to be associated with, on the one hand, the "family" as James Mill defined it in 1829, "the group which consists of father, mother, and children,"(3) and, on the other hand, with a conception of personal identity that was inward in the specific sense of being detached--in a way I shall describe--from any open connection to narrative representation. It is interesting to watch some of these words at work in specific passages. In the Preface written for the first edition of Caleb Williams in 1794, Godwin tells his readers that the following narrative is intended to answer a purpose more general and important than immediately appears upon the face of it. The question now afloat in the world respecting THINGS AS THEY ARE, is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols, in the warmest terms, the existing constitution of society. It seemed as if something would be gained for the decision of [the] question, if that constitution were faithfully developed in its practical effects. What is now presented to the public, is no refined and abstract speculation; it is a study and delineation of things passing in the moral world. It is but of late that the inestimable importance of political principles has been adequately apprehended. It is now known to philosophers, that the spirit and character of the government intrudes itself into every rank of society. …

And Meaning for a Life Entire: Festschrift for Charles A. Moser on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday

Abstract: Peter Rollberg. And Meaning for a Life Entire: Festschrift for Charles A. Moser on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Columbus: Slavica, 1997. 510 pp. A festschrift is ever eine schone Sache. Contributors are allowed to pay homage to the intellectual achievement of a prominent scholar while at the same making further contributions to the recipient's fields of study. This festschrift in honor of the distinguished Slavist Charles A. Moser is a fine example of this ideal. Framed with a foreword by Rollberg, the compiler and editor, and selections of Bulgarian and Russian poetry translated by Charles Moser and Jonathan Chaves, the core of the volume comprises 31 scholarly articles whose topics range from the Vita Methodii to Russian Village Prose, from readings of Nabokov to the teaching of Russian. The contributions, which provide a mix of thematic and theoretical approaches, are arranged chronologically and thematically and conclude with a selection of studies on language pedagogy and linguistics. Taken as a whole, And Meaning for a Life Entire offers a fine selection of excellent essays over a broad range of topics. The collection opens with two contributions devoted to literature written before the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the central time period treated in the other essays. Alexander Schenker's "The Trinitarian Symbolism in Vita Methodii" examines the number symbolism in the vita, documenting and contrasting its symbolism of "three," as compared to the presence of "seven" in Vita Constantini. In "Derzhavin's Secular Dilogy," the late Efim Etkind provides a detailed reading of two thematically and biographically related poems written by Derzhavin at an eleven-year interval: "To the First Neighbor" (1780) and "To the Second Neighbor" (1791). While indicating the specificity of each epistle, Etkind also demonstrates their relationship in terms of genre and formal symmetry. The treatment of nineteenth-century literature opens with three articles devoted to Pushkin. In "Pushkin's Pretenders: From the Poet in Society to the Poet in History," David Bethea discusses the issue of samozvanstvo or "pretendership" in two of the Russian author's works, and seeks essentially to identify literary evidence of change in his thinking on history and agency in the 1820s and 1830s. The next two papers treat aspects of Pushkin's oeuvre from a comparative perspective. Mark Altshuller tentatively reconstructs "Plan for the Story of a Strelets' Son" employing the poetics developed in Walter Scott's novels, while Lyubomira Parpulova-Gribble establishes some of the common intertextual connections between Pushkin's A Feast During the Plague and Yordan Yovkov's "In Time of Plague." The following six articles are linked by their concern with various facets of Dostoevsky's writing, either individually or in comparative relation to other works and common themes. Peter Hodgson focuses on Gogol's "Notes of a Madman" and Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" as a means of furthering knowledge of the narrative matter of skaz. In one of the finest essays of the collection, "How Much Do Dead Souls Weigh?," Gary Saul Morson offers a wide-ranging discussion of "palpable nothing," or felt absence, in Russian literature. After treating Gogol and Dostoevsky, Morson arrives at the tragic examples of nonexistence and forced absence found in Solzhenitsyn, particularly in The Gulag Archipelago. In his article, Bruce Ward discusses Dostoevsky's treatment in The Brothers Karamazov of contemporary theological issues, namely "the relationship between religious faith and modern science and the problem of articulating suitable models of the divine." In "Dostoevskian Fools-Holy and Unholy," Jostein Botnes provides in a related vein a detailed analysis of Dostoevsky's differentiated use of the concept of "holiness." Victor Terras, in his excellent "How Much Does Dostoevskii Lose in Translation?," compares two fine translations of The Brothers Karamazov as a means of discussing several of the issues involved in literary translation. …

"Peeping Toms on History": Barry Hannah's Never Die as Postmodern Western

Abstract: In his thoughtful essay "Home by Way of California: The Southerner as the Last European," Lewis P. Simpson explores what seem to him basic differences between the mind of the South and its western "other." The latter, contends Simpson, has corollaries in the artistic vision of northeasterners--Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and the "father" of the popular western, Owen Wister--who create fictions in which a hero transcends history amid the pristine, naturally democratic vistas of the American landscape. In contrast, the former extends a tragic European outlook that sees the individual as a creature trapped, the hapless victim of history. Simpson's paradigm has been very influential in southern studies, and one can indeed see how the tragic ethos he identifies informs to grand effect the body of southern writing produced during the fabled Renascence, a literature acutely concerned with the past in the present (to paraphrase Allen Tate's famous formulation) and the doomed yet heroic efforts to cope with or survive history, not escape it--reflected in Faulkner's famous proclamation in the Nobel speech that humanity will not merely "endure," but "prevail." Yet this South-versus-West theory tells only part of the story, for the West has, since the early nineteenth century, occupied a special place in the southern imagination. Historian Richard Slotkin notes in particular how southerners have "mythologiz[ed] ... the Frontier ... as a new Garden of Eden"; he locates this mythos in a Jeffersonian agrarianism in which the "frontier ... promises complete felicity, the satisfaction of all demands and the reconciliation of all contradictions" (69-70). No less a canonical southern text than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)--identified by both Tate and Louis D. Rubin as the first modern southern novel--bears out this representation, as Simpson himself tacitly admits. Huck's account shows that life is "satisfying" only when marked by a pastoral plenitude beyond the artificial and hypocritical constraints of southern (read eastern) culture, a realization that ultimately impels him to "light out for the territory" of the western frontier. Twain's story may lack the gunplay of the novels that were already beginning to gain popularity in the 1880s, but in its fusion of the southern pastoral and the unadulterated frontier, it is in many ways the prototypical "western." Its influence continues as contemporary southern fictionists, including Charles Portis, Richard Ford, Ishmael Reed, and Cormac McCarthy, stake out territory west of the Mississippi. The popularity of McCarthy's The Border Trilogy confirms most decisively how alluring the West remains for southern writers and readers alike. Such recent authors, however, offer a more complicated version of the western than does Twain. Whereas the modern (or "proto-modern") Huckleberry Finn helped establish the cultural authority of a mythologized West, its successors have done much to question that authority. In this respect, they might be called "postmodern." The western's role as a totalizing construction that organizes history into a coherent, "satisfying" set of patterns that essentialize American identity marks it as an example of what Jean-Francois Lyotard calls "metanarrative."(1) For Lyotard and other noted theorists, postmodern art exhibits a thoroughgoing "incredulity toward metanarratives" and usually strives to undermine these overarching "stories" from within. Linda Hutcheon has shown that postmodern novels about the West, in particular, exhibit a "contradictory attraction/repulsion to structure and patterns" that uses and abuses the western as a genre, ultimately destabilizing the historical, political, and personal fantasies it tries to fulfill (133). One of the most well-known novels by a southerner to do this is McCarthy's prelude to The Border Trilogy, Blood Meridian (1985). This fascinating account of exploitation and violence parodies Huckleberry Finn and later westerns. …