Die neo-inklusivistiese benadering tot religieuse pluraliteit

Abstract

Neo-pragmatists Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish have recently argued that philosophy has no consequences for legal practice (except, in the case of Fish, in so far as it carries rhetorical force). They have asserted not only that philosophy cannot provide absolute metaphysical foundations for legal practice, but also that philosophy cannot be used to criticise law. This essay examines Fish and Rorty’s reasons for denying the practical force of philosophy. Although I agree with Rorty and Fish’s non-foundationalism, I argue that in practice lawyers employ discursive categories and concepts that can be described as philosophical. I suggest also that philosophy has a critical function and that the characterisation of philosophy offered by these theorists amounts to a conservative assertion of the formal completeness and substantive justice of existing liberal legal systems. Against Fish and Rorty, I argue and selectively demonstrate that lawyers can usefully draw upon ‘public ironists’ such as Nietzsche, Foucault and Derrida to criticise and improve upon extant legal practices.     

The Pedagogy of Self-Fashioning: A Foucaultian Study of Montaigne’s “On Educating Children”

In this paper I interpret Montaigne??s essay, ??On Educating Children??, as a pedagogical text through its performance of a distinct epistolary function, one that addresses the letter-recipient for the purpose of shaping the ideas, actions, and beliefs of that individual. At the same time, I also read ??On Educating Children?? within the context of the wider project of Montaigne??s Essays, which, as I suggest, is an ethical-aesthetic project of self-fashioning and self-cultivation. The net result is an interpretation of teaching as an ethical-aesthetic practice of the self, one that is in concert with the interpretation of Montaigne??s writing of the Essays as a similar practice of the self. In order to build this case, I employ Michel Foucault??s fourfold schema of ethical subjectivity, mapping that schema onto ??On Educating Children??, so as to reveal a unique pedagogy of self-formation??a pedagogy that works as much upon the self of the teacher as it does the self of the student.     

The Semantics of Wisdom in the Philosophy of Tang Junyi: Between Transformative Knowledge and Transcendental Reflexivity

In this article, I offer a provisional analysis of the philosophical semantics of “wisdom” in the thought of the New Confucian thinker Tang Junyi. I begin by providing some pointers concerning the concept of wisdom in general and situating the discourse on wisdom in comparative philosophy in the context of the later Foucault’s and Pierre Hadot’s historical investigations into ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy as a mode of spiritual self-cultivation and self-transformation. In the remainder of the paper, I try to describe and think through what Foucault identifies as a “Cartesian moment,” in which self-knowledge becomes the ultimate precondition for the ethico-spiritual project of “caring for the self,” in Tang’s approach of wisdom. In the course of my argument, I outline the complex relation between his vision of a renewed Confucian mode of religious practice on the one hand and his philosophical presuppositions concerning the transcendental status of subjectivity and the reflexivity of consciousness on the other.     

Kenneth Gergen’s Social Constructionist Contributions to Counsellor Education

Kenneth Gergen??s seminal contributions to social constructionist thinking have substantial implications for the practice of counselling and psychotherapy, and thus for the training of practitioners as well. This article takes up the latter point, exploring the many deviations from traditional approaches to foundational counselling skills training that arise when educators are informed by constructionist philosophy. The article is written in the form of a dialogic exchange in recognition of Gergen??s emphasis on the relational aspect of knowing, with contributions from two educators accustomed to training graduate level practitioners in basic counselling and psychotherapy practice.     

Patočka and Foucault: Taking Care of the Soul and Taking Care of the Self

The paper deals with Jan Pato?ka’s and Michel Foucault’s influential interpretations of the ancient Greek approach to care (epimeleia). At first sight, it might seem that Foucault’s care of the self is opposed to Pato?ka’s care of the soul. On closer reading, however, it becomes clear that the two interpretations lead to similar conclusions, as exemplified by the way the two authors interpret Plato’s Laches: both of them see it in relation to the issue of how to live one’s life. Further on, the paper deals with the development of Pato?ka’s understanding of care of the self and his approach to the philosophy of history. It is revealed that Foucault’s approach to history is opposed to Pato?ka’s on a number of issues. Despite their diverging opinions, however, the two authors problematize the ancient Greek care of the self as an important issue in Western culture, emphasizing the therapeutic role of contemporary philosophy along the way.     

Book Reviews

In his famous lecture on Kant's essay 'An Answer to the Question What is Enlightenment' Foucault distinguished between two traditions in modern philosophy coming out of Kant's work: 'an analytic of truth' and 'an ontology of present reality [ actualité ]' or 'a genealogy of ourselves'. The paper presents this distinction as a fruitful displacement of the distinction between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy,which gives the latter precise cultural and philosophical meaning. The paper clarifies the distinction and argues that almost without exception, analytic philosophers are not interested -in their capacity as philosophers - in interpreting and understanding their historical present. Some possible reasons and some possible consequences of this lack of interest are examined briefly. Within the continental tradition itself, two major contemporary forms of 'an ontology of present reality' are distinguished, one exemplified by Habermas and the other by Foucault. The difference between these two forms of 'taking aim at the heart of the present' (to use Habermas' phrase) is explicated as a difference between distinct genres of critical discourse, or forms of critique. The difference is presented in respect to two major aspects: historical time and historicity, and critique's mode of engagement with 'an analytic of truth'. The last point, namely the presence of a crucial analytic moment in the philosophical interpretation of present reality, suggests a possible modification of the initial distinction between the two philosophical traditions.     

Mining the Archive: Evaluating and Improving a Course

This classroom note demonstrates that a course may be improved by paying specific attention to Elliot Eisner’s distinction between a course’s explicit, implicit and null criteria. In an attempt to ground and identify those notoriously slippery curricula, this paper appropriates French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concepts of practice, discourse and archival research. Having explored Foucault’s understanding of these concepts, the paper analyses the course Communication and Processes within Groups at two distinctive phases in its twenty–year history. The resulting excavation of the course’s implicit and null curricula twenty years apart shows that two different sets of facilitators teaching the same explicit curriculum to a very different student body, in vastly changed venues, are working out of two different understandings of what competence in the practice of ministry entails, two very different ministerial education discourses. This paper demonstrates that with students’ questions, a teacher’s intentional probing and Foucault’s framework in hand, it is possible to access and articulate a course’s hidden curricula. In such ways, the practice of mining the archive offers an imaginative way of both evaluating and improving a course that has been taught for many years.     

The Art of Being Human: A Project for General Philosophy of Science

Throughout the medieval and modern periods, in various sacred and secular guises, the unification of all forms of knowledge under the rubric of ??science?? has been taken as the prerogative of humanity as a species. However, as our sense of species privilege has been called increasingly into question, so too has the very salience of ??humanity?? and ??science?? as general categories, let alone ones that might bear some essential relationship to each other. After showing how the ascendant Stanford School in the philosophy of science has contributed to this joint demystification of ??humanity?? and ??science??, I proceed on a more positive note to a conceptual framework for making sense of science as the art of being human. My understanding of ??science?? is indebted to the red thread that runs from Christian theology through the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment to the Humboldtian revival of the university as the site for the synthesis of knowledge as the culmination of self-development. Especially salient to this idea is science??s epistemic capacity to manage modality (i.e. to determine the conditions under which possibilities can be actualised) and its political capacity to organize humanity into projects of universal concern. However, the challenge facing such an ideal in the twentyfirst century is that the predicate ??human?? may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by what I call ??ecological??, ??biomedical?? and ??cybernetic?? interests. Which one of these future humanities would claim today??s humans as proper ancestors and could these futures co-habit the same world thus become two important questions that general philosophy of science will need to address in the coming years.     

Does Mary know I experience plus rather than quus? A new hard problem

Realism about cognitive or semantic phenomenology, the view that certain conscious states are intrinsically such as to ground thought or understanding, is increasingly being taken seriously in analytic philosophy. The principle aim of this paper is to argue that it is extremely difficult to be a physicalist about cognitive phenomenology. The general trend in later 20th century/early 21st century philosophy of mind has been to account for the content of thought in terms of facts outside the head of the thinker at the time of thought, e.g. in terms of causal relations between thinker and world, or in terms of the natural purposes for which mental representations have developed. However, on the assumption that consciousness is constitutively realised by what is going on inside the head of a thinker at the time of experience, the content of cognitive phenomenology cannot be accounted for in this way. Furthermore, any internalist account of content is particularly susceptible to Kripkensteinian rule following worries. It seems that if someone knew all the physical facts about what is going on in my head at the time I was having a given experience with cognitive phenomenology, they would not thereby know whether that state had ??straight?? rather than ??quus-like?? content, e.g. whether the experience was intrinsically such as the ground the thought that two plus two equals four or intrinsically such as to ground the thought that two quus two equals four. The project of naturalising consciousness is much harder for realists about cognitive phenomenology.     

The Political Philosophy of Intersubjectivity and the Logic of Discourse

This paper is concerned with the competing and complimentary relationships between intersubjectivity and discursive logic. It contends that the ultimate failure of Husserlian phenomenology is a testament to the dilemma of subjectivist philosophy. Indeed, political philosophy requires a paradigm-shift from subjectivity to intersubjectivity. With this in mind, this paper examines the classical encounter between morality and ethical life in connection with discursive ethics. While it argues that Habermas still retains a strong residue of subjectivist philosophy, it attempts to clarify the discursive analysis of Foucault and probes into its applicability to practical philosophy.     

The Importance of Being Experienced: An Aristotelian Perspective on Experience and Experience-Based Learning

??The importance of being experienced?? plays a central part in the ethical philosophy of Aristotle. An experienced person is a person who has acquired a coping skill, an appropriate attitude and a sense of situation. According to Aristotle the soul and the body are interdependent, which indicates a close connection between human activity, human cognition and human character. By insisting on the primacy of action, Aristotle changes the educational focal point from an epistemological discussion of knowledge to an ethical discussion of practice. The paper discusses what Aristotle can offer contemporary education in relation to his understanding of experience. The frame of the discussion is organised according to the three notable elements that are contained in Aristotle??s notion of ??the importance of being experienced??: a practice, an appropriate hexis or character and a sense of the situation. As a background for and framing of the discussion, the paper will outline some of the many variants as well as substantial differences of the notion of experience and experience-based learning and categorise them in three different understandings.     

On Conflicts and Differences Among Women

Jana Sawicki uses the work and methods of Foucault to explore the possibility of a politics of difference. I argue that Foucault may help us overcome some forms of dogmatism inherited from men's political philosophy of the past, but Foucault is otherwise useless, or worse: misleading. Because Sawicki presents a politics of diversity among women regardless of, and independent from, a politics of sexual difference, I believe Foucault is misleading.     

Foucault’s turn from literature

This paper lays the groundwork for formulating an approach to literature which pushes Foucault’s thought in directions which he perhaps envisaged, but never pursued. However, one of the major obstacles to formulating a Foucauldian philosophy of literature is the fact that Foucault’s thought itself turned away from literature in the late 1960s. Why does literature apparently disappear from Foucault’s writings after 1969? And why does Foucault’s own re-writing of his theoretical biography elide this earlier interest in literature? In order to answer these questions we will have to find out what role literature played in his early thought. What is at stake here, is not just a better understanding of Foucault’s thought, but more importantly, the possibility of reviving one of the potential lines of flight which that thought cut short as a result of its own endless turning. Hence, my ultimate aim will be to address the question of what can be reclaimed today from Foucault’s abandoned engagement with literature.     

Heidegger and Foucault: On the Relation Between the Anxiety–Engendering–Truth and Being-Towards-Freedom

In his very last, now famous, interview, Michel Foucault states that his philosophical thought was shaped by his reading of Heidegger, even though he does not specify what aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy inspired him in the first place. However, his last interview is not the only place where Foucault refers to Heidegger as his intellectual guide. In his 1981/1982 lecture course, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault confesses that the way Heidegger conceptualized the relationship between subject and truth was a starting point for him for thinking about the relationship between truth, subject, subjective-transformation, and freedom. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct the Foucault-Heidegger encounter from the perspective of subject-truth relation. I will ask how Heidegger and Foucault conceptualized the relationship between truth, self-transformation, and freedom. And I will claim that for both Foucault and Heidegger, freedom lies in constantly and creatively repeating the traditional possibilities of existence in order to question the reified patterns of interpretation, and in order to reveal the anxiety–engendering–truth that what is regarded as natural and inevitable in human life is historically contingent and transformable.     

Subjectivity,Reflection and Freedom in Later Foucault

Abstract

This paper proposes a new reading of the interaction between subjectivity, reflection and freedom within Foucault’s later work. I begin by introducing three approaches to subjectivity, locating these in relation both to Foucault’s texts and to the recent literature. I suggest that Foucault himself operates within what I call the ‘entanglement approach’, and, as such, he faces a potentially serious challenge, a challenge forcefully articulated by Han. Using Kant’s treatment of reflection as a point of comparison, I argue that Foucault possesses the resources to meet this challenge. The key, I contend, is to distinguish two related theses about reflection and freedom: Foucault’s position is distinctive precisely because he accepts one of these theses whilst rejecting the other. I conclude by indicating how this reading might connect to the longstanding question of Foucault’s own right to appeal to normative standards.     

Two Kinds of Awareness: Foucault,the Will,and Freedom in Somatic Practice

This essay identifies two kinds of awareness of one’s body that occur in a variety of literatures: awareness as psychologically or spiritually enabling or therapeutic, and awareness as undesirable self-consciousness of the body. Drawing on Foucault’s account of normalizing judgment, it argues that these two forms of awareness are impossible to separate, if that separation is into authentic versus extrinsic somatic experience. Nonetheless, awareness is an important component of embodied freedom, but a freedom understood with Spinoza and Nietzsche as grounded in necessity rather than only in the will, and with Arendt and Foucault as a practice rather than an achievement of a sovereign subject. Somatic practices grounded in awareness and acceptance of the body’s necessities, along with attention to the I-can (rather than the I-will) cultivate a form of embodied freedom that bridges care of the self and the political.     

This is (Not) a Philosopher: On Educational Philosophy in an Age of Psychologisation

Nowadays there is a renewed interest in philosophy as art-of-living. Several prominent authors have pointed out the return of the notion of the good life in philosophy, particularly understood as a form of normative ethics. Questions such as: how should I live have been taken up as a resistance against the dominances of a neo-liberal discourse in all areas of life. This paper is concerned with this renewed interest in philosophy as art-of-living and the form of education that supports this. The main idea is that the commitment from which we live is a subject of change. This way, art-of-living comprises the possibility and the effort to lead on’s life in a reflective way, and not to let it simply go by. Historically this has been connected to the process of becoming educated. In this paper I will take a closer look at this renewed interest in philosophy as the art-of-living by contrasting two different readings of philosophy as the art-of-living. One that is inspired by Oscar Brenifier and one that is inspired by the late Foucault.     

Three Approaches to Doing Philosophy: a Proposal for Grouping Philosophical Exercises in Classroom Teaching

Classroom teaching has two aims: learning philosophy, that is, the great philosophers, and doing philosophy. This article provides an overview of thirty exercises that can be used for doing philosophy, grouped into three approaches. The first approach, doing philosophy as connective truth finding or communicative action, is related to such philosophers as Dewey and Arendt, and is illustrated by the Socratic method. The second, doing philosophy as test‐based truth finding, is related to such philosophers as Popper, and is illustrated by Community of Philosophical Inquiry. The third, doing philosophy as juridical debate, judging truth‐value and making judgment, is related to such philosophers as Foucault, and is illustrated by philosophical debate. The analysis shows that although the classical methods applied by the great philosophers appear to be missing from classroom exercises, they do, in fact, remain at the heart of the matter.     

Ultimate Educational Aims, Overridingness, and Personal Well-being

Discussion regarding education??s aims, especially its ultimate aims, is a key topic in the philosophy of education. These aims or values play a pivotal role in regulating and structuring moral and other types of normative education. We outline two plausible strategies to identify and justify education??s ultimate aims. The first associates these aims with a normative standpoint, such as the moral, prudential, or aesthetic, which is overriding, in a sense of ??overriding?? to be explained. The second associates education??s ultimate aims with the intrinsic value of personal well-being. We advance reasons to doubt that these strategies are successful. The shortcomings of these strategies impute yet further urgency to the issue of how we are to ascertain and validate education??s ultimate aims.     

Mevlana Jalāl-ad-Dīn Rumi and Mindfulness

The use of mindfulness-related methods for the treatment of a variety of psychological, somatic and interpersonal problems has increased dramatically in the last decade. Almost all mindfulness-based therapies include the practice of meditation in addition to various cognitive and/or behavioral techniques. The source of inspiration for mindfulness has traditionally been Buddhism, while Islamic thought has not been present in this development despite the similarities in philosophy and a growing need for mental health support among Muslim populations throughout the world. It is in this context that Sufism and especially Rumi??s teachings seem to be promising both in terms of research on consciousness and in terms of culturally sensitive methods of healing. The aim of the present article is to highlight the commonality of mindfulness-based therapies and Rumi??s religious philosophy. Introducing concepts, images and metaphors based on Rumi??s universe can constitute a meaningful alternative to Buddhist-inspired practices in the transcultural clinic, especially in encounters with clients with Muslim background.