A Kenotic Struggle for Dignity

Although Booker T. Washington stands outside the theological canon, his writings offer a pragmatic theology that connects the desire for dignity to a kenotic Christology through an ethic of unceasing work. While Washington's project to improve the lives of African Americans in the Jim Crow–era South was severely compromised by political circumstances, problems within his theology of work made his project especially susceptible to those circumstances. The tragedy of Washington's theology stems from his making dignity contingent upon work being recognized as useful by a worker's community. His kenotic ideal of “Christlike” work can actually degrade workers, if their community refuses to recognize their work's merit. Workers’ anxiety about dignity causes them to pour themselves into their work, but a racist society sees African American workers as inherently undignified. Even without Jim Crow's pervasive violence, the postindustrial reappearance of economic doctrines that characterized Washington's era makes his theological ethic relevant again.     

Vygotsky's Theory of Creativity

In Educational Psychology (1997/1926), Vygotsky pleaded for a realistic approach to children's literature. He is, among other things, critical of Chukovsky's story "Crocodile" and maintains that this story deals with nonsense and gibberish, without social relevance. This approach Vygotsky would leave soon, and, in Psychology of Art (1971/1925), in which he develops his theory of art, he talks about connections between nursery rhymes and children's play, exactly as the story of Chukovsky had done with the following argument: By dragging a child into a topsy-turvy world, we help his intellect work and his perception of reality. In his book Imagination and Creativity in Childhood (1995/1930), Vygotsky goes further and develops his theory of creativity. The book describes how Vygotsky regards the creative process of the human consciousness, the link between emotion and thought, and the role of the imagination. To Vygotsky, this brings to the fore the issue of the link between reality and imagination, and he discusses the issue of reproduction and creativity, both of which relate to the entire scope of human activity. Interpretations of Vygotsky in the 1990s have stressed the role of literature and the development of a cultural approach to psychology and education. It has been overlooked that Vygotsky started his career with work on the psychology of art.     

Einstein,his theories,and his aesthetic considerations

This article deals with the question whether aesthetic considerations affected Einstein in formulating both his theories of relativity. The opinions of philosophers and historians alike are divided on this matter. Thus, Gerald Holton supports the view that Einstein employed aesthetic considerations in formulating his theory of special relativity whereas Jim Shelton opposes it, one of his reasons being that Einstein did not mention such considerations. The other theory, namely, that of general relativity, is discussed by John D. Norton. He asserts that the successful completion of this theory was due to Einstein's adherence to mathematical simplicity resulting from experience, as Einstein himself stated, and not from an aesthetic drive, to which he did not refer. The present work attempts to overcome this deficiency indirectly by investigating Einstein's aesthetic awareness and its consequences for his work. It is found that this awareness was imbedded in his perception of nature and is linked to the criteria (such as simplicity) that guided him in formulating his theories. The conclusion thus reached is that aesthetic considerations did play a role in Einstein's endeavour, contrary to the assertions of Shelton and Norton.     

PAINTING A STORY: ARS‐POETICA AND IDEOLOGY IN A STORY BY BENJAMIN TAMMUZ AND A PAINTING BY NAHUM GUTMAN

The article discusses the story “Our National Artist” by Benjamin Tammuz, in which the hero is an artist and a pioneer whose ideas do not conform to Zionist ideology. The present author’s claim is that this is an implied ars poetic‐ideological story in which Tammuz hints at his own beliefs regarding Zionism, namely his severe reservations about it. He allows his artist hero to express what he himself could not openly express at that time. The article goes on to discuss a well‐known painting by Nahum Gutman which Tammuz chose for the cover of his collection, The Bitter Scent of Geranium, in which “Our National Artist” appears, and which serves as an allusion to the “non‐Zionist” nature of this collection. Tammuz’s choice of Gutman’s painting testifies to his conception: in this painting he “reads” the pre‐Zionist or the non‐Zionist space as a dominant “text”, thus shifting attention from the Zionist consensus to its margins and beyond.     

“AFTER THE EVENT”: FREUD'S UNCANNY AND THE ANXIETY OF ORIGINS

This essay aims to revise Freud's theory of the uncanny by rereading his own essay of that name along with the key material Freud drew on in formulating his theory: E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story “The Sandman” (1816a) and Ernst Jentsch's essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (1906a). While arguing, initially, both that Jentsch's work is fundamentally misconstrued by Freud and that it offers a better account of what happens in Hoffmann's story, the essay moves beyond Jentsch's account to offer a more philosophically oriented theory of the uncanny, one more in line with Freud's ideas in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920a).     

Human Rights and the Defense of Liberal Democracy

In recent issues of the Journal of Religious Ethics (2006, 2007), David Little has defended the contemporary regime of international human rights against what he thinks of as the relativizing influences of the genealogical “just‐so” story told by Jeffrey Stout in his Democracy and Tradition (2004). I argue that Stout is correct about just‐so stories, and that Little does not go far enough in his reclamation of liberalism against Stout's “new traditionalists.” The main weaknesses of Little's approach are his insistence on the idea that human rights are to be thought of as natural rights, and that these in turn are to be thought of as self‐evident and self‐justifying. I argue that they are neither: they come to us via a Stoutian just‐so story, and that as part of a broader reclamation of liberalism, they can continue to serve as the basis for the kind of international liberal constitutionalism that Little advocates.     

Integrating motivational interviewing in career counseling: A case study

Motivational interviewing (MI) is receiving increasing attention in the field of career counseling. However, none of the previous studies have concretely presented how this method could and why it should be integrated in career counseling. Through the use of a single case study design, this paper illustrates how a brief MI (BMI) intervention can be integrated into career counseling interventions to help resolve career dilemmas. An analysis of the interactions between the client and his counselor using the Motivational Interviewing Skills Code 2.1 illustrates why this method can be useful for career counseling. Immediate and long-term effects of the global career counseling intervention on the client's career decision-making difficulties, as well as the specific impacts of the BMI intervention, are assessed. This case study shows that the BMI approach can be integrated in a career counseling intervention to help career counseling clients overcome career dilemmas and increase their readiness to make career choices.     

The Utopianism of Hamilton's State of Needs: on rights,deliberation, and the nature of politics

Abstract

This article explores the role and conception of politics in Lawrence Hamilton's The Political Philosophy of Needs (Cambridge, 2003), including his critique of the 'rights-preference couple' and of rights in general; his critique of deliberation; and his view regarding the role of political philosophy. It argues that his theory rests on a remarkably high epistemic, moral and political confidence in the state, or rather in what states might be capable of becoming; equally, it rests on an underexplored understanding of the nature of politics itself. The article also criticizes Hamilton's approach to needs by comparing it to the needs approach of Wiggins and the capabilities approach of Alkire, arguing that the difference is not as great as Hamilton believes. Finally, it is suggested that Hamilton needs additional elements to his argument to show how a state of needs could be psychologically and politically self-sustaining.     

Timmermann,Forschler, and The Attempt to Bridge the Kantian‐Consequentialist Gap

Scott Forschler defends R. M. Hare's rationalist‐universalizing‐utilitarian moral approach against Jens Timmermann's critique of it. He argues that Timmermann fails to see that Kant's ethical rationalism might be consistent with utilitarianism, and argues that Timmermann merely assumes that Kant's deontology follows logically from his ethical rationalism. In Forschler's estimation, it has not been established that either Kant's or Hare's ethical rationalism is inconsistent with utilitarianism. This article, however, argues that, in his response to Timmermann on behalf of Hare's rationalist‐universalizing‐utilitarian approach, Forschler has overlooked something very significant at the foundational level of Hare's moral approach, and that this oversight undercuts his response to Timmermann. The analysis also invites a metaethical investigation of preference satisfaction as it is found in Hare's moral approach. The article uncovers some fundamental metaethical presuppositions in Hare's normative approach, presuppositions overlooked by Forschler.     

Locke's Theory of Demonstration and Demonstrative Morality

Locke famously claimed that morality was capable of demonstration. But he also refused to provide a system of demonstrative morality. This paper addresses the mismatch between Locke's stated views and his actual philosophical practice. While Locke's claims about demonstrative morality have received a lot of attention it is rare to see them discussed in the context of his general theory of demonstration and his specific discussions of particular demonstrations. This paper explores Locke's general remarks about demonstration as well as his claims about demonstration in natural philosophy, mathematics, and morality. Careful attention to these detailed discussions motivates a reevaluation of Locke's views on demonstrative knowledge of morality. Specifically, while Locke did believe that some demonstrative moral knowledge might be in‐principle available to us he also believed that facts about the difficulty of demonstration meant that this knowledge would in‐practice be largely unattainable.     

SENSATION,INTENTIONALITY, AND ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS: MALEBRANCHE'S THEORY OF THE MIND

In general, seventeenth-century philosophers seem to have assumed that intentionality is an essential characteristic of our mental life. Malebranche is perhaps the only philosopher in the period who stands out clearly against the prevailing orthodoxy; he is committed to the thesis that there is a large class of mental items - sensations - which have no representational content. In this paper I argue that due attention to this fact makes it possible to mount at least a partial defence of his notorious doctrine of ‘the rainbow-coloured soul’; Malebranche's doctrine is a striking anticipation of modern adverbial theories of sensation. I then argue that failure to appreciate the non-intentional character of sensations for Malebranche vitiates one recent attempt to explain why he accepted the Cartesian doctrine of the beastmachine; in contrast to the Radners, I suggest that Malebranche has the philosophical resources to offer an interesting theory of animal consciousness, and that his failure to develop such a theory rests largely on his acceptance of certain theological arguments. The paper ends by speculating about how Malebranche's theological commitments may have encouraged him to adopt the philosophically important thesis that intentionality is not the mark of the mental.     

Implicit Motive Profile Analysis: An If‐Then Contingency Approach to the Picture‐Story Exercise

Picture‐story exercise (PSE) measures of implicit motives provide objective, stable, and valid scores. However, PSE scores are also characterized by substantial variability from one picture to the next, resulting in low internal consistency estimates. We argue that this variability is a critical source of the PSE's validity because it reveals stable if‐then contingencies between the situational contexts represented by the picture cues and individuals' motivational responses to them. We also present the correspondence hypothesis, according to which the situational cues in the PSE are representative of specific real‐life situations and a person's imaginative‐story responses to the PSE cues therefore also reflect his or her real‐life responses to such situations. We review corroborating research and discuss the implications of the if‐then contingency approach for assessment, prediction, and for the measurement of motivational congruence.     

A Comedy We Believe In: A Further Look at Sartre's Theory of Emotions

This paper discusses recent interpretations of Jean‐Paul Sartre's early theory of emotions, in particular his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Despite the great interest that Sartre's approach has generated, most interpretations assume that his approach fails because it appears to be focussed on ‘malformed’, ‘irrational’ or ‘distorted’ emotions. I argue that these criticisms adopt a rationalistic or epistemically biassed perspective on emotions that is wrongly applied to Sartre's text. In my defence of Sartre I show that the directional fit of emotions is not towards an evaluatively loaded world which is independently given and, at best, represented by emotions, but towards a world shaped through the impact of emotions themselves. Sartre's idea of emotions ‘magically transforming’ reality for the subject so that the latter is better able to cope with problematic aspects of practically relevant situations encapsulates the world‐shaping capacities of emotions, which are thus not reserved for a restricted class of emotions. Recognition of the transformative powers of emotions will also direct attention away from their seemingly representative elements to their normative and practical aspects and offer a new basis for delineating the criteria for judging them. The plausibility of this position is discussed with reference to some of Sartre's examples, such as fear, sadness and horror, but also with reference to Joan Didion's account of grief in The Year of Magical Thinking.     

‘Too black or not black enough’: Social identity complexity in the political rhetoric of Barack Obama

The election of the first African‐American President of the United States, Barack Obama, has been widely recognised as an extraordinary milestone in the history of the United States and indeed the world. With the use of a discursive psychological approach combined with central theoretical principles derived from social identity and self‐categorisation theories, this paper analyses a corpus of speeches Obama delivered during his candidacy for president to examine how he attended to and managed his social identity in his political discourse. Building on a social identity model of leadership, we examine specifically how Obama mobilises political support and social identification by building an identity for himself as a prototypical representative of the American people, notwithstanding the protracted public debate within both the White and Black American communities that had questioned and contested Obama's identity. Moreover, we demonstrate how Obama managed the dilemmas around his identity by actively crafting an in‐group identity that was oriented to an increasingly socially diverse America—a diversity that he himself exemplified and embodied as a leader. As an ‘entrepreneur’ of identity, Obama's rhetorical project was to position himself as an exceptional leader, whose very difference was represented as ‘living proof’ of the widely shared collective values that constitute the ‘American Dream’. Drawing on social identity complexity theory, we suggest that by providing more inclusive and complex categories of civic and national identity, Obama's presidency has the potential to radically transform what it means to be a prototypical in‐group member in America. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

WINCKELMANN AND CASANOVA IN ROME: A Case Study of Religion and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth‐Century Rome

There are three “scandals” that appear in most discussions of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), the so‐called father of modern Art History: his allegedly careerist conversion to Catholicism in 1754; his semi‐secret homoerotic discourse while under Vatican employ in the early‐to‐mid 1760s; and his shocking murder in Trieste in 1768. Of the three, Winckelmann's sexuality has garnered the most attention in recent scholarship. A little‐known story reported by Casanova during his second visit to Rome in 1761 has something to do with that. In this essay, I argue that we make too much of sexuality these days and, in so doing, fail to register the far more radical religious activities in which Winckelmann was involved, most notably the creation and curation of the Vatican Museums, with their almost casual display of naked statues of pagan divinities. Winckelmann's “profanity,” not his sexuality, constitutes the revolutionary core of his life's work and enduring influence. The statues he discussed so passionately were not simply naked; they were pagan.     

Peter Winch and Political Authority

This article explores a neglected aspect of Peter Winch's work: his writings on political authority. It seeks to show that this neglect is undeserved. Three themes are interweaved in the discussion. First, the major developments in Winch's thinking between his first published article on political authority (in a symposium with Richard Peters) and his later writings on the subject are identified and assessed. Criticism is focused mainly on his tendency to be insufficiently attentive to the distinction between being in authority and being an authority, and the implications this has for the distinctiveness of political authority. Secondly, particular attention is given to some of the key strands in Winch's analysis. These include his distinction between the nature and the grounds of political authority, how the role of consent is to be understood in the light of this distinction, how an adequate understanding political authority does not undermine our ideas of autonomy, and what it might mean to reject the whole idea of political authority. Finally, the article concludes by briefly defending the value of Winch's approach to political philosophy. Earlier it is shown that Winch's analysis does not foreclose on a range of political responses to authority, and this point is generalised to argue for a philosophical approach (like Winch’s) that aims at understanding, rather than at advancing any particular set of moral or political principles.     

THE LOST LEGACY OF ANSELM'S ARGUMENT: RE‐THINKING THE PURPOSE OF PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

In his Proslogion, Anselm presents a proof for God's existence which has attracted a tremendous amount of scholarly attention. In spite of all that has been said about this proof and proofs for God's existence more generally, scholarly consensus seems to dissipate when it comes to determining whether theistic proofs are persuasive and sound. In this article, I will argue that there is a way to provide compelling proof for the existence of God. To substantiate this claim, I will not attempt to prove that God exists apart from His revelation in any of the ways that have been advocated by various philosophers of religion. Rather, I will endeavor to explain that Anselm's approach to offering evidence for God's existence is quite different from the approach that modern philosophers tend to attribute to him and to elaborate on what that approach involves by reading Anselm's argument in the context of Augustine's De Trinitate and the whole of the Proslogion.     

Suits,Autotelicity, Temporal Reallocations,Game Resources and Defining ‘play’

Bernard Suits bequeathed a rich legacy of philosophical insights contributing to our developing a deeper understanding of sport-related issues, and his work has attracted much attention and stimulated valuable controversy over many years. However, the interest it has stimulated appears uneven. In this context and with reference to the former claims above, I focus on a part of his work that has received relatively less commentary, in the hope that it too will yield work of value. Given the imaginative quality of Suits's writing, it is pessimistic to assume that attention to a relatively neglected part of his work will fail to bear fruit, if not as a result of my labours here, then perhaps of someone else's in further discussion. My concern is his account of ‘play’, by which he meant to toy, fiddle or trifle with something or other, written over 30 years ago, and it stems from reflection on one recent effort to examine this part of Suits's work, namely Morgan's discussion of ‘play’. My article attempts an analysis of the definition Suits gave and an evaluation of efforts he made to defend his understanding, alongside brief exploration of Morgan's work. Both of these tasks are undertaken against a background of Suits's broader concerns with the place of games in an ideal life. The conclusions I reach are that Suits's account embodies too many issues to be acceptable; that Morgan's attempt to rescue him from one of them is misdirected; but that even if my criticisms are damaging to the account of ‘play’ I examine, they leave Suits's main work on playing games seriously as sports unscathed.