Review of Book: Technology,Social Change and Human Behavior Influence for Impact. (2021). Walther,C., Cham,Switzerland. Macmillan Editorial. ISBN: 978-3-030-70001-0 / ISBN: 978-3-030-70002-7 (eBook)

The huge impact of technology on people and institutions cannot be denied. More than often, this influence seems to have negative effects on them. However, the proposal of Social Change and Human Behavior Influence for impact brings some new light on this issue: What if society were to enable its members to attain their desired goals by means of the creation and use some technology that made it possible? The central argument of this book is: humankind can take a qualitative leap to nurture people’s quality of life, and thus arrive at a state of Augmented Humanity (AH), if all humans were to understand that individual well-being is the cause and consequence of collective well-being. And technology can contribute to the realization of the AH, if those who design and use it do justice to their own capacity for generosity, compassion, honesty and courage.

     

Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews,by Jay Geller,New York,Fordham University Press, 2017, ix + 404 pp., US$75.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 8232 7559 5

This review article celebrates the massive contributions José Ignacio Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism has made to the fields of Buddhist studies, South Asian studies, and studies in gender and sexuality. After introducing the vast scope of Cabezón’s masterwork, the article draws attention to Cabezón’s notably minimalist treatment of tantra, which he asserts did no more to challenge the denigration of queer people than exoteric Buddhism did. Even so, this article picks up on the possibility Cabezón puts forward, if only hesitantly, that Mahāyāna antinomianism and tantra have the (as yet unrealized) potential for a queer Buddhist theology, with the aim of inviting further scholarship on this potential.     

THE FUTURE OF THE BUDDHIST PAST: A RESPONSE TO THE READERS

I respond to comments offered by Peter Harrison and Thupten Jinpa on my book Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008). I report briefly on the reception of the book thus far and provide a summary of its contents before responding individually to the essays of Harrison and Jinpa.     

Rethinking Secularism,edited by Craig Calhoun,Mark Juergensmeyer and Jonathan VanAntwerpen,Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 2011, vii + 311 pp. ISBN 978 019979667-0, US$99.00 (hbk); ISBN 978 019979668 7, US$24.95 (pbk)

Neo-monasticism, including the desire to live in Christian intentional community, is increasingly popular in the United States. Communities are structured around a rule or shared covenant that outlines the parameters of living in community. Daily prayer is often a central feature to neo-monastic life as is an emphasis on socio-ecological justice. Drawing on recent Christian theology about gardens, a popular neo-monastic book of common prayer, interviews with practitioners of neo-monasticism, and fieldwork conducted with a nascent neo-monastic community in the southeastern United States, this article argues that prayer acts as a religious technology of the self for socio-ecological change. Through prayer, participants of intentional communities change, and this in turn leads to acts that alter the socio-ecological worlds around them.     

Community Psychology: Theory and Practice. Orford J. (1992). Wiley,Chichester: pp. vii+292. £18.99 ISBN 0‐471‐93810‐6 (paperback)

The Stirling Community Psychology Class of 1999 consisted of 57 third and fourth year undergraduates who each reviewed the book separately. The above review is the result of content analysis by Rebekah Pratt who trained as a community psychologist at the University of Waikato, New Zealand and is currently working as a research fellow at the Centre for Social Research on Dementia, University of Stirling. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From 1799 to 2009: Religious Experience Reconsidered-background, argument, responses

This introductory essay to a review symposium on Religious Experience Reconsidered by Ann Taves (2009) briefly reviews some main stages of the discussion of religious experience in the study of religion\s with special attention to the Romantic tradition and its apologetic legacy and to more recent attempts to revise, rehabilitate, or challenge this key category. The essay then summarizes the argument and structure of Taves' book and highlights main points of the responses.     

Replies to Deng,Lee, and Skow

This paper is a contribution to a book symposium on my book Experiencing Time. I reply to comments on the book by Natalja Deng, Geoffrey Lee and Bradford Skow. Although several chapters of the book are discussed, the main focus of my reply is on Chapters 2 and 6. In Chapter 2 I argue that the putative mind-independent passage of time could not be experienced, and from this I develop an argument against the A-theory of time. In Chapter 6 I offer one part of an explanation of why we are disposed to think that time passes, relating to the supposedly ‘dynamic’ quality of experienced change. Deng, Lee, and Skow’s comments help me to clarify several issues, add some new thoughts, and make a new distinction that was needed, and I acknowledge, as I did in the book, that certain arguments in Chapter 6 are not conclusive; but I otherwise concede very little regarding the main claims and arguments defended in the book.     

Spirituality, morality, and criticism in education: a response to Kevin Gary

In this short essay I respond to Kevin Gary’s generous review of my book Reclaiming Goodness by considering his two main concerns, that I tend to conflate spirituality and morality and that I am not sufficiently sensitive to tensions between spirituality and critical thinking. I respond by noting that Gary has not taken adequate account of the distinction between deontological morality and aretaic ethics in the first instance and between the Aristotelian notions of Sophia and Phronesis, or pure reason and practical wisdom, in the second.Hanan A. Alexander chairs the Department of Education at the University of Haifa and is a research fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.     

The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study

Editor's Introduction When Oxford University Press sent us the three enormous volumes of Irwin's The Development of Ethics, we had two thoughts: First, the book is very important and demands a review; second, since human sacrifice is abolished in North America, it will be very difficult to find a reviewer. We handed the volumes to several interested persons, who in the end returned the books saying the task was beyond them. Then, my wife, a lifetime worker at that center of communal thought, the United Nations, suggested that we form a team to review the book. We put an announcement out on the Web, asking for reviewers to do a chapter each, at 250 words a review. We got several hundred volunteers, and chose 82 to review the 96 chapters of Irwin (reviewers got the chapters in Portable Document Format [PDFs], kindly supplied by Oxford). We got 81 of 82 reviews, 75 before the deadline, six slightly later. For purposes of completeness, I filled in the sole missing review. Would that the students in my seminars were so punctual! I would like to thank Elyse Turr at Oxford University Press for the PDFs, and my 82 reviewers for their expertise and diligence. I am grateful to all the volunteers who showed an interest in this strange and perhaps unprecedented project, and who patiently endured the vetting process. Special thanks is due to Laura di Summa, who coordinated all the pieces of this incredible puzzle. Did we accomplish something, something new, by mobilizing 82 minds to review one book? I hope so, but I can now only say what they say on television: “America, it's up to you.”     

Kant on freedom: A reply to my critics

The first two sections of this paper are devoted respectively to the criticisms of my views raised by Stephen Engstrom and Andrews Reath at a symposium on Kant's Theory of Freedom held in Washington D.C. on 28 December 1992 under the auspices of the North American Kant Society. The third section contains my response to the remarks of Marcia Baron at a second symposium in Chicago on 24 April 1993 at the APA Western Division meetings. The fourth section deals with some general criticisms of my treatment of Kant's theory of freedom and its connection with transcendental idealism that have been raised by Karl Ameriks, who was also a participant in the second symposium, in an earlier piece published in Inquiry and by Paul Guyer in a review. The paper as a whole is thus an attempt to reformulate and clarify some of the central claims of my book in light of the initial critical reaction.     

Philosophy,writing, and liberation

In responding to the three creative interpretive discussions in the symposium on my book Philosophy and the Art of Writing, this paper explores the different styles of philosophical discourse and their role in the practice of philosophy as a way of life that extends beyond the discursive and that combines self-cultivation with care for others in the ethical-aesthetic pursuit of living beauty. In advocating this aesthetic model of philosophical life over a purely therapeutic model, I suggest how the former can incorporate the latter's concerns for spiritual health and liberation. In developing my response to the symposiasts while elaborating on the themes of my book, I consider issues of ineffability, creative performance, embodiment, truth, heroism, vulnerability, possession, art, spirituality, love, and liberation.     

Thorndike's Legacy: Learning, Selection, And The Law Of Effect

This introduction to a symposium on the centennial of Edward L. Thorndike's 1898 monograph on animal intelligence briefly considers the origins of his law of effect and the influence of Darwin's selectionism. It also provides the background for an unfinished book review by William W. Cumming of a biography of Thorndike. The review places in historical context Thorndike's position both on psychology as a science of behavior and on the vocabulary of that science.     

A DEFENSE OF BUDDHISM,MEDITATION, AND FREE WILL: A THEORY OF MENTAL FREEDOM

This is my response to the criticisms of Gregg Caruso, David Cummiskey, and Karin Meyers, in their roles as members of the “Author Meets Critics” panel devoted to my book, Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will: A Theory of Mental Freedom at the 2019 annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, organized by Christian Coseru. Caruso's main objection is that I am not sufficiently attentive to details of opposing arguments in Western philosophy, and Cummiskey's and Meyers’ objections, similarly, are that I am insufficiently attentive to details of Buddhism. I argue that all such objections, however putatively correct, do not rise to the level of objections that actually undermine my account of mental freedom.     

Just Wars,Holy Wars,and Jihads,edited by Sohail Hashmi,Oxford University Press: New York, 2012, xvi + 434 pp. ISBN 978 019 975503 5, US$35.00 (paperback)

In recent years, academic interest in the nexus between Pentecostalism, economics, and capitalism has grown significantly. Notably, the vast majority of publications that have addressed this interface are to some degree conceptually framed by Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this article I consider what The Protestant Ethic might contribute to our understanding of the relationship between Pentecostalism and capitalism. First, I assess a particularly noteworthy attempt to draw Pentecostalism into Weber's genealogical account which draws a series of parallels between Pentecostalism and ascetic Protestantism. Second, I discuss the merits of an approach that is not primarily genealogical but remains indebted to the concepts that Weber introduces, elaborating a new affinity between Pentecostalism and capitalism in its present iteration. With this article, I seek to comprehensively extend the scope and sharpen the conceptual underpinnings of future analysis and empirical work in this area.     

Corijn van Mazijk: Perception and reality in Kant,Husserl, and McDowell,New York: Routledge, 2020, 192 pp., ISBN 978-0-367-44180-7, ISBN 978-1-003-01022-7

Continental Philosophy Review - Corijn van Mazijk’s book is a critical exploration of the relations between Immanuel Kant’s, Edmund Husserl’s, and John McDowell’s...     

Big Gods in review: introducing Ara Norenzayan and his critics

This essay introduces a review symposium on Ara Norenzayan's book Big Gods (2013). The essay reviews Norenzayan's earlier publications on religion, sums up the main points of criticism that have been put forward by the contributors, and raises some concerns about the questions to be asked about ‘religion.’     

Replies to comments on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Judgment and Agency</Emphasis>

This paper is part of a book symposium on my Judgment and Agency (Oxford University Press, 2015). Here I reply to the comments of three commentators: Jason Baehr, Imogen Dickie, and Hilary Kornblith.     

Introduction to symposium on Philosophy and the art of writing by Richard Shusterman

This introductory piece provides context for this symposium on Richard Shusterman's new book, Philosophy and the Art of Writing. The piece reflects on the symposium genre from Plato's classic dialogue to its form today. It claims that Shusterman's work asks us to take this kind of philosophical writing more seriously, and for that reason the symposium itself has taken on a different structure. The piece discusses how each of the contributors responding to the book (with Shusterman leading the way), Eli Kramer, Randall Auxier, and Charles Johnson, have engaged in practicing, nurturing, and supporting broad modes of philosophical writing, and in turn why they have chosen to do so in this context.     

The self in Kierkegaard's pseudonyms

Conclusion This is essentially what I take to be Kierkegaard's ontological foundation of human existence. It is the structure which both makes possible and unifies the different modes of existing which he so fully describes in his pseudonyms. The further task is one of demonstrating concretely the relation of these modes (stages) of existing to his ontology.This essay will appear in my book, Being and Existence in Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms, to be published by Princeton University Press in 1975. I would like to thank the Princeton University Pres for permission to publish a portion of the book in this journal. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues' helpful criticisms of the original draft of this paper which I read in a departmental seminar at Iowa State University last fall. Some of their suggestions were incorporated in the final draft.