The Role of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Umwelt</Emphasis> in Husserl’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aufbau</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Abbau</Emphasis> of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Natur/Geist</Emphasis> Distinction

In this essay I argue that Husserl’s development of the nineteenth century Natur/Geist distinction is grounded in the intentional correlate between the pre-theoretical natural attitude and environing world (Umwelt). By reconsidering the Natur/Geist distinction through its historical context in the nineteenth century debate between Wilhelm Dilthey and the Neo-Kantians from the Baden or Southwest school, it is possible to understand more clearly Husserl’s appropriations and novel contributions. One of Husserl’s contributions lies in his rigorous thematization and clarification of the constitutive features proper to the natural and human sciences as they arise from the pre-theoretical experience of an environing world. This ordinary lived experience between the lived body and environing world is presupposed by and forms a unity with both Natur and Geist, thereby acting as the unified ground that is inclusive of naturalized Geist and a geistig nature. This unbuilding (Abbau) of the Natur/Geist distinction is necessary, according to Husserl, for the radical clarification of the respective methodologies of the natural and human sciences.     

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in the light of Kant’s Third <Emphasis Type="Italic">Critique</Emphasis> and Schelling’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Real</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Idealismus</Emphasis>

In this paper I offer a selective, systematic rather than historical account of Merleau-Ponty’s highly complex relation to classical German philosophy, focussing on issues which bear on the question of his relation to transcendentalism and naturalism. I argue that the concerns which define his project in Phenomenology of Perception are fundamentally those of transcendental philosophy, and that Merleau-Ponty’s disagreements with Kant, and the position he arrives at in The Visible and the Invisible, are helpfully viewed in light of (1) issues which Merleau-Ponty identifies as raised by Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, and (2) Schelling’s conversion of Kantian idealism into a Real-Idealismus. Finally I address the question of whether, and on what basis, Merleau-Ponty’s claim to have surpassed systematic philosophy can be defended.     

Frege’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Begriffsschrift</Emphasis> as a <Emphasis Type="Italic">lingua characteristica</Emphasis>

In this paper I suggest an answer to the question of what Frege means when he says that his logical system, the Begriffsschrift, is like the language Leibniz sketched, a lingua characteristica, and not merely a logical calculus. According to the nineteenth century studies, Leibniz’s lingua characteristica was supposed to be a language with which the truths of science and the constitution of its concepts could be accurately expressed. I argue that this is exactly what the Begriffsschrift is: it is a language, since, unlike calculi, its sentential expressions express truths, and it is a characteristic language, since the meaning of its complex expressions depend only on the meanings of their constituents and on the way they are put together. In fact it is in itself already a science composed in accordance with the Classical Model of Science. What makes the Begriffsschrift so special is that Frege is able to accomplish these goals with using only grammatical or syncategorematic terms and so has a medium with which he can try to show analyticity of the theorems of arithmetic.     

The Flexibility of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gua</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yao</Emphasis>—Based on an interpretation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yizhuan</Emphasis>

In Yizhuan’s interpretation of The Book of Changes, the book’s fundamental concepts, xiang 象 (images) and ci 辞 (words), play different roles. Concepts, including yin and yang, firmness and gentleness, sancai 三才 (three fundamentals), and the wuxing 五行 (five active elements), are used to interpret The Book of Changes through the interpretation of images, while the core Confucian values, such as benevolence and righteousness, are used to interpret The Book of Changes because of their connection with words of gua and yao. In order to expand the meaning of the words of gua and yao, Yizhuan sometimes connects words with images; in other occasions, however, it simply takes these words as independent guides. The Confucian scholars who wrote Yizhuan, therefore, not only revered the classic, but also used it to send their own message. Out of reverence, they “shu 述 (recited)”; in using it, they “zuo 作 (created)”. The combination of recitation and creation made the words of gua and yao very flexible in the process of interpretation, while the interpretation changed the meaning of the classic to a great extent.     

The Concept of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Krisis</Emphasis> in Husserl’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology</Emphasis>

In The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl argues that the only way to respond to the scientific Krisis of which he speaks is with phenomenological reflections on the history, method, and task of philosophy. On the assumption that an accurate diagnosis of a malady is a necessary condition for an effective remedy, this paper aims to formulate a precise concept of the Krisis of the European sciences with which Husserl operates in this work. Thus it seeks an answer to the question: What exactly, according to Husserl, is “the ‘crisis’ [Krisis] of the European sciences”? There are two different tendencies in the literature on this question. According to the traditional interpretation, the Krisis of the European sciences lies not in the inadequacy of their scientificity but in the loss of their meaningfulness for life. According to an innovative suggestion, the Krisis lies not in the loss of their meaningfulness for life but in the inadequacy of their scientificity. These readings are mutually exclusive because each claims that the other misidentifies the Krisis as something that it is not. The argument of this paper, however, is that, given the many different senses of Krisis in The Crisis, an adequate understanding of the Krisis that Husserl identifies requires not a disjunctive but an inclusive approach. Therefore the paper proposes that Husserl’s Krisis of the European sciences is both a crisis of their scientificity and a crisis of their meaningfulness for life. The relevance of this result to Husserl’s philosophical and historical sense-investigations in The Crisis—as well as to the present critical situation of philosophy—is self-evident.     

On Lenin’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Materialism and empiriocriticism</Emphasis>

In May 1909, Lenin published Materialism and empiriocriticism, a polemical assault on forms of positivistic empiricism popular among members of the Bolshevik intelligentsia, especially his political rival Alexander Bogdanov. After expounding the core claims on both sides of the debate, this essay considers the relation of the philosophical issues at stake to the political stances of their proponents. I maintain that Lenin’s use of philosophical argument was not purely opportunistic, and I contest the view that his defence of realism was designed as a philosophical rationale for revolutionary vanguardism, arguing instead that Lenin primarily saw himself as defending the world-view of ordinary rank-and-file Marxists against varieties of philosophical obscurantism. Although of marginal influence at the time of its first publication, Materialism and empiriocriticism was later celebrated as a model of philosophical excellence, as the cult of Lenin was fashioned by Stalin. As a result of the text’s subsequent prominence, Lenin’s manner of philosophizing, with its vitriol and abuse, had a disastrous influence on the subsequent course of Soviet philosophical culture.     

Pedagogy and the Art of Death: Reparative Readings of Death and Dying in Margaret Edson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Wit</Emphasis>

Wit explores modes of reading representations of death and dying, both through the play’s sustained engagement with Donne’s Holy Sonnets and through Vivian’s self-reflexive approach to her illness and death. I argue that the play dramatizes reparative readings, a term coined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to describe an alternative to the paranoid reading practices that have come to dominate literary criticism. By analyzing the play’s reparative readings of death and dying (as well as its representation of the shortcomings of paranoid readings), I show how Wit provides lessons about knowledge-making and reading practices in the field of health humanities.     

Advertising <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fantasy</Emphasis>: Consuming Passion -‘Consumed’ <Emphasis Type="Italic">Desire</Emphasis>

Advertisements (n = 400) published in Bengali periodicals in four different time periods, 1947–48, 1971–72, 1991–92 & 2008–09 drawn following a multistage sampling were analyzed to see the pattern of change in concepts associated with products. They included four categories of products/ services : Jewellery, cosmetics, garments and banking. The analysis of advertisements indicated that diverse values are associated with products that have social and cultural connotations. Through such value addition, as if consumption of these commodities provides the consumer with an opportunity to construct, maintain and communicate identity and social meanings. However, the consumer emerged not as a passive victim, but an active agent in the construction of meaning.     

John Dewey and the Virtue of Cook Ding’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dao</Emphasis>

Certain discussions about “relativism” in the philosophy of Zhuangzi turn on the question of the morality of his dao 道. Some commentators, most notably Robert Eno, maintain that there is no ethical value whatsoever to Zhuangzi’s dao as presented in the Cook Ding episode and other “knack passages.” In this essay, it is argued that there is indeed a moral dimension to Cook Ding’s dao. One way to recognize it is to explore the similarity between that dao and John Dewey’s notion of educational method. There are moral traits that Dewey can appeal to in recommending his method. It is argued here that these traits represent the moral features of Cook Ding’s dao as well.     

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Normativity</Emphasis>

Response-dependence theses are usually formulated in terms of a priori true biconditionals of roughly the form ‘something, x, falls under the concept ‘F’ ↔ x would elicit response R from subjects S under conditions C’. Such formulations are vulnerable to conditional fallacy problems; counterexamples threaten whenever the C-conditions’ coming to obtain might alter the object with respect to F. Crispin Wright has suggested that such problems can be avoided by placing the C-conditions in a proviso. This ensures that any changes triggered by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain will be irrelevant to the truth of the biconditional. I argue that this move leaves the equations vulnerable to counterexamples of a slightly different kind: Cases where the change is triggered, not by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain, but by the response. I consider two ways to resist these counterexamples, and argue that both are insufficient. The upshot is a challenge that must be met if provisoed biconditionals are to serve their purpose.     

Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Passion</Emphasis> and the Many Uses of Christ’s Suffering

Many Christians resonated with Mel Gibsons film, The Passion of the Christ. The films sympathetic portrayal of Pontius Pilate reinforces the sense of victimization Americans have experienced since 9/11, however, and obscures the real meaning of Christs suffering.Marian Ronan is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Theology and Religion at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, a member seminary of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.     

Cache protection strategies of a non-social food-caching corvid,Clark’s nutcracker (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Nucifraga</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">columbiana</Emphasis>)

Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), a non-social corvid, cache much of their food in order to survive periods of resource uncertainty. These caches are at risk as they are subject to pilferage from other animals including conspecifics. Potentially, nutcrackers can ensure the safety of these caches by keeping track of whether they have been observed making a cache and subsequently engage in cache protection strategies—strategies that have been shown by other members of the corvid family (e.g., scrub-jays and ravens). Behaviors including creating more caches, eating a higher proportion of seeds, and re-caching existing compromised sites have been shown in laboratory settings with social corvids and have provided preliminary evidence of the complex cognitive abilities of corvids. In the present study, Clark’s nutcrackers are shown to engage in similar cache protection behaviors when observed by a conspecific. Furthermore, we show that these behaviors are a result of social, rather than associative, cues.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Girls</Emphasis> and Sex: A Content Analysis of Sexual Health Depictions in HBO’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Girls</Emphasis>

Sex on television has been a topic of interest to scholars and critics alike. History has shown that certain programs break the mold when talking about sex. One show that is currently leading this trend is HBO’s Girls, a fictional comedy-drama show with 4.1 million viewers that has received much attention for its portrayals of sex. This systematic, quantitative content analysis is a case study of the first three seasons of Girls. It examines sexual behaviors, sexual talk, and sexual risk and responsibility. Results revealed kissing to be the most prevalent sexual behavior and talking about own or other’s sexual interests/actions was the most frequent form of sexual talk. Most surprisingly, sexual risk/responsibility was represented much more in Girls than in shows evaluated in previous television content analyses.