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.     

Camus and Nihilism

Camus published an essay entitled ??Nietzsche and Nihilism,?? which was later incorporated into The Rebel. Camus' aim was to assess Nietzsche's response to the problem of nihilism. My aim is to do the same with Camus. The paper explores Camus' engagement with nihilism through its two major modalities: with respect to the individual and the question of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus, and with respect to the collective and the question of murder in The Rebel. While a Nietzschean influence thoroughly suffuses both books, it is in the second that Camus' most explicit, and most critical, engagement with the German philosopher takes place. The crux of Camus' critique of Nietzsche is that the absolute affirmation of existence he proposes as a response to nihilism cannot say ??no?? to murder. In the terms of Camus' discussion in The Rebel, Nietzsche's philosophy is thus culpable in the straying of rebellion from its own foundations and its slide into bloody revolution. First, the paper argues that Camus' criticisms of Nietzsche are misplaced. Camus focuses his analysis on sections of the problematic text The Will to Power and misses important sections of Nietzsche's published texts which in fact support the condemnation of revolution which is the project of The Rebel. However, the paper argues that Camus moves beyond Nietzsche in radically democratizing the response to nihilism. While Nietzsche's hopes for the creation of meaning are focused on exceptional individuals, Camus insists that any response to nihilism needs to be accessible to the average person. Such a move is laudable, but it raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the type of problem nihilism is, and how these might be addressed.     

Right Outta’ Nowhere: Jean-Luc Nancy, phenomenon and event ex nihilo

This essay proposes to read Jean-Luc Nancy??s references to creation ex nihilo as both an intervention in the French debate concerning eventness, and as a transformative rethinking of the status of phenomenality. Nancy??s position is roughly triangulated relative to key remarks from other thinkers and, above all, its distinctive components (temporality, negativity, spatiality) are elucidated through historical glosses. Articulating the overall architecture of this theory serves to illustrate the Heideggerian access to the event debate. It also deepens aspects only elliptically alluded to in Nancy??s own writing.     

Li (Ritual/Rite) and Tian (Heaven/Nature) in the Xunzi: Does Confucian li need metaphysics?

Ritual (li) is central to Confucian ethics and political philosophy. Robert Neville believes that Chinese Philosophy has an important role to play in our times by bringing ritual theory to the analysis of global moral and political issues. In a recent work, Neville maintains that ritual ??needs a contemporary metaphysical expression if its importance is to be seen.?? This paper examines Neville's claim through a detailed study of the ??ethics of ritual?? in one of the early Confucian texts, the Xunzi. This text has sometimes been read as offering a form of naturalism in its discussions of ??heaven (tian)?? as analogous to Western, even modern, concept of ??nature,?? while other interpreters insist that tian is a normative notion. Does this concept of tian offer a metaphysical ground for ethics of ritual advocated in the text? If so, what kind of metaphysics is it? Does Confucian ritual ethics need any metaphysical grounding? There is no specific metaphysical theory in the Xunzi and passages which could be referring to or implying metaphysical assumptions are open to hermeneutical debates. Even if metaphysical assumptions are necessary or beneficial to an ethics of ritual, the paper argues that the ??metaphysical flexibility?? of the text could work to its advantage in remaining relevant in contemporary context. The conclusion explores some possible directions for further exploring the metaphysics of ritual in a modern understanding of Xunzi.     

The Zhuangzi and You 遊: Defining an Ideal Without Contradiction

You ?[ is a crucial term for understanding the Zhuangzi. Translated as ??play,?? ??free play,?? and ??wandering,?? it is usually defined as an ideal, playful Zhuangzian way of being. There are two problems with this definition. The first is logical: the Zhuangzi cannot consistently recommend playfulness as an ideal, since doing so vitiates the essence of you??it becomes an ethical imperative instead of an activity freely undertaken for its own sake. The second problem is performative: arguments for playful Zhuangzi as exemplar resemble those of the logicians and philosophers who appear to come in for Zhuangzian criticism. This essay addresses these tensions by demonstrating how the Zhuangzi ambiguates the nature and value of you. Apparent endorsements of you are not freestanding, instead occurring in grudging replies of teachers to overly zealous students. In light of this recontextualization, a new version of you is offered that accommodates ??non-playful?? ways of being.     

A Parable, A Pearl and “Popular”? How the Broadway Musical Wicked—Especially Elphaba’s Character—May Assist Adolescent Girls to Claim Their Uniqueness

In this essay I provide a brief exegesis of the parable of the ??pearl of great price?? (Matthew 13:45?C46) as an introduction to an examination of Elphaba??s character in the Broadway musical Wicked [as distinguished from her character in Gregory Maguire??s novel, Wicked (1996)] and the potential value this character has for pastoral care with adolescent girls who struggle with the need to belong as well as the need to be themselves. I argue that Wicked may be understood as a twenty-first century parable that appeals to many, adults and adolescents alike, but it is especially appealing to teenage girls because it ??taps into a certain teenage angst?? (Zinoman 2005) that relates to the quest for popularity, a first true love, and beauty makeovers. Elphaba??s seriousness has a certain kind of spiritual nature which may be related to her green skin (James 1984, p. 160) that may encourage adolescent girls to adopt their own spiritual natures and enable them to claim their own voices even as Elphaba finally ??defies gravity?? and learns to fly.     

Wogegen wandte sich Husserl 1891?

A comprehensive and agreed-upon account of Husserl??s relation to Gottlob Frege does not yet exist. In this situation we encounter interpretations that allow systematic dogmas to reappear that should have long been vanquished??for instance, that the author of the Logical Investigations was not only decisively influenced by Frege, but also that he had already retracted his sharpest Frege-critique by 1891. The present essay contains a largely historical response to W. Künne??s new monograph on Frege that advocates such views. We will concentrate on a small remark that turns out to reference a defining moment for any understanding of Husserl??s early philosophy. We shall argue that Husserl??s supposed self-criticism does not turn on the critique that he had earlier leveled at Frege??s Grundlagen der Arithmetik; rather, it has to do exclusively with his own earlier systematic positions on the grounding of arithmetic. In this context, an important particular of Husserl??s Philosophie der Arithmetik takes center stage: this book is a mosaic composed from old and new insights, a fact that becomes most evident in the two distinct concepts of ??equivalence?? that are founded there, which reflects Husserl??s transition from a theory of arithmetic based on the concept of number to one based on the parallelism between proper and symbolic (improper) presentations. This change involves a long historical development that goes back to a tradition marked by the work of Bolzano, Lotze, Brentano, and Stumpf, and it is closely tied to the problem of how to distinguish between the sense and the object of an act. Systematic neglect of the historical background of the Frege?CHusserl relation has led to disputes over who owns the copyright to the sense/reference distinction, but it has obscured the very core of the original line of questioning.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Tian</Emphasis> as Cosmos in Z<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">hu</Emphasis> Xi’s Neo-Confucianism

Tian 天 is central to the metaphysics, cosmology, and ethics of the 800-year-long Chinese philosophical tradition we call “Neo-Confucianism,” but there is considerable confusion over what tian means—confusion which is exacerbated by its standard translation into English as “Heaven.” This essay analyzes the meaning of tian in the works of the most influential Neo-Confucian, Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), presents a coherent interpretation that unifies the disparate aspects of the term’s meaning, and argues that “cosmos” does an excellent job of capturing this meaning and therefore should be adopted as our translation of tian.     

Revisiting the Cultural Dope

This essay focuses on the ??cultural dope,?? an ironic reference in Harold Garfinkel??s Studies in Ethnomethodology to the rule-following actor in conventional sociological theories. In the nearly half-century since the publication of that book, the ??cultural dope?? has been incorporated into numerous criticisms of ??models of man?? in the human sciences. Garfinkel??s account appeals to many writers because it seems to present an alternative picture of the actor: an individual who is self-aware, reflective, and skilled in the conduct of daily affairs. A problem with such a generalized picture of the actor is that it may seem to encourage uncritical acceptance of whatever ??the public?? (or a broad segment of the public) happens to believe or support. This paper revisits Garfinkel??s account of the cultural dope, and contrasts ??conservative?? and ??radical?? readings of what Garfinkel does with that figure. The ??conservative?? reading leaves the edifice of a social-structural model largely intact, and provides an alternative, more complex, picture of individual action than that of a cultural dope. The ??radical?? reading places relevant social structures in a dependent relation to the contingencies of action, and thus destabilizes the very theoretical edifice that sets up the problem of how to integrate individual actions with stable social structures. In line with the ??radical?? reading, this paper suggests that Garfinkel creates serious difficulty for any generalized ??model of man,?? regardless of whether it portrays the individual as active or passive, well-informed or ignorant, or reflexive or not.     

Speculative foundations of phenomenology

This essay tries to account for a certain ??speculative turn?? in contemporary philosophy (Q. Meillassoux, G. Harman, M. Gabriel, etc.) from a phenomenological point of view. A first objective of it will consist in exposing the link between, on the one hand, the methodological sense of Husserl??s concrete phenomenological analyses (concerning, for example, time and intersubjective structure of transcendental subjectivity,) and on the other hand, the consequences that follow from the grounding of phenomenology as first philosophy. This will allow a largely underestimated research angle to be opened up, one that I call a ??constructive phenomenology,?? that constitutes an essential and original figure of transcendental philosophy in general. A second objective will then consist in the attempt to sketch the foundation of knowledge as knowledge, the core of a ??phenomenological metaphysics.?? Whereas the first part will remain within a Husserlian framework, the second will develop some elements of a ??speculative transcendentalism?? in a phenomenological perspective.     

Verdeckte Spuren deutscher Geschichte – verdeckende Psychoanalyse

This article is a response to Michael Ermann??s article ??Hidden traces of the German history. Children of WW II and the Nazi era??an unwanted heritage?? (??Verdeckte Spuren deutscher Geschichte. Kriegskinder und ihre Kinder??ein ungewolltes Erbe??), which appeared in the December 2010 issue ofForum der Psychoanalyse. The ??childhood in war research?? presented there contributes, according to the thesis of this essay, more to additional concealment than to uncovering the German past for it portrays unusual features in the mental development of persons born in the time of National Socialism and World War II one-sidedly as the results of war experiences, whereas the effects of National Socialism are ignored. On the basis of quotations from the text the view is developed that the covering up and blurring of National Socialism and its mental effects can be attributed to defense mechanisms, which are passed on from one generation to the next also by psychoanalysts and which narrow the focus of study. The hope is expressed that psychoanalytic research will overcome this hampering factor and in future increasingly shed light on those causes of mental suffering which lie in the National Socialist German past.     

Discussions with Bocheński concerning Soviet Marxism–Leninism, 1952–1986

Boche??ski??s lucid, unpartisan, and judiciously critical discussion of Soviet Marxism?CLeninism in his book Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (1950) filled a major gap in our understanding of that influential movement. Prior to its publication there had been only two works on the subject in English, John Somerville??s Soviet Philosophy (1946) and the Handbook of Philosophy (1949), edited and adapted by Howard Selsam from the Kratkij filosofskij slovar?? (2nd ed. 1940). Both are marked by strong partisanship and ideological bias. Somerville is uncritically pro-Soviet and abjectly Stalinist. Selsam, although he tones down the adulation of Marx, Stalin et al. of the KFS, retains that work??s abuse of such ??reactionary?? and ??idealist?? thinkers as Plato and such ??reactionary?? and ??bourgeois?? thinkers as Hegel. The benign influence of Boche??ski??s work increased with the publication of the English translation, Soviet Russian Dialectical Materialism, in 1963.     

Yu in the Xunzi: Can Desire by Itself Motivate Action?

This essay argues that yu ?? (desire), in Xunzi??s view, cannot by itself motivate action. Such a clarification will also bear on our understanding of the relation between xin ?? (the heart/mind) and yu in the Xunzi. It is divided into three main sections. The first section seeks to explicate the common assumption that yu can be an independent source of motivation. In the second section, I will conduct textual analysis that challenges such an assumption and argue that only xin can by itself motivate action. In the third section, I explain that the issue of whether yu can conflict with xin is not applicable in Xunzi??s thought and extrapolate the implications that xin is always activated and that it has a natural inclination to pursue the objects of yu. For these reasons, the source of moral failure lies in xin being active in certain problematic ways.     

The Limitations of Ritual Propriety: Ritual and Language in Xúnzǐ and Zhuāngzǐ

This essay examines the theory of ritual propriety presented in the Xúnz?? and criticisms of Xunzi-like views found in the classical Daoist anthology Zhu??ngz??. To highlight the respects in which the Zhu??ngz?? can be read as posing a critical response to a Xunzian view of ritual propriety, the essay juxtaposes the two texts' views of language, since Xunzi's theory of ritual propriety is intertwined with his theory of language. I argue that a Zhuangist critique of the presuppositions of Xunzi's stance on language also undermines his stance on ritual propriety. Xunzi contends that state promulgation of anelaborate code of ritual propriety is a key to good social order (zhi) and that state regulation of language is a key to smooth communication and thus also good order. The Zhu??ngz?? provides grounds for doubting both contentions. Claiming that ritual propriety causally produces social order is analogous to claiming that grammar causally produces smooth linguistic communication, when in fact it is more likely our ability to communicate that allows us to develop shared rules of grammar. Humans have fundamental social and communicative capacities that undergird our abilities to speak a language or engage in shared ritual performances. It is these more fundamental capacities, not their manifestation in a particular system of grammar or ritual norms, that provide the root explanation of our ability to communicate or to live together harmoniously. The Xunzi-Zhuangzi dialectic suggests that ritual is indispensable, but normatively justified rituals will be less rigid, less comprehensive, less fastidious, and more spontaneous than a Xunzian theorist would allow.     

Graphic design in the printed translations of Franz Rosenzweig

One of Franz Rosenzweig's most significant ventures for Jewish renewal was the translation into German, which he initiated, of the Bible, prayerbook and religious poems. The aim of this essay is to explore the graphic design of the page that Rosenzweig selected for the printed edition of his translations. I will argue that the graphic design of the Siddur page is not just an aesthetic aspect of the translation but should be recognized as an educational and dialogic concern. Rosenzweig's preoccupation with page design is not limited to the Siddur, as the reader of The Star of Redemption will also notice his distinctive influence on the visual aspects of the text. It is expressed in the way he forms the six-pointed Star of David, the triangles which make up the star, and the way in which they appear in the book and are positioned on the page. And if the graphic depiction of the triangles is not enough, one only needs to visually experience what is described by Rosenzweig at the end of the book: the image of the star reveals the face of man.     

Two Senses of “Wei 偽”: A New Interpretation of Xunzi’s Theory of Human Nature

In contrast to the traditional and ordinary interpretation of Xunzi??s theory of human nature, which considers Xunzi??s theory as claiming that human nature is bad or evil, this article aims at, first, arguing that the interpretation is wrong or at least incomplete and, second, constructing a new interpretation that, according to Xunzi??s text, there are some factors in human nature that are able to promote good behaviors. I shall demonstrate that some major paragraphs in Xunzi??s text were misinterpreted and misarranged, analyze that the word wei (artifice) in the chapter of ??Zhengming?? has two different but related senses, one of which designates some of the potential capacities of human nature, and argue that the 23 words in the chapter of ??Rongru?? should not be deleted as redundant, as was done by the two famous philologists in Qing dynasdy, Wang Niansun and Wang Xianqian.     

Newtonian determinism to branching space-times indeterminism in two moves

??Branching space-times?? (BST) is intended as a representation of objective, event-based indeterminism. As such, BST exhibits both a spatio-temporal aspect and an indeterministic ??modal?? aspect of alternative possible historical courses of events. An essential feature of BST is that it can also represent spatial or space-like relationships as part of its (more or less) relativistic theory of spatio-temporal relations; this ability is essential for the representation of local (in contrast with ??global??) indeterminism. This essay indicates how BST might be seen to grow out of Newton??s deterministic and non-relativistic theory by two independent moves: (1) Taking account of indeterminism, and (2) attending to spatio-temporal relationships in a spirit derived from Einstein??s theory of special relativity. Since (1) and (2) are independent, one can see that there is room for four theories: Newtonian determinism, branching time indeterminism, relativistic determinism, and (finally) branching space-times indeterminism.     

Gestural sense-making: hand gestures as intersubjective linguistic enactments

The ubiquitous human practice of spontaneously gesturing while speaking demonstrates the embodiment, embeddedness, and sociality of cognition. The present essay takes gestural practice to be a paradigmatic example of a more general claim: human cognition is social insofar as our embedded, intelligent, and interacting bodies select and construct meaning in a way that is intersubjectively constrained and defeasible. Spontaneous co-speech gesture is markedly interesting because it at once confirms embodied aspects of linguistic meaning-making that formalist and linguistic turn-type philosophical approaches fail to appreciate, and it also forefronts intersubjectivity as an inherent and inherently normative dimension of communicative action. Co-speech hand gestures, as linguistically meaningful speech acts, demonstrate both sedimentation and spontaneity (in the sense of Maurice Merleau-Ponty??s dialectic of linguistic expression (2002)), or features of convention and nonconvention in a Gricean sense (1989). Yet neither pragmatic nor classic phenomenological approaches to communication can accommodate the practice of co-speech hand gesturing without some rehabilitation and reorientation. Pragmatic criteria of intersubjectivity, normativity, and rationality need to confront the non-propositional and nonverbal meaning-making of embodied encounters. Phenomenological treatments of expression and intersubjectivity must consider the normative nature of high-order social practices like language use. Reciprocally critical exchanges between these traditions and gesture studies yield an improved philosophy that treats language as a multi-modal medium for collaborative meaning achievement. The proper paradigm for these discussions is found in enactive approaches to social cognition. Co-speech hand gestures are first and foremost emergent elements of social interaction, not the external whirring of an isolated internal consciousness. In contrast to current literature that frequently presents gestures as uncontrollable bodily upsurge or infallible imagistic phenomenon that drives and dances with verbal or ??linguistic?? convention (McNeill 1992, 2005), I suggest that we study gestures as dynamic, embodied, and shared tools for collaborative sense-making.     

What is a Minor Philosophy? A Conversation on Thinking from the Periphery in a Global World

This is the text of a conversation that follows up on Roberto Farneti??s article ??A Minor Philosophy: The State of the Art of Philosophical Scholarship in Italy?? published in Philosophia 38 (1) 2009: 1?C28. After a brief introductory note that details the reception of the article in Italy, Ferrara and Farneti engage in a conversation on the notion of ??minor philosophy?? and on the meaning and future of philosophizing ??from the periphery?? in a globalized world. The text is followed by a short Appendix, a reply to Annalisa Coliva??s commentary on Farneti??s article.