THE "OPEN COUNTRY WHOSE NAME IS PRAYER": APOPHASIS, DECONSTRUCTION, AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

While much has been written on the dialogue between postmodernism and the Christian apophatic tradition, there has been little focus on the role of what lies at the heart of this tradition: the practice of contemplation. By looking at contemplative authors such as Evagrius Ponticus and others, this article shows that contemplative practice, situated in a life of contemplation, relates closely to postmodernism's critique of ontotheology. Contemplative practice deconstructs the epistemologically constituted self that knows itself as knowing and God as known (to paraphrase Mary‐Jane Rubenstein).     

Moments Out of Time: A family canoes the north woods

This nature essay recounts the author's 10-day canoe trip with her blended family through Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada. Within the narrative, she explores the ways in which a young child's spirituality ('relational consciousness') influence her own adult consciousness. Conversations with her 6-year-old son lead to her to develop the metaphor of radio frequencies to reflect upon the differences between children's and adults' attitudes toward time: solar time; here-and-now time; the human life cycle; historical time; memory time; industrial time; infinity time. In addition to these conversations, the author draws upon several social critics, nature writers, and others. Other themes touched upon include contemplation, the sense of wonder, bodily knowing, the deep self, and time management. The essay closes with the author reflecting on the need to reclaim time in ways that nurture the natural spirituality of childhood.     

Knowing in the “Executive Way”: Knowing How,Rules, Methods,Principles and Criteria

I advance a variety of intellectualism about knowing‐how that is, paradoxically, suggested by Ryle's positive discussions of that phenomenon. I discuss the roots of the view in Ryle's work, its affinity with John Hyman's (2015) view of factual knowledge, and important points of contrast with Stanley and Williamson's (2001) proposal. Drawing on work by Cath (2015) and Wiggins (2012) I also discuss conditions on knowing practically, in ‘the executive way’, as an alternative to appealing to practical modes of presentation.     

Readiness to Change,Social Norms,and Alcohol Involvement Among College Students

The author explored the impact that readiness to change variables have on dimensions of alcohol involvement and how the explanatory power of the variables compares with social norms among college students. Canonical analysis suggested that alcohol intensity and drinking consequences were best explained by the norms for closest friends and contemplation about one's drinking.     

HAVING KNOW‐HOW: INTELLECT,ACTION, AND RECENT WORK ON RYLE'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE‐HOW AND KNOWLEDGE‐THAT

Stanley and Williamson reject Ryle's knowing‐how/knowing‐that distinction charging that it obstructs our understanding of human action. Incorrectly interpreting the distinction to imply that knowledge‐how is non‐propositional, they object that Ryle's argument for it is unsound and linguistic theory contradicts it. I show that they (and their interlocutors) misconstrue the distinction and Ryle's argument. Consequently, their objections fail. On my reading, Ryle's distinction pertains to, not knowledge, but an explanatory gap between explicit and implicit content, and his argument for it is sound. I defend the distinction's necessity in explaining human action and show that it propels a fruitful explanatory program.     

NEWTON AND PROCLUS: GEOMETRY,IMAGINATION, AND KNOWING SPACE

I aim to clarify the argument for space that Newton presents in De Gravitatione (composed prior to 1687) by putting Newton's remarks into conversation with the account of geometrical knowledge found in Proclus's Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements (ca. 450). What I highlight is that both Newton and Proclus adopt an epistemic progression (or “order of knowing”) according to which geometrical knowledge necessarily precedes our knowledge of metaphysical truths concerning the ontological state of affairs. As I argue, Newton's commitment to this order of knowing clarifies the interplay of the imagination and understanding in geometrical inquiry and illuminates how geometrical knowledge of space can lead to knowledge that space depends on and is related to God. In general, appreciating the Proclean elements of Newton's argument brings added light to the significance of geometrical inquiry for his general natural philosophical program and grants us insight into the philosophical grounding for the notion of absolute space that is presented in the Principia mathematica (1687).     

Knowing‐how: Problems and Considerations

In recent years, a debate concerning the nature of knowing‐how has emerged between intellectualists who claim that knowledge‐how is reducible to knowledge‐that and anti‐intellectualists who claim that knowledge‐how comprises a unique and irreducible knowledge category. The arguments between these two camps have clustered largely around two issues: (1) intellectualists object to Gilbert Ryle's assertion that knowing‐how is a kind of ability, and (2) anti‐intellectualists take issue with Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson's positive, intellectualist account of knowing‐how. Like most anti‐intellectualists, in this paper I will raise objections to Stanley and Williamson's account of knowing‐how and also defend the claim that ability is necessary for knowing‐how attributions. Unlike most discussions of knowing‐how, however, I will return to more Rylean considerations in order to illustrate that any intellectualist account of knowing‐how, not simply Stanley and Williamson's preferred variety, will fail because it will be unable to account for fundamental differences in the knowledge required to instantiate an ability and the knowledge involved in propositional thought.     

Memory,Quasi-memory,and Pseudo-quasi-memory

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize McDowell's stance, drawing on a distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification.     

Regarding a Regress

Is there a successful regress argument against intellectualism? In this article I defend the negative answer. I begin by defending Stanley and Williamson's (2001) critique of the contemplation regress against Noë (2005). I then identify a new argument – the employment regress – that is designed to succeed where the contemplation regress fails, and which I take to be the most basic and plausible form of a regress argument against intellectualism. However, I argue that the employment regress still fails. Drawing on the previous discussion, I criticise further regress arguments given by Hetherington (2006) and Noë (2005).     

Transparent emotions? A critical analysis of Moran's transparency claim

I critically analyze Richard Moran's account of knowing one's own emotions, which depends on the Transparency Claim (TC) for self-knowledge. Applied to knowing one's own beliefs, TC states that when one is asked “Do you believe P?”, one can answer by referencing reasons for believing P. TC works for belief because one is justified in believing that one believes P if one can give reasons for why P is true. Emotions, however, are also conceptually related to concerns; they involve a response to something one cares about. As a consequence, acquiring self-knowledge of one's emotions requires knowledge of other mental attitudes, which falls outside the scope of TC. Hence, TC cannot be applied to emotions.     

Children's Understanding of Behavioral Consequences of Epistemic States: A Comparison of Knowledge,Ignorance, and False Belief

The author addressed the issue of the simultaneity of false belief and knowledge understanding by investigating children's ability to predict the behavioral consequences of knowledge, ignorance, and false belief. The second aim of the study was to explore the role of counterfactuals in knowledge understanding. Ninety-nine (99) children, age 3–7 years old, completed the unexpected transfer task and a newly designed task in which a protagonist experienced 1 of the following 4 situations: knowing a fact, not knowing a fact, knowing a procedure, and not knowing a procedure. The results showed that factual ignorance was as difficult as false belief for the children, whereas the other conditions were all easier than false belief, suggesting that the well-known lag between ignorance and false belief may be partly methodologically based. The results provide support for a common underlying conceptual system for both knowing and believing, and evidence of the role of counterfactual reasoning in the development of epistemic state understanding. Methodological variations of the new task are proposed for future research.     

Michel Henry's Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience and Husserlian Intentionality

In his essay 'The Pit and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel's Semiology', Jacques Derrida claims that there is a privilege of speech over writing inherent in Hegel's theory of signs. In this paper, I examine Derrida's criticism. While it is to Derrida's credit that he focusses on an area of Hegel's philosophy that has hardly been analysed, his reading is problematic in several regards. After presenting Derrida's main arguments, I pose three questions, the first of which belongs to the realm of subjective spirit, the second to objective spirit, and the third to absolute spirit. I shall then show that Hegel makes several statements in favour of a privilege of writing over speech - statements that are not merely parenthetic or marginal. Moreover, those claims that Hegel makes toward any privilege of speech are in the wrong place, namely, subjective spirit, for them to represent his final point of view.     

The Work of the Trinity and the Knowledge of God in Augustine's De Trinitate

This article seeks to set forth the contribution that book 8 of Augustine's De Trinitate makes to our understanding of Augustine's way of knowing and the structure of the De Trinitate. With regards to Augustine's way of knowing, I argue that, in contrast to the results to which the epistemological Christocentrism of Barthian theology can lead, Augustine is able to present an account of the knowledge of God that remains faithful to the witness of Scripture by building his account around the work of each person of the Trinity. With regards to the structure of the De Trinitate, I propose that Augustine's concern in De Trinitate 8 with vain mental images shows that the search for the true image of God in the second half of the De Trinitate is motivated by a concern for the way in which the imagination responds to teaching about the Trinity.     

The alchemy of training

Abstract: Training in Zurich has its own special character but also is marked by the very fact that it is in Zurich. Zurich radiates its own distinct energy and carries a specific historical significance in the world of analytical psychology. This, like all things with psychic energy, has a spectrum of meaning. This spectrum, as well as the ‘spirit’ of the place, will be critically examined, taking into account the ‘blessings’ and ‘curses’ of such genius loci. Training in Zurich is experientially based and is first and foremost an initiation: an initiation into symbolic life, or rather life where symbol plays an important role. Training is understood to involve a transformation of one's self, much like the 8^th century alchemist Morienus Romanus understood the opus as a ‘human transformation system’. It is not merely an education. The requirement of ‘immersion’ is core to the experience of becoming an analyst in Zurich and this sets up a valuable discomfort between rational intellectual learning and intuitive experience, between knowing and not‐knowing. How does this dis‐serve the making of an analyst? What is implicit in this immersion and its discomfort? Does it have a role in today's emphasis on clinical and empirical training? Does Zurich still offer something unique and valuable in the world of training, or is it passé? From these questions, the dichotomy of what is ‘urgent’ and ‘essential’ in training will be examined.     

THE ETHICS OF ECSTASY: Georges Bataille and Amy Hollywood on Mysticism,Morality, and Violence

Georges Bataille agrees with numerous Christian mystics that there is ethical and religious value in meditating upon, and having ecstatic episodes in response to, imagery of violent death. For Christians, the crucified Christ is the focus of contemplative efforts. Bataille employs photographic imagery of a more‐recent victim of torture and execution. In this essay, while engaging with Amy Hollywood's interpretation of Bataille in Sensible Ecstasy, I show that, unlike the Christian mystics who influence him, Bataille strives to divorce himself from any moral authority external to the ecstatic episode itself. I argue that in his attempt to remove external authority he abandons the only resources that could possibly protect his mystical contemplation from engendering sadistic attitudes.     

Beauty,Tragedy and New Creation: Theology and Contemplation in Cappadocian Cosmology

This article explores whether we can speak of an aggregate Christian cosmology or doctrine of creation constructed by the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa. While discouraging the possibility of identifying a perfectly contoured ‘system’ of Cappadocian cosmology, I argue that there are certain ‘first principles’ and doctrinal correlates shared by this triumvirate. More helpful is to approach their constructive theology of creation from the standpoint of its basic epistemological protocols of theologia, which lay down the ground rules for Christian language of Creator and creation, and theôria, the church's ‘sanctified intuition’ of the meaning of the world. Theôria, as ‘contemplation’ in the broadest sense, enables the Cappadocians to envision the world, through the lens of sacred history, as a theatre of tragedy and beauty, and as the matrix of the triune Creator's aspiration to bring about an ever‐renewed creation.     

PHRONESIS,CLINICAL REASONING,AND PELLEGRINO's PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE

In terms of Aristotle's intellectual virtues, the process of clinical reasoning and the discipline of clinical medicine are often construed as techne (art), as episteme (science), or as an amalgam or composite of techne and episteme. Although dimensions of process and discipline are appropriately described in these terms, I argue that phronesis (practical reasoning) provides the most compelling paradigm, particularly of the rationality of the physician's knowing and doing in the clinical encounter with the patient. I anchor this argument, moreover, in Pellegrino's philosophy of medicine as a healing relationship, oriented to the end of a right and good healing action for the individual patient.     

PHILOSOPHY AND SALVATION: THE APOPHATIC IN THE THOUGHT OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

The mystical apotheosis of Schopenhauer's thought is intimately connected to his immanent definition of philosophy. An analysis of the philosophical progression to salvation via aesthetic contemplation, compassion, and asceticism, illuminates Schopenhauer's advocacy of Eckhartian‐style mysticism. Schopenhauer's mysticism, like Eckhart’s, relies on the structures of negation facilitated by a particular metaphysics. Both therein transcend the tradition of theological discourse which holds it possible to construct propositions that express the essence of the divine. That has led to both being associated with atheism. However, in tracing the mechanism by which Schopenhauer's philosophy reaches its mystical apotheosis, it becomes apparent that it would be mistaken to charge him (and Eckhart) with atheism on the basis of an alleged inability to distinguish between an “atheistic non‐existence of God” and a “hyper‐thingness of God”. Rather than attack Schopenhauer in this manner, and hence also Eckhart, it is more appropriate to target their underlying metaphysical preconceptions, which in the case of Schopenhauer, is to take issue with his Critical conception of philosophy.     

PERSONAL PARTICIPATION: Michael Polanyi, Eric Voegelin, and the Indispensability of Faith

In this paper I focus on the central role faith plays in the thought of Polanyi and Voegelin. I begin by indicating how both find the modern conception of scientific knowing seriously wanting. What Polanyi terms “objectivism” and Voegelin calls “scientism” is the modern tendency to reduce knowledge to only that which can be scientifically demonstrated. This errant view of knowledge does not occur in a vacuum, though, and both men draw a connection between this and the political pathologies of the twentieth century. I then show the complementary ways in which these two thinkers believe recovery is possible: an epistemological solution encompassed in Polanyi's personal knowledge and an ontological reorientation that is the core of Voegelin's insistence that we must recover an awareness of human participation in transcendent reality.