Towards an Embodied Poetics of the Self: Personal Renewal in Dewey and Cavell

This paper examines the different conceptions of personal renewal offered in the writings of John Dewey and Stanley Cavell. Both conceptions, I suggest, can be seen as attempting to reconcile the quest for self-realization with democratic life through a poetic, essentially Emersonian vision of the self as a continual work-in-progress. Accordingly, the kinds of selves that Dewey and Cavell seek are in the end highly compatible. Yet it seems clear too that Dewey and Cavell also stand in a somewhat different relation to the Emersonian tradition, and thus diverge in important ways as to the most preferable means of personal renewal. While Dewey tends to focus on the extensive workings of embodied habit, Cavell's ``Emersonian Perfectionism' takes a more distinctively linguistic turn. After showing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to personal renewal, I prevail upon the need for educational environments that recognize both the discursive and nondiscursive dimensions of reconstructing the self.     

Rorty's Dewey: Pragmatism,education and the public sphere

In Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Bellah et al. diagnose our loss of public life in areas such as education and relate this loss both to flaws in moral ecology and to our institutions. Their opposition to the Lockean metaphysic of self and community and to objectivist epistemology as a way of understanding schools is helpful in that it naturally suggests the kind of piecemeal, contextualized change that we locate within Dewey's viewpoint. But, I argue, Bellah et al.'s penchant for first philosophy ultimately taints their work. While I applaud their turn to Dewey, I find their choice of a metaphysical, rather than a Rortyan reading of Dewey misguided. The proper alternative to a Lockean metaphysics is not a communitarian/Aristotelian one; the proper corrective to objectivist epistemology is not Deweyan epistemology or critical theory. We need to see, as in Rorty (1991b), that democracy exists prior to normative philosophy just as it has priority over substantive religion. To think otherwise would lead to a loss of contact with the ordinary, specific, ever-changing realms where our lives, and our democratic institutions — including the university — must either thrive or flounder. Finally, there is no epistemology or metaphysics that will adequately ground the university's workings. Instead, there is only, as Dewey put it, growth or failure to grow, guided by hints and resonances that arise in evolving circumstances.     

The Creative Dilemma: The Influence of Schiller''s Aesthetics on the Life and Work of Otto Rank

The impact of philosophical wisdom on the pioneers of psychoanalytic work is presented in this article, in particular the influence of Schiller's aesthetics on the theoretical and clinical work of Otto Rank. The essay will compare and contrast Schiller's major themes—in particular his notions of the aesthetic impulse, will, and his concept of harmonia—with aspects of Rank's contributions, namely, his notions of creativity and the art of living. Drawing from Schiller's aesthetic vision, Rank's notion that art and play are foundational sources for healing is described in the author's own clinical work.     

Hermeneutics of Clinical Practice: The Question of Textuality

In this article I scrutinize the question whetherclinical medicine, in order to be considered ahermeneutical enterprise, must be thought of as areading of different texts. Three differentproposals for a definition of the concept of text inmedicine, suggested by other hermeneuticians, arediscussed. All three proposals are shown to beunsatisfying in various ways. Instead of attempting tofind a fourth definition of the concept of textsuitable to a hermeneutics of medicine, I then try toshow that the assumption that one needs to operatewith the concept of text in order to develop ahermeneutics of medicine is false. Clinicalinterpretation can be shown to essentially consist ina dialogical hermeneutics, the pattern of which can befound in the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Thiskind of hermeneutics is not a methodology of textreading, but an ontological, phenomenologicalhermeneutics in which understanding is a necessaryfeature of the being-together of human beings in theworld. This being-together in and through languagetakes on a peculiar form in the clinical encounter,since the medical meeting is typically characterizedby an asymmetrical enstrangement and has a specificgoal – health for the patient – absent in other formsof hermeneutics. Central issues of Gadamer'sphilosophy, e.g. fusion of horizons, are shown tofit the structure of clinical practice.     

Belief in a Just World and Employee Voice Behavior: The Mediating Roles of Perceived Efficacy and Risk

Abstract

In this research, we hypothesized that employees’ belief in a just world (BJW) would be positively related to their voice behavior, i.e., the expression of ideas or opinions with the intention of engendering organizational improvement or change, and that this relation would be mediated by perceived voice efficacy and perceived voice risk. To test these hypotheses, we collected self-reported data from employees in two different countries: China (N?=?313) and Germany (N?=?190). The results revealed a positive association between BJW and employee voice behavior in both samples. The two-mediator model was confirmed in the Chinese sample, while only perceived voice efficacy played a mediating role in the German sample. Possible reasons for these differences may be related to differences in cultural dimensions and education levels between the samples. The findings emphasize the importance of bolstering employees’ belief in justice and the organizational climate, which influence perceived voice efficacy and risk, as means to increase organizational voice behavior.     

The analysis of experience: John Dewey and Elsie Ripley Clapp on desire and thinking, 1911

Unpublished correspondence with Elsie Ripley Clapp, along with extensive notes for a 1911 course, The Analysis of Experience, provide the context for a consideration of John Dewey's discussion of the relation between desire and thinking. Dewey's philosophic point of view is portrayed as it was developing in his own mind. The unity of thought and desire, the necessity of making objects of inquiry, the identification of thinking and acting, are themes in these materials which would appear in their published form in such works as Essays in Experimental Logic, Democracy and Education, and Human Nature and Conduct. In the unpublished materials, Dewey is seen as a naturalist at work in his laboratory, reworking his ideas and acknowledging Clapp's assistance in getting Dewey to connect practical situations in life with the philosophic distinctions under development. The 1911 materials are an excellent connection between problematics in Dewey's earlier writings on ethics, epistemology, and logic, and his later writings, on the same subjects in the 1920's and 1930's.     

害羞与进谏行为的关系:管理开放性与心理授权的调节作用

包括进谏行为在内的角色外行为研究近来广受关注。基于特质激活理论,本研究探索了害羞特质与进谏行为之间的关系,及管理开放性和心理授权对它们的调节作用。以华东地区369名企业员工为样本,采用配对成组的问卷研究,结果表明:管理开放性和心理授权均对害羞与进谏行为之间的关系存在调节效应,即当处于高管理开放性和高心理授权水平时,害羞特质与进谏行为之间的消极关系减弱,而当处于低管理开放性和低心理授权水平时,害羞特质与进谏行为之间的消极关系增强。     

Cultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Criticism: A Peircean Approach to our Educational Practices

Peirce was a thinker who claimed that his mind had been thoroughly formed by his rigorous training in the natural sciences. But he was also the author who proclaimed that nothing is truer than true poetry. In making the case for Peirce’s relevance to issues of education, then, it is necessary to do justice to the multifaceted character of his philosophical genius, in particular, to the experimentalist cast of his mind and his profound appreciation for the aesthetic, the imaginative, and (more narrowly) the metaphorical in their myriad guises. My aim in this paper is to go some distance, however small, toward doing such justice to Peirce.     

精诚合一:医学哲学事业的永恒主题

医学哲学事业的价值在于发现并弘扬医学的基本精神。“精诚合一”是医学亘古不变的基本精神。当代医学哲学研究的任务是揭示医学的“精诚合一”特征及其深刻内涵,注重“精”与“诚”的有机结合,批判现实医疗活动和理论研究在“精”、“诚”问题上的片面,弘扬医学的基本精神。     

Metamorphosis and the aesthetics of loss: I. Mourning Daphne--the Apollo and Daphne paintings of Nicolas Poussin

The myth of Apollo and Daphne, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is viewed through the self‐referential eye of the seicento painter, Nicolas Poussin. Collectively, the tree‐metaphoric myths are argued to metaphorically represent, mourn, and negate unbearable realities, including the developmental challenges of adolescence and adulthood – in particular, loss. Examined in the context of their aesthetic precedents and a close reading of Ovid ’s text, the two Apollo and Daphne paintings that bracket Poussin’s oeuvre are interpreted as conveying the conflict and ambiguity inherent to Ovid, as well as connotations more personal to the artist. The poetic and aesthetic reworking of the regressive, magical experience of metamorphosis restores it to the symbolic world of metaphor: for reparation, remembrance, and return.     

进谏行为与组织公民行为的关系研究：诺莫网络视角

进谏行为和组织公民行为等角色外行为研究近年来备受关注。与组织公民行为相比,进谏行为是一个新的构念。本研究探索了进谏行为的构念内涵,并借鉴诺莫网络思路考察了进谏行为与组织公民行为的关系。问卷研究的结果表明：进谏行为能融入组织公民行为构念,领导公平和情感承诺对两者都具有正面影响,而大五中的宜人性维度对两者的影响表现出差异性;从事角色外行为会导致更高的工作满意感。研究证实了进谏行为与组织公民行为构念内涵的相似性及存在的细微差异。     

实践的逻辑与哲学终结论的困境

以实践是一种具体、历史的现实生活为基础,把马克思意义上的哲学终结论解释为以具体、历史的分析取代抽象、超历史的形而上分析这种愈来愈被认可的说法,由于马克思仍然把需要、经济、理性、发展视为一般性、永恒性的东西,而需要重思。实际上,马克思在反旧形而上学之路上前进的距离不能过高估计。对实践的自悖性估计过低是马克思未能继续前进的根源。同时,在马克思主义理论中反对过分的专门化富有意义,但把哲学终结于社会批判理论中的马尔库塞式见解也会造成某种漠视。     

The canary in the mind: on the fate of dreams in psychoanalysis and in contemporary culture

Dreams have been central in the birth and evolution of psychoanalysis. This paper explores the remarkable story of the relationship between dreams and psychoanalysis as a modern version of the long history of dreams in most healing traditions. But psychoanalysis seems to have turned away from dreams as central inspiration in a way parallel to the general culture’s turn away from dreams and the reality of inner life. Yet modern postindustrial culture is transfixed by a version of “dream life” in ways just beginning to be understood (e.g., in the transformation of ancient interest in the inner screen to the external screen). Working with dreams in psychoanalytic psychotherapy was a creative and revolutionary act for our forebears. It is even more so today, in ways that are discussed in this paper.Dr. Paul Lippmann is training and supervising analyst and faculty member at the William Alanson White Institute and faculty member of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is also Director of the Stockbridge Dream Society.     

The Spaces of Knowledge: Bertrand Russell,Logical Construction,and the Classification of the Sciences

What Russell regarded to be the ‘chief outcome’ of his 1914 Lowell Lectures at Harvard can only be fully appreciated, I argue, if one embeds the outcome back into the ‘classificatory problem’ that many at the time were heavily engaged in. The problem focused on the place and relationships between the newly formed or recently professionalized disciplines such as psychology, Erkenntnistheorie, physics, logic and philosophy. The prime metaphor used in discussions about the classificatory problem by British philosophers was a spatial one, with such motifs as ‘standpoints’, ‘place’ and ‘perspectives’ in the space of knowledge. In fact, Russell’s construction of a perspectival space of six-dimensions was meant precisely to be a timely solution to the widely discussed classificatory problem.     

The Representation of the Shoah in Maus: History as Psychology

The contemporary tendency in United States culture to substitute a discourse of psychology for political and social analysis is especially evident in treatments of the Shoah. Drawing on postmodernist techniques, Art Spiegelman's“Holocaust commix”, Maus, dramatizes not historical reality but the effort of representing the memory of trauma. In the absence of symbolic authority, suffering from rivalry with his father and haunted by the real of the father's voice, the son becomes the subject of the narration. Like Maus, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and the criticism of Dominick LaCapra focus on the psychological processes of the private individual. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ronald L. Hall,The Human Embrace: The Love of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Love; Kierkegaard,Cavell, Nussbaum

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy,viewed through the lenses of spiritual direction and psychoanalysis

Rudolf Otto’s work, The Idea of the Holy [Das Heilige], is both new and old: it puts the idea of the holy or numinous into the mainstream of Christian discourse, but does this in a way that is deeply embedded in Otto’s heritage. The psychoanalytic lens puts a spotlight on engaging with the numinous from the complete experience of being human. In terms of spiritual direction, that enables a deeply incarnational approach, which is also indebted to apophatic forms of spirituality that can easily be under-valued.