Remaking the real man: Erectile dysfunction palliatives and the social re-construction of the male Heterosexual life cycle

The popularity of impotence or erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs and the powerful imagery of their promotional campaigns may be a significant contributor to the social reconstruction of male sexuality and aging in general, and popular understandings of the male heterosexual in particular. This is note-worthy given that the heterosexual male is a demographic that has, historically, been quite resistant to the whims of the psycho-medical establishment. Given men’s psychological and physiological makeup, the emerging social expectations of male sexuality may be wholly unrealistic, with its matter-overmind rhetoric. Examining the language and imagery of several ED drug campaigns, and considering some popular therapeutic, and academic discourse on the subject, the paper considers some of the expectations facing men in our society today that have recently been generated by the sexual pharmacology industry. The analysis suggests how these new expectations potentially liberate and constrain men in various ways, solidifies a male ethos that focuses almost exclusively on the physical component, and thereby displaces men from the context of the romantic relationship.     

Mythical Thinking,Scientific Discourses and Research Dissemination

This article focuses on some principles for understanding. By taking Anna Mikulak’s article “Mismatches between ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ ways of knowing and their contributions to public understanding of science” (IPBS 2011) as a point of departure, the idea of demarcation criteria for scientific and non-scientific discourses is addressed. Yet this is juxtaposed with mythical thinking, which is supposed to be the most salient trait of non-scientific discourses. The author demonstrates how the most widespread demarcation criterion, the criterion of verification, is self-contradictory, not only when it comes to logic, but also in the achievement of isolating natural sciences from other forms of knowledge. According to Aristotle induction is a rhetorical device and as far as scientific statements are based on inductive inferences, they are relying on humanities, which rhetoric is a part of. Yet induction also has an empirical component by being based on sense-impressions, which is not a part of the rhetoric, but the psychology. Also the myths are understood in a rhetorical (Lévi-Strauss) and a psychological (Cassirer) perspective. Thus it is argued that both scientific and non-scientific discourses can be mythical.     

The rhetoric of dread: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in information technology marketing

This article examines the nature and legality of FUD, which—as will be seen—is a timely subject. IBM may have been FUD’s originator but its greatest practitioner is allegedly none other than Microsoft, which (according to the firm’s critics) has repeatedly exercised FUD tactics in order to acquire and maintain its operating system monopoly. In particular, this article compares Amdahl’s experience with IBM to the emerging contours of Microsoft’s battle against a surprisingly able competitor, the open source operating system called Linux. A major contention of this essay is that attorneys, judges, and legal scholars tend to pay insufficient attention to the unique characteristics of technology enterprises, and thus cannot distinguish meaningfully between practices that are plainly legal under U. S. antitrust law, and those which are not. A perspective drawn from the history and sociology of technology (namely, Thomas P. Hughes’ concept of technological systems) is used to elucidate what is predatory, and what is not, in a dominant market player’s use of FUD and associated marketing tactics. where his scholarly and teaching interests include cyberlaw, intellectual property in high-tech industries, and the social issues posed by advanced information technology. He is also the author of several best-selling trade and textbook titles, including Webster’s New World Dictionary of Computer Terms, 9th ed. (Hungry Minds) and Computers in Your Future, 4th ed. (Prentice-Hall). He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.     

Deconstruction is not vegetarianism: Humanism,subjectivity, and animal ethics

This essay examines Jacques Derrida’s contribution to recent debates in animal philosophy in order to explore the critical promise of his work for contemporary discourses on animal ethics and vegetarianism. The essay is divided into two sections, both of which have as their focus Derrida’s interview with Jean-Luc Nancy entitled “‘Eating Well’, or the Calculation of the Subject.” My task in the initial section is to assess the claim made by Derrida in this interview that Levinas’s work is dogmatically anthropocentric, and to determine whether Levinas’s conception of ethics leaves a place for animals. In the second half of the essay I turn to an analysis of Derrida’s discussion of vegetarianism and its critical relation to the humanism and anthropocentrism that he is calling into question. The main argument that I seek to advance here is that deconstruction should not be strictly identified with vegetarianism (as certain of Derrida’s readers have suggested), but rather that what is needed is a thorough deconstruction of existing discourses on vegetarianism, a project that remains largely to be developed.     

Local erotic songs and chants among rural Nigerian adolescent males

This paper investigates local erotic songs and chants circulating among adolescent males in Nigeria. The purpose is to assess the critical themes which these erotic verses evoke and their potentials in the discursive construction of adolescent sexual identities and definition of the (erotic) spaces and meanings on the basis of which young Nigerian males constitute their sexual conducts. Data indicate high level of awareness and knowledge of local erotic songs and chants among adolescent males. The songs and chants were reportedly used to learn about gender and sex roles, the body, and sexuality, and for recreation. Themes in local boys’ erotic songs and chants are primarily male privileging and penis advantaging, and celebrate male sexual activity, desire, violence, ruthlessness, and risk-taking as well as male control and subordination of women and their body. The songs and chants depict feminity and female sexuality as inferior to masculinity and male sexuality and tend to objectify women’s body as a facility for male sexual pleasure. The paper argues that while erotic verses circulating among adolescent Nigerian males help relieve them of the difficulties caused by the cultural relegation of sex and sexuality to the realm of the unspoken, they contain very disturbing and potentially dangerous images that provide little space for male responsibility and respect for women. Local erotic verses circulating among adolescents present an under-explored resource in sexuality education and a critical entry point for current efforts to understand and help young people extricate themselves from the sea of half-truths, myths, and prejudices about sex and sexuality.     

Ethical and legal aspects in teaching students of medicine

Due to the rapid advances in medical technology, medical students are now being faced with increasingly complex and unparalleled ethical and practical dilemmas during their training. The new and future challenges of high-tech medicine demand improvements in current medical education, not only by meeting the needs of students through humanized training programs, but also by involving them in finding solutions to the ethical and legal quandaries they encounter. Today’s students of medical universities must acquire knowledge and understanding of the ethical and legal issues relevant to the practice of medicine, and we have to do everything possible to introduce these students to the current discussions on more or less controversial ethical and legal topics. Although final answers may not be found, the very discussion, argumentation, and awakening of students’ interest should become an essential part of the core curriculum of every doctor. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004. The author is a student and member of the Senate Committee on Teaching.     

Society’s Symbolic Order and Political Trials: Toward Sacrificing the Self for the “Big Other”

The need to establish a borderline between legitimate and illegitimate political trial is one of the central societal discourses. In this paper the author claims that the issues are complex and that a political trial can remain legitimate as long as it is not dealing with a confrontation with the symbolic order on which the society (and the court itself) is founded and as long as the subject (or action) it is dealing with does not threaten the symbolic order’s (or the “Big Other”) existence. When the symbolic order’s existence is in danger, the court is bound to participate in an act of “sacrifice” that is intended to protect the “order.” The author uses Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the “Big Other” (and its development to ideological-political terms) in examining three categories of sacrifice. Through these categories the author claims that in extreme cases of confrontation with the existence of the symbolic order, the court cannot remain objective and it would be difficult to justify the trial as legitimate (especially in historical perspective).     

Vitality rediscovered: theorizing post-Soviet ethnicity in Russian social sciences

Based on materials collected during a fieldwork in Barnaul (Siberia, Russia) in 2001–2004, the article explores two provincial academic discourses that are focused on issues of Russian national identity. Ethnohistories of trauma address Russia’s current problems through the constant re-writing of the country’s past in order to demonstrate the non-Russian character of its national and state institutions. In the second discourse, ethno-vitalism, the struggle over constructing and interpreting the nation’s memory of the past is replaced with a similar struggle over constructing and interpreting perceptions of the nation’s current experience. Produced by professional intelligentsia, these frameworks and discourses provide a useful link to understanding imaginary constructions of the national belonging in a situation where more positive ways of inventing traditions and imagining communities are unavailable or discredited.

Can drug patents be morally justified?

This paper offers a few elements of an answer to the question to what extent drug patents can be morally justified. Justifications based on natural rights, distributive justice and utilitarian arguments are discussed and criticized. The author recognizes the potential of the patents to benefit society but argues that the system is currently evolving in the wrong direction, particularly in the field of drugs. More than a third of the world’s population has no access to essential drugs. The working of the patent system is an important determinant of access to drugs. This paper argues that drug patents are not easily justified and that the ‘architecture’ of the patent system should be rethought in view of its mission of benefiting society. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004. The author is a part-time Senior Research Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research, Department of Philosophy and Moral Science, Ghent University (Belgium) and a part-time Professor, Department of General Economics, University of Antwerp (Belgium).     

An Overdue Reunion

The announcement of his high school class’ fiftieth year reunion prompted the author to read a short story and an essay he had written in high school. He discovered considerable continuity between the themes with which the boy was preoccupied (especially hope but also wisdom and love) and his adult vocational interests and writings. Invoking John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1956) the author concludes that the high school boy who lives inside of him has been his faithful companion throughout the years. He also observes that the short story has proven prophetic because it tells about an old man in search of a young boy who appears to have found what both are searching for.     

Thing, Value, Time, and Freedom: A Consideration of Some Key Concepts in Marx’s Philosophical System

Criticizing the misunderstanding and wrong explanation of Marx’s philosophical system made by recent Chinese textbooks on Marxist philosophy, the author argues that Marx’s philosophy has practical, economical-philosophical, and ontological dimensions and stresses on reconstructing Marx’s philosophical system through synthesizing the above three dimensions. This paper intends to set up a new outline of Marx’s philosophical system, in terms of the following four concepts—thing, value, time, and freedom. Translated by Tang Jie from Zhexue Yanjiu, 2004:11     

Vampires,Desire, Girls and God: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Twilight</Emphasis> and the Spiritualities of Adolescent Girls

Fantasy fiction long has been read for its capacity to narrate religious meanings and themes for young readers. Since its publication in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s young adult series Twilight, in which an adolescent girl falls in love with a vampire, has become a pop culture phenomenon among U.S. teen girls. Although vampires usually represent dangerous desire, rarely have these creatures been treated as spiritually attractive figures. Using feminist perspectives on the psychology of gender and Christian feminist theology, this article offers a critical exploration of Twilight’s constructions of intimate relationships, supernatural masculinities, and girlhood, arguing that Twilight’s girl-appeal stems from its ability to tap into both the sexual and spiritual desires of girls.     

A tempest, a birth, and death: Freud, Jung, and Shakespeare’sPericles

This essay applies a Freudian psychoanalytic and Jungian archetypal narrative analysis to Shakespeare’s first and oft-criticized romance. The author argues that key structural and thematic elements ofPericles are best illuminated when viewed through a psychological interpretative lens, and that the play is best comprehended when examined in the context of its associative, rather than linear, richness. Masculinity and femininity, central themes of the narrative, are explored both in relation to the Oedipal complex and psychological individuation.Pericles also provides an excellent basis to examine key differences between Freud’s and Jung’s approach, particularly Jung’s widening of the primarily sexual psychoanalytic approach to encompass broader archetypal meaning.     

Post-September 11th Perspectives on Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy in the Personal and Professional Lives of Selected REBT Cognoscenti

The purpose of this article was for selected Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) cognoscenti to examine the impact of the events of September 11th, 2001, on their beliefs about religion, spirituality, and their personal philosophy—including the role of evil in the universe and the implications of these issues on their use of REBT. The degree of consistency of the author’s views with classical REBT theory and philosophy was examined. The authors are current or former members of the Albert Ellis Institute’s International Training Standards and Policy Review Committee, of which Albert Ellis, REBT’s founder, is also a member. Reprinted from Journal of Counseling & Development, Fall 2004, Volume 82. ACA. Reprinted with permission. No further reproduction authorized without written permission from the American Counseling Association. We regret to inform readers that Stephen G. Weinrach died in April 2004. Stephen G. Weinrach expressed gratitude to Jacqueline Mirabile, Laura Hutelmyer, and Phylis Wright of Villanova University’s Falvey Memorial Library for valuable research assistance. Jesse Clancy and Bethany Coover provided deeply appreciated and important editorial support.     

Being grateful for being: Being, reverence and finitude

Atheists are rarely associated with holiness, yet they can have deeply spiritual experiences. Once such experience of the author exemplified ‘the holy’ as defined by Otto. However, the subjectivism of Otto’s Kantianism undermines Otto’s otherwise fruitful approach. While the work of Hegel overcomes this, it is too rationalistic to account for mortal life. Seeking to avoid these shortcomings, this paper places ‘holiness’ within a self-differentiating ontological unity, the Heideggerian ‘fourfold’. This unity can only be experienced by confronting groundless finite mortality, and the resulting existential disposition is characterized as ‘reverence’. Reverence is gratitude for mortal existence, and existence itself. Moreover, it is as much political as it is ontological, atheistic as it is theistic.     

Social Information Processing,Emotions, and Aggression: Conceptual and Methodological Contributions of the Special Section Articles

This discussion summarizes some of the key conceptual and methodological contributions of the four articles in this special section on social information processing (SIP) and aggression. One major contribution involves the new methodological tools these studies provide for future researchers. Eye-tracking and mood induction techniques will make it possible for SIP researchers to study attentional and emotion-related processes across the six SIP steps. In addition, the STEP-P instrument will open up the study of emotionally-charged aspects of preschoolers’ early SIP. A second contribution is how these articles emphasize the dynamic interplay of emotional and cognitive processes in the emergence of children’s and adolescents’ aggressive tendencies. Finally, implicit developmental themes are raised by several of these studies. Discussion concludes with suggestions for future research, including a focus on the positive (i.e., non-disruptive) role of emotions, and on the connections between moral development and aggression.     

Expressivism and the Layer Cake Picture of Discursive Practice

Robert Brandom defends the intelligibility of the notion of a fully discursive practice that does not include any kind of logical vocabulary. Logical vocabulary, according to his account, should be understood as an optional extra to discursive practice, not as a necessary ingredient. Call this the Layer Cake Picture of the relation of logical to non-logical discursive practices. The aim pursued in this paper is to show, by way of an internal critique, that the Layer Cake Picture is in fact incompatible with the most central claims of Brandom’s philosophy. A way is sketched how to give up the Layer Cake Picture and still hold on to a position that is central to Brandom’s philosophical outlook, namely his expressivism about logic.     

Actual Utility, The Objection from Impracticality, and the Move to Expected Utility

Utilitarians are attracted to the idea that an act is morally right iff it leads to the best outcome. But critics have pointed out that in many cases we cannot determine which of our alternatives in fact would lead to the best outcome. So we can’t use the classic principle to determine what we should do. It’s not “practical”; it’s not “action-guiding”. Some take this to be a serious objection to utilitarianism, since they think a moral theory ought to be practical and action-guiding. In response, some utilitarians propose to modify utilitarianism by replacing talk of actual utility with talk of expected utility. Others propose to leave the original utilitarian principle in place, but to combine it with a decision procedure involving expected utility. What all these philosophers have in common is this: they move toward expected utility in order to defend utilitarianism against the impracticality objection. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on this way of replying to the objection. My central claim is that if utilitarians are worried about the impracticality objection, they should not turn to expected utility utilitarianism. That theory does not provide the basis for a cogent reply to the objection. Originally presented at the 2004 Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Bellingham Washington, August 2, 2004, with comments by Gustaf Arrhenius and Elizabeth Harman. I am grateful to Arrhenius and Harman for their challenging criticism, as well as to Chris Heathwood, Michael Zimmerman, Owen McLeod, Elinor Mason, Eric Moore and other participants at the Bellingham Conference for comments and suggestions. In October, 2004 I discovered Mark Strasser’s ‘Actual Versus Probable Utilitarianism’. I see that in that paper Strasser anticipates a number of the points I make here.     

Knowledge of place and knowledge of God: contemporary philosophies of place and some questions in philosophical theology

The paper examines three themes from the recent philosophical literature on place: the status of places as “concrete universals”; the narratively mediated agency of places; and the various ways in which human identity proves to be relative to place. I argue that these themes throw into new relief a set of correlative issues in philosophical theology concerning, respectively, God’s supra-individuality, God’s status as a final cause, and the divine grounding of human identity. On this basis, the paper proposes that knowledge of place is analogous to, and partly constitutive of, knowledge of God.