Philosophy and the care of the self: a literature survey

This article reviews a number of recent books and practices that address a renewed interest in the role that philosophy might play in the living of a rich and fulfilling life. The review looks at books addressed to the general public as well as books which discuss such classical and Hellenistic philosophers as took their task to be helping people achieve happiness in life. It then turns to contemporary studies of the self and of wisdom and turns finally to some newly emerging philosophical practices such as philosophical counselling and philosophical discussion groups of various kinds in order to explore whether philosophy can still be a source of consolation or guidance in contemporary life.

Descartes on the human soul : philosophy and the demands of Christian doctrine

By the 17th century Catholic orthodoxy had defined a range of propositions concerning the human soul as revealed by God and verifiable by natural reason. The writings of Rene Descartes display a consistent adherence to these orthodox propositions. The conclusion presents him as ultimately unsuccesful in convincing his contemporaries that his philosophy provided the rational demonstration of the key soul doctrines and that he was worthy of the title "Christian philosopher"

Philosophy and the view from above in Alejandro's Amenabar's agora

 This paper examines the depiction of neoplatonic philosopher, geometer and astronomer Hypatia in Alejandro Amenabar's 2010 fil Agora.  The paper uses Pierre Hadot's work, and his arguments that ancient philosophy was conceived as a way of life, aiming at the ideal existence of the sage, and characterised by spiritual exercises.  The paper argues that Amenabar's film employs the technique of the view from above, one such spiritual exercise, wherein the agent relooks at his or life sub spaecie aeternitatis or 'from above', to frame Hypatia's life and death, and the end of the pagan epoch in Alexandria.

Spinoza/space/speed/sublime: Problems of philosophy and politics in the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane

This article takes account of the ‘spontaneity’ of the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane within the ‘dominating space’ of the philosophy of Spinoza. My use of Paul Carter’s terms here is strategic. The compact of fiction and philosophy in Murnane corresponds with the relationship of spontaneity to the dominating organization of desire in Carter’s rendering of an Aboriginal hunter. Carter’s phrase “‘a figure at once spontaneous and wholly dominated by the space of his desire’” worries Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, who suggest that it subjugates the formation of Aboriginal desire (incorporating spontaneity) to impulses of imperialism. The captivating immanence of Spinoza’s philosophy in Murnane’s fiction, which I will demonstrate with various examples, puts pressure on the fiction to occupy the same space as the space of the philosophy. Here is a clue to why Murnane’s post-colonial thematics have been little explored by critics with an interest in post-colonial politics. The desire of Spinoza’s philosophy creates a spatial textuality within which the spontaneity of Murnane’s fiction, to the degree that it maximizes or fills the philosophy, is minimized in its political effects. That is to say, the fiction shifts politics into an external space of what Roland Barthes calls “resistance or condemnation”. However, the different speeds (or timings) of Murnane and Spinoza, within the one space, mitigate this resistance of the outside, at least in respect of certain circumstances of post-coloniality. It is especially productive, I suggest, to engage Carter’s representation of an Aboriginal hunter through the compact of coincidental spaces and differential speeds created by Murnane’s fiction in Spinoza’s philosophy. This produces a ceaseless activation of desire and domination, evidenced in Murnane’s short story ‘Land Deal’, and indexed by a post-Romantic sublime. What limits the value of Murnane’s fiction in most contexts of post-colonial politics, is precisely what makes it useful in the matter of Carter’s Aboriginal hunter.

Getting research into policy : lots of ideas but how do we make it happen? Insights from the policy experience

Evidence and health policy discussions to date have largely focused on the relationship between those generating research evidence and policy decision-makers and how improving this relationship will increase research use in policy development. All too often policy makers are perceived as the problem, not understanding or seeing the importance of research evidence. Policy makers do have a responsibility to source and use available evidence, as do researchers to the sharp and meaningful production and syntheses of policy relevant research evidence. This takes more than improved communication mechanisms between individual researcher and policy makers. Evidence-informed policy making is a science in its own right requiring the development and application of methods that conceptualise, synthesise and exchange research evidence. Policy organisations need to develop as receptor sites for research and its application to day-to-day decision-making, this is a significant program of work if it is to be done well and affect the evidence culture of organisations.

Contemporary philosophy and J.L. Shaw

Commemorative volume on Jaysankar Lal Shaw, b. 1939, Indian philosopher.

Gregory Palamas on the relationship between philosophy and theology

The relationship between philosophy and theology has rarely been a harmonious and fruitful one. The two disciplines are often segmented into mutually exclusive compartments. On the one hand, philosophers, particularly contemporary philosophers working within the Anglo-American analytic tradition, widely agree that the claims made by theologians – such as the claim that there is a God and that God is a trinity of persons – are meaningless, or false, or irrational, or unsupported by evidence, or in some other way epistemically below par. On the other hand, it is not unusual to find theologians following in the footsteps of writers such as Tertullian, Kierkegaard and Barth in arguing that, when it comes to theology, faith suffices and reason merely perverts.

The philosophy-theology dispute was no stranger to fourteenth-century Byzantium, particularly in the writings of the most prominent spiritual and intellectual figure of this period, viz., Gregory Palamas (c.1296-1359). In his debates with Barlaam of Calabria (c.1290-1348), Gregory Akindynos (c.1300-1348) and Nikephoros Gregoras (c.1290-c.1358), the issue of the appropriateness of employing philosophical terms and modes of reasoning in theology occupied a central place.[1] But before looking at how Palamas tackled this issue, it will be helpful, firstly, to briefly outline how the Christian world (especially in the East) prior to Palamas tended to see the relationship between secular learning (including philosophy) and theology; and secondly, to ascertain what exactly was Palamas’ conception of philosophy.

Time, philosophy and chronopathologies

This essay is an elaboration on some central themes and arguments from my recent book, Chronopathologies: Time and Politics in Deleuze, Derrida, Phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy (Rowman and Littlefield 2012). There is hence an element of generality to this essay that the book itself is better able to justify. But a short programmatic piece has its own virtues, especially for those of us who are time poor (which is pretty much everyone in contemporary academia). Moreover, it adds a dimension to the above book by more explicitly situating it in relation to what is an emerging view in some recent scholarship (such as John McCumber, Len Lawlor, David Hoy, and before this Liz Grosz) that time is central to the identity of continental philosophy, as well as considering some of the work that in different ways contests this kind of interpretation of the identity of continental philosophy (e.g. Simon Glendinning, and, tacitly, Paul Redding). In continuing to side with the former over the latter, I will also develop my argument that time is one of the most significant factors in the divided house that I think ontemporary philosophy remains, and I conclude by offering a series of negative prescriptions regarding how we might better avoid particular chronopathologies, or time-sicknesses, that are endemic to these philosophical trajectories, and that are also present (to greater and lesser degrees) in the majority of individual philosophers standardly labeled analytic and continental. To the extent that such sicknesses are at least partly inevitable, akin to a transcendental illusion, this paper consists in a call to be more attentive to this tendency, and to the methodological, metaphilosophical, and ethico-political consequences that follow from them.