The state of history and the empire of metaphysics [Review]

One of the curious things about this challenging book is that its ostensible subject— the Saxon medical and political scientist Hermann Conring (1606–1681)— is not mentioned in the title. Constantin Fasolt argues that we cannot know what Conring really thought or meant in his writings, which means that his topic cannot be Conring as such and must instead be that which occludes our knowledge of him, the titular limits of history. Given that we do in fact learn a good deal about Conring from Fasolt’s book, we can only hope that the decapitation of its subject will be rectified in a subsequent edition, or perhaps by the restorative work of librarians putting together subject headings. And yet Fasolt’s decision is understandable, for Conring is indeed a stalking-horse for a much bigger quarry: historiography and the historical consciousness. By “history” Fasolt understands a way of imposing intelligibility on the world, which is founded on the twin assumptions that the past is gone and unchangeable, and that the meaning of texts can be determined by placing them in their historical contexts (ix). In challenging this mode of intelligibility, Fasolt is not attempting to improve professiona history—it’s already as good as it can be—but to displace it. He regards his work as a declaration of “independence from historical consciousness” (32). At the same time, Fasolt insists that he is not simply jumping from historiography to philosophy, or attempting to preempt history with ontology (37-39). That has been tried by Nietzsche and Heidegger, who have been tainted by Nazism (Fasolt thinks unfairly). It has also been attempted by modern philosophers from Gadamer to Foucault and Charles Taylor who, in failing to address the “violence” that its mode of intelligibility does to the world, have not succeeded in outflanking history. Perhaps, Fasolt wonders, it is only the personal experience of those who have been subject to this violence—the experience of those who have been subject to historical examination—that can break the spell of history. Fasolt’s disclaimer notwithstanding, in the course of these remarks I shall argue that he is indeed jumping from history to philosophy, or attempting to outflank history by subjecting it to a particular metaphysical understanding. I shall do so in part by sketching the recent intellectual history of this move—a historical examination that I hope inflicts as little violence as possible on Fasolt’s argument.

The history of theory

Do you see now why it feels so good to be a critical mind? Why critique, this most ambiguous pharmakon, has become such a potent euphoric drug? You are always right! When naïve believers are clinging forcefully to their objects ... you can turn all of those attachments into so many fetishes and humiliate all the believers by showing that it is nothing but their own projection, that you, yes you alone, can see. But as soon as naïve believers are thus inflated by some belief in their own importance, in their own projective capacity, you strike them by a second uppercut and humiliate them again, this time by showing that, whatever they think, their behavior is entirely determined by the action of powerful causalities coming from objective reality they don't see, but that you, yes you, the never sleeping critic, alone can see. Isn't this fabulous? Isn't it really worth going to graduate school to study critique?

L'aperception de soi chez shihab al-din al-suhrawardi et l'heritage avicennien

Avicenna (d. 1037) bequeathed the Arabic philosophical tradition with an aporia : self-knowledge is conceived, at times, in terms of intellection, at other times, in terms of apperception. In his Book of Discussions and Book of Notes, Avicenna has lengthy discussions on apperception, defined as a direct ontological mode of knowledge. Heir to this tradition, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191) moved away from the first conception of self-knowledge as intellection to adopt the second conception of an apperception of the self as a direct, intuitive and "presential (hcombining dot belowudcombining dot belowūrī)" perception, and which he defended with four types of arguments.

'Looking good, feeling better': Consumption, Control and the Aesthetics of Exclusivity in the Service Encounter

The majority of ‘service’ literature has focused on the production side of service work (i.e. employees and management), while treating the role of the customer and/or consumer as secondary (Korczynski and Ott, 2004). Those authors who have addressed the role consumption plays in shaping and maintaining individuals' self- identity have tended to overemphasize the dominance of consumer culture in shaping ‘our consciousness’ (Ritzer, 1999), with little in the way of empirical evidence to support these assertions. This paper develops the conceptualization of service work and consumer culture literature, by placing more emphasis on the customer in the service encounter. Using an ethnographic study of a ‘high class’ department store, this paper addresses employee and customer identity and the nature of managerial, employee and customer control within this ‘exclusive’ context. Of particular interest is how employees and customer’s ‘embody’ this control. Using Bourdieu’s (1986) conception of class and habitus, the concept of exclusivity goes beyond the management /service worker dyad by providing a means of investigating identity control by the organization over both customers and service workers. However, an organization’s exclusivity is not a closed normative pursuit of control, and shows this enterprise is part of a contested terrain, while revealing the ambiguity and ‘openness’ of control practices and pursuits. In order to uphold the ideal of exclusivity, management, service workers and customers must all engage in a precarious quest for establishing and maintaining a sense of control and/or identity. This paper demonstrates the continuing contradiction between bureaucratic practices of control and consumer culture, and highlights the need for research that investigates the context -dependent nature of control in service-related and consumer studies.

Mirror neurons in the tree of life, development and evolution of sensorimotor matching responses

Mirror neurons in the tree of life rappresenta lo sviluppo e l' evoluzione del sistema dei neuroni specchio nei primati umani, non - umani e di alcune specie di uccelli, utilizzando metodi cooptati dalla filosofia della biologia e la biologia teorica, per integrare dati relativi al sistema nervoso e al comportamento delle specie in esame.

AMOR E EDUCAÇÃO EM C. S. LEWIS E JOSEF PIEPER

Josef Pieper e C. S. Lewis são dois dos principais filósofos do nosso tempo. A presente pesquisa visa analisar as doutrinas desses pensadores sobre o amor e extrair as consequências para a educação. Pieper e Lewis são importantes intelectuais, respeitados por todo o mundo acadêmico, por conta de suas obras, originais e profundas, como pensadores cristãos. Seus estudos sobre o amor cada autor com seu próprio ponto de vista são incontornáveis para todos que se ocupam da educação. Lewis e Pieper compartilham uma metodologia centrada na linguagem, o que leva à compreensão da essência comum aos amores (Pieper) e dos quatro amores: afeto, amizade, eros e caridade (Lewis). E ambos voltam-se para a linguagem comum. Quanto mais a palavra amor é distorcida e deturpada hoje em dia, tanto mais é necessária uma análise filosófica como a de Pieper e Lewis. De acordo com os autores, a educação para o amor remete à Antropologia Filosófica e esta dissertação apresenta a conexão entre a concepção de amor e a de homem, e a educação que a elas se segue.

The Desert of the Real in Spec Ops: The Line. A Study of Simultaneous Hyperreal Experiences by Protagonist and Player : A Study of Simultaneous Hyperreal Experiences by Protagonist and Player

As an anomaly on the market of military shooters of the 21st century, Spec Ops: The Line entails a journey of undetermined realities and modern warfare consequences. In this study, the narrative is analyzed from the perspective of Jean Baudrillard’s idea that simulations have replaced our conception of reality. Both the protagonist and the player of Spec Ops will unavoidably descend into a state of the hyperreal. They experience multiple possible realities within the game narrative and end up unable to comprehend what has transpired. The hyperreal is defined as the state in which it is impossible to discern reality from simulation. The simulation of reality has proliferated itself into being the reality, and the original has been lost. The excessive use of violence, direct approach of the player through a break with the 4th wall and a deceitful narrator contribute to this loss of reality within the game. Although the game represents simulacra, being a simulation in itself, the object of study is the coexisting state of hyperreal shared between protagonist and player when comprehending events in the game. In the end, neither part can understand or discern with any certainty what transpired within the game.

Some aspects of performance at a psychokinetic task

Psychokinetic phenomena are currently anomalous with respect to physics. They are not generally accepted as genuine nor are their possible physical mechanisms understood. It is argued here that a certain class of psychokinetic phenomena, termed "directly detectable" psychokinetic effects, are likely to yield possibly important insights into the physical mechanisms mediating psychokinetic phenomena generally. The current use within parapsychological research of randomly behaving psychokinetic target systems is criticised on several grounds. They are of limited scope for use in delineation of physical mechanisms involved in psychokinesis, and their intrinsic characteristics prevent subjects from utilising their possible capacity to learn to produce larger magnitude effects. It is argued that instrumented directly detectable psychokinetic tasks have characteristics which may allow subjects to treat their psychokinetic ability as akin to a normal skill which can be improved with continued practice, using an experimental paradigm similar to that used in the biofeedback training of physiological functions. The task used in this work was a microscopic form of psychokinetic metal-bending, whereby subjects produce pulse-like electrical outputs in a ceramic piezoelectric element used as psychokinetic target. Subjects were not allowed to touch the target and many effects were obtained under witnessed conditions with subjects situated several metres from it. One pilot and three principal longitudinal training studies were performed with a total of seventeen subjects. Six of the seventeen subjects showed significant improvement in their psychokinetic performance in the training studies, one showed a non-significant increase. The other ten failed to show any convincing signs of psychokinetic output. Three of the successful subjects did not show convincing signs of voluntary control over their effects, three did. Large individual differences were found including different rates of learning and levels of initial and final ability. This research was performed by Julian David Isaacs in preparation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was submitted in 1984.