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Philosophical Reflection (philosophical + reflection)
Selected AbstractsPhilosophy After Hiroshima: From Power Politics to the Ethics of Nonviolence and Co-ResponsibilityAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 18 FEB 200, Edward Demenchonok Philosophers from many different countries came to Hiroshima, Japan, in the summer of 2007 to discuss the problems of war and peace on the occasion of the Seventh World Congress of the International Society for Universal Dialogue (ISUD). The theme was After Hiroshima: Collective Memory, Philosophical Reflection and World Peace. The essays included in this volume were originally presented at that conference and reflect some of the aspects of these discussions. In the first three parts of this introductory essay, I will address ideas conveyed by discussions during the Hiroshima conference regarding an open history, as well as various aspects of violence-prone globalization and its challenges to ethics and to peace. Then, within this context, the fourth part of this introduction will provide a brief review of some of the main themes arising out of the conference and elaborated in the essays of the volume. [source] Human nature: a foundation for palliative careNURSING PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2008Beverly J. B. Whelton PhD MSN RN Abstract, The Aristotelian-Thomist philosopher holds that human intellectual knowledge is possible because of the order in the world and natural human capacities. It is the position of this paper that there is a shared human form or nature that unites all humanity as members of the same kind. Moral treatment is due to every human being because they are human, and is not based upon expression of abilities. Humans have substantial dynamic existence in the world, an existence which overflows in expressive relationships. As both patient and health professional are human, human nature forms the natural foundation of health care. This paper looks towards human nature for moral guidance. The therapeutic relationship is seen as a part of the interpersonal moral space formed by human relationality, which tends towards community , in this case, the healthcare system. The therapeutic relationship is also a source of moral responsibility, as illness makes the patient vulnerable, while knowledge and nursing capacities generate in the nurse a duty to care. Nursing theory serves to connect philosophical reflection and nursing practice. Imogene King's conceptual system and theory of Goal Attainment is the theory that follows from the perspective of human person being presented. This synthesis of philosophy and theory is developed with the goal of shedding light on healthcare decisions in palliative care. The article concludes with the acknowledgement that the complexity of contextualized individual decisions requires the insight and discipline of the moral practitioner, and provides some thoughts on how education, development, and refinement transform an individual into a nurse. [source] 1.,Globalization and Violence: The Challenge to EthicsAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Edward Demenchonok Despite its many benefits, globalization has proven to harbor a good deal of violence. This is not only a matter of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction inaugurated by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but includes many forms of indirect or "structural violence" resulting from the routine of economic and political institutions on the global scale. In this essay, the multifaceted phenomena of violence are approached from the standpoint of ethics. The prevailing political thinking associated with "realism" fails to address the problems of militarism and of hegemonic unilateralism. In contrast, many philosophers are critically rethinking the problem of global violence from different ethical perspectives. Despite sharing similar concerns, philosophers nevertheless differ over the role of philosophical reflection and the potentials of reason. These differences appear in two contrasting approaches associated with postmodern philosophy and discourse ethics. In the analysis of discourse ethics, attention is paid to Karl-Otto Apel's attempt of philosophically grounding a macroethics of planetary co-responsibility. At the heart of the essay is the analysis of the problem of violence, including terrorism, by Jürgen Habermas, who explains the phenomenon of violence in terms of the theory of communicative action as the breakdown of communication. Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the notion of "terrorism" also is analyzed. According to the principle of discourse ethics, all conflicts between human beings ought to be settled in a way free of violence, through discourses and negotiations. These philosophers conclude that the reliance on force does not solve social and global problems, including those that are the source of violence. The only viable alternative is the "dialogical" multilateral relations of peaceful coexistence and cooperation among the nations for solving social and global problems. They emphasize the necessity of strengthening the international rule of law and institutions, such as a reformed United Nations. [source] Structure, Agency and Power in Political Analysis: Beyond Contextualised Self-InterpretationsPOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2008Jason Glynos This article evaluates Mark Bevir and Rod Rhodes' interpretive approach to political analysis by examining their account of social change. Their work is significant because they have endeavoured to construct a distinctive approach which strikes a productive balance between philosophical reflection and analytical attention to the empirical domain. Moreover, in elaborating their approach, Bevir and Rhodes wage a war along a number of fronts: positivism, institutionalism and post-structuralism, and so an analysis of their work enables us to take stock of a range of contemporary methods and approaches. In considering their underlying presuppositions and commitments, we pay particular attention to their account of human agency and its relationship to social structures and political power. While we agree with much of their critique of positivism, naturalism, realism and institutionalism, we argue that Bevir and Rhodes risk overplaying the role of interpreting the individual beliefs and desires of relevant actors to the detriment of a wider net of social practices and logics. Moreover, in challenging their understanding of the post-structuralist approach to political analysis we develop its resources to enrich the possibilities of a critical interpretivism, moving beyond concepts like tradition, dilemma and situated agency. Put more precisely, we argue that the radical contingency of social structures and human agency , their structural incompleteness , discloses new ways of understanding both their character and their mutual intertwining. For example, we develop the categories of lack, dislocation and political identification to think human agency and its relation to wider social structures. More broadly, we argue that an approach developed around different sorts of logics , social, political and fantasmatic , goes some way to steering a different course between a pure thick descriptivism that focuses principally on individual beliefs and desires on the one hand, and a concern with causal laws and mechanisms on the other. [source] Front and Back Covers, Volume 23, Number 2.ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 2 2007April 200 Front cover caption, volume 23 issue 2 Front cover ,The greatest predators on earth', writes the anthropologist Alan Macfarlane in his advice to his granddaughter, Letters to Lucy: On how the world works (Profile Books), ,munch their way through the animal kingdom. We are caught in a dilemma. For we are a meat-eating species, which gains much of its protein from consuming other animals. It is almost impossible to imagine that we will change, but we may, with sufficient will, find ways to minimise the pain we inflict on our fellow species.' Our front cover photo is taken from a publicity poster produced by SARC, the Southern Animal Rights Coalition, which is organizing the Southampton Cruelty Free Festival on 12 May (see www.crueltyfreefestival.com). In this issue of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Jonathan Benthall asks why it is that, while anthropologists have studied most other social movements including environmentalism, little attention has been focused on the animal liberation and rights movement. The movement is underpinned by serious philosophical reflection and by its acknowledgment of Darwinism. This suggests that the shock caused by Darwin's discoveries is still being worked through nearly a century and a half later. Benthall's guest editorial outlines the ideological manifestations of the movement and also considers the implications of taking it seriously. Macfarlane's view, meanwhile, is that ,perhaps it will not be until some new and superior species emerges on earth, some computerised android, which breeds humans in tiny cages, force-feeds them, drains their bile, eats them, that we will seriously begin to crusade for the abolition of animal-on-animal cannibalism.' [source] A philosophical reflection on the epistemology and methodology of indigenous psychologiesASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2005Kwang-Kuo Hwang In order to answer the three crucial questions (why, what and how) about the development of indigenous psychology, three levels of breakthrough need to be made, namely, philosophical reflection, theoretical construction and empirical research. The controversial issues that have occurred in the earlier development of indigenous psychology are analyzed in terms of the switch in Western philosophy of science from positivism to post-positivism. Based on this analysis, it is argued that indigenous psychologists should construct formal theories illustrating the functioning of the human mind that may be applicable to various cultures, and then use these theories to study the particular mentalities of people in a given culture with the scientific methods of empirical research. [source] | ||||||||||