Top News, Articles, and Interviews in Philosophy

Should Republicans Care About Trump’s Alleged Crimes?

6. March 2019 Philosophy News News
Michael Cohen’s testimony before congress made clear the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats regarding Trump. The Democrats profess to be patriotic apostles of justice, eager to hold Trump accountable for his many crimes—in the hopes of winning the 2020 presidential election. Republicans focus on defending Trump by impeding efforts to investigate him and by [More]
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Yeshayahu Leibowitz

6. March 2019 Philosophy News News
[Revised entry by Daniel Rynhold on March 6, 2019. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html] Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903 - 1994) was one of the most outspoken and controversial twentieth century Jewish thinkers and Israeli public intellectuals. Once termed "the conscience of Israel"[1] by his childhood contemporary from Riga, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Leibowitz's thought is founded on a far-reaching theocentrism that allows him to combine a commitment to Orthodox Jewish practice with a stripped-down definition of Jewish faith that yields [More]
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Embodying Texts and Tradition: Ethnographic Film in a South Indian Advaita Vedānta Gurukulam

6. March 2019 Philosophy News News
AbstractThis article draws on theories of phenomenology, visual anthropology, and embodiment to explore Advaita Vedānta’s sensorial and embodied modes of praxis. It interweaves two threads based on a case study of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, an Advaita Vedānta institute in Tamil Nadu, India: (1) an ethnographic analysis of the intersections of textual study, religious praxis, and social-environmental context; and (2) the ways these intersections are grounded in Advaita Vedānta’s source texts. This article focuses on the unique potential of experiential sensory-ethnographic film for revealing these intersections and argues that such films are uniquely capable of providing viewers phenomenological and sensorial insights into individual subjectivities within religious praxis. It further probes how the Advaitin follows a roadmap of metaphysical models, ritual praxis, and receiving a teacher’s textual performance. This process reformulates bodies and identities towards the nondualistic through an interiorization of texts and is essential for remembering and transmitting the [More]
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Enactment, Politics, and Truth: Pauline Themes in Agamben, Badiou, and Heidegger

6. March 2019 Philosophy News News
2019.03.06 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews Antonio Cimino, Enactment, Politics, and Truth: Pauline Themes in Agamben, Badiou, and Heidegger, Bloomsbury, 2018, 179pp., $120.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781501341014. Reviewed by Duane Armitage, The University of Scranton This book presents an in-depth analysis of the various interpretations of St. Paul by Martin Heidegger, Giorgio Agamben, and Alain Badiou. Specifically, it focuses on each thinker's appropriation of Pauline pistis (faith, belief) as a segue into broader Postmodern critiques of metaphysics and of rationality. Cimino frames his book by posing the question: Why St. Paul? That is, what are the motivations for philosophers engaging and appropriating St. Paul as a philosopher? Cimino's answer (and thesis) is simply that St. Paul remains of interest to philosophers as a kind of antidote to traditional metaphysical and onto-theological frameworks, and, consequently, as a means to rethinking notions of politics, truth, and their interrelation. In my estimation, Cimino succeeds in developing his thesis... Read [More]
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LOVE: ROBOTS Video (Medicine Unboxed 2018)

6. March 2019 Philosophy News News
Medicine Unboxed 2018 LOVE - ROBOTS - John Danaher from Medicine Unboxed on Vimeo.Here's a video of an interview I did with Dr Sam Gulgani at the Medicine Unboxed Festival in November 2018. We talk about the ethics of sex technology, specifically (though not exclusively) sex robots. The Medicine Unboxed Festival takes place every year in Cheltenham. It's kind of a literary/science/arts/philosophy festival, with a specific focus on medicine. It was a great privilege to take part. Dr Gulgani and I cover a lot of territory in our conversation. As I explain at the outset, I think my role was to lower the tone of an otherwise highbrow festival. #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe to the [More]
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