Eva Dadlez

What does it mean to hold that the significant aspects of a literary passage cannot be captured in a paraphrase? Does a change in the description of an act "risk producing a different act" from the one described? Using Jane Austen as an example, we'll consider whether her use of metaphor and symbol really amounts to calling someone a prick, whether her narrative voice changes what it is that is expressed, and whether comedy can hold just as much significance as tragedy without all the heavy breathing

This article responds to two ethical conundrums associated with the practice of disability passing. One of these problems is the question of whether or not passing as abled is morally wrong in that it constitutes deception. The other, related difficulty arises from the tendency of the able-bodied in contemporary society to reinforce the activity of passing despite its frequent condemnation as a form of pretense or fraud. We draw upon recent scholarship on transgender and disability passing to criticize and explore some alternatives to the problematic theory of personal identity that is presupposed by the claim that passing as abled always amounts to deceit. We additionally demonstrate the moral indefensibility of society’s reinforcement of disability passing by showing that it may derive, at least in part, from ablest assumptions concerning distributive justice as it relates to disabled individuals.

The problem of fiction and emotion is the problem of how we can be moved by the contemplation of fi ctional events and the plight of fictional characters when we know that the former have not occurred and the latter do not exist. I will give a general sketch of the philosophical treatment of the issue in the present day, and then turn to the eighteenth century for a solution as effective as the best that are presently on offer. The solution is to be found in the account of ideal presence given by Henry Home, Lord Kames.

The problem of fiction and emotion is the problem of how we can be moved by the contemplation of fi ctional events and the plight of fictional characters when we know that the former have not occurred and the latter do not exist. I will give a general sketch of the philosophical treatment of the issue in the present day, and then turn to the eighteenth century for a solution as effective as the best that are presently on offer. The solution is to be found in the account of ideal presence given by Henry Home, Lord Kames.

In Umberto Eco’s classic novel The Name of the Rose, we are introduced to a decidedly Platonic fear of laughter. According to the blind librarian Jorge de Burgos, “[l]aughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh. It is the peasant’s entertainment, the drunkard’s license;... laughter remains base, a defense for the simple, a mystery desecrated for the plebeians.”1 Laughter could not accompany insight or clarity or revelation. By destroying the last known copy of the second part of Aristotle’s Poetics, which delves into comedy after the already-familiar investigation of tragedy, de Burgos hopes to undermine any argument that claims to find significance in comic content. Indeed, the central plot of...

The problem of fiction and emotion is the problem of how we can be moved by the contemplation of fictional events and the plight of fictional characters when we know that the former have not occurred and the latter do not exist. I will give a general sketch of the philosophical treatment of the issue in the present day, and then turn to the eighteenth century for a solution as effective as the best that are presently on offer. The solution is to be found in the account of ideal presence given by Henry Home, Lord Kames