Michael Kelly

There is a prevailing lack of confidence today about the possibility of philosophical ethics. Philosophers tend to believe that ethics must have a foundation, i.e., universal criteria for establishing the objective validity of ethical norms. But, at the same time, they believe that a foundation is difficult to attain because of the uncertainty about the types of validity, universality, and objectivity that are appropriate for ethics. Without a foundation, however, ethics is threatened by relativism, the view that instead of a coherent moral theory we are faced with a plurality of incommensurate moral standpoints relative to particular historical conditions. ;In this dissertation I shall argue that the lack of confidence in philosophical ethics is unwarranted. I shall develop a hermeneutic conception of philosophical ethics, based on Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method, that is able to resolve the problems of incommensurability and avoid the threat of relativism. This can be done, I shall argue, without a foundation in the traditional, i.e., transcendental sense. In the introduction I explain the present predicament of philosophical ethics and outline my strategy for improving it. Chapter One is a critique of the Kantian paradigm of philosophical ethics based on pure practical reason. In Chapters Two and Three I present my understanding of hermeneutics as a theory of the practice of historical consciousness: Chapter Two is a discussion of three stages in the history of modern hermeneutics--Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Heidegger; and Chapter Three is devoted to Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. The fourth chapter outlines a hermeneutic conception of philosophical ethics derived from hermeneutics as practical philosophy. The core of this conception is a dialogical/dialectical model of ethical reflection based on the hermeneutic notion of effective-historical consciousness. The fifth and final chapter is a continuation of the fourth, plus a response to the various criticisms of hermeneutic ethics and hermeneutics in general. My overall purpose is to contribute to the rehabilitation of philosophical ethics.

More than 700 alphabetically organized entries by an international team of contributors provide a fascinating survey of French culture post 1945. Entries include: * advertising * Beur cinema * Coco Chanel * decolonization * écriture feminine * football * francophone press * gay activism * Seuil * youth culture Entries range from short factual/biographical pieces to longer overview articles. All are extensively cross-referenced and longer entries are 'facts-fronted' so important information is clear at a glance. It includes a thematic contents list, extensive index and suggestions for further reading. The Encyclopedia will provide hours of enjoyable browsing for all francophiles, and essential cultural context for students of French, Modern History, Comparative European Studies and Cultural Studies

This essay contests the standard historical comparison that links Husserl’s account of time-consciousness to the tradition by way of Book XI of Augustine’sConfessions. This comparison rests on the mistaken assumption that both thinkers attribute the soul’s distention and corresponding apprehension of time to memory. While true for Augustine and Husserl’s 1905 lectures on time, Husserl concluded after 1907 that these lectures advanced the flawed and counter-intuitive position that memory extends perception. I will trace the shortcomings of Augustine’s and Husserl’s conflation of memory with perception. After developing Husserl’s maturely articulated distinction between memory and retention from 1911, I suggest chapters 10–14 of Aristotle’s Physics IV as a more apt anticipation of this second, more adequate half of the Husserlian story. A reconstruction of Aristotle’s definition of time as “the number of movement,” one that privileges the activity of “the mind pronouncing that the ‘nows’ are two,” intimates Husserl’s distinction between memory and retention. For Aristotle, the soul’s recognition of the ‘nows’ as two depends not on memory, but on the soul’s intentional activity of counting, itself dependent on the ability to, as Aristotle writes in his Metaphysics, “grasp mentally and [have] already grasped” at the same time.

Noel Carroll’s A Philosophy of Mass Art is intended as a contribution to a “systematic” philosophy of mass art, but his more immediate aim is to clarify and criticize the principles and presuppositions that contemporary theorists bring—mistakenly, he argues—to their reflections on mass art. In a sense, Carroll offers to provide for the philosophy of mass art what he claims mass art can provide for morality, namely, clarificationism : “Logical argumentation and conceptual clarification are its major research tools”. The general result of this strategy is a classification of mass art that is ontological, as he explains what is unique about a mass artwork ; structuralist, as he claims there are common emotional, moral, and ideological structures of mass art ; and functionalist, as he argues that it is the function of mass art to be produced intentionally to be accessible to a mass audience. Moreover, Carroll’s ontological theory is essentialist, for he is committed to developing and defending “a series of necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient for calling something a mass artwork”. This commitment culminates in what he calls a “real” definition of a mass artwork, which is as follows

In this chapter, the author aims to make a case that Foucault does indeed have a viable conception of critical agency. The issue of critical agency emerges implicitly and explicitly throughout Foucault's work, but appears consistently. The key capacities of critical agency are present all along in Foucault's discussions of painting and, moreover, they culminate in the aesthetics of existence. The kind of critical agency evident in Foucault's discussions of various painters from the Renaissance to modern art can now be found in more explicit form in his conception of the aesthetics of existence, that is, in the various techniques or practices that individuals adopt to transform their lives ethically as if they were works of art.

When summarizing the findings of his 1896 Matter and Memory, Bergson claims: “That every reality has... a relation with consciousness—this is what we concede to idealism.” Yet Bergson’s 1896 text presents the theory of “pure perception,” which, since it accounts for perception according to the brain’s mechanical transmissions, apparently leaves no room for subjective consciousness. Bergson’s theory of pure perception would appear to render his idealistic concession absurd. In this paper, I attempt to defend Bergson’s idealistic concession. I argue that Bergson’s account of cerebral transmissions at the level of pure perception necessarily entails a theory of temporality, an appeal to a theory of time-consciousness that justifies his idealistic concession.

Are things ugly or are they just not beautiful? The answer to this and many other questions can be found in this encyclopedia, the first large-scale comprehensive English-language reference on aesthetics and destined to be a classic in the field. Drawing from experts in the areas of philosophy, art, history, psychology, feminist theory, legal theory, and many more, the encyclopedia presents 600 signed essays alphabetically arranged. Most entries include a headnote clarifying the topic. Entries range from the philosophical essay on ugliness, to the more reality-based article on the impact of AIDS on the arts. Comprehensive coverage includes key figures, concepts, periods, theories, and movements in the history of aesthetics."--"Outstanding Reference Sources: the 1999 Selection of New Titles", American Libraries, May 1999. Comp. by the Reference Sources Committee, RUSA, ALA.