"Rational Animal" in Heidegger and Aquinas

Martin Heidegger rejects the traditional definition of the human being as the “rational animal” in part because he thinks it fits us into a genus that obscures our difference in kind. Thomas Aquinas shares with Heidegger the concern about the human difference, and yet he appropriates the definition, “rational animal” by conceiving animality in terms of the specifically human power of understanding being. Humans are not just distinct in their openness to being, but, thanks to that openness, they are distinct in their animality, a distinction that changes the very significance of animality itself. Heidegger also thinks the traditional definition closes us to the experience of our essence, but again Aquinas has resources for bringing out the experiential character of rational animality. Aquinas’ inclusion of animation has significance for what Heidegger calls fundamental ontology; by virtue of the human animate body, particular beings can be pointed out and designated as such

Content and Meaning Constitutive Inferences

A priori theories of justification of logic based on meaning often lead to trouble, in particular to issues concerning circularity. First, I present Boghossian’s a prioriview. Boghossian maintains the rule-circular justifications from a conceptual role semantics. However, rule-circular justifications are problematic. Recently, Boghossian (Boghossian, 2015) has claimed that rules should be thought of as contents and contents as abstract objects. In this paper, I discuss Boghossian’s view. My argumentation consists of three main parts. First, I analyse several arguments to show that in fact, Boghossian’s inferentialist solution is not fully satisfying. Second, I discuss the matter further, if one accepts that basic logical rules are constitutive of meaning, that is, they constitute the logical concepts and the content of a rule is an abstract object, then abstract objects — like, for example, rules — could be constitutive of meaning. The question is whether conceptual priority is in the judgment or in the object and what theory of content is pursued. Grasping content as a matter of knowing how a word or concept behaves in inferences is not completely explicative. Finally, I contend that rules come to exist as a result of certain kinds of mental action. These actions function as constitutive norms. Logical rules are not abstract objects but ideal. What one construes as norms or rules of content may involve idealization, but this is because we share a language

SPIT IN MY MOUTH: Queer Intimacies, Material Intra-actions, and Sensuous Becoming

This document describes my multidisciplinary art practice as it intersects with New Materialism, Queer and Affect theory, Ecology, and my embodied and experiential knowledge as a queer subject. The writing is divided into two categories. One is more theoretical, thinking through these different discourses. The other realizes them through relationships and intra-actions between my material kin and me. With these two modes of writing,I propose that embodied and felt knowing is as valid and illuminating as more traditional forms of knowledge. These sections are interdependent and resist linear logic, offering relational meanings to each reader as they find their way through a terrain of text and image offering a multiplicity of readings. Renaming difficulties with articulation as a legitimate tension within my own way of thinking and experiencing, this document pushes against such exactitude of ideas. Ultimately the artworks in my thesis exhibition and this outlining document work to reveal queerness, or queering, as a basic tenet for existence. This text uses Open Dyslexic, an open-source font designed for readers with dyslexia, a learning difference whose wide range of effects alters the way a person takes in, processes, and utilizes language and graphic symbols

“A Feast of Languages”: The Role of Language in the Globe to Globe Festival

In 2012, Shakespeare’s Globe hosted the Globe to Globe Festival, which featured performances from thirty-seven international companies in their native tongues as part of the Cultural Olympiad in the lead up to the London Olympic Games. This paper explores the role that language played in the Globe to Globe Festival, and the way in which language mediated direction and translation of various plays, specifically in the rehearsal room in anticipation of the performance itself. Translating Shakespeare into thirty-seven different languages allowed the companies to think about the potential benefits of performing their play in a specific dialect or style for both audiences at the Globe and their own language and culture as well. This paper considers the impact of language barriers that existed even within individual companies, and shows that the specific choices around language informed the ways audience members understood and interpreted the narratives of the plays during the festival

My Other Myself: Aristotle and the Value of Friendship

What constitutes a true human-to-human relationship? What is its importance and value for human life? These are the questions I explore in this talk on Aristotle's philosophy of friendship, originally presented as part of Boston University's Core Curriculum lecture series

“The Authority to Interpret, the Purpose of Universities, and the Giving of Awards, Honors, or Platforms by Catholic Universities: Some Thoughts on ‘Catholics in Political Life’,”

With its June 2004 statement Catholics in Political Life, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opened an important and far-reaching discussion about how Catholic individuals ought to comport themselves in political life, and-indirectly-about how Catholic institutions-including Catholic law schools-ought to decide whether or not to give awards, honors, or platforms to those whose views about key moral and political issues may differ from the views expressed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. On the basis of a simple and straightforward reading of the 2004 statement, it might appear that the bishops wanted to say that no Catholic institution-and thus no Catholic law school-should give awards, honors, or platforms to those who endorse or promote views that differ from the fundamental moral teachings of the Church. An important part of the statement plainly declares: "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." A few moments of reflection will reveal, however, that the issue here is somewhat more complicated than what one might infer from a simple and straightforward reading of the statement. The aim of the present paper is not to settle the question of whether and how a Catholic law school ought to give awards, honors, or platforms to certain individuals or groups. Instead, the aim is to begin articulating some of the underlying conceptual issues that perhaps ought to be addressed in preparation for answering the further question of whether and how a Catholic law school ought to give awards, honors, or platforms to certain individuals or groups

Transpersonal and personal in Luther\u27s life and theology

Personal knowing is shaped by the uniqueness of the person; it is biographical and particular. Luther claimed that experience alone makes a theologian, \u27sola experientia facit theologum\u27. \u27A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating\u27. Anyone familiar with Luther\u27s theology knows, however, that he did not always remain faithful to this view. He often claims verifiable objectivity and universal authority for his theological abstractions. These reflections respond to those trends in Luther\u27s theology and in the Lutheran heritage, which failed to express the personal and communal dynamics of faith. The focus of this presentation is on Luther\u27s search for personal, biographical knowing. [excerpt]

Facts, skills and intuition : A typology of personal knowledge

This paper introduces a knowledge model in which the types of knowledge are formed according to the nature of knowledge. First we use Ryle’s distinction of “that” and “how” knowledge, to which we add further three types. The five knowledge types are then synthesized using Polanyi’s distinction of focal and subsidiary awareness. The resulting model distinguishes three types of knowledge, the facts, the skills, and the intuition; all three having focal and subsidiary parts. We believe that this knowledge model is comprehensive in the sense that can classify any knowledge and it also has great explanatory power, as it is demonstrated through illustrative examples. Moreover, the model is elegant and easy to use, which facilitates our understanding of the domain of personal knowledge. Therefore we expect our findings to be useful for both researchers and educators in the field of knowledge and knowledge management