Abstract: This article is concerned with an analysis of semantics and the normativity of evaluative judgments, in which “aesthetic concepts” and “predicates of personal taste” are used in the context of the evaluation of selected cultural forms (foods and beverages). Qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews with representatives in four categories of actors…
Abstract: Emergentism is an important and yet underexplored component of John Dewey’s metaphysical program, and concerns the ways in which existences relate, operate, and grow in coordination with a more inclusive environment. Through an emergent account, Dewey addresses continuities among the generic traits of nature, inanimate substance, biological life, and experiential “fields” such…
Abstract: In this essay I present culture as a realm constituted by a circular movement where progress is constantly confronted (and questioned) by different forms of reversions. By progress I mean specifically oriented changes we observe in culture. Many of them are rooted in the development of technology and science, or stem from demographical changes and intercultural influences. Reactions to these changes frequently involve…
Abstract: In the first part of the paper the author briefly revisits two of the most important traditions that stand behind the contemporary conceptualizations of affect: the Deleuzian tradition and the Lacanian one. Having pointed to the most important features of the two lines of thinking affect, as well as to certain difficulties that arise…
Abstract: Cultural identities and rituals are intersecting through increasingly overlapping social worlds. Whether one chooses to join in this mixing and to what degree, that is the question. Appropriationists and assimilationists assume a logic of domination that aims to justify forms of social entitlement, claiming exclusive possession or ownership of cultural heritages. This article argues that…
Abstract: This article offers a new definition of culture which hinges on what we consider to be its most distinctive feature, namely its artificiality. Our definition enables us to resolve some of the main issues and controversies involved in the concept of culture and its course of development. We argue that the large human brain played a revolutionary role…
Abstract: One aim of this essay is to understand why white evangelical Christians, more than any other religious adherents in the United States, are deeply invested in denying the emergency of anthropogenic climate change and in obstructing action to address anthropogenic climate change. Michael S. Hogue, in his recent book, American Immanence, blames a religious imaginary he names…
Abstract: This article investigates the interrelated roles of education, morality, and philosophy in Kant as a response to the transactional view of humanity promoted by the spirit of capitalism, known as the “capital form.” This article investigates the effect of the capital form upon educational institutions and self-cultivation, or Bildung. Kant’s views on the role of education in moral…
Abstract: This essay is an exploratory reflection on a theme drawn from the work of Pierre Hadot and Juliusz Domański regarding “philosophy as a way of life.” I approach the matter from the naturalistic outlook of classic pragmatism and its own limitations. This approach stresses the possible improvement of the analysis of normativity by way of…
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to give a general and accessible overview of the so called “post-secular” turn in the contemporary humanities. The main idea behind it is that it constitutes an answer to the crisis of the secular grand narratives of modernity: the Hegelian narrative of the immanent progress of the…