Receptivity

Tombs of the kings of the Western Han dynasty (202 B.c.e.–9 c.e.) often contain burial items that are related to the material culture of the Eastern Eurasian Steppe. These artifacts are usually interpreted in a general sense, for instance as a sign for the fascination of the Han elite with the exotic. A closer analysis of relevant finds, however, shows different strategies of dealing with foreign influences. While the exchange with the empire's northern neighbors is evidenced through goods for which identical excavated parallels from the steppe exist, the royal tombs of the Han also contained items that resemble and reference steppe motifs and objects but were clearly produced locally and for local consumers. Especially the latter type of artifacts can thus not simply be interpreted as the passive byproduct of exchange relations. Instead, we have to acknowledge that design, production, and usage of these objects were based on conscious decisions. Based on the insight that objects always have a social function, this article argues that the Han elite not only appropriated steppe influences and motifs but also strategically (re)produced and integrated them into their world in order to redefine, enhance, and strengthen their position within their social framework.

There are three problems with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology: (1) What does it mean to be transcendental? Namely, how different is Husserl's version from Kant's? And is transcendentality necessarily idealistic, subjective (considering what Pradelle (2012) and Schnell (2020) depicted as "beneath subjectivity")? (2) Why is it legitimate to adopt a transcendental stance (instead of naturalism)? Can we provide arguments instead of claims? (3) How should Husserlians continue with transcendentalism in a fruitful and legitimate manner? Whilst restriction on the classical self-reflection renders the anti-anthropological Husserl paradoxically accused of anthropocentrism in biosemiotics, too much methodological freedom results in unexaminable speculations about affecter (Ding an sich, God or Life). This article attempts to offer a unified answer to these questions with a focus on the second one. Two arguments can be reconstructed for Husserlian transcendentalism. The first one is the rejection of mental causation: Were consciousness causally acting upon the world or acted upon by the world, then it should be located within the same objective real space as the object, which means the consciousness itself should be objective. The ridiculous result inconsistent with our experience shows that intentionality is not located within real space-time but encompasses the latter as a part of its intentional correlate-thus it 'transcends' the latter and is transcendental. The second argument is from the irreality of meaning: linguistic form in natural language appears to be more irreal than physical reality, not because it is eidetic, idealised or superimposed upon the latter, but because intentionality is made more explicit than at the empirical level. Hence, we obtain a sense of transcendentality in terms of intentionality, but this definition is not limited to the studies of sense-bestow (Bernet 2015) but includes whatever transcends real space-time in such a manner. If the rejection of mental causation forbids any attempt to reintroduce an affecter of givenness (Loidolt 2015), then one should reduce the talk of spontaneity, receptivity and automaticity to the determining relation between consciousness: whilst spontaneity and receptivity are asymmetrical determinations (contingencies), automaticity is the symmetrical regularity. What Pradelle and Schnell termed "pre-subjective" is in fact neutrally subjective, the middle voice.

Throughout the 18th century, the road from Florence to Bologna, passing through the mountain pass of Giogo, was the busiest route of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Prior to the opening of the pass of Futa (1752), the route between the two cities required at least two days. After that, the journey could be made in half a day. This paper will examine the
“vision” of the 18th century travelers, examining the accounts of a series of witnesses who discuss the theme of contrast between the bleak Apennines and the beautiful Tuscan countryside. These travelers were sensitive to agricultural landscapes as expressions of order and rationality, and only reluctantly susceptible to the fascination of the undisciplined wildness and variety of the mountain landscape. As the conditions of the road and infrastructure improved, a change in sensitivity led to a new affection for the landscapes first seen as harsh, difficult and thorny.

One problem that is fundamental for a theory of experiential judgment resides in the question of how to understand the unity of spontaneity and receptivity that is essential to its exercise. How is it possible for a non-normative and non-conceptual aspect (i.e. receptivity) to have normative significance with respect to experiential judgments? In contemporary debates concerning Kant’s solution to this puzzle we can discern two tendencies that seem to form equally unsatisfactory alternatives: In interpreting his idea that the conditions of spontaneity constitutively enter the manner in which things are given to us, either we arrive at an account in which the non-normative or non-conceptual element of receptivity is obliterated, or we end up with an account of sensible experience as a composite structure containing natural and normative aspects without being able to understand the very necessity that holds these heterogeneous aspects together. The starting point of this paper is the assumption that such a picture is the result of an “idealist” misunderstanding of Kant’s account of experience in the first Critique – and of the “materialist” punchline of the conception of spontaneous receptivity that the latter involves. The proposal is that we should reconstruct the unity of spontaneity and receptivity in such a way that the judging subject determines itself to be spontaneously receptive, i.e. that the subject sustains his or her own sensible affections as affections self-actively. That aspect of spontaneity that accomplishes this is the (transcendental) power of imagination. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct some basic traits of Kant’s conception of imagination in the A and B deductions of the first Critique, and to sketch out an argument for its contribution to the puzzle of receptivity.

With the normative demand to attend to social difference and an absence of universal evaluative terms with which to do so, recent theory has increasingly turned to the study of the affective rather than epistemological conditions of ethical encounter. This I call a 'dispositional ethics' that construes responsibility as responsiveness. Recent articulations of such an ethics, notably in the most current work of Judith Butler, James Tully, Jade Larissa Schiff, and Ella Myers, highlight its connection to situated practices of concrete bodies-in-relation, but often stop short of developing an account of what such embodied practices might be. Based on interviews with thirteen experts who take the body as their primary vocational and intellectual field and characterize their practice as an art of listening, I distinguish three dimensions of a dispositional ethics in practice, and some of the specific strategies available to cultivate the conditions for responsiveness in political life.

Abstract: In this paper, the fundamental role of time in the possibility of the synthesis of the two sides of synthetic a priori judgment or pure synthesis, i.e. the pure intuition and the pure concept, will be discussed, in order to reveal the structural unity between them based on their common ground. The possibility of the pure synthesis indicates the possibility of unifying time as the pure comprehensive intuition on the one hand and pure Ego as the transcendental unity of apperception on the other. The unity of apperception on its part is the ground of the unity of all concepts of the understanding. The transcendental imagination unifies pure intuition and pure concept, thus the sought structural unity appears in the structure of the transcendental imagination as the mediation between receptivity of the intuition and spontaneity of the understanding. We attempt in this paper to disclose the possibility of this mediation and thus – with reference to Heidegger’s interpretation of the Kantian transcendental imagination - the original and unspoken structural unity between time and the transcendental Ego on the basis of the fundamental structure of pure intuition of time as self-affection or spontaneous receptivity. According to this structure, Kant’s transcendental philosophy can be founded on the subjectivity of finite subject

La fenomenología contemporánea ha repensado el
lugar de la subjetividad a partir de la receptividad, ya sea del Ser,
del otro, del Acontecimiento, o del fenómeno en general. En este
contexto, la obra de Marion propone una acogida de los
fenómenos a partir de su donación. Al tomar la iniciativa el
fenómeno mismo que se da a partir de sí, el sujeto queda en la
posición de la receptividad, de recibir lo que se le da, siendo el
responsable de los modos de fenomenalización. En este trabajo
proponemos profundizar la dimensión de responsabilidad del
sujeto en la obra de Marion a la hora de recibir, hospedar y
fenomenalizar aquello que se le da.

We were with Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) when rain fell upon us.
He opened his garment a bit so that the rain could touch his skin.
We asked him, “ Why do you do this?”
He replied, “ Because it has just recently come from its Lord.”

Reported by Anas b.Malik, Sahih Muslim #898

El artículo busca, a través de la lectura ético-filosófica de los textos y de
la comparación histórica, las aportaciones y los límites para la ética del concepto
de lo “femenino” como dimensión humana en la filosofía de Levinas.
La inquietud parte del rescate actual de lo femenino por múltiples tendencias
del pensamiento externas a la filosofía, y parece de gran importancia averiguar
qué puede aportar la filosofía a estas tendencias. Se distingue en la obra de
Levinas, lo “femenino”-mujer de lo “femenino”-humano y se encuentra que
este último aporta la comprensión filosófica del carácter transformador y fértil
de lo femenino desde el “devenir propio del no-ser” manifestado en el éxtasis
erótico. Sin embargo, se advierte que en Levinas, queda pendiente el aspecto
de la comunicación ética en el nivel de lo sensible, lo cual tiene que ser tarea de
la filosofía posterior a Levinas.

This article presents a discussion on a study undertaken by academics within theGriffith School of Environment,
Brisbane, Australia that sought to explore the potential of an Indigenised curriculum to attract and retain
Indigenous students, and thereby facilitate greater participation of Indigenous students in science. The article
highlights the need for staff to be both reflective and reflexive about the limitations their particular knowledge
systems may impose on Indigenous ways of knowing and knowledge systems. The article also acknowledges
the need for professional development opportunities for staff prior to any attempts towards Indigenisation of
the curriculum.

Tombs of the kings of the Western Han dynasty (202 B.C.E.-9 C.E.) often contain burial items that are related to the material culture of the Eastern Eurasian Steppe. These artifacts are usually interpreted in a general sense, for instance as a sign for the, fascination of the Han elite with the exotic. A closer analysis of relevant finds, however, shows different strategies of dealing with foreign influences. While the exchange with the empire's northern neighbors is evidenced through goods for which identical excavated parallels from the steppe exist, the royal tombs of the Han also contained items that resemble and reference steppe motifs and objects but were clearly produced locally and for local consumers. Especially the latter type of artifacts can thus not simply be interpreted as the passive byproduct of exchange relations. Instead, we have to acknowledge that design, production, and usage of these objects were based on conscious decisions. Based on the insight that objects always have a social function, this article argues that the Han elite not only appropriated steppe influences and motifs but also strategically (re)produced and integrated them into their world in order to redefine, enhance, and strengthen their position within their social framework.

This study, using a cross-sectional survey approach, empirically investigates the relationship between re-engineering corporate culture and organizational receptivity to change. Analysis is carried out on the individual unit while data is generated from 72 employees from three selected banks in Rivers State. Using the confirmatory analysis and spearman’s rank order correlation tool, analyses was carried out on the relationship between re-engineering corporate culture through its measures which are corporate values and corporate norms, and organizational receptivity to change. The objective of the study is to adequately illustrate the role effective corporate cultural re-engineering plays in achieving an enhanced attitude, especially from the employees, towards both external and internal change; this was achieved through a hypothesized model and two statements of bivariate relations; which were tested using a predominantly nomothetic (quantitative) methodology. Our findings reveal a ...

Nominated for 2022 Film-Philosophy Annual Article Award

This article examines the breathing and breathless body in Camille-Vidal Naquet’s Sauvage (2018). Respiration has been characterised by Peter Sloterdijk, in the first volume of his Sphären triology, as the first extension of the womb. The air we breathe is a “nobject” (a non-object) that escapes the subject-object relation, like the placenta before it. Sauvage engages the respiratory, alongside the placental and the acoustic, as three pre-oral nobjects for exploring what Leo Bersani has termed the body’s “somatic receptivity”. Duration, framing, lighting and camera movements cultivate a spectator’s receptivity to these nobjects and participate in acts of sphere formation. This provides a framework for thinking about how cinema itself might function as a nobject: a connective medium or a sphere that supports and augments a subject, providing a field of protection and attention. However, the film’s presentation of breathlessness also signals a blocked receptivity, an inability to take in, introducing friction and resistance to the discourse of immediacy and exchange that characterises philosophical reflections on breath. Breathlessness has implications for thinking about bodily autonomy and forms of freedom that speak to the queer politics of Sauvage as well as questions about movement and stillness, animation and lifelessness that reflects back on the medium of film itself.

How are we supposed to reply to something or to someone when it is not clear just what it is we are dealing with and what it is that is being asked of us? Can we speak meaningfully about responding rightly or wrongly in cases like this – as readers, as intimates, as citizens, as human
beings? What can guide us, normatively speaking? How do we tell what form of response we owe an other when that other appears inscrutable to us, and, as in the case of Elizabeth Costello, when the other appears as inscrutable to herself as she appears to us? Where do we begin? What
might get in the way of a reply that is just, in every sense of just, not callous, insensitive, indifferent? I would claim that this is the central theme and the organizing principle of The Lives of Animals: the question of how we should respond and reply, how we should answer and be
answerable to others, the question of human responsiveness or lack of it in the face of suffering.

Resumo:
No âmbito das teorias feministas do cinema, e dos estudos fílmicos em geral, algumas questões têm sido levantadas ao longo das últimas décadas, nomeadamente no que diz respeito à exigência de uma maior representatividade feminina no mundo da realização e produção cinematográficas. Sendo o olhar do espectador, como Laura Mulvey sugeriu, pressupostamente masculino, treinado por realizadores com fantasias e tendências voyeuristas homogéneas, a questão seguinte seria inevitável: poderá este mesmo olhar assumir características distintas, quando mediado por uma mulher? Poderá a arte, ao contrário dos anjos, ter sexo? Existirá, neste sentido, uma “estética feminina”, como Silvia Bovenschen, em artigo homónimo, publicado em Setembro de 1976, procura antecipar? Procurá-la não implicará um aprofundar de estereótipos associados à feminilidade e à masculinidade, todos eles redutores, segundo o ponto de vista de Michel Foucault e Judith Butler, bem como a atribuição de um certo carácter de exotismo, pela falta de representatividade nos circuitos artísticos? Enunciando e debatendo os principais argumentos dos autores mencionados, propomo-nos, no presente artigo, responder às questões colocadas.


Abstract:
In the context of feminist theories of cinema, and film studies in general, some questions have been raised in the past few decades, concerning the need for a greater representation of women in the world of film making and production. Accepting the idea of a viewer gaze, as Laura Mulvey suggested, supposedly male, trained by directors with fantasies and uniformed voyeuristic tendencies, the next question is inevitable: might this gaze have different characteristics when mediated by a woman? Can the art, unlike the angels, have sex? Is there, in this sense, a “feminine aesthetic”, as Silvia Bovenschen, on an article with the same name, published in September 1976, looks forward to anticipate? To look for it does not imply a deepening of stereotypes associated with femininity and masculinity, all reducers, according to the point of view of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, as well as the assignment of a certain exoticism’ character, motivated by the lack of representation in the art circuit? Outlining and discussing the main arguments of the authors above mentioned, we propose, in this paper, to answer these questions.

Resumen:
“Las mujeres son diferentes, y una manifestación natural de esta diferencia (nota bene!) es precisamente el hecho de que son incapaces de producir arte.” (Bovenschen, 1976: 115).
Haciéndose eco del paralelismo ya realizado por Simone de Beauvoir en el ensayo El segundo sexo, Silvia Bovenschen vuelve, en un artículo publicado en 1976 que nos proponemos discutir aquí, a la asociación asumida entre una perspectiva descriptiva masculina y la verdad absoluta. En su opinión, el dominio de la producción artística por el género masculino habrá originado una inaccesibilidad y una extrañeza relativas a la otra mitad de la población, que se denuncia por el carácter de exotismo que muchos críticos votaron a los pocos, y de cierta forma lejos entre si mismos, objetos culturales producidos por las mujeres, a lo largo de la historia. Otra consecuencia natural de este fracaso, descrito por el uso del término déficit, importado del lenguaje economicista, todavía sería, a nuestro juicio, una segregación de la dicha producción en una sola clase: una escritura femenina, una mirada femenina, un rasgo femenino. Con la restricción, la incertidumbre se multiplica: la escritura femenina es la que centra su atención en mujeres fuertes y decididas, la que demuestra una sensibilidad y capacidad de observación característica de un género, o la que construye una narrativa entrecruzada, por la sociológicamente establecida capacidad de realizar múltiples tareas asociadas al mismo sexo?

Food and sex often go hand in hand because of the nutritional cost of reproduction. For Drosophila melanogaster females, this relationship is especially intimate because their offspring develop on food. Since yeast and sugars are important nutritional pillars for Drosophila, availability of these foods should inform female reproductive behaviours. Yet mechanisms coupling food and sex are poorly understood. Here we show that yeast increases female sexual receptivity through interaction between its protein content and its odorous fermentation product acetic acid, sensed by the Ionotropic odorant receptor neuron Ir75a. A similar interaction between nutritional and hedonic value applies to sugars where taste and caloric value only increase sexual receptivity when combined. Integration of nutritional and sensory values would ensure that there are sufficient internal nutrients for egg production as well as sufficient environmental nutrients for offspring survival. These findings provide m...

In this chapter, I attempt to provide a richer account of reflective agency than standard theorists do, by focusing on the deep connection between the role of empathic receptivity and that of reflection. In From Enlightenment to Receptivity, Michael Slote innovatively introduces the idea of receptivity as a virtue into the domains of epistemology and ethics, and argues that the virtue of receptivity plays a crucial role in the realization of a good life (2013). In contrast, I incorporate receptivity as a virtue into the domain of philosophy of action, particularly the philosophical analysis of reflective agency, an aspect on which Slote does not place much emphasis.
    To date, standard theories of reflective agency have concentrated on analyzing its self-governing aspect (e.g., Bratman 2007; Frankfurt 1999; Korsgaard 1996). Such an analysis is undoubtedly important because autonomous agency is a central value in the modern world. However, standard theorists’ strong commitment to individualistic, self-determining agency appears to have hindered them from appreciating the fundamental significance of empathic receptivity toward others’ perspectives in our rational, reflective lives.
    To remedy this tendency, I demonstrate how empathic receptivity significantly contributes to the development of our reflective activity. In our temporally extended lives, empathic receptivity is not only associated with an event at a single moment but also with a dynamic process unfolding over time. In my view, such diachronic receptivity helps us to deepen our understanding of others’ perspectives, and in so doing, to reflectively examine our own ways of thinking and acting from different angles that we have not previously recognized.
    Given that our agency unfolds temporally, practical rationality appears to be partly a matter of how we can develop our reflective capacity conducive to continuous learning from others. My receptivity-based account aims to capture such interpersonal and learning aspects of reflection and thus overcome the individualistic, introspective model of reflection that has long dominated the mainstream philosophy of action.
    The discussion proceeds as follows. In Section 1, I begin by arguing for receptivity’s centrality in empathy and then briefly sketch how the virtue of empathic receptivity functions in our temporally unfolding lives. In Section 2, I attempt to offer a realistic, dynamic account of the relationship between empathic receptivity and reflection. Particularly, I discuss how a receptively virtuous person can appropriately confront anxiety caused by encountering another’s serious challenge. In the last section, I clarify the strength of my receptivity-based model of reflection by comparing it with Michael Bratman’s policy-based model of reflection.