LES IMMATÉRIAUX

Exposing an overlooked ambiguity in how philosophers use the term ‘public good,’ this paper proposes to distinguish between inherently and contingently public goods, where inherently public goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable in principle (e.g., national security) and contingently public goods are non-rivalrous and deliberately provided in a non-exclusionary way (e.g., parks). This distinction is conducive to philosophical debate in two ways. At the level of ideal theory, contingently public goods reveal the inadequacy of the various benefit principles that have been proposed to ensure justice in the provision of public goods (Claassen 2013; Miller and Taylor 2018; Murphy and Nagel 2001). Because these goods could be provided as club goods, benefit principles mandate unacceptable transfer payments to the privately wealthy and to people who disvalue their inclusive mode of provision. At the level of non-ideal theory, contingently public goods constitute a natural yet underappreciated focal point for effectively rectifying injustices. While all public goods promise to render access to private resources less relevant, contingently public goods hold special potential: their provision may be costless and involve no market interference, it can more powerfully express a commitment to status equality and it can be especially effective at addressing inequalities in opportunity.

Reviewed by: Augustine's Vergilian Retreat: Reading the Auctores at Cassiciacum by Joseph Pucci Stefan Freund Augustine's Vergilian Retreat: Reading the Auctores at Cassiciacum Joseph Pucci Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Pp. xvi + 192. ISBN 9780888441874. After his conversion in summer 386, Augustine left Milan for Cassiciacum. There, in a friend's country house, he stayed with his closest relatives and confidants until he returned to the city for his baptism during the Easter vigil of 387. During this period of seclusion, Augustine produced his first extant writings Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, and the Soliloquia, in which the author, in dialogic form, reflects on the fundamental questions of happiness and truth in a way that starts from pagan philosophy and leads to God. In his book, Pucci takes both these dialogues from Cassiciacum and the De doctrina Christiana—composed a [End Page 285] decade later and sketching the hermeneutics of a Christian (reading) culture—and focuses on the use of classical literature, especially of Virgil. He attempts to show "a pedagogy in place devoted to making Virgil possible for Christianity" (xiii). Pucci ("Confessiones: The problem of reading Virgil," 1–32) starts from the famous passage Confessiones 1.13: Augustine condemns the vanity of Virgil's Dido tale which deeply impressed him as a schoolboy, but he does so using poetic style and quotations. This requires, as Pucci argues, a hermeneutic model for rereading ancient authors. In Cassiciacum, Augustine developed a philosophical and pedagogic program of reading and understanding classical authors in a specifically Christian way, based on the traditions of ancient philosophy and of ancient classrooms, both referring to poetry. Pucci finds this model revealed in Contra Academicos 2.4.10 by recensere, tractare, and congruere. The author supposes these verbs to be something like termini technici ("to review," "to ponder," "to suite to") sketching the way "in which Virgil's words were in some way fitted to the larger project of engaging the skeptical tradition" (25). Subsequently ("Contra Academicos: Recuperating Virgil," 33–71), Pucci delves deeper into the text in order to make clear what he supposes to be Augustine's method of reviving Virgil: Licentius, he argues, in Contra Academicos 1.5.14, quotes Aeneid 1.401 perge modo et, qua te ducit via, dirige gressum, which, however, fits with the philosophical point his opponent Trygetius had made rather than with his own. Within the rest of the work, Pucci argues, Augustine presents his disputants using poetry and especially Virgil, often in a superficial way, which does not yet meet the ideal of revival the author has in mind. In the end, Augustine (Contra Academicos 3.4.9) alludes to Eclogues 3.104–107 in order to reveal through Damoetas's and Menalcas's competition, which cannot be judged by Palaemon, his own dissatisfaction with the state of the philosophical debates which the participants had reached up to this point. The next chapter ("De beata vita: Remedial Recuperation," 72–86) starts from a comparison between Contra Academicos and De beata vita: Although both dialogues, of course, deal with happiness, the first one ends with an aporia, the latter one, however, tends to show consensus and solution. Pucci supposes this to be a pedagogic development. Part of it, he argues, is the use of Terence whose sententiae harmoniously fit into the philosophical discourse. In the chapter "De ordine: Recuperating at night" (87–126), Pucci analyses the nocturnal scenery in the beginning of the dialogue: Augustine fears that Licentius's enthusiasm for "poetics" (see Pucci's semantic differentiation, 98–99) might separate him from philosophical thinking. The author supposes this to refer to a wrong use and understanding of poetry, which separates it from the seeking of truth like the wall that separates Thisbe from Pyramus, whose name the pupil is singing (De ordine 1.3.8). Licentius's subsequent (1.3.9) use of a quotation from Terence, Eunuchus 1024, however, hermeneutically characterized by the verb vertere ("to turn"), introduces and shows his "philosophic progress" and "seems in league with his [sc. Licentius'] new found recuperative abilities" (107). Delighted by this pedagogic success, Pucci argues, Augustine reacts with "turning" a Virgilian verse (1.4.10, Aeneid 10...

This introduction to the special issue on Philosophy and Literature in Nineteenth‐Century Britain intends to define the fundamental historical and theoretical contexts of the volume. There are three main parts to this contextualization. First, and most substantially, I explore the interests and evolution of philosophical ideas in nineteenth‐century Britain. Whilst giving an overview of the trends and movements in the period, I argue that literature was essential in the dissemination, interrogation and even the constitution of philosophical ideas. Secondly, I sketch the increasing anxieties surrounding ‘philosophy’ in the nineteenth century, and suggest that nineteenth‐century novelists, poets and literary critics participated significantly in rethinking the nature of abstract, systematized philosophical discourse. Thirdly, in framing this discussion, I address why philosophy and literature have been marginalized in nineteenth‐century studies, arguing that the relationship between literature and philosophy is fundamental to our understanding of the period. Looking ahead, I suggest how scholars in nineteenth‐century studies might enter into an interdisciplinary dialogue with philosophical studies of philosophy and literature.

Plato’s discourse on beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is distinctly apophatic in nature. Plato describes beauty in terms of what it is not (an approach sometimes referred to apophasis, or the via negativa). In this paper, I argue that Platonic apophatic practise in the Hippias Major and the Symposium depicts beauty as an ally to certain aspirations of philosophical discourse. In the first section, I offer some brief prefatory remarks on the nature of apophasis and its presence in Plato’s thinking. In the second section, I provide some background to the dialogue of the Hippias Major and highlight the apophatic nature of the descriptions of beauty offered therein. In the third and final section, I discuss the Symposium, a dialogue within which, in addition to representing beauty apophatically, Plato illustrates how we may become able to achieve some positive, or cataphatic, insights into the nature of beauty. I conclude that the purpose of the Platonic apophatic portrayal of beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is to show that, while beauty cannot be reduced to a series of assertive truth statements, it can nevertheless function as an accessory to other dimensions of philosophical thinking.

Edited by Lisa Cassidy and Mianna Lotz,Philosophies of Adoption: Perspectives and Reflectionsexplores contemporary philosophical analysis of adoption, providing insight into new and underexplored topics in the field. Three scholarly developments are central to the emerging philosophical discourse on adoption explored in this volume: a problematizing of the adoption triangle or "triad", a critique of the so-called “bio-normative family", and an attention to specific issues in transracial and First Nations adoption. The book’s contributors expand on all three of these areas by addressing a range of questions—How does being adopted shape self-knowledge and identity? What challenges arise at the intersection of race and adoption? What can be learned about epistemic justice, identity, and belonging from transracial adoption? What are the narratives told about adoption?—to show how current conditions and lived adoptee experiences give new shape, meaning, and importance to philosophical thinking about adoption. Showcasing a diversity of styles and standpoints, and organized into three core themes—situating adoption, knowing adoption, and telling adoption—this book grapples with the adoption experience, historical and recent developments in adoption practice, and emerging directions in philosophical scholarship.

The question about the existence or non-existence of African philosophy has almost died a natural death in the past few years. It is now a question of African and non-African thinkers putting their attention on actually doing African philosophy instead of “flogging the dead horse” by continuing to grapple with the question about whether African philosophy exists or not. However, in that quest for doing African philosophy, only recently has there been some growing consensus on the thinking that the content and curriculum of philosophy in Africa ought to be transformed and Africanised. In this article, I critically interrogate the question of what Africanising philosophy ought to reasonably entail. Much of the discussion on Africanisation eventually leads towards somewhat anthropological and ethno-philosophical interpretations of African cultural heritage. However, I transcend these interpretations as I seek to critically situate African philosophical thinking within universal philosophical discourse. Although I admit the danger of romanticising African indigenous value systems in the pursuit of the agenda of Africanisation of the philosophy curriculum, I seek to argue that the idea of Africanising philosophy ought to be understood as being compatible with, and consistent with, the requirement of philosophy as a critical discourse. Also, I argue that an Africanised philosophy curriculum must be relevant to the African condition. Overall, I propose some possibilities and ways by which the agenda of Africanising the current philosophy curriculum in Africa could be pursued.

Analyzing social wrongs

In a fast-changing and evolving world, we need more and more flexible and critical thinkers. Critical thinking is a cornerstone of education and a necessity for all human activity. One of the growing problems in an increasingly digital society is the constant loss of dialogue and reflective discussion in the learning process. In pedagogical practice, critical thinking is effectively exercised through discussion and questioning. Philosophical discussion with the support of the Philosophy for Children programme is a good way to support pre-school children's critical thinking and reasoning skills. The aim of this follow-up qualitative study was to describe different questioning techniques during group-discussion utilising the Philosophy for Children programme in order to scaffold Estonian preschoolers' reasoning. The data was collected during an 8-month period through philosophical group-discussions engaged five- to six-years-old children with 20 observations from five groups (N=58). Transcripts from group-discussions were analysed using qualitative analysis. The findings indicated that the functions of a discussion leader´s open- and closed-ended questions varied depending on the children´s responses and behavior. Eight functions for open-ended questions and five functions with five parallel functions for closed-ended questions are described. Some closed-ended questions can support higher-level thinking in cases where they prompt children to compare, hesitate, or explain. A model for asking questions in group discussions was prepared, providing guidelines for asking questions in a purposeful manner, based on the function of the previous question and the child's answer. The informed understanding of questioning techniques is useful to identify how kindergarten teachers can scaffold children during group-discussions.

Through a reading of Derrida’s Conférence. Sur l’enseignement philosophique, the contribution intends to highlight some characteristic aspects of the philosophical text and of the specific activity of the philosophy teacher. After a presentation of some essential coordinates of Derrida’s activities and reflections on philosophy, as developed by him in the Seventies, the attention will be turned, through a reading of the text of the Conference, to the specific question of the philosophical text and the practical pedagogy of teaching philosophy. During the Conference examined here, Derrida recalls the importance, for philosophy, of considering the text and its definition, so that to the simple alternative of a meta-textual or intra-textual philosophical discourse, he proposes a more radical philosophical pedagogy, capable of opening the philosophical text beyond the determinations established by the onto-encyclopedic perspective. In closing, the urgency, still current, of reflecting on philosophical practice is recalled.