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Works by John Dilworth
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John Dilworth [60] John B. Dilworth [3]
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John Dilworth
Naturalized Perception Without Information.John Dilworth - 2004 - Journal of Mind and Behavior 25 (4):349-368.details
The outlines of a novel, fully naturalistic theory of perception are provided, that can explain perception of an object X by organism Z in terms of reflexive causality. On the reflexive view proposed, organism Z perceives object or property X just in case X causes Z to acquire causal dispositions reflexively directed back upon X itself. This broadly functionalist theory is potentially capable of explaining both perceptual representation and perceptual content in purely causal terms, making no use of informational concepts. (...) However, such a reflexive, naturalistic causal theory must compete with well entrenched, supposedly equally naturalistic theories of perception that are based on some concept of information, so the paper also includes some basic logical, naturalistic and explanatory criticisms of such informational views. (shrink)
Causal Accounts of Mental Content, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
Causal Theories of Reference in Philosophy of Language
Ecological Approaches to Perception in Philosophy of Mind
Naturalizing Mental Content, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
The Causal Theory of Perception in Philosophy of Mind
Perceptual Causality Problems Reflexively Resolved.John Dilworth - 2005 - Acta Analytica 20 (3):11-31.details
Causal theories of perception typically have problems in explaining deviant causal chains. They also have difficulty with other unusual putative cases of perception involving prosthetic aids, defective perception, scientifically extended cases of perception, and so on. But I show how a more adequate reflexive causal theory, in which objects or properties X cause a perceiver to acquire X-related dispositions toward that very same item X, can provide a plausible and principled perceptual explanation of all of these kinds of cases. A (...) critical discussion of David Lewis's perceptual descriptivist views is also provided, including a defense of the logical possibility of systematic misperception or perceptual error for a perceiver, in spite of its empirical improbability. (shrink)
The Reflexive Theory of Perception.John Dilworth - 2005 - Behavior and Philosophy 33 (1):17-40.details
ABSTRACT: The Reflexive Theory of Perception (RTP) claims that perception of an object or property X by an organism Z consists in Z being caused by X to acquire some disposition D toward X itself. This broadly behavioral perceptual theory explains perceptual intentionality and correct versus incorrect, plus successful versus unsuccessful, perception in a plausible evolutionary framework. The theory also undermines cognitive and perceptual modularity assumptions, including informational or purely epistemic views of perception in that, according to the RTP, any (...) X-caused and X-directed dispositions are genuinely perceptual—including affective, attitudinal, and immediately activated purely action-directed behavioral dispositions. Thus the RTP has the potential to provide the foundations for a broadly behavioral counter-revolution in cognitive science. (shrink)
A Naturalistic, Reflexive Dispositional Approach to Perception.John Dilworth - 2005 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 (4):583-601.details
This paper will investigate the basic question of the nature of perception, as theoretically approached from a purely naturalistic standpoint. An adequate theory must not only have clear application to a world full of pre-existing biological examples of perception of all kinds, from unicellular perception to conscious human perception, but it must also satisfy a series of theoretical or philosophical constraints, as enumerated and discussed in Section 1 below. A perceptual theory invoking _reflexive dispositions_--that is, dispositions directed toward the very (...) same worldly perceived objects or properties that caused them--will be defended as one legitimate such naturalistic theory. (shrink)
The Double Content of Art.John Dilworth - 2005 - Prometheus Books.details
The Double Content view is the first comprehensive theory of art that is able to satisfactorily explain the nature of all kinds of artworks in a unified way — whether paintings, novels, or musical and theatrical performances. The basic thesis is that all such representational artworks involve two levels or kinds of representation: a first stage in which a concrete artifact represents an artwork, and a second stage in which that artwork in turn represents its subject matter. "Dilworth applies his (...) theory across the arts and to a variety of issues, demonstrating that it has far-reaching implications for our philosophical understanding of the nature of art." - Stephen Davies, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland.. (shrink)
Aesthetic Understanding in Aesthetics
Artworks in Aesthetics
A Reflexive Dispositional Analysis of Mechanistic Perception.John Dilworth - 2006 - Minds and Machines 16 (4):479-493.details
The field of machine perception is based on standard informational and computational approaches to perception. But naturalistic informational theories are widely regarded as being inadequate, while purely syntactic computational approaches give no account of perceptual content. Thus there is a significant need for a novel, purely naturalistic perceptual theory not based on informational or computational concepts, which could provide a new paradigm for mechanistic perception. Now specifically evolutionary naturalistic approaches to perception have been—perhaps surprisingly—almost completely neglected for this purpose. Arguably (...) perceptual mechanisms enhance evolutionary fitness by facilitating sensorily mediated causal interactions between an organism Z and items X in its environment. A 'reflexive' theory of perception of this kind is outlined, according to which an organism Z perceives an item X just in case X causes a sensory organ zi of Z to cause Z to acquire a disposition toward the very same item X that caused the perception. The rest of the paper shows how an intuitively plausible account of mechanistic perception can be developed and defended in terms of the reflexive theory. Also, a compatibilist option is provided for those who wish to preserve a distinct informational concept of perception. (shrink)
Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Representation in Cognitive Science in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
The Objects of Perception in Philosophy of Mind
The Double Content of Perception.John Dilworth - 2005 - Synthese 146 (3):225-243.details
Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y?(X?) as a higher level of (...) content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y?(X?) must be. (shrink)
Intentionalist Theories of Perception in Philosophy of Mind
The Contents of Perception, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
A Representational Theory of Artefacts and Artworks.John Dilworth - 2001 - British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (4):353-370.details
The artefacts produced by artists during their creation of works of art are very various: paintings, writings, musical scores, and so on. I have a general thesis to offer about the relations of artefacts and artworks, but within the confines of this article I shall mainly discuss cases drawn from the art of painting, central specimens of which seem to be autographic in Nelson Goodman's sense, namely such that even the most exact duplication of them does not count as producing (...) the same work of art. My view will be that an artwork (such as a painting) and its associated artefact are not identical, and nor is the artefact in any sense part of the painting in question,2 but that nevertheless it is still possible to maintain the view that paintings are autographic (which view I shall call l the autographic thesis). I shall proceed initially through presentation of some counter-examples to common assumptions as to the relations of artefacts and artworks, and then present an alternative 'representational' theory of their relations. (shrink)
Medium, Subject Matter and Representation.John Dilworth - 2003 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 (1):45-62.details
I argue that the physical marks on a canvas resulting from an artist's intentional, stylistic and expressive acts cannot themselves be the artist's expression, but instead they serve to signify or indicate those acts. Thus there is a kind of indicative content associated with a picture that is distinct from its subject matter (or 'representational content'). I also argue that this kind of indicative content is closely associated with the specific artistic medium chosen by the artist as her expressive medium, (...) for which reason I call this kind of content medium content (or medium-related content). (shrink)
Aesthetic Cognition, Misc in Aesthetics
Aesthetic Perception in Aesthetics
Aesthetic Representation and Meaning, Misc in Aesthetics
Conceptual and Nonconceptual Content in Philosophy of Mind
Depiction in Aesthetics
The Interpretation of Art in Aesthetics
The Perception of Representational Content.John Dilworth - 2005 - British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (4):388-411.details
How can it be true that one sees a lake when looking at a picture of a lake, since one's gaze is directed upon a flat dry surface covered in paint? An adequate contemporary explanation cannot avoid taking a theoretical stand on some fundamental cognitive science issues concerning the nature of perception, of pictorial content, and of perceptual reference to items that, strictly speaking, have no physical existence. A solution is proposed that invokes a broadly functionalist, naturalistic theory of perception, (...) plus a double content analysis of perceptual interpretation, which permits non-supervenient, culturally autonomous modes of reference to be generated and artistically exploited even in a purely physical world. In addition, a functionalist concept of broad or 'spread' reference replaces the traditional precise intentional concept of reference, which previously made reference to non-existent items theoretically intractable. (shrink)
Direct and Indirect Perception in Philosophy of Mind
Perception, Introspection, and Functional Consonance.John Dilworth - 2006 - Theoria 72 (4):299-318.details
What is the relation between a perceptual experience of an object X as being red, and one's belief, if any, as to the nature of that experience? A traditional Cartesian view would be that, if indeed object X does seem to be red to oneself, then one's resulting introspective belief about it could only be a _conforming _belief, i.e., a belief that X perceptually seems to be _red _to oneself--rather than, for instance, a belief that X perceptually seems to be (...) green to oneself instead. On such a Cartesian view, our introspective certainly about our own thoughts extends also to our perceptual experiences as to how things seem to be to us, so that our resulting introspective beliefs about our phenomenal states also count as knowledge of them. (shrink)
Introspection and Introspectionism in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Knowledge of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Perception and Knowledge, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
Perception and Thought in Philosophy of Mind
The Ethical Importance of Conflicts of Interest: Accounting and Finance Examples.John B. Dilworth - 1994 - Business and Professional Ethics Journal 13 (1/2):25-40.details
The general area of business and professional ethics is full of vexing and confusing problems. For example, questions concerning the im portance of ethical standards, whether ethics is unnecessary given appropriate legal enforcement, whether it is imperative to teach ethical behavior in professional education, and similar questions are all controversial. The specific ethical problems to be found in the areas of accounting and finance are at least as difficult as those in other areas. However, there is one kind of ethical (...) problem which is unusually prominent in finance and accounting, which deserves to be recognized more widely in ethics as a significant kind of issue. This is the problem of conflicts of interest. (shrink)
Distributive Justice, Misc in Social and Political Philosophy
Financial Ethics in Applied Ethics
Professional Ethics in Applied Ethics
A Double Content Theory of Artistic Representation.John Dilworth - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (3):249–260.details
The representational content or subject matter of a picture is normally distinguished from various non-representational components of meaning involved in artworks, such as expressive, stylistic or intentional factors. However, I show how such non subject matter components may themselves be analyzed in content terms, if two different categories of representation are recognized--aspect indication for stylistic etc. factors, and normal representation for subject matter content. On the account given, the relevant kinds of content are hierarchically structured, with relatively unconceptualized lower level (...) aspectual contents encoding or symbolizing higher level conceptualized representational subject matter. Such an account is strongly supported by the latest findings of cognitive science regarding levels of conceptualization. The paper also demonstrates how the account given is compatible with the actual pictorial competence of normal viewers of visual artworks. (shrink)
Aesthetic Experience in Aesthetics
Aesthetics and Cognitive Science in Aesthetics
Theories of Representation in Philosophy of Mind
The Fictionality of Plays.John Dilworth - 2002 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (3):263–273.details
The category of works of fiction is a very broad and heterogeneous one. I do have a general thesis in mind about such works, namely, that they themselves are fictional, in much the same way as are the fictional events or entities that they are about. But a defense of such a broad thesis would provide an intractably complex topic for an introductory essay, so I shall here confine myself to a presentation of a similar thesis for narrative theatrical works (...) or plays, performances of which are naturally regarded as involving, or evoking, a "fictional world" whose fictional characters and events are what the work in question is about. Another reason for initially focusing on such narrative plays is because performances of them provide a rich source of epistemic issues about evidence for artistic authenticity or correctness of artworks, which will turn out to be of integral importance to my fictionalist account of plays. (shrink)
Fictional Characters in Aesthetics
Ontological Fictionalism in Metaphysics
Ontology of Literature in Aesthetics
Theatre in Aesthetics
The Twofold Orientational Structure of Perception.John Dilworth - 2005 - Philosophical Psychology 18 (2):187-203.details
I argue that perceptual content involves representations both of aspects of objects, and of objects themselves, whether at the level of conscious perception, or of low-level perceptual processing - a double content structure. I present an 'orientational' theory of the relations of the two kinds of perceptual content, which can accommodate both the general semantic possibility of perceptual misrepresentation, and also species of it involving characteristic perceptual confusions of aspectual and intrinsic content. The resulting theoretical structure is argued to be (...) a broadly methodological or logical one, rather than a substantive theory that is open to empirical refutation. (shrink)
A Refutation of Goodman's Type‐Token Theory of Notation.John Dilworth - 2003 - Dialectica 57 (3):330-336.details
In Languages of Art, Nelson Goodman presents a general theory of symbolic notation. However, I show that his theory could not adequately explain possible cases of natural language notational uses, and argue that this outcome undermines, not only Goodman's own theory, but any broadly type versus token based account of notational structure.Given this failure, an alternative representational theory is proposed, in which different visual or perceptual aspects of a given physical inscription each represent a different letter, word, or other notational (...) item. Such a view is strongly supported by the completely conventional relation between inscriptions and notation, as shown by encryption techniques etc. (shrink)
Nelson Goodman in 20th Century Philosophy
Syntactic Theories, Misc in Philosophy of Language
RESEARCH INITIATIVES.John Dilworth - manuscriptdetails
An overview, with links, of original approaches to six significant areas of philosophical concern, including the nature of perception and perceptual content, naturalistic approaches to representation and semantics, a representational explanation of generality, and a dual component theory of propositions. (This file also provides a useful demonstration of how webpage-like features may be simulated in a Word document).
Philosophy of Psychology in Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Value Theory, Misc in Value Theory, Miscellaneous
The Propositional Challenge to Aesthetics.John Dilworth - 2008 - British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2):115-144.details
It is generally accepted that Picasso might have used a different canvas as the vehicle for his painting Guernica, and also that the artwork Guernica itself necessarily represents a certain historical episode—rather than, say, a bowl of fruit. I argue that such a conjunctive acceptance entails a broadly propositional view of the nature of representational artworks. In addition, I argue—via a comprehensive examination of possible alternatives—that, perhaps surprisingly, there simply is no other available conjunctive view of the nature of representational (...) artworks in general. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
Painting and Drawing in Aesthetics
Semantic Naturalization Via Interactive Perceptual Causality.John Dilworth - 2008 - Minds and Machines 18 (4):527-546.details
A novel semantic naturalization program is proposed. Its three main differences from informational semantics approaches are as follows. First, it makes use of a perceptually based, four-factor interactive causal relation in place of a simple nomic covariance relation. Second, it does not attempt to globally naturalize all semantic concepts, but instead it appeals to a broadly realist interpretation of natural science, in which the concept of propositional truth is off-limits to naturalization attempts. And third, it treats all semantic concepts as (...) being purely abstract, so that concrete cognitive states are only indexed by them rather than instantiating them. (shrink)
Semantics in Philosophy of Language
Representationalism and Indeterminate Perceptual Content.John Dilworth - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (3):369-387.details
Representationalists who hold that phenomenal character can be explained in terms of representational content currently cannot explain counter-examples that involve indeterminate perceptual content, such as in the case of objects seen blurrily by someone with poor eyesight, or objects seen vaguely in misty conditions. But this problem can be resolved via provision of a more sophisticated double content (DC) view, according to which the representational content of perception is structured in two nested levels. I start by outlining the DC view (...) via consideration of four closely related cases of perceptual imprecision. Then, after a demonstration that the DC view can also explain imprecise photographic content, inadequacies in the more standard single content (SC) view are demonstrated. The results are then generalized so as to apply to the content of any kinds of non-conventional representation. The paper continues with evidence that a DC account provides a moderate rather than extreme realist account of perception, and it concludes with an initial analysis of the failure of nomic covariance accounts of information in indeterminacy cases. (shrink)
Representationalism in Philosophy of Mind
David Davies, Art as Performance.Reviews by Robert Stecker & John Dilworth - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (1):75–80.details
In his absorbing book Art as Performance, David Davies argues that artworks should be identified, not with artistic products such as paintings or novels, but instead with the artistic actions or processes that produced such items. Such a view had an earlier incarnation in Currie's widely criticized "action type hypothesis", but Davies argues that it is instead action tokens rather than types with which artworks should be identified. This rich and complex work repays the closest study in spite of some (...) basic objections to be raised concerning Davies's central concept of an action token. (shrink)
Ontology of Music in Aesthetics
Semantics Naturalized: Propositional Indexing Plus Interactive Perception.John Dilworth - 2009 - Language and Communication 29 (1):1-25.details
A concrete proposal is presented as to how semantics should be naturalized. Rather than attempting to naturalize propositions, they are treated as abstract entities that index concrete cognitive states. In turn the relevant concrete cognitive states are identified via perceptual classifications of worldly states, with the aid of an interactive theory of perception. The approach enables a broadly realist theory of propositions, truth and cognitive states to be preserved, with propositions functioning much as abstract mathematical constructs do in the nonsemantic (...) sciences, but with a much more specific propositional indexing scheme than previous naturalistic proposals were able to achieve. (shrink)
Semantic Theories, Misc in Philosophy of Language
Realistic Virtual Reality and Perception.John Dilworth - 2010 - Philosophical Psychology 23 (1):23-42.details
Realistic uses of Virtual Reality technology closely integrate user training on virtual objects with VR-assisted user interactions with real objects. This paper shows how the Interactive Theory of Perception may be extended to cover such cases. Virtual objects are explained as concrete models that have an inner generation mechanism, and the ITP is used to explain how VR users can both perceive such local CMs, and perceptually represent remote real objects. Also, concepts of modeling and representation are distinguished. The paper (...) concludes with suggestions as to how the ITP methodology developed here could be extended to iconic external representations and models generally. (shrink)
Aspects of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Virtual Reality in Philosophy of Computing and Information
Resemblance, Restriction, and Content‐Bearing Features.John Dilworth - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (1):67–70.details
In "A Restriction for Pictures and Some Consequences for a Theory of Depiction", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61, 4 (2003): 381-394, Michael Newall defended a resemblance view of depiction. He concentrated on pictures X involving a perpendicular view of the physical surface of another picture Y, and argued that the actual restrictions on what picture X can depict of Y's physical surface are best explained by a strict resemblance or similarity view. But I show that there are many (...) problems with his approach, so that overall it is no more successful than more standard resemblance views of depiction. (shrink)
Artistic Expression as Interpretation.John Dilworth - 2004 - British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (1):162-174.details
According to R. G. Collingwood in The Principles of Art, art is the expression of emotion--a much-criticized view. I attempt to provide some groundwork for a defensible modern version of such a theory via some novel further criticisms of Collingwood, including the exposure of multiple ambiguities in his main concept of expression of emotion, and a demonstration that, surprisingly enough, his view is unable to account for genuinely creative artistic activities. A key factor in the reconstruction is a replacement of (...) the concept of expression with that of interpretation: what artists do is to interpret, rather than express, their initial emotions, in creative ways that may go far beyond their initial impulses. Thus more broadly the paper attempts to show that the concept of interpretation is just as central to understanding artistic creativity as it is in the analysis of the critical appreciation of artworks. (shrink)
Aesthetics and Emotions in Aesthetics
R. G. Collingwood in 20th Century Philosophy
Artworks Versus Designs.John Dilworth - 2001 - British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2):162-177.details
I propose a distinction between design intentions, activities and products, as opposed to artistic intentions, activities and artworks. Examples of design products would include a specific type of car (or any other invention or device) as well as closer relatives of art such as decorative wall designs. In order to distinguish artistic from design intentions, I present an example in which two sculptors independently work on a single object to produce two sculptures, which are distinct just because the artistic intentions (...) of the sculptors are distinct. This case is then contrasted with an attempted parallel example for design intentions, which fails to produce two correspondingly distinct design products in spite of the different design intentions of its designers. I argue that this failure occurs because designs are types, for which any single token of a given type could not simultaneously be a token of some other type of the same general kind; whereas the possibility of my sculptural 'double artwork' example shows that such artworks cannot be types. I then further investigate the concept of a design, and conclude by arguing that an extension of my sculptural example shows that literary artworks also cannot be types. (shrink)
Art and Artworks, Misc in Aesthetics
The Definition of Art in Aesthetics
Internal Versus External Representation.John Dilworth - 2004 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (1):23-36.details
I argue that the concept of representation is ambiguous: a picture of 'a man', when there is no actual man that it depicts, both does, in one sense, and does not, in another sense, represent 'a man'--hence the need for a distinction of internal from external representation. Internal representation is also defended from reductive, non-referential alternative views, and from 'prosthesis' views of picturing, according to which seeing a picture of an actual man just is seeing through the picture to that (...) actual man himself. The view also provides a strong foundation for a theory of reference to fictional entities. (shrink)
The Abstractness of Artworks and Its Implications for Aesthetics.John Dilworth - 2008 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (4):341-353.details
Artworks have at least some necessary content properties, as do abstract entities such as propositions. But no concrete item, whether an object, event, process etc., could have any necessary content property. So no artwork could be identical with a concrete item. Hence artworks must be abstract. I also argue that artworks are only contingently connected with concrete items, just as propositions are only contingently linked to their linguistic tokens.
Representation as Epistemic Identification.John Dilworth - 2006 - Philo 9 (1):12-31.details
In a previous Philo article, it was shown how properties could be ontologically dispensed with via a representational analysis: to be an X is to comprehensively represent all the properties of an X. The current paper extends that representationalist (RT) theory by explaining representation itself in parallel epistemic rather than ontological terms. On this extended RT (ERT) theory, representations of X, as well as the real X, both may be identified as providing information about X, whether partial or comprehensive. But (...) that information does not match ontological, property-based analyses of X, so it is epistemically fundamental–hence supporting a broadly conceptualist rather than nominalist metaphysics. (shrink)
Epistemology of Specific Domains, Misc in Epistemology
Representation in Philosophy of Mind
In Support of Content Theories of Art.John Dilworth - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (1):19 – 39.details
A content theory of art would identify an artwork with the meaningful or representational content of some concrete artistic vehicle, such as the intentional, expressive, stylistic, and subject matter-related content embodied in, or resulting from, acts of intentional artistic expression by artists. Perhaps surprisingly, the resultant view that an artwork is nothing but content seems to have been without theoretical defenders until very recently, leaving a significant theoretical gap in the literature. I present some basic arguments in defence of such (...) a view, including the following. Content views of linguistic communication are ubiquitous, so why should they not be applicable in artistic cases as well? Also, propositional accounts of language involve two kinds of content (the proposition expressed by a sentence, plus the worldly state of affairs it represents), both of which kinds can be used in explaining artworks. In addition, the differing modal properties of artworks and concrete artefacts can be used to show that artworks could not be, or include, such physical artefacts. (shrink)
Conscious Perceptual Experience as Representational Self-Prompting.John Dilworth - 2007 - Journal of Mind and Behavior 28 (2):135-156.details
Journal of Mind and Behavior 28 no. 2 , pp. 135-156. The self-prompting theory of consciousness holds that conscious perceptual experience occurs when non-routine perceptual data prompt the activation of a plan in an executive control system that monitors perceptual input. On the other hand, routine, non-conscious perception merely provides data about the world, which indicatively describes the world correctly or incorrectly. Perceptual experience instead involves data that are about the perceiver, not the world. Their function is that of imperatively (...) prompting the perceiver herself to do something (hence. (shrink)
Functionalist Theories of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Phenomenal Intentionality in Philosophy of Mind
The Function of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind
Theories of Consciousness, Misc in Philosophy of Mind
Varieties of Visual Representation.John Dilworth - 2002 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (2):183-206.details
Pictorial representation is one species of visual representation--but not the only one, I argue. There are three additional varieties or species of visual representation--namely 'structural', 'aspect' and 'integrative' representation--which together comprise a category of 'delineative' rather than depictive visual representation. I arrive at this result via consideration of previously neglected orientational factors that serve to distinguish the two categories. I conclude by arguing that pictures (unlike 'delineations') are not physical objects, and that their multiplicity and modal narrowness motivates a view (...) of them as instead being (one kind of) 'delineatively' represented content or subject matter, as represented by those objects that are (commonly but wrongly, in my view) assumed to be pictures. (shrink)
Vision in Philosophy of Mind
Theater, Representation, Types and Interpretation.John Dilworth - 2002 - American Philosophical Quarterly 39 (2):197-209.details
In the performing arts, including music, theater, dance and so on, theoretical issues both about artworks and about performances of them must be dealt with, so that their theoretical analysis is inherently more complex and troublesome than that of nonperforming arts such as painting or film, in which primarily only artworks need to be discussed. Thus it is especially desirable in the case of the performing arts to look for defensible broad theoretical simplifications or generalizations that could serve to unify (...) and potentially comprehensively explain these difficult cases. (shrink)
A Representationalist Approach to Generality.John Dilworth - 2003 - Philo 6 (1):216-234.details
There are no unicorns, but there are representations of them, hence motivating an explanation of discourse about the property 'unicorn' in terms of discourse about representations of unicorns. I show how to extend this strategy to apply to any kind or property terms. References to property instances may be explained as references to comprehensive representations of them, which represent all of the (supposed) properties of such an instance--unlike 'ordinary' representations, which are distinctive in that they represent only some limited subset (...) of such properties, through use only of some proper subset of their own (supposed) properties. This representationalist approach results in a very economical naturalist ontology, which has no need for properties. (shrink)
Intentionality in Philosophy of Mind
Properties, Misc in Metaphysics
Universals in Metaphysics
Pictorial Orientation Matters.John Dilworth - 2003 - British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (1):39-56.details
Issues concerning the spatial orientation of pictures play an important, though previously neglected, role in an adequate understanding of the nature and identity of visual artworks and other pictures. Using a previous contrast ('Artworks Versus Designs', BJA Vol. 41, No. 4, October 2001), I show that differing orientations of a design naturally give rise to distinct pictures, which may be appropriated as distinct artworks by a discerning artist--which also shows that such artworks cannot be types, since they share a common (...) token. The investigation also raises some significant issues concerning artistic printmaking, and strongly suggests in addition that two new concepts of interpretation--of identifying and constitutive interpretation--are required to adequately explain the artistic phenomena that are uncovered. (shrink)
Philosophy of Visual Art, Misc in Aesthetics
Three Depictive Views Defended.John Dilworth - 2002 - British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (3):259-278.details
thesis as to the inseparability of the perception of a picture and the perception of its subject matter, making use of a recently developed 'interpretive' theory of pictorial representation, according to which a picture is represented by its physical vehicle, so that a picture is itself part of the representational content of the vehicle—which picture in turn interpretively represents its subject matter. I also show how Richard Wollheim's own twofoldness thesis, along with related views of his, might be vindicated by (...) reinterpretation along similar lines, and conclude by showing that Ernst Gombrich too may be protected from some standard criticisms of his views—which views are also consistent with those of Wollheim as thus reinterpreted. (shrink)
Ariadne Revisited.John Dilworth - 2003 - Contemporary Aesthetics 1.details
ABSTRACT -/- My article, "Ariadne at the Movies," provided a detailed, double film counter-example to the claim that films are types. Here I defend my views against various criticisms provided by Aaron Smuts. The defense includes some necessary clarification of the Ariadne article's broader theoretical structure and background, as well as some additional anti-type arguments to further withstand his criticisms.
Ontology of Film, Misc in Aesthetics
A Representational Approach to Metaphor.John B. Dilworth - 1979 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37 (4):467-473.details
In this paper I shall argue that the relations between metaphorical and literal kinds of language may be illuminated and clarified by comparison with corresponding differences and similarities between representing and represented objects. A kind of "picture theory" of metaphorical language will be proposed (though one which draws more on Wittgenstein's Investigations than on the Tractatus), in which successful metaphorical phrases are taken as being about things which are capable (in context) of being seen or recognized as representing or depicting (...) that which the words ordinarily refer to or describe when being used literally. (shrink)
Is Ridley Charitable to Collingwood?John Dilworth - 1998 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (4):393-396.details
Ridley's overall strategy, in bare outline form, seems to be this. Collingwood's points about the close connections between artistic expression and physical involvement with a medium are so good that anything else he says must be reinterpreted so as to be consistent with these Expression insights. In particular his overall theory of art, usually interpreted as an "Ideal theory" (according to which a work of art is somehow "in the head", perhaps as the content of a mental imaginative act of (...) expression) must be charitably reinterpreted to remove any apparent references to such mental entities. I spell out two related puzzlements with this strategy. (shrink)
David Davies, Art as Performance.Robert Stecker & John Dilworth - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (1):75-80.details
Ariadne at the Movies.John Dilworth - 2003 - Contemporary Aesthetics 1.details
ABSTRACT -/- Films are usually assumed to be types, with their templates or performances being tokens of those types. However, I give a counter-example in which two different films are simultaneously made by different directors, with the outcome of this process being a single template length of film which, I claim, embodies both of those films. But no two types could thus have a token in common, and hence type views of films must be incorrect. I further explain and defend (...) the legitimacy of the example, and conclude by offering an alternative, representational view of the nature of films that can also more adequately explain the interpretive nature of experience of a film. (shrink)
A Counter-Example to Theatrical Type Theories.John Dilworth - 2003 - Philosophia 31 (1-2):165-170.details
Plays, symphonies and other works in the performing arts are generally regarded, ontologically speaking, as being types, with individual performances of those works being regarded as tokens of those types. But I show that there is a logical feature of type theory which makes it impossible for such a theory to satisfactorily explain a 'double performance' case that I present: one in which a single play performance is actually a performance of two different plays. Hence type theories fail, both for (...) plays and for the related performing art of music as well. (shrink)
A Dual-Component View of Propositional Grasping.John Dilworth & Dylan Sabo - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):511-522.details
On a traditional or default view of the grasping or understanding of a singular proposition by an individual, it is assumed to be a unitary or holistic activity. However, naturalistic views of cognition plausibly could analyze propositional thinking in terms of more than one distinctive functional stage of cognitive processing, suggesting at least the potential legitimacy of a non-unitary analysis of propositional grasping. We outline a novel dual-component view of this kind, and show that it is well supported by current (...) cognitive science research. (shrink)
Perceptual Particularity in Philosophy of Mind
Singular Propositions in Philosophy of Language
Structured Propositions in Philosophy of Language
The Unity of the Proposition in Philosophy of Language
Are Films Types?John Dilworth - unknown - Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society 21.details
Philosophy of Film in Aesthetics
Consequentialist Paradoxes.John Dilworth - unknown - Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society 17.details
Does Aesthetics Rest Upon a Mistake?John Dilworth - unknown - Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society 20.details
Dual Recognition of Depth and Dependent Seeing.John Dilworth - 2005 - Interdisciplines Art and Cognition Workshop.details
An explanation of the seeing of depth both in reality and in pictures requires a dual content theory of visual recognition. In addition, there are two necessary conditions on genuine seeing of depth-related content. First, the right kinds of dependence relations must hold between a physical picture, its content and its perceiver, and second, the perceiver must be in an appropriate, functionally defined perceptual state.
Depictive Seeing and Double Content.John Dilworth - 2010 - In Catharine Abell & Katerina Bantinaki (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Picturing. Oxford University Press.details
A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and recognitional content about its external subject. But how is this possible, since all that a viewer can actually see is the picture's own design? I argue that the most plausible explanation is that a picture's design has a dual function. It both encodes artistically relevant design content, and in turn that design content encodes the subject content of the picture--producing overall a double content structure. Also, it is highly desirable (...) that a resulting double content theory for pictures should be closely integrated with a related double content account of perceptual content generally, so as to avoid suspicions of ad hoc theorizing that would apply only to pictorial content. The resulting theory should also be able to explain the inevitable ambiguities involved in abstracting two levels of visual content from a single visible surface, as well as explaining the systematic relations between the two kinds of content. I provide an orientational theory--based on a recently developed spatial logic of orientational concepts--for this purpose, and show how depictive and perceptual content in general can be usefully explained in these orientational terms. This account of picturing also integrates well with a previously developed, more generic double content theory of art, and it is also plausible in cognitive science terms. (shrink)
Depictive Seeing and Double Content.John Dilworth - 2010 - In Catharine Abell & Katerina Bantinaki (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction. Oxford University Press.details
$79.91 used $103.43 new (collection) Amazon page
Ethics as the Pursuit of Optimal Compatibility of Interests.John Dilworth - 1994 - Proceedings of the Heraclitean Society 18.details
I propose a new kind of meta-ethical theory, grounded in a theory of interests and of the modifications required in order to render interests compatible with each other. The theory hence is called "Interest Compatibilism" (IC). A basic account of the nature of interests, and of possible relations between them, is also included. Ethical values turn out to be those involved in optimally desirable forms of harmonization and control of interests and their associated values. -/- The theory is presented and (...) developed with the aid of specific comparisons to more standard deontological and consequentialist ethical theories and views. Utilitarian consequentialist views are particularly criticised, and suggestions for an improved consequentialist view incorporating aspects of the IC approach are developed. Whether or not the IC theory is acceptable as a whole, I argue that some such alternative consequentialist theory is desperately needed. My account of interests should be independently acceptable also. (shrink)
Moral Normativity, Misc in Meta-Ethics
Moral Reasoning and Motivation, Misc in Meta-Ethics
Theories of Moral Value, Misc in Normative Ethics
1 — 50 / 62


Immanuel.at-Forum for Discussion Discourse 134: Climate change – the triggering event of the Great Tribulation?
Discourse 134 – Climate change – the triggering event of the Great Tribulation?
The beginning of birth pangs: heliogenic global warming?
The persecution of Christians in the Great Tribulation.
The Second Coming and the Rapture.
Revelation – classified by events.
The Great Tribulation, as it is interpreted here at Immanuel.at, has already been described in several documents on this website, to which readers are referred for further detail. Here we would like just to highlight the interpretative path which led, in the final outcome, to those insights which have made it possible for us to form an overview of these events of the Last Days.
The starting point for these reflections was a statement in the Revelation of John, which – as so often in this kind of context – was somewhat "buried" in the text. In fact we only became aware of its significance when certain pointers from other scriptural passages, which in themselves had seemed equally mysterious and obscure, finally made sense when juxtaposed with this passage.
A great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation.
In this passage, two statements are particularly important. On the one hand there is the indication that we have to do here with "a great multitude". And of course John refers here to the throne of God, so we must be in heaven. And now, here in Revelation, quite apart from the myriads of angels there are other groups as well (like the martyrs, or the bride of the Lamb) to whom this kind of description could also apply.
But John specifies here with great precision – "from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues". So these can only be Gentile Christians who are standing here before the throne and before the Lamb. They have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," or in other words, they have accepted the redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God for their sins, and now stand justified before the throne.
But this means, in concrete terms, that we must be looking at all those Christians whom the Lord Jesus, on his Second Coming for the Rapture of the faithful, has raised from the dead and then raptured along with the brothers and sisters of the congregation of the Last Days who are still alive, as Paul informs us when sharing his vision in 1The 4,15-17.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven, then we will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And this vision of Paul's is supplemented by statements of the Lord's in the gospel of Matthew. Starting from Mt 24,29, the Lord describes exactly the same events, and reveals to us further details. A more in-depth treatment of the Rapture will be found below. We would just like to point out here that, in conjunction with the linking vision of Paul, we can see a connection between the above passage (Rev 7,9-14) and the Lord's statements in Mt 24,29-31.
And He will send forth His angels and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
So if we here have to do with the Second Coming of the Lord for the Rapture, this then also implies that the above passage (Rev 7,9-14) is to be located in temporal sequence – always in accordance with the interpretation given here at Immanuel.at – at the end of the Great Tribulation. The dead in Christ have been raised from the dead, and together with the faithful still living have been gathered by the angels from all corners of the earth, and raptured to meet the Lord in the air. They now find themselves in the throne room, before the throne of God and before the Lamb.
So if Rev 7,9-14 is the end of the Great Tribulation, what John reports previously, starting with Rev 6,1, must be the Great Tribulation itself. And we find confirmation of this view, above all, in the light of the parallelism of this passage with the statements made by the Lord in Mt 24,3-31.
But this prophecy of the great multitude before the throne is supplemented by another passage. In Rev 7,15-17, John once again refers to this great multitude before the throne, and indicates that here in heaven, before the throne, they no longer have to suffer as they have done previously, in the course of the Tribulation.
Although of course any rightly believing Christian who reads the Bible will be thoroughly familiar with this passages, perhaps the real meaning of these statements only now comes home to us, at a time when everyone is talking about "global warming". Only then does it become clear what this "hunger" and "thirst", based on what the Bible tells us, might mean. They refer to failed harvests and drought all over the world, caused by the intensified heat radiating from the sun. This is global warming, resulting from more powerful solar radiation – so it is heliogenic (caused by the sun) not anthropogenous (caused by humans).
And in the same connection we can see a parallelism between Mt 24 and Rev 6 and 7. In Mt 24,7 "famines" are prophesied, confirmed by the indication in Rev 6,5-6 of a general shortage of food. And here the statement that there will be a scarcity of wheat and barley (hence the high price of these commodities), while the oil and the wine are spared, could indicate an extended period of dryness, in which cereal crops, as we know, will suffer damage from drought very much more quickly than olive trees and vines.
A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.
The prophecy above in the first part of Mt 24,7, about wars between nation and nation, and between kingdom and kingdom, together with the indication in verse 6 below – "You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars" – likewise meet with an analogous parallel in Rev 6,3-4. Here John speaks, in connection with the second seal, of a red horse; and to him who sits upon it, it is granted to take peace from the earth.
You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another.
Rev 6,3 When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come."
Based on logical inquiry, this text (Mt 24,6-7) has been interpreted correctly here at immanuel.at for the very first time. This prophecy of the Lord's – "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (following the NASB, similar to the German Elberfeld Bible) – was translated by Luther as "For one nation will rise against another, and one kingdom against another", so giving the impression that all the nations of the earth would be engaged in mutual combat – in other words, suggesting a world war.
But when we scrutinize the original Greek text, it emerges that Luther here – as is not infrequently the case with his translation – has been not so much translating as interpreting. The translation of the original Greek text in Nestle-Aland reads "For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom" – just as in the Elberfeld translation.
And as we will see shortly, this completely changes the meaning of this passage. By translating it as "one nation (or kingdom) will rise against another" Luther has laid a false trail, which has never yet been recognized as such by the commentators.
This is because when we look at this statement by the Lord in Mt 24,7 (in the NASB and Elberfeld translations) – "nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom" – experienced commentators are going to feel a certain suspicion. There can be no doubt that this prophecy has worldwide significance. This is confirmed, too, by the statement in the parallel text (Rev 6,4): "it was granted to him to take peace from the earth."
And yet – or for that very reason – we feel obliged to ask the question why the Lord speaks here of "nation against nation" and "kingdom against kingdom". Is this perhaps to be taken as implying the exclusion of "nation against kingdom" or "kingdom against nation"? And if that were to be the case, if it is a matter of world wars, why should this kind of combination not be possible?
And here a supposition that has become increasingly concrete over the years now makes itself felt: if there are wars all over the world in which men slay each other (see Rev 6,4 above), but at the same time we have to do with wars of "nation against nation" and "kingdom against kingdom", this cannot be a world war in the traditional sense.
But if we assume that the Lord has deliberately chosen to formulate it in this way in order to specifically exclude its being interpreted as a world war, the only explanation remaining is that civil wars are intended. All over the world, that is, in every country, every nation, every state and every kingdom – they are all engaged in internecine strife. And that would imply that we have to do here with civil wars, no more and no less.
When seeking to find a cause for these worldwide civil wars, a political background has been presumed in the past – as has been the case with the civil wars of past times. But when we consider the implications of a climate catastrophe, with temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in summer and 30 degrees in winter – along with the failed harvests resulting and the other effects on living conditions – a very different picture starts to emerge.
It could be purely and simply the battle for survival from day to day, where people fight for the bare necessities of food, water and shelter, which leads to these "civil wars". This would also explain the question how it comes about that suddenly, all over the world, political struggles for power should be occurring. These are not political struggles for power, but rather people battling one another for survival. If we just take another look at the biblical text, both in Revelation and in Matthew, we can feel the entire seriousness of this prophecy.
But as the Son of God proceeds to explain in the next verse of Matthew, all these catastrophes – with famine, earthquakes and mutual slaughter – are not yet the Great Tribulation, but only the "beginning of birth pangs".
Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence.
So "sword and famine and pestilence" will kill off a fourth part of the earth – and if we think here of the most heavily populated quarter of the earth's surface (Europe, Asia and the whole of North Africa), this implies the death of practically half the world's population. And only after this mutual mass slaughter, and the annihilation of a major part of the material necessities of life, will the spiritual integrity of human beings be progressively turned inside out. First of all the faith of Christians becomes an object of attack, and many of them will be killed. But as verse 24,14 of Matthew below tells us, a few of them will always be left to proclaim the gospel until the end.
Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.
But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.
Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.
Mt 10,17 "But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; 10,18 and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. 10,19 "But when they hand you over,do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say.
These texts, along with Mt 24,15-28 below, describe the Great Tribulation with its consequences just for those believers in Christ who are still alive at this time, who will then, as the Lord says in Mt 10,22, "be hated by all because of My name" (because of the name of Christ). These statements by the Son of God, in Mt 24,9 and 10,22 above, and also in Mk 13:13, Lk 21:17 and Jn 15:21, constitute one of the most important texts for the Christian understanding of the Bible.
This is because it gives us biblical proof, directly coming from the Son of God and evidenced in all the gospels, that God has introduced a paradigm switch. Though of course this has already been documented by Paul, when he demonstrates that the "children of Abraham" are not just the children of Abraham after the flesh (correctly believing Israelites, that is to say), but also, and in a special sense, those who are children by faith, the correctly believing Christians (Gal 3:6-7).
Just as God tested the first human beings to see whether they deserved his trust, as they would have done if they had followed his commandments, so God put the Israelites to the test to see whether they would trust him and accept his Son. In both cases, human beings failed the test, so God annihilated the first bunch (with the exception of Noah and his family) in the Flood, and expunged the others from the Book of Life (Rev 20:15).
From this point in world history, God no longer judges human beings based on their descent in the flesh from Abraham, but by the criterion whether they believe in his Son and have adhered to his commandments (Rev 14:21). These believers, wherever they may happen to come from, are the "children of God", these are the ones whose "names are written in the Book of Life" and they are also the Chosen of God and of the Lamb.
And just as rightly believing Christians are the descendants of Abraham in faith (and consequently children of Abraham), so we too, as the people of God, are a people from every nation. These are the "people producing the fruit of it" (Mt 21,43) of whom the Lord says that the kingdom of God will be given to them, after it has been taken away from the Israelites because they rejected his Son and handed him over to die on the cross.
If we want to see it that way, this is the first instance of "globalization". Since the Israelites apostasized from their God, God deprived them of their national prerogative. They are no longer the "people of God". The new people of God is global and international. People are no longer judged or chosen by national allegiance, but based on their spiritual identification with the Christian faith. And yet the congregation is not Israel! But any Israelite can all the same come to the congregation and become Christian – and so be saved – if they come to believe in Jesus Christ.
And as correctly believing Christians we are also that people who in this time of major tribulation will be defended by Michael, the prince of the angels, as Daniel prophesies in the passage below. Together with the God-fearing Israelites of pre-Christian days, we are this people of God, the Chosen, whose names are written in the Book of Life and of which the survivors will be saved at the end of the Great Tribulation.
And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time.
As we are now told in Mt 24,22 below, these last days of the Great Tribulation will be shortened by God, specially for the sake of these Elect who have come through it alive. They will be cut short by the Second Coming of the Son of God for the Rapture of the Elect – the rightly believing and God-fearing Christians both dead and alive.
This statement of the Lord's above, that the days of the Great Tribulation are to be shortened for the sake of the Elect, also implies of course that these Elect – the congregation of Christ of the Last Days – will still be around until the end of the Great Tribulation. This refutes the "pre-Rapture" doctrine of the Pretribulationists, who postulate a Rapture occurring before the Tribulation.
Before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, the apostasy comes first, the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction.
And what is more, the Lord's indications somewhat later in this gospel, in Mt 24,29, likewise confirm this view. Here the Lord says, "But immediately after the tribulation of those days (…) they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of the sky." So there can be no doubt of it – the Second Coming of the Lord, and the Rapture, will take place immediately after the Great Tribulation and not before.
But immediately after the tribulation of those days He will send forth His angels and they will gather together His elect.
And when we are told in the next sentence (Mt 24,30) that "they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of the sky", we can see in this the fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by two angels to the disciples at the time of the Ascension of the Lord in Acts 1,11: namely that the Lord Jesus will come again in the same way as he has gone into heaven – on the clouds.
Acts 1,6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 1,7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;1,8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."
The sun will be turned i nto darkness and the moon ointo blood, before the great and glorious day of the LOTRD shall come.
And then in this global darkness the sign of the Son of Man (Mt 24,30) will appear in the sky, as a further indication of the Second Coming of the Son of God: "For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
These are the signs of the Second Coming of the Lord for the Rapture. The interpretation of these statements becomes easier if we look at the parallel passages in Luke. In Lk 17,30 Luke explains that this day of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ may be compared with the day on which Lot left Sodom.
It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.
In the final verse of the description of the Great Tribulation in both gospels (Mt 24,28 in Matthew, Lk 17,37 in Luke), the Lord speaks of the "body" ("Aas" in German, meaning "carrion") to which the vultures gather. And this sentence has given rise to the wildest speculations by biblical commentators all over the world. But if we read the preceding passage, in Luke above all – in particular, with the question the disciples put to the Lord, where all this is going to happen – it becomes easier to understand the meaning of these words.
First of all it must be stated that the current translations omit to indicate that the original Greek of the last sentence of this text – "Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered" – uses the terms (swma) (corpse, person) and (aetoi) (eagles) rather than "vultures". This is significant for the reason that "corpse" refers to a dead human being, whereas the German translation "Aas" means "carrion" and does not necessarily carry the same implication. And the introduction of "vultures" is a knock-on effect of the incorrect translation "Aas" ("carrion"), whereas "eagles" might rather be taken to symbolize angels.
And then we can see two things as being implied by the Lord's answer to the disciples' question of "Where, Lord?" On the one hand it looks as if he has not registered their question at all – as if he is talking about something entirely different, when he says: "Where the body (the corpse) is, there also the vultures (eagles) will be gathered." And yet this answer represents the very thing that the disciples – and still more the faithful of the Last Days – needed to know.
It seems as if the Lord was trying to tell them, Don't think you need to take yourselves to any special place. When I come, I will send out my angels to gather you in, whether dead or alive. And just as the vultures (eagles) know instinctively where the carrion (the corpse) is to be found, so too the angels will know where you can be found. You must just trust in God and wait patiently and keep still, and no longer look backward with your spiritual vision on your past earthly life, but rather forward to the new life dawning for you in God's eternity.
So that is the Great Tribulation with its death toll of up to 3 three billion persons. But this is not yet the end of God's punishments and judgments on human beings. Immediately thereafter starts the "Day of the Lord", and this is the phase of the Last Days where the wrath of God really and truly will be visited on humanity.
1The 5,9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
– has been used to justify the doctrine of "Pretribulationism" – stating that the Rapture of the congregation of Christ is to take place before the Great Tribulation.
Along with all the statements of the Lord in the gospels – especially his promise in Mt 24,29, that he will appear for the Rapture "immediately after the tribulation of those days", it has also been overlooked that the Last Days are divided into two sections. The first section is the Great Tribulation, a fearful time, which – as we have demonstrated above – not just the godless, but also the Christian congregation of the Last Days will be obliged to experience and to live through.
But this is not yet the Wrath of God. The Day of the Wrath of God is the second part of the Day of the Lord. And the Day of the Lord begins, after the Second Coming and the Rapture, with the seventh seal in the Revelation of John. For the sake of a better overview, we insert Table 14 below, showing both the Great Tribulation with the judgments of the seals, the Day of the Lord with the judgments of the trumpets and the Day of the Wrath of God with the judgments of the bowls.
The Revelation - classified by events.
without the seal 5 months.
Antichrist and false prophet: the government of the two beasts.
The Lamb and the 144'000 standing on Mount Zion.
But together with other natural catastrophes (Rev 8,1 through Rev 16,21), the Day of the Lord and Day of the Wrath of God also include the dominion of the second demonic Antichrist (who has been raised from the dead by Satan). He will pose for a short time as the false Messiah ("Christ"), and in this role will find enthusiastic subjects to govern in the world (in particular the Jews, and "Christians" living in these times – Catholics and other pseudo-Christians, that is).
As a demonstration of this, we can find nothing more suitable than the statements made by the Old Testament about the Day of the Lord. In almost all these prophecies the "darkness" of this day is foretold, involving a reference to the statement in the passage mentioned earlier (Mt 24,29), on the Second Coming of the Lord for the Rapture, where "the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken."
The day of the Lord - A day of darkness and gloom.
Whereas the "Day of the Lord" in the Old Testament generally comprises both – both the Day of the Lord and the Day of the Wrath of God – in Revelation we find quite concrete statements about the latter. It includes, essentially, the seven judgments of the bowls. Everything that comes after that – the fall of Babylon, the battle of Armageddon, the final expulsion of the Antichrist with his false prophet (and of course too the eternal banishment of Satan) and the reorganization of heaven and earth – are terminal events on the one hand, while on the other they are the preparation for the subsequent Millennium, the Thousand Years Kingdom of Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God.
which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.


text:
#include <aws/elasticache/model/CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/xml/XmlSerializer.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/StringUtils.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/memory/stl/AWSStringStream.h>

#include <utility>

using namespace Aws::Utils::Xml;
using namespace Aws::Utils;

namespace Aws
{
namespace ElastiCache
{
namespace Model
{

CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails::CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails() :
    m_logGroupHasBeenSet(false)
{
}

CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails::CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails(const XmlNode& xmlNode) :
    m_logGroupHasBeenSet(false)
{
  *this = xmlNode;
}

CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails& CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails::operator =(const XmlNode& xmlNode)
{
  XmlNode resultNode = xmlNode;

  if(!resultNode.IsNull())
  {
    XmlNode logGroupNode = resultNode.FirstChild("LogGroup");
    if(!logGroupNode.IsNull())
    {
      m_logGroup = Aws::Utils::Xml::DecodeEscapedXmlText(logGroupNode.GetText());
      m_logGroupHasBeenSet = true;
    }
  }

  return *this;
}

void CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails::OutputToStream(Aws::OStream& oStream, const char* location, unsigned index, const char* locationValue) const
{
  if(m_logGroupHasBeenSet)
  {
      oStream << location << index << locationValue << ".LogGroup=" << StringUtils::URLEncode(m_logGroup.c_str()) << "&";
  }

}

void CloudWatchLogsDestinationDetails::OutputToStream(Aws::OStream& oStream, const char* location) const
{
  if(m_logGroupHasBeenSet)
  {
      oStream << location << ".LogGroup=" << StringUtils::URLEncode(m_logGroup.c_str()) << "&";
  }
}

} // namespace Model
} // namespace ElastiCache
} // namespace Aws

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Davis: Hair Creation Gallery, Volume 3 :: Salon Styling Books :: Hair's How Styling books for hair salon professionals and their clients.
This essential book of 64 pages portray a stunning gallery of romantic and classic beautifully presented looks of exciting hair updos for bridal and special occasions. The book provides hairdressing professionals with inspiration and information on Davis' most recent collection for stylists, clients and students alike.


text:
العربية (الإمارات العربية المتحدة)
Why Abu Dhabi
Infrastructure Partnerships
ADDED announces issuance of Foreign Direct Investment licence in Abu Dhabi
ADDED announces issuance of 'Foreign Direct Investment' licence in Abu Dhabi
The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, ADDED, announced the implementation of the Foreign Direct Investment Law within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi by issuing the "Foreign Direct Investment License" which will enable investors to hold 100 per cent ownership of their businesses in Abu Dhabi. The license covers 122 different economic activities related to the agricultural, industrial and services sectors, and targets businesses with total capital ranging between AED 2 million to 100 million or higher.
Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa, Chairman of ADDED, said: "The issuance of the 'Foreign Direct Investment' license is line with of the provisions of the Federal Law No. (19) of 2018 regarding Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, and as part of the Department's efforts to further promote positive investment climate and thereby achieve sustainable economic development in Abu Dhabi."
Al Shorafa noted that ADDED is committed to enhancing the local investment environment and strengthening the Abu Dhabi economy's competitiveness through policies that provide more investment opportunities in various non-oil sectors. It also seeks to improve the emirate's legislative environment, ensuring the most ideal way to protect the rights of foreign investors, in accordance with the directives of the Abu Dhabi Government in attracting foreign direct investments to the emirate.
Al Shorafa highlighted that the new license further consolidates Abu Dhabi's position as a global hub for investment and ease in doing business, adding that creating the list of investment opportunities within various economic sectors and activities applicable for foreign investments will deliver a strong positive impact to the emirate's investment environment. He further cited that it would encourage investors, spur business development for foreign companies as well as attract businesses in technology and advanced industries, which all contribute to the emirate's economic diversification policy.
"The implementation of the FDI law in Abu Dhabi through the 'Foreign Direct Investment' license contributes to achieving various objectives such as expanding the base of foreign investments; increasing the size of capital flows; enhancing and diversifying local production; and increasing the emirate's exports of goods and services," he concluded.
Rashed Abdul Karim Al Balooshi, Undersecretary of ADDED, said: "The beneficiaries of the 'Foreign Direct Investment' license are foreign investors and residents in the UAE, including individuals, legal persons, and foreign companies that are engaged in FDI projects."
He pointed out that the current foreign investors in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi can benefit from this law by owning their projects by 100 percent, with the aim of strengthening the efforts of the Abu Dhabi government in stimulating the private sector.
Al Balooshi emphasised that the procedures in securing the license are fast and easy through ADDED's Abu Dhabi Business Center, ADBC, which only require three key steps: submitting the license application, obtaining the approval after fulfilling all conditions and completing all the required documents, and lastly, payment of fees followed by the issuance of the proposed license under 'Foreign Direct Investment.' Al Balooshi added that the new 'Foreign Direct Investment' license covers the practice of a wide array of business activities in the agricultural sector, including the cultivation of grains, leguminous crops, vegetables, fruits, citrus fruits, among others. In addition, activities that support crop and livestock production, seed processing for reproduction and many more activities within this vital sector are also covered by the license.
In terms of industrial activities under the license, he mentioned various activities such as the manufacturing of food and beverages, F&B, products, clothing and leather production, wood and cork products, as well as production of plastics and synthetic rubber in its primary forms, fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural chemical products.
Al Balooshi pointed out that the list of service activities that can be practiced with the license include legal consulting; accounting, auditing and tax advisory services; architectural and engineering activities; medical and dental clinics; veterinary activities; computer programming services; consultancy, research and development activities in science and technology, among other activities.
ADDED noted that there are certain activities that do not conform to secure a 'Foreign Direct Investment' license and must be subject to approval procedures through the UAE Cabinet. A total of 13 activities are currently not covered by the newly-issued license, which include postal and telecommunications services; audio and video media related services; petroleum exploration and production; ground and air transportation services; activities related to investigations, security and military sectors; the manufacturing of weapons, explosives as well as military equipment, devices and clothing; printing and publishing services; banking and finance activities; payment and cash handling systems; commercial agents services; insurance activities, medical retailing such as private pharmacies; Hajj and Umrah services; employment of labour, servants and recruitment of employees; activities related to poison control centres, blood banks and health quarantines; and finally, water, electricity and fisheries services.
Source: WAM
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: optimising updating player scores table with results of queries on game results I have a table containing the results of games played. I have another table for each player showing wins, losses, draws. I would like to update the player results table by analysing the games table. Currently calculation is done in php, and due to the number of games causes a delay in our database for about 4 seconds, which causes delays in general. I was thinking of moving the operation to a stored procedure to make it faster. Can anyone recommend a clever way of doing the calculation and subsequent updates to the player_chan_stats. I would like to do it entirely in mysql queries as this would probably be faster (assumption) than php.
This is an extract of our game result table
    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `temp_game_result` (
  `gam_key` bigint(20) NOT NULL COMMENT 'the game key',
  `gam_pla_1` bigint(20) NOT NULL COMMENT 'player 1',
  `gam_pla_2` bigint(20) NOT NULL COMMENT 'player2',
  `gam_to_play` tinyint(4) NOT NULL COMMENT 'who started',
  `gam_start` datetime NOT NULL,
  `gam_stop` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
  `gam_status` enum('playing','win','draw','lose','error') NOT NULL COMMENT 'result with reference to gam_pla_1',
  `mg_cleaned` tinyint(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' COMMENT '0 if it has not passed thru cleanup, 1 otherwise',
  `chn_key` bigint(20) NOT NULL COMMENT 'the tournament the game was for',
  PRIMARY KEY (`gam_key`),
  KEY `gam_status` (`gam_status`),
  KEY `gam_start` (`gam_start`),
  KEY `gam_stop` (`gam_stop`),
  KEY `mg_cleaned` (`mg_cleaned`),
  KEY `gam_pla_1` (`gam_pla_1`),
  KEY `gam_pla_2` (`gam_pla_2`),
  KEY `chn_key` (`chn_key`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

INSERT INTO `temp_game_result` (`gam_key`, `gam_pla_1`, `gam_pla_2`, `gam_to_play`, `gam_start`, `gam_stop`, `gam_status`, `mg_cleaned`, `chn_key`) VALUES
(1, 1, 2, 2, '2011-05-02 20:12:13', '2011-05-02 20:42:46', 'lose', 1, 1),
(2, 1, 2, 1, '2011-05-02 20:43:00', '2011-05-02 21:55:19', 'error', 1, 1),
(3, 2, 1, 1, '2011-05-03 21:13:18', '2011-05-03 21:14:21', 'win', 1, 1);

this is an extract of our player result table
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `player_chan_stats` (
  `pcs_key` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `pla_key` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `chn_key` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `pcs_seed` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `pcs_rank` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `pcs_games` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `pcs_wins` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `pcs_losses` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `pcs_draws` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  PRIMARY KEY (`pcs_key`),
  UNIQUE KEY `pla_key_2` (`pla_key`,`chn_key`),
  KEY `pla_key` (`pla_key`),
  KEY `pcs_seed` (`pcs_seed`),
  KEY `pcs_rank` (`pcs_rank`),
  KEY `chn_key` (`chn_key`),
  KEY `pcs_wins` (`pcs_wins`),
  KEY `pcs_losses` (`pcs_losses`),
  KEY `pcs_draws` (`pcs_draws`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='Stats of player per channel' AUTO_INCREMENT=26354 ;

INSERT INTO `player_chan_stats` (`pcs_key`, `pla_key`, `chn_key`, `pcs_seed`, `pcs_rank`, `pcs_games`, `pcs_wins`, `pcs_losses`, `pcs_draws`) VALUES
(1, 1, 1, 1552, 1844, 325, 146, 176, 3),
(2, 2, 1, 1543, 2272, 93, 48, 43, 2);

A: Triggers may be your solution http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/triggers.html
a helpful trigger to you will be on insert (or update) in temp_game_result if gam_status is win update +1 to wins of the player...
will be (more or less)
CREATE TRIGGER update_wins AFTER UPDATE ON account
     FOR EACH ROW
     BEGIN
         IF NEW.gam_status = 'win' THEN
            update player_chan_stats set pcs_wins=pcs_wins+1 where psc_key=NEW.gam_pla_1;
            update player_chan_stats set pcs_losses=pcs_losses +1 where psc_key=NEW.gam_pla_2;
         ELSEIF NEW.gam_status = 'lose'
                  [...]
         END IF;
     END;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Editors do a lot of things – we read, we respond, we choose things to publish. We even do actual editing – you know, get into someone else's words and try to make them better with clarification, brevity, grammar, imagery, and all that. But the very first thing on that list, you may have noticed, was to read.
As in read your submissions.
In fact, an alternative title to this post might be a day in the life of a poetry submission.
So, let's talk about that. What really happens here at Gyroscope Review when a poetry submission graces our submissions pile?
First of all, our system sends an automatic response to the poet so they can see that the submission was successful in getting to us. They can also, if they pay attention, see whether that submission was properly formatted with the correct title. That is because our submission response email is formatted to automatically include the title of the piece as it is entered in the submissions form. If someone sends us a piece with a lovely title like Spring Fog Has Feet Like a Mountain Lion, but they put Gyroscope Review Submission #1 in the title spot on the form, then they will receive an acknowledgement that says we've received Gyroscope Review Submission #1 for publication consideration. And we will probably change that title field at some point during our process so that we know which poem we are referring to among ourselves.
Lesson: put your poem's actual title in the appropriate spot on the submissions form.
Second, we (the editors) all receive an email from Submittable when a submission hits our system. In that email, we see the cover letter the author included. Let's talk about cover letters for just a moment. Here at Gyroscope Review, we don't want to know your entire publication history in that cover letter. We don't want to read through your entire curriculum vitae. All we want to know are two things: how you found us and why you think this particular submission might fit our journal. Stop there. Unless you have a great joke to share. We like good jokes.
Third, we read the piece. There are three of us on the editorial staff and all three of us will read your work. Three is a nice number. There are no tie votes. Sometimes, one of us will vote "maybe" because we are human and we might need to come back to a piece on a day when we are in a better mood. Or aren't distracted. Or don't have a headache. "Maybe" means we are aware it's there, we've looked at it, and we have to give it a fair shake later.
Sometimes we find a piece that makes us say, hold on, what is this? That happens when we find something that is several pages long, something that looks like an essay, an excerpt from a book, is an image rather than words, a piece written in a language other than English. These kinds of things don't belong in our submissions pile. If you have something that is a hybrid and you don't know if it counts as poetry, contact us via the contact form on our website. We can talk. But, before you do that, read our guidelines. And read them again. Follow them religiously.
Once we make a decision on any given poem, we notify the author of that piece immediately. We don't wait until the end of our reading period to make decisions. We try to maintain a constant movement of pieces that come in to us so that authors don't have to wait. This is especially important if the work isn't a good fit for us; we want poets to be able to get that work out somewhere else where it is a good fit or be able to rework the piece to make it stronger without delay.
As for the pieces we accept, we work hard to make sure the author knows what our terms are with a contract embedded in the acceptance email. We do not publish work without the author acknowledging that contract. We can't emphasize this point enough. If someone submits work to us and we accept it, we must receive acknowledgment from the author on that acceptance or we will withdraw our offer to publish it.
Everyone who submits to us should check their email on a regular basis. Email is our official means of communication. We will not hunt you down. If we get no response from you regarding an acceptance, we will not use your work and we will withdraw it from our consideration.
By the way, to get all those acceptances chosen is no small thing. We usually have more things we like than room in the upcoming issue, so that means we have to have a group discussion about which remaining pieces are going to make it into the issue at the end of the reading period. We each rank the "yeses" still hoping for a home with us, then see if we've agreed on anything that way. There are usually one or two that all three of us have included in our top five. Those get in. Then we talk about the merits of the rest again, make a final team decision, and go with it. This is also the point at which we sometimes ask poets to send us a piece again during another reading period. This happens with pieces we loved that were more specific to another season than the one for the upcoming issue as well as with pieces that we just plain loved but had no more room for.
Once we have all our acceptances done for the upcoming issue, submissions close and we get to work putting the issue together. This is a massive undertaking when we put the poems in the order in which they will appear in our journal, design the cover, write the opening editorial, and format every single poem to fit our publication's print style. This is also when we tear our hair out if a poem is formatted in an unusual way. Poetry has a lot of leeway for how it can look, but sometimes we have pieces with colored fonts (don't!) or bold on the entire poem (don't!) or a nonstandard font (marker felt, papyrus, etc. – don't!) and weird margins for no good reason. Let your words do their job and leave the font choice and margins to us. Yes, there are exceptions. They are rare. Very rare.
Once we have the issue put together, we send a PDF proof copy to contributors. This happens about one-two weeks before the issue is due to come out. Why do we do this? Because human beings make mistakes. We might be pretty decent editors, but sometimes a letter gets left out of someone's name, a poem loses its formatting somewhere in the movement from poet to submissions system to print issue, or a bio has an incorrect reference. That proof is the time to catch those little mistakes before they are send out into the world. The response time is very tight for that proof copy due to our publication schedule. If a contributor misses that window, they are out of luck.
After all that, we upload the final version of the issue to our publishing platform. Once we have it formatted there, it goes under another review. The people doing that review are not us; they are people connected with KDP, the publishing arm of Amazon. They make sure that the issue is going to look right in its print version, and help us make that print version available all over the world. It takes a few days for this process to be complete and we always have to make sure we've left enough time to correct any issues that crop up at this point. While the issue is going through its review, we get the PDF version uploaded to our website for those who depend on the free version's availability. Once we get the okay from KDP, we tell the world about the new issue of Gyroscope Review via our website, our social media, and our contributors. And we wipe our brows, have a beer, and get ready for the next reading period. And we keep our fingers crossed that enough of those print editions sell to pay for our website and our submissions system.
Over the past year, we've had quite an uptick in the number of submissions sent to us. That means it might take longer than it used to for us to get responses out to submitters – but never more than three months due to the structure of our publication schedule. It means sometimes submissions get closed unexpectedly because we have more than our submissions system can handle. It means that we've had to decline really good work because there is no room left in the upcoming issue. All of these things are okay problems to have because it means people know we're here. It means we've produced decent issues that make people want to be a part of what we're doing here. But it does create challenges that we do our best to resolve with the resources we have.
One of the things we are considering is a change to the way we take submissions. We have, from the beginning, asked for people to submit each poem as an individual submission for ease in voting on each of those submissions. For this next reading period, that process will stand, but we are exploring alternatives in order to keep the ever-expanding number of submissions we get flowing smoothly. We will keep you all informed when we do make a change.
We hope you continue to send us work, read our journal, share us with your friends. The whole point of Gyroscope Review is to share fine contemporary poetry that turns your world – and ours – around. It's been a fine four years since we've released our first issue. The poetry community is just the best. Thank you. All of you.
Happy 2019! Gyroscope Review had a good year, and hopes our poets and readers did also. We put out our Third Anniversary Issue in the Spring, with a special category, 'Planting Ourselves', and had a another special issue, 'The Crone Edition', in the Fall of 2018. We also had three handmade art covers for the year, and hope to do more in the future. We continue to offer Gyroscope Review in PDF format, and as a purchasable print edition or Kindle edition for our reader's convenience. Your support keeps us going forward.
Our submissions numbers for all 2018 editions were 2966 submissions total, including so many for the Crone Issue that it overwhelmed our submissions system. We offer weekly poetry prompts through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and love to see the results appear in our slush pile. We are thankful for the support of all our poets and readers as we move into a new year, and hope to keep growing and bringing you Fine Contemporary Poetry.
So onwards to 2019. Have you set goals for the upcoming year? Submissions goals, number of poems written in a week/month/year goals? Are you wanting to attend a workshop, hone your skills? Maybe put together a book and get it out there, circulating? Let us know on Facebook what you have planned for 2019.
There are all sorts of things out there to keep your poetry production humming along. Join a critique group, it thickens your skin and teaches perspective. Learn new forms. Work with a partner (or two or three) and co-write poems. It's a lot of fun, and the poems take twists and turns you never expected. Co-writing, I learned how to do an Abecedarian, American Sentences, Couplets, as well as writing alternating lines, stanzas, and poems that respond to partner poems.
You political poets out there, keep writing. We need your take on things now more than ever. We don't know where 2019 is taking us, but I suspect it will be a wild ride. Poetry grounds us, poetry motivates us. Poetry keeps us real. Go forth, create, and share with the world. Gyroscope Review is a place to get your ideas before the public. Online, print, podcast and video, let's do what poets do best. Raise our voices and be heard.
I don't know if you know this, but Gyroscope Review's three editors live nowhere near an ocean. Constance Brewer and I, the two founding editors, are firmly planted in what some consider fly-over country: Wyoming and Minnesota, respectively. Our Assistant Editor, Josh Colwell, lives near Pennsylvania's border with Ohio.
I've been thinking a bit about this lately, and about the way literature from New York or Los Angeles might be embraced more quickly than that from elsewhere. I'm firmly planted in the heart of the Midwest, but let me tell you – literary tradition in Minnesota is strong. Its roots are deep. Most people know Bob Dylan and Prince came from Minnesota, but there are so many poets and writers who lived and still live here to celebrate: Robert Bly, Patricia Hampl, Phoebe Hanson, Bill Holmes, Louis Jenkins, Deborah Keenan, Freya Manfred, James Moore, Jim Northrup, Joyce Sutphen, Connie Wanek, James Wright, and more. We have Coffee House Press, Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions, and Holy Cow! Press among other small presses. The literary tradition here is varied and rich.
And I recently reminded myself just how rich by visiting the Prairie Poets & Press exhibit at the University of Minnesota's Elmer L. Anderson Library. My own road trip to the prairie this summer put me in awe of its inspiration, its space, its quiet that is perfect for the writer or the artist who wants solitude in which to work. I wanted to know more about the writers who sought ideas from that landscape and remembered that the exhibit at the U of M was still open. Off I went.
The Prairie Poets & Press exhibit covers more than just the prairie. It divides Minnesota into five regions: Superior North, Northern Prairie, Out West, River Valley, and Twin Cities. Examples of poets' work from each area is offered, along with snippets of personal correspondence, marked-up copy, publication covers, newspaper articles, and photos. Robert Bly loomed large in the Out West section, shown with his old farmhouse and offering marked up bits of his work, covers from his little literary magazine that started in the late 1950s and lasted into the 1970s. Bly gave a reading a in 2015 at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis as part of their Literary Witnesses program and I went to hear him. As I looked at what the exhibit displayed about Bly, I could hear his voice in my head, and appreciated his work as one of the poets who sought to move on from what has been called "old-fashioned verse." In other words, verse that is less formal, uses plain language, does not rhyme, uses the poet's individual voice. The definition may sound a bit familiar to those of you who have read our journal; that's the kind of poetry we publish at Gyroscope Review.
Other parts of the exhibit that I especially enjoyed were the handwritten copies that came from the poets themselves that showed how they worked. My favorite was a page from one of Louis Jenkins' notebooks that showed the same prose poem written twice, words crossed out in both versions, the endings entirely different. This little look into how poets work made my own messy notebooks feel a little more valuable, a little less like unimportant scribbling. And it reminded me how revision might take the writer far from the original idea.
And, of course, I paid attention to the number of small literary magazines that have come from this area. Robert Bly's The Fifties (which changed names in subsequent decades: The Sixties, The Seventies). Dacotah Territory. North Coast Review. Since Gyroscope Review spans far more than just Minnesota thanks for our far-flung staff, I wondered if we would ever fit in an exhibit like this; maybe just a little?
After I had walked through the entire exhibit, feeling lucky to have either heard or worked with several of the poets mentioned, such as Deborah Keenan who taught at Hamline University when I was working on my MFA, I thought about how any landscape has potential to produce a diverse mix of writers. Any place where people feel rooted, inspired, and pay attention is a good place to make art, write poems, tell stories. What is it about Minnesota that created this abundance? What is it about the coasts that do the same?
Whatever it is, I celebrate these Midwest writers who came before me, who inspire so many, who put us on the literary map. If you're anywhere near Minneapolis this summer, the Prairie Poets & Press exhibit just might give you a little something you didn't know you needed. And if you can't make it to Minneapolis, at least get to the prairie, where the vast sky and open land will encourage you to listen to yourself.
In honor of the current special theme for Gyroscope Review, "The Crone Issue", let's talk a bit about the theme. When we put out the call, we decided to limit it to an underserved section of the population, women and those that identify as women over the age of 50. It's around that age that women really start to disappear in society. They are not valued any longer. Having outlived their usefulness as mothers or sexual objects, they are discarded and disregarded. From the heartfelt cover letters we are getting, it's apparent older women are eager to have an opportunity to submit, and disappointed that this kind of opportunity doesn't present itself more often. Older women need to be include, invited, and embraced.
By taking back the word Crone, women are recognizing the power, wisdom, and abilities of aging. We want work that celebrates the ideas of crone: wise woman, matriarch, post-menopause, grandmother, elders with strength and experience. Tell your story. Tell what has been digging at you the past 50 years. What are you not going to stand for anymore? What is your source of power and strength, be it quiet or fierce?
Women have a wealth of life experiences to share with others. Remain silent no longer.
Here is a poem that resonates with the theme of Crone.
It happens in an instant.
someone is walking on your grave.
too big or too tight for you.
feel you don't belong here.
self, a key that no longer works.
what you are. If you are at all.
"Dislocation" by Marge Piercy from The Crooked Inheritance. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.


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