This is a commentary on Andrea Lavazza and Murilo Vilaça's article "Human Extinction and AI: What We Can Learn from the Ultimate Threat" (Lavazza & Vilaça, 2024). I discuss the potential concern that their proposal to create artificial successors to "insure" against the tragedy of human extinction might mean being too quick to accept that catastrophic prospect as inevitable, rather than single-mindedly focusing on avoiding it. I also consider the question of the value that we might reasonably assign to such (...) a future of artificial successors under the assumption that they do not enjoy phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the prospects and ethics of using AI to achieve human enhancement, and more broadly what we call intellectual augmentation (IA). After explaining the central notions of human enhancement, IA, and AI, we discuss the state of the art in terms of the main technologies for IA, with or without brain-computer interfaces. Given this picture, we discuss potential ethical problems, namely inadequate performance, safety, coercion and manipulation, privacy, cognitive liberty, authenticity, and fairness in more detail. (...) We conclude that while there are very significant technical hurdles to real human enhancement through AI, and significant ethical problems, there are also significant benefits that may realistically be achieved in ways that are consonant with a rights-based ethics as well. We also highlight the specific concerns that apply particularly to applications of AI for "sheer" IA (more realistic in the near term), and to enhancement applications, respectively. (shrink)

This commentary further explores some of the ethical issues raised by Prof. Peter Singer in his Lanson Lecture “Pandemic Ethics: Five Lessons”. In the first part, I distinguish a prioritarian approach to the allocation of scarce medical resources, from the utilitarian one advocated by Singer. I suggest that the prioritarian view better matches common intuitions about fair distribution, even though it likely needs to be balanced with other principles if it is to have plausibility in contexts like vaccine allocation. In (...) the second part of the commentary, I take a global perspective (as Singer himself does regarding the ethics of lockdowns), and highlight the controversial implications of adopting a fully cosmopolitan ethical outlook when deciding how to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. I also raise justice-related concerns about Singer’s proposal to use well-being as a single metric for evaluating public health policies. (shrink)

One objection to enhancement technologies is that they might lead us to live inauthentic lives. Memory modification technologies (MMTs) raise this worry in a particularly acute manner. In this paper I describe four scenarios where the use of MMTs might be said to lead to an inauthentic life. I then undertake to justify that judgment. I review the main existing accounts of authenticity, and present my own version of what I call a “true self” account (intended as a complement, rather (...) than a substitute, to existing accounts). I briefly describe current and prospective MMTs, distinguishing between memory enhancement and memory editing . Moving then to an assessment of the initial scenarios in the light of the accounts previously described, I argue that memory enhancement does not, by its very nature, raise serious concerns about authenticity. The main threat to authenticity posed by MMTs comes, I suggest, from memory editing. Rejecting as inadequate the worries about identity raised by the President’s Council on Bioethics in Beyond Therapy , I argue instead that memory editing can cause us to live an inauthentic life in two main ways: first, by threatening its truthfulness, and secondly, by interfering with our disposition to respond in certain ways to some past events, when we have reasons to respond in such ways. This consideration allows us to justify the charge of inauthenticity in cases where existing accounts fail. It also gives us a significant moral reason not to use MMTs in ways that would lead to such an outcome. (shrink)

The potential of using personalized Large Language Models (LLMs) or “generative AI” (GenAI) to enhance productivity in academic research, as highlighted by Porsdam Mann and colleagues (Porsdam Mann...

Gilbert and colleagues are to be commended for drawing our attention to the need for a sounder empirical basis, and for more careful reasoning, in the context of the neuroethics debate on Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and its potential impact on the dimensions of personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy and self (PIAAAS). While acknowledging this, this extended commentary critically examines their claim that the real-world relevance of the conclusions drawn in the neuroethics literature is threatened by the fact that the (...) concepts at the center of the discussion have “weak empirical grounding”. First, I show that while some possible understandings of multifaceted concepts like identity, authenticity and autonomy may indeed be unsuitable for a purely empirical inquiry, this is not the case of all of them. Secondly, I call into question the authors’ apparent suggestion that reliance on constructs involving an irreducibly normative dimension makes for a suboptimal state of affairs, and that they should ideally be replaced with substitutes taken from the language of neuroscience or social science in order to ensure an adequate empirical grounding for the debate. Such a suggestion, I argue, commits the authors to a controversial reductionist view in metaethics that the valid empirical concerns they raise in the rest of their article do not presuppose, and which could potentially us lead to lose sight of important ethical considerations. (shrink)

Authenticity has recently emerged as an important issue in discussions of mental disorder. We show, on the basis of personal accounts and empirical studies, that many people with psychological disorders are preoccupied with questions of authenticity. Most of the data considered in this paper are from studies of people with bipolar disorder and anorexia nervosa. We distinguish the various ways in which these people view the relationship between the disorder and their sense of their authentic self. We discuss the principal (...) modern ac-counts of authenticity within the analytic philosophical tradition. We argue that accounts based on autonomous, or wholehearted, endorsement of personal characteris-tics fail to provide an adequate analysis of authenticity in the context of mental disorder. Significant elements of true self accounts of authenticity are required. The concept of authenticity is a basic one that can be of particular value, in the context of self-development, to people with mental disorder and to others experiencing substantial inner conflict. (shrink)

Open Peer Commentary on P. Zawadzki and A. K. Adamczyk's target article in AJOB Neuroscience on the potential of optogenetics for memory modification. I argue for a radically pluralistic understanding of the notion of authenticity, and highlight the need to further clarify the specific nature of the authors' concern about authenticity, as well as its policy implications.

Many believe that the treatment-enhancement distinction marks an important ethical boundary that we should use to shape public policy on biomedical interventions. A common justification for this purported normative force appeals to the idea that, whereas treatments respond to genuine medical needs, enhancements can only satisfy mere preferences or “expensive tastes”. This article offers a critique of that justification, while still accepting the TED as a conceptual tool, as well as some of the key ethical axioms endorsed by its proponents. (...) I begin by laying out the TED, the practical implications that tend to be drawn from it, and the justification just sketched for these implications. Using examples drawn from preventive medicine, biomedical technology, and other categories of biomedical interventions, I then go on to challenge both the presupposition of a fundamental dichotomy between treatments and enhancements, and the assumption that enhancements – barring rare exceptions – cannot serve legitimate medical needs. Finally, I consider some ways in which supporters of the TED might try re-formulating the distinction to blunt the force of my critique. I conclude that such a move cannot fully succeed, and that while the TED does have some degree of normative force, it nevertheless cannot play the role that its advocates expect from it. Seeking to justify a general presumption against enhancements based on the rationale I critique here would mean ignoring their various potential benefits, including medical or therapeutic, and would reflect a prejudice – which I refer to as “treatment fetishism”. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the claim that, as new types of neurointervention get developed allowing us to enhance various aspects of our mental functioning, we should work to prevent the use of such interventions from ever becoming the “new normal,” that is, a practice expected—even if not directly required—by employers. The author’s response to that claim is that, unlike compulsion or most cases of direct coercion, indirect coercion to use such neurointerventions is, per se, no more problematic than the pressure people (...) all find themselves under to use modern technological devices like computers or mobile phones. Few people seem to believe that special protections should be introduced to protect contemporary Neo-Luddites from such pressures. That being said, the author acknowledges that separate factors, when present, can indeed render indirect coercion to enhance problematic. The factors in question include lack of safety, fostering adaptation to oppressive circumstances, and having negative side effects that go beyond health. Nonetheless, the chapter stresses that these factors do not seem to be necessary correlates of neuroenhancement. (shrink)

What proper role should considerations of risk, particularly to research subjects, play when it comes to conducting research on human enhancement in the military context? We introduce the currently visible military enhancement techniques (1) and the standard discussion of risk for these (2), in particular what we refer to as the ‘Assumption’, which states that the demands for risk-avoidance are higher for enhancement than for therapy. We challenge the Assumption through the introduction of three categories of enhancements (3): therapeutic, preventive, (...) and pure enhancements. This demands a revision of the Assumption (4), alongside which we propose some further general principles bearing on how to balance risks and benefits in the context of military enhancement research. We identify a particular type of therapeutic enhancements as providing a more responsible path to human trials of the relevant interventions than pure enhancement applications. Finally, we discuss some possible objections to our line of thought (5). While acknowledging their potential insights, we ultimately find them to be unpersuasive, at least provided that our proposal is understood as fully non-coercive towards the candidates for such therapeutic enhancement trials. (shrink)

This article responds to Neil Levy's recent suggestion that: (1) the use of pharmaceutical enhancers can be understood as promoting our authenticity, no matter which of the two main contemporary conceptions of authenticity we adopt; and that (2) we do not need to decide between these two rival models (the ‘self-discovery’ and the ‘self-creation’ conception) in order to assess the common worry that enhancements will undermine our authenticity. Levy's core argument is based on a comparison between cases of people with (...) ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ (GID) seeking sex reassignment surgery, and cases of enhancement via pharmaceuticals. While conceding the plausibility of Levy's claim (1), I offer reasons to resist (2), by pointing out structural differences between GID cases and some paradigmatic cases of pharmacological enhancement. I argue that these differences prevent the latter sort of cases from counting as authenticity-promoting on the self-discovery view. I conclude that Levy's proposed way of ‘breaking the stalemate’ in this debate is unsuccessful: we cannot avoid settling the dispute between the two models if we are to adequately address the authenticity worry about pharmacological enhancement. (shrink)

Entry on "Neuroenhancement" in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online.

Entry on "Authenticity" for the fourth edition of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, edited by Bruce Jennings. Discusses the concept in the context of end-of-life decision-making, human enhancement, and the treatment of mental disorder.

This article briefly replies to commentaries by Ilina Singh and Peter Lucas on our original piece titled "Mental Disorder and the Concept of Authenticity". In response to Lucas, we argue that those who face questions of authenticity in the context of mental disorder cannot avoid the dilemma between the "self-discovery" and "self-creation" approaches. In response to Singh, we suggest some ways in which the concept of authenticity might be of relevance to clinicians.

In this paper, I will look at the relationship between Weitz’s claim that art is an “open” concept and Dickie’s institutional theory of art, in its most recent form. Dickie’s theory has been extensively discussed, and often criticized, in the literature on aesthetics, yet it has rarely been observed – to my knowledge at least – that the fact that his theory actually incorporates, at least to some extent, Weitz’s claim about the “openness” of the concept of art, precisely accounts (...) for what I take to be the main flaws in the theory. In what follows I present arguments for that claim, looking briefly at the position of both authors with respect to the concept of art, then showing how they relate to each other, and what implications this has for Dickie’s institutional theory, and more generally for the traditional project of characterising art. (shrink)

The enhancement of athletic performance using procedures that increase physical ability, such as anabolic steroids, is a familiar phenomenon. Yet recent years have also witnessed the rise of direct interventions into the brain, referred to as “neuro-doping”, that promise to also enhance sports performance. This paper discusses one potential objection to neuro-doping, based on the contribution to athletic achievement, particularly within endurance sports, of effortfully overcoming inner challenges. After introducing the practice of neuro-doping, and the controversies surrounding it, I describe (...) two major mechanisms some have proposed to explain how it might produce its putative performance-enhancing effects. I then clarify the notion of effort, and its relationship to neuro-doping. I also briefly address common concerns about access and safety. My central argument invokes considerations of effort to maintain that we have at least a significant reason for prohibiting the use of neuro-doping in officially regulated endurance competitions – though only conditional upon a specific set of empirical assumptions. I consider three possible objections: that neuro-doping is no different from widely accepted enhancement methods, that it can make athletic competition fairer, and that a broader range of factors can compensate for a reduced scope for effort than I recognize. I ultimately conclude that these objections do not refute the argument from effort, while stressing nonetheless that this argument applies more clearly to hypothetical improved forms of neuro-doping than to existing ones, and is not meant to offer a final overall verdict on how neuro-doping should be regulated. (shrink)

The treatment of children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder with stimulant drugs has been a subject of controversy for many years, both within and outside bioethics, and the controversy is still very much alive. In her feature article , Ilina Singh, a major contributor to that debate in recent years, brings fresh empirical evidence to bear on it. She uses new data to deal with two key ethical concerns that have been raised about the practice. First, does medicating children with (...) ADHD compromise their capacity for autonomous moral agency? And second, does it pose a threat to their ‘authentic self’? A related question is whether medication for ADHD is being used as an instrument of social control, forcing children to adapt to environments that they find oppressive.Whereas previous research by Singh examined the attitudes of parents of boys diagnosed with ADHD,1 this article draws from a series of interviews with children from the UK and USA, including those who were taking drugs for ADHD. The conclusions that Singh reaches can be characterised as cautiously optimistic. The data, she thinks, indicate that ‘a majority of children are not victims of stimulant drugs’. Rather than experiencing their use of such drugs as undermining their capacity for moral agency, children tend to report that the medication renders them better able to control their responses in potentially challenging situations. In addition, most of the children did not perceive the medication as a threat to their authenticity. Singh nevertheless accepts that such a threat might be real in certain cases, and suggests ways in which the threat might be mitigated. In particular, she suggests—plausibly, I think—that medical professionals could play a key role by spending more time listening to children in order to get …. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the concept of authenticity and its implications for our projects of self-creation, particularly those involving the use of "enhancement technologies". After an introduction to the concept of authenticity and the enhancement debate in the first part of the thesis, part 2 considers the main analyses of authenticity in the contemporary philosophical literature. It begins with those emphasizing _self-creation_, and shows that, despite their merits, such views cannot adequately deal with certain types of cases, which require a (...) third option, “true self” accounts, emphasizing _self-discovery_. However, it is argued that in their existing versions, accounts of this third sort are also unsatisfactory. Part 3 of the thesis proposes a new account of the "true self" sort, intended to improve upon existing ones. Common problematic assumptions about the concept of the true self are critiqued, after which a new analysis of that concept is presented, based on seven different conditions. Two specific definitions of authenticity, respectively emphasizing self-expression and the preservation of one's true self, are provided, and its relation to various associated notions, such as integrity or sincerity, are examined. Finally, part 4 looks at the implications of the previous parts for the enhancement debate. In particular, it discusses the prospect of technologically enhancing our personality and mood dispositions. Do such interventions always threaten our authenticity, as some worry? A negative answer is provided to that question. Various potential pitfalls hinted at by the inauthenticity worry are discussed and acknowledged. It is, however, argued that such enhancements could still in principle be used in a fully authentic manner, and that they have the potential to bring about genuine improvements in our mood but also to our moral capacities and our affective rationality more generally. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 25-27.

Savulescu and colleagues propose a distinction between ‘future person embryo research’ and ‘non-future person embryo research’, which they hold can help decision-makers more efficiently discriminate between higher risk and lower risk embryo research.1 The authors’ proposed distinction does point to an ethically significant difference between different forms of embryo research, which they illustrate in an enlightening manner using a series of detailed case studies. In the following, I wish to comment, first, on the substance of the authors’ distinction, and second, (...) on the possibility of looking beyond the relatively narrow scope of their argument. A first point concerns the authors’ characterisation of FPE research as including ‘anything which is done to an embryo that will be or could be implanted into a woman’s uterus’. Insofar as they also emphasise the idea of research that can ‘affect’ a future person, this formulation might suggest that the key distinction here is between research procedures that causally impact the characteristics of a future person, and those that do not. However, this is not how the authors’ distinction between FPE and NFPE research should be understood. Indeed, they describe ‘observational research’, including the first test case they present, as an exception …. (shrink)

This paper deals with a specific version of metaethical moral relativism, known as “speaker-relativism”. It starts by explaining the position, focussing on the views of two prominent contemporary relativists, Gilbert Harman and James Dreier. Both authors draw an analogy between ethics and modern physics: just as Einstein showed that judgments about time or mass were always relative to a specific frame of reference, Dreier and Harman argue that “absolutist” judgments about moral rightness or wrongness need to be reinterpreted as relative (...) to some particular moral system. They also claim that this analogy allows us to salvage ordinary moral talk. I consider a number of possible objections to their argument, beginning with one, concerning the possibility of moral disagreement, which I think can be successfully answered, and then presenting two criticisms that I take to be more problematic for the relativist. I argue that despite its initial appeal, Harman and Dreier’s suggestion regarding our use of moral language seems to be a source of confusion in certain cases of moral disagreement, and does not appear able to preserve specifically moral normativity – which leads me to conclude that it is best viewed as a variant of an error theory about morality, rather than as the distinct metaethical position it purports to be. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 114-116.

Worldwide populations are aging with economic development as a result of public health initiatives and advances in therapeutic discoveries. Since 1850, life expectancy has advanced by 1 year for every four. Accompanying this change is the rapid development of anti‐aging science. There are three schools of thought in the field of aging science. One perspective is the life course approach, which considers that aging is a good and natural process to be embraced as a necessary and positive aspect of life, (...) where the aim is to improve the quality of existing lifespan and “compress” morbidity. Another view is that aging is undesirable, and that rejuvenation and indeed immortality are possible since the biological basis of aging is understood, and therefore, strategies are possible for engineering negligible senescence. Finally, a hybrid approach is that life span can be extended by anti‐aging medicines but with uncertain effects on health. While these advances offer much promise, the ethical perspectives are seldom discussed in cross‐disciplinary settings. This article discusses some of the key ethical issues arising from recent advances in biogerontology. (shrink)

Epigenetic research has brought several important technological achievements, including identifying epigenetic clocks and signatures, and developing epigenetic editing. The potential military applications of such technologies we discuss are stratifying soldiers’ health, exposure to trauma using epigenetic testing, information about biological clocks, confirming child soldiers’ minor status using epigenetic clocks, and inducing epigenetic modifications in soldiers. These uses could become a reality. This article presents a comprehensive literature review, and analysis by interdisciplinary experts of the scientific, legal, ethical, and societal issues (...) surrounding epigenetics and the military. Notwithstanding the potential benefit from these applications, our findings indicate that the current lack of scientific validation for epigenetic technologies suggests a careful scientific review and the establishment of a robust governance framework before consideration for use in the military. In this article, we highlight general concerns about the application of epigenetic technologies in the military context, especially discrimination and data privacy issues if soldiers are used as research subjects. We also highlight the potential of epigenetic clocks to support child soldiers’ rights and ethical questions about using epigenetic engineering for soldiers’ enhancement and conclude with considerations for an ethical framework for epigenetic applications in the military, defense, and security contexts. (shrink)

I am grateful to Professor Erler for his thoughtful commentary. As I have been asked to be quite brief in my response, I will move directly to what appear to me to be the most interesting points of contention between us. There are three of them.

All disciplines can count on a noble founder, and the representation of this founder as an authority is key in order to construe a discipline's identity. This book sheds light on how Plato and other authorities were represented in one of the most long-lasting traditions of all time. It leads the reader through exegesis and polemics, recovery of the past and construction of a philosophical identity. From Xenocrates to Proclus, from the sceptical shift to the re-establishment of dogmatism, from the (...) Mosaic of the Philosophers to the Neoplatonist Commentaries, the construction of authority emerges as a way of access to the core of the Platonist tradition. (shrink)

Sokrates hat als Figur in der kaiserzeitlichen Philosophie nicht zuletzt auch bei der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Christentum eine Rolle gespielt. Dass dies auch für Aspekte der praktischen Ethik gilt, die mit seinem Namen verbunden werden, ist mit Blick auf die wachsende Jenseitsorientierung der kaiserzeitlichen, platonisch dominierten Philosophie bestritten worden. Michael Erler zeigt, dass die von Sokrates im Gorgias als 'wahre Politik' bezeichnete praktische Anwendung philosophischer Methoden gleichwohl auch im späteren Platonismus eine Rolle spielte und als Hilfestellung für das Leben (...) im Diesseits letztlich der Befreiung der Seele für das Jenseits diente."-- Back cover. (shrink)

One of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojève was a Russian émigré to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojève wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, (...) death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojève’s thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojève advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority—including philosophy, science, or God—that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism—or theism—is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God’s existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojève’s work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom. (shrink)

Depersonalization consists in a deep modification of the way things appear to a subject, leading him to feel estranged from his body, his actions, his thoughts, and his mind, and even from himself. Even though, when it was discovered at the end of the 19th century, this psychiatric condition was widely used to probe certain aspects of bodily awareness, and more specifically the sense of bodily ownership (SBO), it has been strangely neglected in contemporary debates. In this chapter, I argue (...) that because of three specific features, depersonalization raises some important challenges for current theories of the SBO. The first feature — call it “generality” — is that depersonalization does not only affect the sense of bodily ownership but also, typically, the sense of ``mental ownership’’ (SMO), the sense of agency or ``action ownership’’ (SOA), and the subject’s core sense of herself (CSS), that is, her awareness of herself as an I. The second feature is that except for the symptoms of depersonalization, depersonalized patients are hard to distinguish, psychologically, from normal subjects. This makes it hard to find psychological features that might explain their condition. The last feature, call it “fundamentality” is that the psychological features that do seem abnormal among depersonalized patients seem more likely to be explained by depersonalization than to explain it. These three features raise three challenges — the centrality challenge, the dissociation challenge, and the grounding challenge. Taken together, I will argue, these challenges suggest that the SBO depends on a form of phenomenal “mineness” that would mark my mental states as mine and that cannot be accounted for in sensorimotor, cognitive, or even affective terms. A phenomenal mineness that indeed seems to be psychologically primitive, and only accountable in neurophysiological terms. (shrink)

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

This paper considers the medium of videogames from a goodmanian standpoint. After some preliminary clarifications and definitions, I examine the ontological status of videogames. Against several existing accounts, I hold that what grounds their identity qua work types is code. The rest of the paper is dedicated to the epistemology of videogaming. Drawing on Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin's works, I suggest that the best model to defend videogame cognitivism appeals to the notion of understanding.

According to what we will call subjectivity theories of consciousness, there is a constitutive connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjectivity: there is something it is like for a subject to have mental state M only if M is characterized by a certain mine-ness or for-me-ness. Such theories appear to face certain psychopathological counterexamples: patients appear to report conscious experiences that lack this subjective element. A subsidiary goal of this chapter is to articulate with greater precision both subjectivity theories and the (...) psychopathological challenge they face. The chapter’s central goal is to present two new approaches to defending subjectivity theories in the face of this challenge. What distinguishes these two approaches is that they go to great lengths to interpret patients’ reports at face value – greater length, at any rate, than more widespread approaches in the extant literature. (shrink)

Too many somersaults -- The strange creature that I am -- Giving meaning to reality -- The sincerity of true kindness -- Embracing our condition -- Drawing strength from our weakness -- Pity anesthetizes -- The other's gaze -- The joy of being alive -- They talked and analyzed -- Culture shock -- Conditional happiness -- A man of God -- A craving for learning -- Genuine friends -- Marginal.

Recueil des commentaires de Michel Alexandre sur la "Critique de la raison pure" d'après des notes de cours, comme la première édition de 1961. Cependant, on y a ajouté un quatrième chapitre, intitulé "L'ordre", avec des notes sur les deux dernières critiques, "Critique de la raison pratique" et "Critique du jugement". L'ensemble couvre les vingt dernières années d'enseignement de M. Alexandre (1932-1952), dont le commentaire relève du genre "Auslegung" (qu'on pourrait traduire par "exposition") comme celui que firent de (...) Kant un Hegel ou un Heidegger, et qui se caractérise par une certaine manière de questionner les textes. Ce volume est donc aussi un hommage rendu à un maître d'u. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage de philosophie et de sagesse est inséparable de la personnalité de l’auteur. Alexandre Jollien, gravement handicapé à sa naissance, a passé les dix-sept premières années de sa vie dans une institution spécialisée. Grâce à la détermination d’un de ses éducateurs, et après avoir été initié à l’informatique, il a pu entreprendre des études approfondies, notamment en philosophie. Dans un ouvrage publié au Seuil en 2002, il exprimait le point de vue qu’il s’est forgé sur la vie, la (...) souffrance, l’amitié, le rapport au corps que peut entretenir un handicapé. Ce petit livre, Le métier d’homme, a été un best-seller tandis que son auteur, invité par tous les médias, devenait une figure emblématique du handicap assumé et vaincu. Aujourd’hui, Alexandre Jollien aspire très légitimement à être perçu comme philosophe à part entière. Même s’il se réfère encore à l’incroyable et magnifique combat qu’a été sa vie jusqu’à la victoire sur le handicap, il refuse d’être « le philosophe du handicap » ou « le handicapé devenu philosophe ». Il s’oppose donc à ce qu’on fasse mention de son handicap dans les textes promotionnels quels qu’ils soient. Il a raison. Son nouveau livre justifie – et mérite – cette perception et ce respect. Dans ce texte, approfondi et médité, Alexandre Jollien, tout en revenant sur son aventure personnelle, s’exprime en philosophe. Il témoigne, pour l’avoir expérimenté, de l’importance salvatrice de la philosophie. (shrink)

The advent of the Web is one of the defining technological events of the twentieth century, yet its impact on the fundamental questions of philosophy has not yet been explored, much less systematized. The Web, as today implemented on the foundations of the Internet, is broadly construed as the space of all items of interest identified by URIs. Originally a space of linked hypertext documents, today the Web is rapidly evolving as a universal platform for data and computation. Even swifter (...) is the Web‐driven transformation of many previously unquestioned philosophical concepts of privacy, belief, intelligence, cognition, and even embodiment in surprising ways. The ensuing essays in this collection hope to explore the philosophical foundation of the World Wide Web and open the debate on whether or not the changes caused by the Web to technology and society warrant the creation of a philosophy of the Web. (shrink)