Under the Roman Empire, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Jews asked for and sometimes obtained privileges of immunity for their civic and imperial charges. They also asked for privileges to practice their laws (Shabbat, circumcision...). According to some historians, these requests for privileges set them apart from the civic community. This article suggests that privileges played no role in the political marginalisation of the Jews, as im-munitas was not necessarily the negative of com-munitas.

En dépit des réformes dites libérales des années 1860, l'Empire russe resta tout au long du XIX e siècle un empire dont le souverain s'intitulait officiellement : « Tsar et Autocrate de toutes les Russies ». L'autocratie différait fortement de la monarchie française d'Ancien Régime, qu'embarrassaient et que contenaient mille traditions et reliques du passé : droit coutumier et droit romain, vieilles lois de sources diverses toujours en vigueur, privilèges, prérogatives, immunités, franchises, exceptions et exemptions, (...) Église indépendante, etc. Dans le système russe du « césaropapisme », l'empereur faisait également office de souverain pontife de la religion orthodoxe : il en était le « défenseur et gardien ». - En 1881, le tsar Alexandre II fut tué dans un attentat, alors que l'octroi d'une Constitution semblait imrm'nent. Son règne avait été marqué par une série de réformes, dont la plus célèbre (1861) est celle qui avait émancipé les paysans serfs. Constantin Pétrovitch Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), célèbre juriste et homme d'État russe, qui avait été le précepteur des fils d'Alexandre II, va alors devenir le principal représentant d'une politique de contre-réformes, d'une politique refusant que soit faite la moindre concession aux idées libérales. Nommé par Alexandre III procureur du Saint-Synode, il exercera une influence prépondérante en Russie pendant la première partie du règne de ce tsar (c'està-dire de 1881 à 1887). Certains de ses écrits, pamphlets ou manifestes ont été réunis dans un Recueil de Moscou, paru en 1896. Nous y verrons Pobedonostsev dénoncer une à une toutes les institutions qui pourraient, si jamais elles étaient importées d'Occident, limiter les prérogatives du tsar autocrate : séparation de l'Église et de l'État ; suffrage universel et discours sur la prétendue souveraineté du peuple ; instruction gratuite et obligatoire, impliquant une limitation du travail des enfants ; liberté de la presse et invocation constante de l' « opinion publique » ; institution (à l'anglaise) de jurys populaires dans les tribunaux. - Mais nous aurons la surprise de trouver également, dans ce même Recueil de Moscou, un catalogue très raisonné des principales « pathologies » qui, selon Pobedonostsev, accompagnent nécessairement un régime de démocratie représentative : corruption des représentants ; combinaisons et tractations incessantes entre les partis ; indifférentisme massif et hypertrophie du moi personnel chez les électeurs ; omniprésence d'une presse dépourvue de tout mandat électif et parlant cependant au nom du public ; etc. Un tel catalogue constitue à n'en pas douter ce que l'œuvre de Pobedonostsev, ce réactionnaire « sur toute la ligne », contient de moins inactuel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:New Rhetoric's Empire:Pragmatism, Dogmatism, and SophismRomain LauferPragmatism vs. RationalismThere are at least two reasons to devote some attention to sophism when dealing with the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric in the context of Franco-American intellectual exchanges. The first reason is that it lies at the very origin of classical philosophy which could be described as resulting directly from the way in which Plato and Aristotle succeeded in separating (...) the realm of rhetoric from the realm of philosophy. The second reason arises out of the way in which Durkheim, the founder of French academic sociology, thought it necessary to establish a clear distinction between sociology and pragmatism. This was done in a course given at the Sorbonne during the academic year 1913–14. The course could be considered a direct answer to the lectures on pragmatism given by William James at the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1906–7 (Durkheim 1955).From the very beginning of his talk, Durkheim expresses an extremely ambivalent point of view. On the one hand, pragmatism, better than any other doctrine, allows one to feel the necessity of reforming or renovating the type of "traditional rationalism" that dominated the French intellectual atmosphere of the time. On the other hand, it represents a real threat for this same rationalist tradition. Is it not a declaration of war that pragmatism launches on rationalism when William James writes that "against [End Page 326] rationalism as a pretension and a method pragmatism is fully armed and militant" (1975, 32)? In the face of this attack Durkheim declares that what is at stake are the very foundations of French culture: "Our whole French culture is essentially based on rationalism. Here the eighteenth century lives on. Thus, a radical negation of rationalism would constitute a danger: it would imply a complete disruption of our national culture. The whole French spirit would have to be transformed if the form of irrationalism that pragmatism represents were to be admitted" (1955, 28). Durkheim adds that this threat is not limited to the French tradition: "Not only our culture but the whole of the philosophical tradition has been, since the very beginnings of philosophical speculation—apart from a single exception that will be dealt with later—of a rationalist tendency. Therefore it is toward the disruption of all this tradition that one would have to proceed if pragmatism were valid" (1955, 28).Durkheim insists that what pragmatism tends to destroy is the "cult of truth," the fact that there are judgments that are necessary, which he will allude to throughout his analysis as corresponding to a dogmatic conception of truth that is repeatedly criticized by William James. James writes in his lectures on pragmatism that "rationalism is comfortable only in the presence of abstractions[;]... objective truth must be something non-utilitarian, haughty, refined, remote, august, exalted. It must be the absolute correspondence of our thoughts with an equally absolute reality.... Down with psychology, up with logic, in all this question!" (1975, 38).This allows Durkheim to declare that by stating that the human mind is free in front of the truth, pragmatism approaches the single exception he mentioned, namely, sophism, which in a similar manner negated truth. This connection is not arbitrary: it is avowed by the pragmatists themselves (1955, 28–29). Thus F. C. S. Schiller proclaims himself a "Protagorean" and recalls the axiom that "man is the measure of all things."Thus the debate between rationalism and pragmatism—between, according to Durkheim, a French philosophical tradition characterized by its link with a Cartesian dogmatic form of rationalism and an American philosophy characterized by its link with pragmatism—can be seen as the continuation of the debate between Plato and Aristotle, on the one hand, and the Sophists, on the other, at the origin of Western philosophy. Moreover, Durkheim tells us that the resurgence of the debate between pragmatism and philosophy corresponds to a historical transformation that affects the whole Western world. Pragmatism is becoming the only and dominant philosophy of the time. The central trait of this intellectual orientation is its [End Page 327] focus on action, a focus it shares with sociology itself: both are "daughters of... (shrink)

Cet article invite à un questionnement éthique sur l’intérêt de l’enfant dans l’adoption, en considérant l’enfant adopté non seulement sous l’angle de son âge, mais aussi sous l’angle de son statut de filiation. Il présente d’abord les régulations juridiques et administratives de l’adoption au Québec. Il montre ensuite que l’adoption plénière, qui provoque toujours une rupture de la filiation d’origine et qui fait obstacle à une reconnaissance mutuelle des parties à ce transfert d’enfant, n’est pas toujours dans l’intérêt de ce (...) dernier. Les possibilités offertes par l’adoption ouverte et l’adoption simple sont discutées. (shrink)

Les leçons du décolonial sont multiples pour celleux qui avaient cru aux récits de la fin des Empires : aux côtés des luttes anticoloniales qui nous ont appris à rejeter les formes les plus directes d’oppression politique et économique, avec les impasses du post-colonialisme et des pensées de l’hybridation, le décolonial fait le jour sur la saisie des imaginaires, des sensibilités et des rationalités par la logique coloniale. À l’ère de la sixième extinction, l’Anthropocène prend le visage d’un âge (...) de la Plantation, où la logique d’appauvrissement et de simplification des naturecultures est partout à l’œuvre. Parce que cette « oxydentalisation » qui coupe le souffle n’épargne personne, il est urgent d’entendre les ouvertures contre-plantationnelle du décolonial. (shrink)

Dans la mentalité romaine antique, le mos est un principe global de vie – individuel et communautaire – qui régule l’ordre social dans tous ses aspects. Fondé sur la mémoire des Anciens, il façonne le comportement présent en se référant aux exemples antérieurs. Son origine religieuse, et par là son rapport à l’acte essentiel de la liturgie romaine, à savoir le sacrifice, se comprend dans la mesure où les bons rapports entre les hommes et les dieux sont garants de la (...) prospérité de la cité. Le droit est quant à lui, certes par dérivation un système raisonné de régulation des rapports sociaux, mais avant tout une science donc un travail réflexif. Celui-ci aborde le mos, ou plutôt la consuetudo qu’il faut comprendre la plupart du temps chez les juristes comme une coutume non romaine, en tant que possible et subsidiaire source du droit. Le rapport originel du droit au mos est quant à lui relativement simple car les juristes ont conçu leur science en étant des acteurs de l’idéologie romaine et parfois de l’État. Rien d’étonnant donc à ce que le droit soit issu des mores – voire à l’idée que des composantes du mos puissent venir tempérer une solution juridique trop rigide – sans pour autant que ce dernier ne s’y assimile totalement. Au sein de ce système, on comprend que l’idée de droit coutumier ne peut exister car le mos maiorum devenu droit n’est plus mos et la consuetudo, par définition extérieure à la régulation légale, n’est pas non plus du droit à proprement parler avant d’être institué comme tel, c’est-à-dire comme droit et non pas comme coutume. (shrink)

Este trabalho busca analisar os desdobramentos da relação entre infâncias, juventudes e sexualidades que se apresentam nas escolas em tempos de cerceamentos e perseguições presentes na última década à escola. Falar de infância é discorrer sobre corpos e, justamente por isso, é indissociável da sexualidade. As relações interpessoais que ocorrem nos espaços escolares são imprescindíveis para socializações com vidas outras. No entanto, após a censura da temática de gênero e sexualidades nos planos educacionais recentes, bem como na Base Nacional Comum (...) Curricular, e frente às sistemáticas perseguições aos professores interessados em sua discussão, nosso intuito é indagar o lugar do corpo e da sexualidade na escola, sobretudo em tempos de neoconservadorismo e pós-fascismo. Enquanto definição, entendemos por neoconservadorismo os novos agenciamentos que a matiz conservadora se utilizou para a sua consolidação na população brasileira; e, por pós-fascismo, as novas esferas de sociabilidades a partir de pragmatismos à identificação de valores comum na sociedade na promoção do pânico moral. Para sustentarmos nossa análise, utilizaremos três cenas escolares de educação para a sexualidade, entendidas aqui como práticas de resistências. Estas, muito embora recentemente vistas na sociedade como responsáveis pela destruição da família tradicional brasileira (de base heteronormativa), são valorizadas para a promoção de infâncias seguras. (shrink)

Industrial drug design methodology has undergone remarkable changes in the recent history. Up to the 1970s, the screening of large numbers of randomly selected substances in biological test system was often a crucial step in the development of novel drugs. From the early 1980s, such ‘blind’ screening was increasingly rejected by many pharmaceutical researchers and gave way to ‘rational drug design’, a method that grounds the design of new drugs on a detailed mechanistic understanding of the drug action. Surprisingly, however, (...) the chance-based method of random screening returned to center stage of industrial drug development in the 1990s in the form of ‘high-throughput screening’ (HTS). I will argue in this paper that this to-and-fro in the prominence of random screening comes with fundamental changes in the epistemic significance of chance experiments in pharmaceutical development. While up to the 1970s, random screening used to be chosen as an empirical search strategy primarily because suffi- cient knowledge of the mechanistic basis of drug action was lacking, it has turned with high-throughput screening into an experimental method that employs chance variation and testing to illuminate this mechanistic basis. As a consequence, research into the underlying mechanisms of drug action and the development of new drugs have become closely integrated. The rise of HTS therefore not only shows how chance experiments have assumed a new epistemic role in drug development. It also allows for a detailed study of the much debated emergence of a new relationship between scientific understanding and the development of technological artifacts. (shrink)

The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated. -/- Contemporary definitions can be classified with respect to the dimensions of art they emphasize. One distinctively modern, conventionalist, sort of definition focuses on art’s institutional features, emphasizing the way art changes over time, modern works that appear to break radically with all traditional art, the relational properties (...) of artworks that depend on works’ relations to art history, art genres, etc. – more broadly, on the undeniable heterogeneity of the class of artworks. The more traditional, less conventionalist sort of definition defended in contemporary philosophy makes use of a broader, more traditional concept of aesthetic properties that includes more than art-relational ones, and puts more emphasis on art’s pan-cultural and trans-historical characteristics – in sum, on commonalities across the class of artworks. Hybrid definitions aim to do justice to both the traditional aesthetic dimension as well as to the institutional and art-historical dimensions of art, while privileging neither. (shrink)

Anthony Freeman's article on transpersonal psychology cited Jorge Ferrer's criticism that while the field claims to be non-dualistic or 'post-Cartesian' (no subject -object or mind-body split), it is nevertheless hopelessly dualistic. . .Freeman proposes a way of salvation for transpersonal psychology by invoking Daniel Dennettapos;s concept of heterophenomenology, which is a third-person investigation of someone elseapos;s first-person experience (as reported). . .Freeman's proposal is a fine demonstration of lateral thinking, calling upon atheist Dennett in support of transpersonal and religious (...) inquiry. Unfortunately, it is a solution analogous to searching for lost keys under the lamppost where the light is better. (shrink)

The first study of its kind, The Impact of Idealism assesses the impact of classical German philosophy on science, religion and culture. This fourth volume explores German Idealism's impact on theology and religious ideas in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With contributions from leading scholars, this collection not only demonstrates the vast range of Idealism's theological influence across different centuries, countries, continents, traditions and religions, but also, in doing so, provides fresh insight into the original ideas and themes with (...) which Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling and others were concerned. As well as tracing out the Idealist influence in the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century theologians, philosophers of religion, and theological traditions, from Schleiermacher, to Karl Barth, to Radical Orthodoxy, the essays in this collection bring each debate up to date with a strong focus on Idealism's contemporary relevance. (shrink)

We conducted a systematic literature review on the ethical considerations of the use of contact tracing app technology, which was extensively implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid and extensive use of this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, while benefting the public well-being by providing information about people’s mobility and movements to control the spread of the virus, raised several ethical concerns for the post-COVID-19 era. To investigate these concerns for the post-pandemic situation and provide direction for future (...) events, we analyzed the current ethical frameworks, research, and case studies about the ethical usage of tracing app technology. The results suggest there are seven essential ethical considerations—privacy, security, acceptability, government surveillance, transparency, justice, and voluntariness—in the ethical use of contact tracing technology. In this paper, we explain and discuss these considerations and how they are needed for the ethical usage of this technology. The fndings also highlight the importance of developing integrated guidelines and frameworks for implementation of such technology in the post- COVID-19 world. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the history of development of Russian entrepreneurship in the second half of the 19th century. Sergei Ivanovich Maltsov was a well-known Russian industrialist. In the territory of the Kaluga region in the second half of the 19th century, S. I. Maltsov created a large industrial zone. The factories of the Maltsov industrial region produced railways, steam engines, steamships, locomotives, wagons, agricultural machines. In the town Dyatkovo, Maltsov’s plant produced unique crystal goods. In 1871 Maltsov built (...) the first personal telegraph line in Russia. In two years a narrow-gauge railroad with a length of more than 300 km was constructed, which connected all the factories of the Maltsovsky industrial region. All the Maltsov’s products and machines were of excellent quality. At the Moscow Polytechnic Fair in 1872, S. I. Maltsov was awarded a gold medal and a certificate of the first degree for demonstrating the process of manufacturing a locomotive. In the 1870s, Maltsov carried out a large order from the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Empire. He produced 150 locomotives and about 3 thousands wagons. However, the new minister did not pay for the order. The government of the Russian Empire turned out to be an unreliable trading partner. Bureaucratic arbitrariness led to the collapse of Maltsov’s enterprise. In 1893 S. I. Maltsov died. Many of his machines and industrial products were unique and some of them were made for the first time in Russia. Therefore, we call S. I. Maltsov a pioneer of Russian industry. (shrink)

I discuss everyday situations that bring about and contain suffering. We must take it seriously and distinguish between mental and physical pain and full-fledged suffering that entails dysphoria. I focus on morally relevant cases where I am innocent and contrast them with cases where my suffering is my fault. I discuss cases where we harm others and suffer from guilt and remorse. Our moral emotions cause extra suffering; sometimes, a person’s suffering is vicarious. Finally, I tackle the argument that suffering (...) develops the sufferer’s virtues. I believe suffering is an intrinsic evil, and its good consequences are controversial and, at best, incidental. One may also argue that suffering ruins the victim’s character. This question may belong to empirical psychology. (shrink)

We study the performance of ChatGPT interpreting prompts that require legal expertise to answer. Our inputs are very close adaptations from the "Contextual Canons" section of Scalia and Garner's Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (Thomson West: 2012). We report our findings for the entire section (comprising 14 canons) of the book. We conclude that ChatGPT is exceptionally successful in taking the contextual canons into account.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Blind Spots and Avenues for Transformation within the Utopian Canon: Toward A Terrestrial EcotopianismHeather Alberro (bio)Limitations and Exclusions of the (Western) Utopian CanonUtopianism in all of its manifestations often powerfully (re)surfaces during times of significant socio-ecological upheaval as a response to oppressive and exploitative realities. As such it is a fervent refusal against a given status quo and its purported inevitability. Utopianism and hope are rendered possible by, and (...) draw their transformative potential from, the boundless terrain of potentiality surrounding any given reality.1 Indeed, without such conditions of radical uncertainty, hope and utopianism would not be possible. Often and understandably, the seminal works of Plato, Thomas More, William Morris, H. G. Wells and others come to mind when we think of utopian studies. Hence Kumar’s parochial observation that there is no discernible utopian tradition beyond the West because other cultures lack the foundational myth of the Golden Age—that is, the Garden of Eden, Atlantis, and Arcadia—that has been so formative to the development of utopia in the West.2 These traditional or “transcendental” utopian modalities often feature a dichotomous opposition to their present reality, depicting time and historical movement [End Page 528] as linear successions of stages proceeding from an archaic past and toward a future wherein the utopian ideal is seen as occupying a “fixed space outside time and history.”3 Such temporally “transcendent” utopias marked the dawn of the modern phase of utopian thought, originating in the seventeenth century alongside new theories of social evolution that coalesced into modern Enlightenment notions of linear historical progress.4Prioritizing Pluralism: Critical Heterotopias of the “Here and Now”What kind of life? We are still confronted with the demand to state the “concrete alternative.” The demand is meaningless if it asks for a blueprint of the specific institutions and relationships which would be those of the new society: they cannot be determined a priori; they will develop, in trial and error, as the new society develops.5Tom Moylan’s notion of “critical utopianism,” which emerged during the “historic block” of political opposition of the 1960s and 1970s, marks one important step within the utopian canon toward praxis and the essential “Nowness” of critique and imaginative projection.6 This “critical” strand of utopianism is fueled by a fervent opposition to the exploitation and domination of people and the natural world that is increasingly characteristic of Western-capitalist societies.7 This opposition is coupled with a utopian desire for mutual aid, ecological resilience, liberation, and peaceful living—in effect, a longing for community.8 The “critical” in Moylan’s formulation has a bivalency: first, in the sense of critique through the debunking and deconstruction of the utopian genre itself, which was “colonized” by capitalism toward the 1970s and infused with technocratic dreams of material abundance through boundless economic expansion; and second, in the sense of the critical mass required to effect fundamental societal transformations.9 If the better is the enemy of the good, then perfection serves as “a stick with which to beat the possible.”10 Utopias do not offer rigid blueprints of a fixed or perfect ideal world but rather head toward “the ideal” by offering “a rich blending of creative fantasy, critical thinking, and oppositional activism” predicated on a demand for radically new relations between social and natural systems.11 Ever critically self-reflective, critical utopias continually remind us of the limitations of the utopian impulse, particularly the dangers of pursuing rigid and transcendental visions of “the better.” Nevertheless, these are desperate times that demand some orientation toward a better; utopianism’s [End Page 529] denunciative function is not enough. Thus, in his impassioned recent work Becoming Utopian, Moylan denotes the need for an intersectional, democratically unified leadership structure that can help sustain a political movement for counteracting the “global/neoliberal superpower order while reaching for a utopian horizon.”12 With a focus more on process than a fixed ideal, the critical utopia explores and articulates vibrant post-capitalist futures that are simultaneously open-ended, and far more socio-ecologically resilient than the “now” of late capitalism.Akin in function and style to critical utopias are the grounded and transgressive... (shrink)

It would be unkind but not inaccurate to say that most experimental philosophy is just psychology with worse methods and better theories. In Experimental Ethics: Towards an Empirical Moral Philosophy, Christoph Luetge, Hannes Rusch, and Matthias Uhl set out to make this comparison less invidious and more flattering. Their book has 16 chapters, organized into five sections and bookended by the editors’ own introduction and prospectus. Contributors hail from four countries (Germany, USA, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and five disciplines (...) (philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, economics, and sociology). While the chapters are of mixed quality and originality, there are several fine contributions to the field. These especially include Stephan Wolf and Alexander Lenger’s sophisticated attempt to operationalize the Rawlsian notion of a veil of ignorance, Nina Strohminger et al.’s survey of the methods available to experimental ethicists for studying implicit morality, Fernando Aguiar et al.’s exploration of the possibility of operationalizing reflective equilibrium in the lab, and Nikil Mukerji’s careful defusing of three debunking arguments about the reliability of philosophical intuitions. (shrink)

While post- and decolonial theorists have thoroughly debunked the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, imperialist, and neocolonialist fallacy, many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School--Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst--have persistently defended ideas of progress, development, and modernity and have even made such ideas central to their normative claims. Can the Frankfurt School's goal of radical social change survive this critique? And what would a decolonized critical theory look like? Amy Allen (...) fractures critical theory from within by dispensing with its progressive reading of history while retaining its notion of progress as a political imperative, so eloquently defended by Adorno. Critical theory, according to Allen, is the best resouce we have for achieving emancipatory social goals. In reimagining a decolonized critical theory after the end of progress, she rescues it from oblivion and gives it a future. (shrink)

Modern technology has enabled the use of new forms of information in the care of critically ill patients. In intensive care units (ICUs), technology can simultaneously reduce the lived experience of illness and magnify the objective dimensions of patient care. The aim of this study, based upon two empirical studies, is to find from a philosophical point of view a more comprehensive understanding for the dominance of technology within intensive care. Along with caring for critically ill patients, technology is part (...) of the ICU staff's everyday life. Both technology and caring relationships are of indispensable value. Tools are useful, but technology can never replace the closeness and empathy of the human touch. It is a question of harmonizing the demands of subjectivity with objective signs. The challenge for caregivers in ICU is to know when to heighten the importance of the objective and measurable dimensions provided by technology and when to magnify the patients’ lived experiences, and to live and deal with the ambiguity of the technical dimension of care and the human side of nursing. (shrink)

First surprise! You make the brain itself into an idea, and consequently, also the five senses and the whole body. Thus you can no longer talk about sensations; that would be saying that a great idea, an idea of specific dimensions or an infinite number of small ideas, however you feel like explaining it to us, becomes the vehicle that seizes all other ideas, except of course yours, which finds no place there and doesn’t come up [to the mind].

In this paper I propose a novel interpretation of Kant’s proof of the existence of the outer world in the Refutation of Idealism. According to this interpretation, Kant’s proof does not provide a regressive explanation of our capacity to determine the temporal order of our experiences. Rather, it expresses a counterfactual reflection on what it takes for something to be actual in contrast to being merely imagined. On the ground of this reflection, Kant argues against the Cartesian sceptic that, even (...) if all our representations of empirical objects other than ourselves failed to be veridical, we would still know a priori that in every situation in which we, as thinking things, actually exist, something outside us in space must necessarily exist. (shrink)

« Oui, nous sommes des Scythes, des Asiatiques Avec nos yeux avides et bridés. »Le titre du présent article, dans un recueil sous-titré Identités nationales et réécritures de l’histoire, peut à bon droit susciter l’étonnement : pourquoi choisir l’expression « conscience collective » pour parler de la Russie ancienne1 ? C’est..

Modern society is post-secular: It reflects a broad spectrum of religious and ideological convictions, which flow into the normative self-understanding debates of a deliberative public. The state, on the other hand, is ideologically neutral and in this sense secular. In this respect, the influence of religious convictions on state action and especially on its legislature is increasingly in need of justification. The article discusses the self-image as well as the chances and limits of religious convictions in state-related political consultation, (...) using the example of the participation of theologians in the German Ethics Council. This participation is at the same time an impressive case study for the relationship between morality and law. (shrink)

A discussion with Roberto Andorno about global bioethics and biolaw, the Coronavirus pandemic, and its impact on human dignity and rights. Can we foresee the emerging new profile of global bioethics and biolaw in the post-Coronavirus era? How significant are they going to be in the future, after the enormous pressure that the Coronavirus pandemic has exercised on key political, legal, and ethical values? Must the voice of bioethicists -compared to the ‘hard’ scientific data- be louder in the future (...) concerning decisions about emergency social and medical measures? Is there a hope that public empowerment will support robust, global public engagement and meaningful deliberation? How much does Roberto Andorno’s view on human dignity reveal a supposed commitment to moral realism? The massive deaths of elderly people living in hospices of Sweden, Spain, and Italy, based on an implicit ‘fair innings’ view, has recently posed certain questions on the moral unacceptability of such practices. The same questions arise in the case of the legalization of euthanasia grounded on the implicit acceptance of the view that life is not worth living under certain circumstances. Is it possible that the human rights bodies worldwide will acquire executive power, and how could this become possible? How influential the ‘precautionary principle’ can become regarding clinical and research ethics in the future? How urgent is the importance of the introduction of bioethical education in the curricula of ‘hard’ empirical studies? Roberto Andorno discusses with us all these controversial and under heated public debate issues, giving sometimes provocative answers. (shrink)

L’apprentissage du métier de « maître régent » en théologie passe par le commentaire oral (lectio) des Sentences du Lombard. Cet exercice est confié aux bacheliers: les premiers statuts universitaires ne permettent pas d’en saisir les conditions concrètes et ceux du XIVe siècle laissent soupçonner de grandes contraintes. On peut supposer l’usage d’un certain nombre de « commentaires modèles». Les maîtres ont appliqué des méthodes issues de l’exégèse. Ce sont les manuscrits et leur apparat qui permettent de saisir les modalités (...) de la lectio des Sentences. (shrink)

Les comportements dans l’entreprise : dilemmes sociaux et climats éthiques.

L'ethique des affaires semble prise dans une tension entre deux ambitions: d'une part, la recherche d'un cadre normatif sur-mesure, adapte aux specificites de la vie des affaires et respectueux de principes ethiques fondamentaux; d'autre part la formulation d'une nouvelle maniere de penser le role de l'entreprise dans la societe qui, tout en restant coherente avec le liberalisme economique, depasserait l'hypothese sous-jacente d'individualisme et reconcilierait la morale des affaires et la morale ordinaire. Dans certaines de ses versions, comme celle defendue dans (...) l'un des textes commentes (Edward Freeman et alii), la theorie des parties prenantes pretend faire la synthese de ces ambitions. Si elle se heurte a des resistances theoriques et pratiques, comme celle, classique, exposee par Milton Friedman dans le premier texte, elle renforce le poids des considerations politiques dans l'ethique des affaires et contribue a rapprocher cette branche de l'ethique appliquee de l'ethique economique et sociale. (shrink)

This essay examines Deleuze’s relation to new materialism through an engagement with new materialist claims about the human and nonhuman relation and about agency. It first considers the work of Elisabeth Grosz and then moves on to a consideration of Deleuze’s own conception of a new materialism/new naturalism. I seek to show that Deleuze is an ethically motivated naturalist concerned with an ethical pedagogy of the human, which he derives from his reading of Spinoza. I seek to illuminate some of (...) the principal features of this ethically guided materialism/naturalism and show that even in his later work with Felix Guattari, which situates all life, human and nonhuman, on a plane of immanence, there remains a recognition that the human animal is ethically distinguished as the inventive species par excellence. My main claim, then, is that Deleuze’s project cannot be aligned with a new materialism that supposes a flat ontology and that does away with an ethical distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Although Deleuze bequeaths a complex legacy to post-modern thought in his thinking about the human, it should not be supposed that he has no affinities with aspects of a humanist position and pedagogy. (shrink)

The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for (...) understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage interroge le sens de la relation entre lien magique et métamorphose en essayant de dégager des perspectives philosophiques et politiques spécifiques à la Renaissance et à l'âge classique. La pensée de Giordano Bruno demeure dans cette optique une référence essentielle. Le philosophe nolain n'a de cesse de réfléchir sur le sens de cette relation, puisque c'est à travers elle qu'il construit aussi bien l'art de la mémoire que la pratique magique comme art du lien. Des thèmes comme celui (...) de la fureur héroïque, de la différence entre l'homme et l'animal, de l'action magique ne sont compréhensibles qu'à partir de la relation constitutive entre le lien et la métamorphose. C'est par conséquent en étudiant les "liens de la métamorphose" que l'on peut faire apparaître la constitution d'un spectre de savoirs (magie, philosophie, politique) traversant l'histoire européenne de la Renaissance et de l'âge classique. Cela permet également d'insister sur le rapport que ces savoirs entretiennent avec les pratiques sociales. La philosophie et la magie, loin d'apparaître comme des savoirs abstraits et purement nominaux, s'affirment en réalité comme des discours performatifs légitimant la constitution des liens civils et sociaux. Il s'agit en définitive ici de reconstituer à nouveaux frais des séquences historiques et philosophiques qui tracent les relations entre une sphère des savoirs et une pratique de l'institution du social, dans une perspective comprenant aussi bien des auteurs de la Renaissance (Machiavel, Giordano Bruno) que de l'âge classique et baroque (Hobbes, Graciân)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "If I Stay" Allyson Healeys life is exactly like her suitcase--packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything shes not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will (...) transform Allysons life. A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the "accidents" of fate, "Just One Day" shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost... and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know. The first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willems story--"Just One Year"--is coming soon. (shrink)

One of the main features that distinguish modern novel from traditional one is the use of new narrative techniques such as monologue, flow of consciousness, leitmotiv and intertextuality. These techniques relate to new approaches that take shape in formal elements such as time, characters and event patterns that make up the modern novel. Which expression technique is used in the work is often related to the form and content of the novel. This research examines the Kevâbîsu Beyrût, which uses modern (...) and post modern expression techniques in the Arab novels of the last century, in the context of the content of the work and reveals the appropriateness of the techniques used for the purpose of the work. The authors of the novel, autobiographical, tried to convey the feelings of a civil war in many ways, and remained in the midst of conflicts. The techniques that came to the forefront in his narration have added aesthetic value to the composition of the narration and it has become one of the famous Arab novels. The introduction part of the work consists of the factors that prepared the ground for the civil war that took place in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990, the first chapter, the work of writer Gâde es-Semman, the third chapter; Kevâbîsu will investigate the relation between the narrative techniques of the novel Beirut and the factors leading to the writing of the work. (shrink)

Michael Huemer argues that cross-cultural convergence toward liberal moral values is evidence of objective moral progress, and by extension, evidence for moral realism. Nathan Cofnas claims to debunk Huemer’s argument by contending that convergence toward liberal moral values can be better explained by ‘two related non-truth-tracking processes’: self-interest and its long-term tendency to result in social conditions conducive to greater empathy. This article argues that although Cofnas successfully debunks Huemer’s convergence argument for one influential form of moral realism – Robust (...) Moral Realism, which holds that moral facts are non-natural, stance-independent normative facts – Cofnas’s debunking argument broadly supports a second type of moral realism: Enlightened Self-Interest Realism, the view that moral facts are reducible to stance-dependent requirements of instrumental (‘means-end’) rationality. Finally, this article argues that insofar as different Enlightened Self-Interest Realist theories make specific predictions about the intra- and inter-personal mechanisms behind moral convergence toward liberalism, empirical observations of cross-cultural convergence can provide independent support for Enlightened Self-Interest Realism. I conclude that this is an important mark in favor of Enlightened Self-Interest Realism over Robust Moral Realism. (shrink)

Political ecologists--the theorists of the Green movement--assert that if we do not fundamentally change the way in which our society makes use of nature, then we will destroy the physical basis of our social existence within the foreseeable future. In the light of this insight, this book is concerned to unearth the foundations of our cultural attitudes towards nature and to start the process of building philosophical foundations that could provide the basis of a sustainable relationship between society and the (...) environment. The objective is to provide a critique and reorientation of social theory at the level of epistemology and to question the nature of rationality; the role of ideology and assumptions about human nature which underpin conventional academic social theory. The heart of the analysis comprises a critique of the core values of the Enlightenment that have shaped modern Western thought: Science; Progress and Individualism. To political ecology these represent fundamental problem concepts and the intention of this book is to broaden and deepen our understanding of existing social processes particularly those identified as the 'post-modern' condition of aimless consumerism in relation to environmental issues. The analysis includes sketches of concepts and practices with which political ecology might transcend these values and shows how transformed attitudes can contribute towards solving environmental problems. This is a challenging and original synthesis of philosophy and theory directed towards the greatest issue of our time. It will be essential reading for everyone concerned with the future of the planet. (shrink)

La vie n'a pas fini de nous surprendre. Réduite à des interactions moléculaires mais étendue à des lois d'organisation inattendues, elle est aujourd'hui observée dans des systèmes vivants dont la logique interpelle et renouvelle la pensée rationnelle. Qu'est-ce que l'organisé? L'auto-organisé? Pourquoi et comment percevons-nous des ordres dans la nature, d'où viennent les significations que nous leur attribuons? Notre psychisme, nos sociétés, objets de sciences au statut toujours aussi mal assuré, nous font penser l'organisation comme une création ininterrompue de nouveau, (...) de sens, de vivant, entre et à partir de deux formes de morts, entre le cristal et la fumée. Les sciences de la nature, l'expérience de l'identité et de la pensée juives, la réflexion éthique forment le contexte de ces méditations sur un vivant qui déborde la biologie. (shrink)

The reception of Rawls in France has been an extremely complex story where forces of innovation have been, in the end, overwhelmed by the resistance of `philosophical nationalism'. This is surprising as, in many ways, France was going through tremendous changes and modernization at the time of the translation of A Theory of Justice in 1987. In that context, Rawls's project seemed to have something useful and suggestive to offer: bridging the gap between freedom and equality in a new version (...) of social democracy, combining social justice and market efficiency, respecting the plurality of values within civil society and creating a consensus on democratic legitimacy. But the intellectual obstacles, represented mostly by the French idiosyncratic brand of republicanism, were to prove too strong to allow for a true `liberalization' of French intellectual and political life. Whereas a number of lawyers, economists and political scientists as well as proportion of the French civil service saw all the benefits of a rigorous engagement with Rawls, philosophers and the intelligentsia on the whole, with the exception of Paul Ricoeur, reacted negatively to Rawls. (shrink)

In “The Sources of Knowledge,” Robert Audi distinguishes what he calls the “four standard basic sources” by which we acquire knowledge or justified belief: perception, memory, consciousness, and reason. With the exception of memory, he distinguishes each of the above as a basic source of knowledge. Audi contrasts basic sources with nonbasic sources, concentrating on testimony. After clarifying the relationship between a source and a ground, or “what it is in virtue of which one knows or justifiedly believes,” Audi evaluates (...) the basic sources’ individual and collective autonomy as well as their vulnerability to defeasibility. He also examines the relationship of coherence to knowledge and justification, noting the distinction between a negative dependence on incoherence and a positive dependence on coherence. (shrink)

In this paper, we apply imprinting theory to examine how institutional transformation substantially influences perceptions of corruption that we argue to be incorporated to a varying extent in organizations founded in that period. For this purpose, we compare the effect of a sudden shock (dissolution of the Soviet Union) on the managers' present perceptions to that of a steady transition (EU accession). We consult the 5th round of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey from 2012 to 2014 analyzing 4715 (...) interviews with managers of organizations from twelve Central and Eastern European countries. Our results reveal striking differences in the present perception of corruption for organizations founded immediately before and immediately after these institutional transitions. The study's results contribute to the research on imprinting theory regarding the relationship between organizations and institutional conditions that constitutes a lasting effect on organizational structures. Thus, applying an institutional perspective that considers less stable periods for organizations yields a promising avenue in research on organizational behavior. (shrink)

Works in Sanskrit that deal with governance and ethics are an important repository for moral precepts of kingship. Classic examples of this form of political advice literature, recounted through the fables of animals, are the Pañcatantra and the Hitopadeśa. In various recensions and myriad translations, these works spread throughout Asia. Authors writing in Arabic and Persian displayed a fascination for these texts, beginning significantly with the work of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and his famous translation, Kalīla wa-Dimna. This article treats the transmission (...) of Sanskrit advice literature in the early modern period into Persian and Rekhta. It considers how this literature was translated in the contexts of Muslim imperial and British colonial rule, and asks what it reveals about the relationship between language, knowledge, and politics in South Asia. (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that a multimodal analysis of turn-taking, one of the core areas of conversation analytic research, is needed and has to integrate gaze as one of the most central resources for allocating turns, and that new technologies are available that can provide a solid and reliable empirical foundation for this analysis. On the basis of eye-tracking data of spontaneous conversations, it is shown that gaze is the most ubiquitous next-speaker-selection technique. It can function alone or (...) enhance other techniques. I also discuss the interrelationship between the strength for sequential projection and the choice of next-speaker-selection techniques by a current speaker. The appropriate consideration of gaze leads to a revision of the turn-taking model in that it reduces the domain of self-selection and expands that of the current-speaker-selects-next sub-rule. It also has consequences for the analysis of “simultaneous starts”. (shrink)

This paper proposes an extended version of the interventionist account for causal inference in the practical context of biological mechanism research. This paper studies the details of biological mechanism researchers’ practices of assessing the evidential legitimacy of experimental data, arguing why quantity and variety are two important criteria for this assessment. Because of the nature of biological mechanism research, the epistemic values of these two criteria result from the independence both between the causation of data generation and the causation in (...) question and between different interventions, not techniques. The former independence ensures that the interventions in the causation in question are not affected by the causation that is responsible for data generation. The latter independence ensures the reliability of the final mechanisms not only in the empirical but also the formal aspects. This paper first explores how the researchers use quantity to check the effectiveness of interventions, where they at the same time determine the validity of the difference-making revealed by the results of interventions. Then, this paper draws a distinction between experimental interventions and experimental techniques, so that the reliability of mechanisms, as supported by the variety of evidence, can be safely ensured in the probabilistic sense. The latter process is where the researchers establish evidence of the mechanisms connecting the events of interest. By using case studies, this paper proposes to use ‘intervention’ as the fruitful connecting point of literature between evidence and mechanisms. (shrink)