The article examines four models of data governance emerging in the current platform society. While major attention is currently given to the dominant model of corporate platforms collecting and economically exploiting massive amounts of personal data, other actors, such as small businesses, public bodies and civic society, take also part in data governance. The article sheds light on four models emerging from the practices of these actors: data sharing pools, data cooperatives, public data trusts and personal data sovereignty. We propose (...) a social science-informed conceptualisation of data governance. Drawing from the notion of data infrastructure we identify the models as a function of the stakeholders’ roles, their interrelationships, articulations of value, and governance principles. Addressing the politics of data, we considered the actors’ competitive struggles for governing data. This conceptualisation brings to the forefront the power relations and multifaceted economic and social interactions within data governance models emerging in an environment mainly dominated by corporate actors. These models highlight that civic society and public bodies are key actors for democratising data governance and redistributing value produced through data. Through the discussion of the models, their underpinning principles and limitations, the article wishes to inform future investigations of socio-technical imaginaries for the governance of data, particularly now that the policy debate around data governance is very active in Europe. (shrink)

Background:In the variegated legislative framework on advance directives, the first specific regulation in Italy on this issue came into force only in 2018.Research objective:This qualitative study...

Come pensavano il tempo i Greci di eta arcaica, prima che Platone ed Aristotele ne formulassero una definizione? Nei miti, il tempo della natura, ciclico e rassicurante, non era messo a confronto con quello umano, imprevedibile anche se inesorabilmente determinato. Il ritmo scandito dal sole non era sovrapponibile a quelle della vita umana, l'avvicendarsi delle stagioni non misurava la durata della stirpe. Solo in eta sapienziale (VII-V secolo a.C.) si comincio a pensare il tempo in modo onnicomprensivo e si avverti (...) l'esigenza di misurarne il flusso. In quell'epoca, Eraclito tratteggio una concezione del tempo assolutamente innovativa, capace di ribaltare le visione del mondo trasmessa dai miti. Penso al tempo delle stagioni in analogia con quello interiore e vide nell'inesauribile creativita dell'anima umana lo specchio dell'infinita potenzialita della natura. La concezione offerta da Eraclito, avversata dai filosofi di eta classica e misconosciuta dalla scienza, trasmette ancora oggi, a chi legge con attenzione i frammenti rimasti della sua opera, un fiducioso messaggio di speranza nella capacita umana di vivere creativamente il tempo. (shrink)

Explores the problems posed by identity politics and the possibilities for non-exclusive cultural and gendered positions. The essays are by feminist theorists from several disciplines from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

The conversation with Jill H. Casid and Anna Campbell is a reconceptualization of several themes to develop an aesthetic that incorporates notions of the necropolitical and redefines the concept of the Anthropocene as the Necrocene. The Necrocene implies an era marked by death, decay, and the consequences of human impact on the environment, as well as a critical reflection on the choices individuals and societies make that contribute to the transition from the Anthropocene to the Necrocene. These reflections serve (...) as cautionary tales or reflections on the unsustainable path of the Anthropocene. An important reflection in the interview is how queer and transgender people are using art and assemblages to refuse the terms of the current tensions of the culture wars. (shrink)

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has transgressed biomedical categories. According to Horton, it turned out to be a 'syndrome' that infected virtually all spheres of social life. The pandemic has created toxic social atmosphere highly unfavorable to clinical and clinic-ethical decision making. Constraints and pressures related to micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-environments framing doctors, nurses, and medical students in training were identified. These factors exacerbated moral distress (moral injury) amongst clinicians. In a joint Polish-Lithuanian project (IDUB 2020-2022) we examined predictors of moral (...) distress in pandemic clinical contexts. A survey-based, real-time, correlational and comparative study was conducted in Poland and Lithuania after the first year of pandemic with N=227 participants. Unexpected differences on regular and pandemic-type moral distress levels were found between the two national samples. Polish participants showed significantly higher moral distress levels than their Lithuanian counterparts. The following article discusses these findings and recommends the reinforcement of resilient medical decision making. (shrink)

Mobile social media have become a widespread means to participate in everyday social and professional life. These platforms encourage the disclosure and exchange of personal information, which comes with privacy risks. While past scholarship has listed various predictors and consequences of online privacy concerns, there has been to date no empirical investigation of a conceivable relationship with perceived stress. Using a longitudinal panel study, we examined the reciprocal relationship between mobile social media privacy concerns and perceived stress. Results supported the (...) hypothesis that mobile social media privacy concerns at T1 are associated with higher perceived stress at T2. However, we found no evidence for the reverse association, that is, perceived stress at T1 was not related to mobile social media privacy concerns at T2. The findings are discussed based on two models—the “Antecedents privacy concerns outcomes” model and the “Privacy calculus” model. (shrink)

This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on the previous book on indirect reports in this series, this volume adds an empirical (...) and cross-linguistic approach that covers an impressive range of languages, such as Cantonese, Japanese, Hebrew, Persian, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Armenian, Italian, English, Hungarian, German, Rumanian, and Basque. (shrink)

Emergence of the novel pathogenic coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 and its rapid pandemic spread presents challenges that demand immediate attention. Here, we describe the development of a semi‐quantitative high‐content microscopy‐based assay for detection of three major classes (IgG, IgA, and IgM) of SARS‐CoV‐2 specific antibodies in human samples. The possibility to detect antibodies against the entire viral proteome together with a robust semi‐automated image analysis workflow resulted in specific, sensitive and unbiased assay that complements the portfolio of SARS‐CoV‐2 serological assays. Sensitive, specific (...) and quantitative serological assays are urgently needed for a better understanding of humoral immune response against the virus as a basis for developing public health strategies to control viral spread. The procedure described here has been used for clinical studies and provides a general framework for the application of quantitative high‐throughput microscopy to rapidly develop serological assays for emerging virus infections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NARRATIVE AND EXPLANATION: EXPLAINING ANNA KARENINA IN THE LIGHT OF ITS EPIGRAPH Marina Ludwigs University ofCalifornia, Irvine In this paper, I will be examining the relation of explanation to narrative, looking briefly at the theoretical side ofthe problematic and in more detail at specific explanatory issues that arise in Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. Although the use itselfofthe term "explanation" is not as visible in the humanities (...) as it is in the sciences, the explanatory enterprise by other names is just as prominent. For indeed, an animating impetus behind textual interpretation is an explanation ofhowatextcan be brought into a correspondence with another text, while contemporary critical-theoretical activities of demystifying aesthetic and cultural assumptions, contextualizing historical knowledge, or laying bare ideological presuppositions are, in one way or another, engagements in the explanation ofthe workings of language. I approach humanistic explanation via a brief detour of scientific explanation, which constitutes an already established discourse with a set of defined issues and standard arguments, limiting myself to touching upon issues relevant to the narrativization of explanation. In scientific debates, explanation is defined as an answer to the question of "why?," in contradistinction to the question of "what?," which prompts a description of a phenomenon in question. Descriptive and explanatory conceptual frameworks, however, are interdependent. A physical description involves an "in-depth" understanding of underlying regularities. An explanatory answer to a question is, in its turn, an argument that logically deduces the explanandum (the description ofa phenomenon to be explained) from the explanans (well-understood regularities). This Marina Ludwigs125 formal definition of an explanation necessitates a symmetry between explanation and prediction, because the reconstructed logical sequence can also be read in the other direction, demonstrating the inevitability of what has occurred. Thus the sight of shattered glass and a baseball lying about allows me to explain the accident by invoking the law ofthe conservation ofmomentum and the low shock-resistance ofglass. But the knowledge of these regularities would have also allowed me to predict the same outcome had I seen the baseball flying in its direction ofthe window. The ontological status of "regularities" has elicited a lively debate in the scientific community pertaining to the problem ofthe "real." The standard view of regularities defines them as general laws (the kind we learn about in physics classes) that could be deductive or inductive, deterministic or statistical. A general law may be subsumed under another, even more general law, thus forming a unifying hierarchy of laws. A rival conception appeals to causal mechanisms and defines regularities as established chains oftemporal succession. Both models, the covering-law and the causal one, have been criticized: the former—for its failure to distinguish a law from an accidental generalization; the latter—for its resurrection ofthe metaphysical notion ofcausal influence and its inability to deal with probabilistic events. One of the later contenders is Nancy Cartwright's model, that proposes to conceive of regularities as so-called "nomological machines"—"fixed (enough) arrangements] ofcomponents, or factors, with stable (enough) capacities that in the right sort of stable (enough) environment will, with repeated operation, give rise to the kind of regular behavior that we represent in our scientific laws" (Cartwright 50). Cartwright claims that scientific models work on the ceteris paribus (everything else being equal) basis. That is to say they "hold only in circumscribed conditions or so long as no factors relevant to the effect besides those specified occur" (Cartwright 28), such as inside a battery, refrigerator, or a rocket—insofar as special shielding conditions are in effect (as a counterexample, imagine usingNewton's laws ofmechanics for describing the motion of a dropped crumpled dollar). Cartwright's explanatory framework is thus pragmatic and local, avoiding the twin pitfalls of the metaphysical assumptions underlying the two older models—the totalizing and unifying idea of a covering law, on the one hand, and the influence of causal "force," on the other. What is instead emphasized by her is a procedural aspect of scientific knowledge that has been historically prevalent and reflects the practical exigencies of human existence—the experience of dangers and natural obstacles to human 126Explaining 'Anna Karenina ' desires. When ill-defined impediments are analyzed and reduced to concrete difficulties, specific... (shrink)

By proposing the Microcosm and Macrocosm analogy for dialogue between Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology, the authors of this volume are reviving the perennial positioning of the human condition in the play of forces within and without the human being. This theme has run from Plato through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modernity, and has been ignored by contemporaries. It now acquires a new pertinence and striking significance due to the scientific discoveries into the "infinitely small" in life, on the (...) one hand, and the prodigious technological discoveries of the "infinitely great" on the other. Both open up undreamt-of prospects for the continuing conquest of cosmic forces. The human person – thrown into turmoil by the new approaches to life and needing to acquire new habits of mind, having lost security of all beliefs – desperately seeks a new clarification of the Human Condition within the unity of everything-there-is, of cosmic forces, and of his destiny. The dialogue between Islamic Philosophy and phenomenology of life can show the way. Papers by: Gholam-Reza A'awani, Mehdi Aminrazavi, Roza Davari Ardakani, Mohammad Azadpur, Gary Backhaus, Marina Banchetti-Robino, William Chittick, Seyed Mostafa Muhaghghegh Damad, Golamhossein Ebrahimi Dinani, Nader El-Bizri, Kathleen Haney, Salahaddin Khalilov, Sayyid Mohammad Khamenei, Mahmoud Khatami, Mieczyslaw Pawel Migon, Nikolay Milkov, Sachiko Murata, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Daniela Verducci. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud sah die Anziehungskraft christlich-religiöser „Illusionen“ in der möglichen Aussöhnung des Menschen mit dem Tod begründet. Heute hat die moderne Industriegesellschaft die Religion jedoch weitestgehend hinter sich gelassen, die Vorstellungen von Tod und Sterben haben sich gewandelt. Marina Brandes untersucht, wie, in welchem Alter, an welchen Orten und unter welchen Umständen heute im Vergleich zu vormodernen Epochen normalerweise gestorben wird. Sie zeigt, welche Assoziationen mit dem Tod verknüpft sind und entwickelt vor dem Hintergrund der Medizinalisierung, der Institutionalisierung des (...) Sterbens und der Ausgrenzung der Sterbenden, Perspektiven für ein versöhntes, gutes Sterben. (shrink)

Die Hauptthese dieses Buches ist es, Krankheit und Gesundheit mit Nietzsche auf zwei verschiedenen Ebenen zu denken, nämlich als Ereignisse des Willens zur Macht in einem zirkulär-relationalen Modell, in dem sie sich gegenseitig behaupten, sowie die Metaebene der Konzeptualisierung anzuerkennen. Es behandelt die Schwierigkeit des begrifflichen Denkens, diese Ereignisse einzuholen, und diskutiert kritisch Modellbildungen, die darauf hinauslaufen, dass Krankheit zu überwinden und als lineares singuläres Ereignis zu verstehen sei. In Nietzsches Spätwerk wird die Figur des "dionysischen Künstlers" als Idealisierung der (...) Gesundheit gemäß seiner interpretierenden Sichtweise der Welt dargestellt. Die Relevanz des Buches liegt darin, eine Analyse der Begriffe von Gesundheit und Krankheit (tragischer und schlechter Pessimismus) in direkter Beziehung zu leiblichen Vorgängen vorzulegen, die sich von metaphysisch-dialektischen Voraussetzungen befreit. Zu diesem Zweck widmet die Untersuchung sich einer intertextuellen Lektüre der fünf Vorreden, die Nietzsche 1886/87 zu seinen früheren Schriften verfasste, und verknüpft sie mit der Interpretation des Nachlasses und weiterer Veröffentlichungen aus seiner letzten Schaffensphase. (shrink)

Mental state reasoning or theory-of-mind has been the subject of a rich body of imaging research. Although such investigations routinely tap a common set of regions, the precise function of each area remains a contentious matter. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sought to determine which areas are involved when processing mental state or intentional metarepresentations by focusing on the relational aspect of such representations. Using non-intentional relational representations such as spatial relations between persons and between (...) objects as a contrast, the results ascertained the involvement of the precuneus, the temporal poles, and the medial prefrontal cortex in the processing of intentional representations. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal sulcus and the left temporo-parietal junction were implicated when processing representations that refer to the presence of persons in relational contexts in general. The right temporo-parietal junction, however, was specifically activated for persons entering spatial relations. The level of representational complexity, a previously unexplored factor, was also found to modulate the neural response in some brain regions, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction. These findings highlight the need to take into account the critical roles played by an extensive network of neural regions during mental state reasoning. (shrink)

This handbook presents the conceptions and principles central to every aspect of Hegel’s systematic philosophy. In twenty-eight thematically linked chapters by leading international experts, The Palgrave Hegel Handbook provides reliable, scholarly overviews of each subject, illuminates the main issues and debates, and details concisely the considered views of each contributor. Recent scholarship challenges traditional, largely anti-Kantian, readings of Hegel, focusing instead on Hegel’s appropriation of Kantian epistemology to reconcile idealism with the rejection of foundationalism, coherentism and skepticism. Focused like Kant (...) on showing how fundamental unities underlie the profusion of apparently independent events, Hegel argued that reality is rationally structured, so that its systematic structure is manifest to our properly informed thought. Accordingly, this handbook re-assesses Hegel’s philosophical aims, methods and achievements, and re-evaluates many aspects of Hegel’s enduring philosophical contributions, ranging from metaphysics, epistemology, and dialectic, to moral and political philosophy and philosophy of history. Each chapter, and The Palgrave Hegel Handbook as a whole, provides an informed, authoritative understanding of each aspect of Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

It seems natural to think that emotional experiences associated with a memory of a past event are new and present emotional states triggered by the remembered event. This common conception has nonetheless been challenged at the beginning of the 20th century by intellectuals who considered that emotions can be encoded and retrieved, and that emotional aspects linked to memories of the personal past need not necessary to be new emotional responses caused by the act of recollection. They called this specific (...) kind of memories “affective memories” and defended their existence. My aim here is to expound the historical background of this debate as well as the characterization and development of the notion of affective memory since its first inception. I aim to show that although the debate was left unresolved and the term disappeared from academy around 1930, many of the characterizations of the nature of emotions and memory done by the advocates of affective memory have reappeared in the scientific agenda and been further developed during the last decades. (shrink)

This article is both an elaborated critique on the one-sided analysis of the misogynist nature of ballet as a cultural practice, and a contribution to a more embodied feminist theory. Based on empirical material, that was brought together by observing the body practices in ballet and listening to the life stories of dancers, the author explores the contradictions that the body in ballet provokes. In describing the embodied experiences ofprofessional ballet dancers she shows that ballet offers women the possibility to (...) transcend the discontinuity of body, mind and emotions. (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

Offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought, highlighting the differences between ancient & modern assumptions & stressing the need to be ...

We explore different ways in which the human visual system can adapt for perceiving and categorizing the environment. There are various accounts of supervised (categorical) and unsupervised perceptual learning, and different perspectives on the functional relationship between perception and categorization. We suggest that common experimental designs are insufficient to differentiate between hypothesized perceptual learning mechanisms and reveal their possible interplay. We propose a relatively underutilized way of studying potential categorical effects on perception, and we test the predictions of different perceptual (...) learning models using a two‐dimensional, interleaved categorization‐plus‐reconstruction task. We find evidence that the human visual system adapts its encodings to the feature structure of the environment, uses categorical expectations for robust reconstruction, allocates encoding resources with respect to categorization utility, and adapts to prevent miscategorizations. (shrink)

Canguilhem’s contemporary relevance lies in how he critiques the relation between knowledge and life that underlies Kantian rationality. The latter’s Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment represent life in the form of an exception: life is simultaneously included and excluded from understanding. Canguilhem’s critique can be grouped into three main strands of argument. First, his reference to concepts as preserved problems breaks with Kant’s idea of concepts regarding the living as a ‘unification of the manifold’. Second, Canguilhem’s vital (...) normativity represents life as the potential to resist normative orders that judge the living, relegating Kant’s ‘lawfulness of the contingent’ to a ‘mediocre regularity’. Third, Canguilhem’s introduction of the environment as a ‘category of contemporary thought’ decentres the living/knowing subject and introduces contingency. His idea of the ‘knowledge of life’ leads to the conclusion that life is the condition of possibility of rationality, rather than rationality’s ‘blind spot’. (shrink)

Criticism is a staple of the scientific enterprise and of the social epistemology of science. Philosophical discussions of criticism have traditionally focused on its roles in relation to objectivity, confirmation, and theory choice. However, attention to criticism and to criticizability should also inform our thinking about scientific pursuits: the allocation of resources with the aim of developing scientific tools and ideas. In this paper, we offer an account of scientific pursuitworthiness which takes criticizability as its starting point. We call this (...) the apokritic model of pursuit. Its core ideas are that pursuits are practices governed by norms for asking and answering questions, and that criticism arises from the breach of these norms. We illustrate and advertise our approach using examples from institutional grant review, neuroscience, and sociology. We show that the apokritic model can unify several indices of criticizability, that it can account for the importance of criticizing pursuits in scientific practice, and that it can offer ameliorative advice to erstwhile pursuers. (shrink)

We offer a new account of the role of values in theory choice that captures a temporal dimension to the values themselves. We argue that non-epistemic values sometimes serve as “inquiry tickets,” justifying scientists’ pursuit of certain questions in the short run, while the answers to those questions mitigate transient underdetermination in the long run. Our account of inquiry tickets shows that the role of non-epistemic values need not be restricted to belief or acceptance in order to be relevant to (...) hypothesis choice: the relevance of non-epistemic values to a particular cognitive attitude with respect to h vary over time. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

Marina McCoy explores Plato's treatment of the rhetoric of philosophers and sophists through a thematic treatment of six different Platonic dialogues, including Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist, and Phaedras. She argues that Plato presents the philosopher and the sophist as difficult to distinguish, insofar as both use rhetoric as part of their arguments. Plato does not present philosophy as rhetoric-free, but rather shows that rhetoric is an integral part of philosophy. However, the philosopher and the sophist are distinguished by (...) the philosopher's love of the forms as the ultimate objects of desire. It is this love of the forms that informs the philosopher's rhetoric, which he uses to lead his partner to better understand his deepest desires. McCoy's work is of interest to philosophers, classicists, and communications specialists alike in its careful yet comprehensive treatment of philosophy, sophistry, and rhetoric as portrayed through the drama of the dialogues. (shrink)

What, if anything, do the ‘square’ protests and ‘occupy’ movements of 2011 bring to contemporary democratic theory? And how can we, as political theorists, analyse their discourse and do justice to it? We address these questions through an analysis of the Greek and Spanish protest movements of the spring and summer of 2011, the so-called aganaktismenoi and indignados. We trace the centrality of the critique of representation and politics as usual as well as the ideas about horizontality and autonomy in (...) the protesters’ discourse. These ideas are not only important to their critique of the contemporary liberal democratic regimes in the two countries, but also important to the way in which the protesters organise themselves. Nonetheless, as we shall argue, the protesters are caught within a tension between horizontality and verticality, between autonomy and hegemony, or between moving beyond representation and accepting representational structures. Given this tension, we examine how the protesters negotiate it in three key areas: politics, representation and organisation. Drawing on Jacques Rancière, we further argue that the protesters can be seen as making a claim to equal voice. This is what Rancière refers to as politics proper, and the question is then whether such a politics is possible without falling back into traditional forms of politics. (shrink)

A founding figure of German idealism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte developed a radically new version of transcendental idealism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Fichte follows his intellectual life and presents a comprehensive overview of Fichte's dynamic philosophy, from his engagement with Kant to his rigorously systematic and nuanced Wissenschaftslehre and beyond. Covering a variety of topics and issues in epistemology, ontology, moral and political philosophy, as well as philosophy of right and philosophy of religion, an international team of experts on Fichte explores (...) his important contributions to philosophy. Arranged chronologically, their chapters map Fichte's intellectual and philosophical development and the progression of his thought, identifying what motivated his philosophical inquiry and revealing why his ideas continue to shape discussions today. Alongside wide-ranging chapters advancing new insights into Fichte, there are topical discussions of conceptions and issues central to his philosophy. Featuring a chronology of Fichte's life, as well as a timeline of his publications and lectures, this is an invaluable research resource for all Fichte scholars and a reliable guide for anyone undertaking a study of Fichte and German idealism. (shrink)

Phantasmagoria explores ideas of spirit and soul since the Enlightenment; it traces metaphors that have traditionally conveyed the presence of immaterial forces, and reveals how such pagan and Christian imagery about ethereal beings are embedded in a logic of the imagination, clothing spirits in the languages of air, clouds, light and shadow, glass, and ether itself. Moving from Wax to Film, the book also discusses key questions of imagination and cognition, and probes the perceived distinctions between fantasy and deception; it (...) uncovers a host of spirit forms--angels, ghosts, fairies, revenants, and zombies--that are still actively present in contemporary culture. It reveals how their transformations over time illuminate changing ideas about the self. Phantasmagoria also tells the accompanying story about the means used to communicate such ideas, and relates how the new technologies of the Victorian era were applied to figuring the invisible and the impalpable, and how magic lanterns (the phantasmagoria shows themselves), radio, photography and then moving pictures spread ideas about spirit forces. As the story unfolds, the book features the many eminent men and women--scientists and philosophers--who in the Society of Psychical Research applied their considerable energies to the question of other worlds and other states of mind: they staged trance seances in which mediums produced spirit phenomena, including ectoplasm. The book shows how this often embarrassing story connects with some of the important scientific discoveries of a fertile age, in psychology and physics. Over a sequence of twenty-eight chapters, with over thirty illustrations in color and black and white, Phantasmagoria thus tells an unexpected and often uncomfortable story about shifts in thought about consciousness and the individual person, from the first public waxworks portraits at the end of the eighteenth century to stories of hauntings, possession, and loss of self as in the case of the zombie, a popular figure of soulessness, in modern times. (shrink)

The philosopher Lev Shestov aimed to establish a new free way of thinking, which manifested itself as a struggle against the delusion that we have a rational grasp of the necessary truths on matters that are of the greatest importance to us, such as the questions of life and death. Philosophy, as the Russian philosopher understood it, is not pure thinking, but ‘some kind of inner doing, inner regeneration, or second birth’ (Shestov in Lektsii po Istorii Grecheskoi Filosofii [Lectures on (...) the history of Greek philosophy], YMCA-PRESS, Moscow, 2001, p. 53). Having adopted the notion of the ‘regeneration of one’s convictions’ from Dostoevsky’s vocabulary in his earlier works, Shestov developed the idea of ‘awakening’ further in his mature thought, in which the motif of ‘awakening’ comprised one of the main ideas of his philosophy: the fight for the individual’s right to freedom and to creative transformation at a time when she is in despair or on the brink of death. In this article, I analyse Shestov’s idea of ‘awakening’ as one of the key tropes and developmental characteristics of his philosophical vision. In particular, I argue that, having stemmed from Shestov’s earlier interpretations of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare and Plotinus, in his later writings, the notion of ‘awakening’—the possibility of a fundamental, inner transformation of one’s worldview (probuzhdenie, pererozhdenie)—marked the beginning of a new salvific mode in his writing. (shrink)

New technology develops with little attention to its impact upon human values. In particular, let us do what we can in this era of “the computer revolution” to see that computer technology advances human values. True enough, we could argue endlessly over the meanings of terms like “privacy,” “health,” “security,” “fairness,” or “ownership.” Philosophers do it all the time – and ought to. But people understand such values well enough to desire and even to treasure them. We do not need (...) absolute clarity or unattainable unanimity before we do anything to advance them. Professional groups are both technical and moral communities because in order to be self-regulatory the members must set shared goals and specify appropriate ways to achieve them. In order to specify these appropriatestandards it is necessary to detail what types of behavior are ethically acceptable or not. The three most important functions of a code, he notes, identify different types of codes. Codes are either primarily (1) aspirational, giving ideals to strive for, (2) educational, intending to educate or socialize some constituency, or (3) regulatory, hoping to sanction violations of the standards. Most codes are intended to achieve all three aims to some degree, but a careful examination may reveal a concentration upon one of these. Advancements in computer technology over the past twenty years have created ethical dilemmas, some similar toother professions and some unique to the computer field. Because of the questions that have been raised, and in some instances sensational news accounts of computer irregularities, including fraud, there is a growing perception that self-regulation may be the only means by which the computer professional associations will prevent governments from intervening to regulate the computer profession. (shrink)

White lies, lies that are beneficial to the addressee and uttered out of concern for them, are pervasive in daily life. This raises a prima facie question: if white lies are so common, are they still lies? I tackle this question from the perspective of speech act theory, using the case of white lies to shed light on the broader question of whether lying itself can be considered a type of speech act. Adopting Sbisà’s (Uptake and Conventionality in Illocution. Lodz (...) Papers in Pragmatics 5 33–52. Reprinted in Marina Sbisà (forthcoming), Essays on Speech Acts and Other Topics in Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) neo-Austinian approach that places the emphasis on the achievement of certain conventional effects, I claim that malicious lying cannot be a type of speech act. However, white lies are a type of speech act, a claim which finds support in three types of evidence: the conventionality of means by which white lies are performed, their online processing, and their acquisition. Moreover, the existence of a continuum between white (harmless) lies (which are a type of speech act) and malicious (harmful) lies (which are not) suggests that whether an utterance performs a certain type of speech act or not can be a matter of degree. In other words, the property itself of being a speech act of a certain kind, an utterance’s speech-act-hood, so to speak, may be graded. This is an interesting result, which applies to speech acts more generally, beyond lying. (shrink)