The purpose of this paper is to introduce an exceptional document preserved at the Louvre Museum under the mark MAO 2098. The manuscript is a calligraphic genealogical scroll relating to the Ḫwāğas, members of a Sufi Naqšbandi lineage of East Turkestan which was extremely powerful during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Striving to join the dots literally as well as figuratively, I propose to read the šağara in several different ways. Most obviously, the text provides some limited new information (...) on members of the Āfāqi branch of the Ḫwāğa family. At the same time, we can read the text as a communicative device serving to advance two intertwined social practices: family strategies and the construction of power. Produced within a forum of competition with other aristocratic households, prestigious Sufi lineages in particular, the scroll serves to highlight both the Šarīfian origin of the family and the hereditary succession of its spiritual leaders. At the same time, the manuscript’s remarkable aesthetic qualities served to impress upon those who saw in it the numinous force of the Ḫwāğas’ supernatural authority. (shrink)

Peano was one of the driving forces behind the development of the current mathematical formalism. In this paper, we study his particular approach to notational design and present some original features of his notations. To explain the motivations underlying Peano's approach, we first present his view of logic as a method of analysis and his desire for a rigorous and concise symbolism to represent mathematical ideas. On the basis of both his practice and his explicit reflections on notations, we discuss (...) the principles that guided Peano's introduction of new symbols, the choice of characters, and the layout of formulas. Finally, we take a closer look, from a systematic and historical perspective, at one of Peano's most striking innovations, his use of dots for the grouping of subformulas. (shrink)

Present, as Manuel Castells (1996) notes, we live in the information age. Knowledge and the way it is acquired and processed are the driving forces of the economy, and information processing systems are the strength of economies. The aim of this article is to identify the key role of the information supply phenomenon in contemporary socio-economic processes. The initial part of the article will define such concepts as: information, infodemia, information market, in the further part examples of the use of (...) information in the process of forming social behaviour in the market context will be presented. For this purpose, three major economic crises from the turn of the 20th and 21st century will be used cross-sectionally. The first will be described as the dot-com crisis, i.e. the first global Internet players, which led to the collapse or loss of value of many global Internet platforms through the creation and bursting of a speculative bubble. The second crisis described below was related to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a leading US bank, and the US housing crisis. In the above case, both supply and concealment of information in the public sphere could be observed. The last crisis described is the crisis related to the SARS-COV2 pandemic, in which dis- and mis- information activities proved to be crucial. (shrink)

Amidst a worsening climate crisis, there is growing public discourse theorising the possible colonisation of outer space to secure a sustainable future for humanity. In the face of these escapist fantasies, political discussion on humanity's relation to the universe is notably limited and primarily frames space exploration as a dangerous Promethean endeavour. While I do not contest this claim, I argue that humanity's technological capabilities and acquired knowledge of the universe can alternatively facilitate an Earth-centred engagement with the Cosmos as (...) a sublime aesthetic experience. I frame the sublime Cosmos and its infinite expanse of dynamic material forces, as a site of resistance against Promethean visions of human mastery and colonisation. I then theorise how the sublime Cosmos can be productively engaged as a source of political imagination and spiritual elevation. Recovering a spiritual attachment to Earth is necessary, for we are irrevocably tied to this rapidly destabilising planet. (shrink)

The Theme. Strong forcing axioms like Martin’s Maximum give a reasonably satisfactory structural analysis of $H(\omega _2)$. A broad program in modern Set Theory is searching for strong forcing axioms beyond $\omega _1$. In other words, one would like to figure out the structural properties of taller initial segments of the universe. However, the classical techniques of forcing iterations seem unable to bypass the obstacles, as the resulting forcings axioms beyond $\omega _1$ have not thus far been strong enough! However, (...) with his celebrated work on generalised side conditions, I. Neeman introduced us to a novel paradigm to iterate forcings. In particular, he could, among other things, reprove the consistency of the Proper Forcing Axiom using an iterated forcing with finite supports. In 2015, using his technology of virtual models, Veličković built up an iteration of semi-proper forcings with finite supports, hence reproving the consistency of Martin’s Maximum, an achievement leading to the notion of a virtual model.In this thesis, we are interested in constructing forcing notions with finitely many virtual models as side conditions to preserve three uncountable cardinals. The thesis constitutes six chapters and three appendices that amount to 118 pages, where Section 1 is devoted to preliminaries, and Section 2 is a warm-up about the scaffolding poset of a proper forcing. In Section 3, we present the general theory of virtual models in the context of forcing with sets of models of two types, where we, e.g., define the “meet” between two virtual models and prove its properties.The main results are joint with Boban Veličković, and partly appeared in Guessing models and the approachability ideal, J. Math. Log. 21 (2021).Pure Side Conditions. In Section 4, we use two types of virtual models (countable and large non-transitive ones induced by a supercompact cardinal, which we call Magidor models) to construct our forcing with pure side conditions. The forcing covertly uses a third type of models that are transitive. We also add decorations to the conditions to add many clubs in the generic $\omega _2$. In contrast to Neeman’s method, we do not have a single chain, but $\alpha $ -chains, for an ordinal $\alpha $ with $V_\alpha \prec V_\lambda $. Thus, starting from suitable large cardinals $\kappa <\lambda $, we construct a forcing notion whose conditions are finite sets of virtual models described earlier. The forcing is strongly proper, preserves $\kappa $, and has the $\lambda $ -Knaster property. The relevant quotients of the forcing are strongly proper, which helps us prove strong guessing model principles. The construction is generalisable to a ${<}\mu $ -closed forcing, for any given cardinal $\mu $ with $\mu ^{<\mu }=\mu <\kappa $.The Iteration Theorem. In Section 5, we use the forcing with pure side conditions to iterate a subclass of proper and $\aleph _2$ -c.c. forcings and obtain a forcing axiom at the level of $\aleph _2$. The iterable class is closely related to Asperó–Mota’s forcing axiom for finitely proper forcings.Guessing Model Principles. Section 6 encompasses the main parts of the thesis. We prove the consistency of the guessing principle $\mathrm {GMP}^+(\omega _3,\omega _1)$ that states for any cardinal ${\theta \geq \omega _3}$, the set of $\aleph _2$ -sized elementary submodels M of $H(\theta )$, which are the union of an $\omega _1$ -continuous $\in $ -chain of $\omega _1$ -guessing, I.C. models is stationary in $\mathcal P_{\omega _3}(H(\theta ))$. The consistency and consequences of this principle are demonstrated in the following diagram. We also prove that one can obtain the above guessing models in a way that the $\omega _1$ -sized $\omega _1$ -guessing models remain $\omega _1$ -guessing model in any outer transitive model with the same $\omega _1$, and we denote this principle by $\rm{SGMP}^+(\omega_3,\omega_1)$.In the following diagram, $\mathrm{TP}$ stands for the tree property; $w\mathrm{KH}$ stands for the weak Kurepa Hypothesis; $\mathrm{MP}$ stands for Mitchell property, i.e., the approachability ideal is trivial modulo the nonstationary ideal; $\mathrm{AP}$ stands for the approachability property; $\mathrm {AMTP}(\kappa ^+)$ states that if $2^\kappa <\aleph _{\kappa ^+}$, then every forcing which adds a new subset of $\kappa ^+$ whose initial segments are in the ground model, collapses some cardinal $\leq 2^{\kappa }$. The dotted arrow denotes the relative consistency, while others are logical implications.Appendices. Appendix A includes merely the above diagram. Appendix B presents a proof of the Mapping Reflection Principle with finite conditions under $\mathrm {PFA}$. Appendix C contains open problems. Finally, the thesis’s bibliography consists of 42 items.Abstract prepared by Rahman MohammadpourE-mail: [email protected]: https://theses.hal.science/tel-03209264. (shrink)

The photosynthetic organelle of algae and plants (the plastid) traces its origin to a primary endosymbiotic event in which a previously non‐photosynthetic protist engulfed and enslaved a cyanobacterium. This eukaryote then gave rise to the red, green and glaucophyte algae. However, many algal lineages, such as the chlorophyll c‐containing chromists, have a more complicated evolutionary history involving a secondary endosymbiotic event, in which a protist engulfed an existing eukaryotic alga (in this case, a red alga). Chromists such as diatoms and (...) kelps then rose to great importance in aquatic habitats. Another algal group, the dinoflagellates, has undergone tertiary (engulfment of a secondary plastid) and even quaternary endosymbioses. In this review, we examine algal diversity and show endosymbiosis to be a major force in algal evolution. This area of research has advanced rapidly and long‐standing issues such as the chromalveolate hypothesis and the extent of endosymbiotic gene transfer have recently been clarified. BioEssays 26:50–60, 2004. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Self-Interest before Adam Smith inquires into the foundations of economic theory. It is generally assumed that the birth of modern economic science, marked by the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776, was the triumph of the 'selfish hypothesis'. Yet, as a neo-Epicurean idea, this hypothesis had been a matter of controversy for over a century and Smith opposed it from a neo-Stoic point of view. But how can the Epicurean principles of orthodox economic theory be reconciled with the (...) Stoic principles of Adam Smith's philosophy? Pierre Force shows how Smith's theory refutes the 'selfish hypothesis' and integrates it at the same time. He also explains how Smith appropriated Rousseau's 'republican' critique of modern commercial society, and makes the case that the autonomy of economic science is an unintended consequence of Smith's 'republican' principles. (shrink)

Despite much discussion of thedigital divide, little academic work hasdirectly analyzed the specific political andpolicy contexts in which the concept is beingdeveloped and deployed. This paper undertakesan analysis of one such initiative, theactivity of the supranational DigitalOpportunity Task Force (DOT Force). Theanalysis provides a critical discursiveanalysis of the final report of the DOT Force,together with thick description of theprocesses by which it was produced. Theresolution of numerous antagonisms between theparticipants in the narrative of the finalreport reflects the (...) field of power in which theDOT Force operates. The issue of the digitaldivide can be best understood as providing agenerative resource through which the variouspolitical interests represented in the DOTForce process can normatively reconfigure theconceptual and ethical possibilities itsignifies to renew a dominant, singular'secular salvation story' of the global. Thespecific closure, articulation and legitimationof the digital divide instantiates anaction-oriented temporality and a transformedmoral agenda, from a concern with inequality toa pressing inclusionary imperative to connectwith the promise of technology and development. (shrink)

Ethics consultation has become an integral part of the fabric of U.S. health care delivery. This article summarizes the second edition of the Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation report of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. The core knowledge and skills competencies identified in the first edition of Core Competencies have been adopted by various ethics consultation services and education programs, providing evidence of their endorsement as health care ethics consultation (HCEC) standards. This revised report was prompted (...) by thinking in the field that has evolved since the original report. Patients, family members, and health care providers who encounter ethical questions or concerns that ethics consultants could help address deserve access to efficient, effective, and accountable HCEC services. All individuals providing such services should be held to the standards of competence and quality described in the revised report. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:166 HUME'S INTEREST IN NEWTON AND SCIENCE Many writers have been forced to examine — in their treatments of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with scientific theories of his day — the related questions of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with Isaac Newton and of the nature and extent of Newtonian influences upon Hume's thinking. Most have concluded that — in some sense — Hume was acquainted with and (...) influenced by Newton's thought in particular and scientific thought in general. The genesis of this paper is the recent point of view put forward by Peter Jones which challenges the many permutations of this almost ritualistic standard line by removing Hume entirely from the Newtonian and the scientific scenes of thought. Jones argues that Hume knew less about Newton and science, and needed to know less about Newton and 2 science, than he believes is required by the above interpretation. Indeed, Jones argues that Hume's fundamental assumptions, which, according to Jones, derive ultimately from a form of Ciceronian humanism, drive a "wedge" between Newton's thought and that of 3 Hume. Even Hume's introductory remarks in the Treatise about his universal "science of man" are, for Jones, a declaration of independence from the materialistic trend (as Jones sees it) of Newtonian 4 science and not, as so many commentators have maintained — however tenuously or strongly evidence for linkage of Hume's project with Newtonian or scientific thought. Jones baldly argues that Hume totally lacked interest in science in general and in Newton and Newtonian science in particular. Following J. H. Burton's observation that Hume's work is surprisingly free from the "opinions" of contemporary scientists, 167 Jones states there is no evidence that Hume ever studied science at the University of Edinburgh or that he "pursued" scientific studies of any formal sort. Regarding Newtonian scientific thought, he emphasizes the paucity of specifically Newtonian scientific textbooks in the early eighteenth century 7 which might have been available for Hume to study and argues that nowhere in Hume's writings is there evidence of precise and detailed knowledge of Newton's science beyond what is available in Q Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Jones acknowledges that, in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume utilizes a "general version" of Newton's "Regulae Philosophandi" from the beginning of Book III of Newton's Principia. Nevertheless, in Jones' view, Hume's fundamentally humanistic orientation separates him completely from g any Newtonian influence. Finally, according to Jones, Hume does not betray the least bit of knowledge of Newton's mathematics and its role in Newton's experimental methodology. On this evidence Jones grounds his central claim of Hume's "total lack of interest in contemporary science." What references there are to Newton and to science in Hume's works Jones finds "traceable to essentially literary predecessors such as Fontenelle or Montesquieu, or to standard works of theologians ] 2 or free-thinkers." The absence of clearly direct references to what Jones feels are scientific works results both from Hume's "total lack of interest in science" and from his commitment to a form of Ciceronian humanism which is "inimical" to what Jones finds to be the obvious materialistic tendencies of 13 science in the early modern period. Jones' account of the Ciceronian and French contexts of Hume's thought is excellent. But his claim that Hume had no interest whatsoever in science 168 is simply too strong and finally forces us to view science in Hume's day as equivalent to science in our own time, a manifestly anachronistic point of view. Throughout this paper, my argument will be conditioned by my view that Hume's interest in science cannot be separated from his epistemology or his religious scepticism. Hume's interest in science was precisely that of a man of letters of the eighteenth century vitally engaged in determining the proper use of scientific methodology in establishing the limits of the secular science of man once it has 14 been freed from the fetters of theology. Hume's interest in theological and epistemological issues inevitably gave rise to a strong interest on his part in the science of his day and in Newton's contributions... (shrink)

This article revisits what has often been called the of Voltaire's historical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for Voltaire's deliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history, his refusal to in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determining the relevance of past events to world history. Voltaire's historical practice is put in the context of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition of universal history going back (...) to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century German historicism. Paradoxically, Voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography not in spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but because of it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne and the Coherence of EclecticismPierre ForceSince the publication of Pierre Hadot's essays on ancient philosophy by Arnold Davidson in 1995,2 Michel Foucault's late work on "the care of the self"3 has appeared in a new light. We now know that Hadot's work was familiar to Foucault as early as the 1950s.4 It is also clear that Foucault's notion of "techniques of the self" is very close to what (...) Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." At the same time, there are important differences between the views of these two philosophers, and Hadot has often expressed his regret that Foucault's untimely death prevented them from exploring these differences.5 One important point of disagreement was the status of eclecticism. In Foucault's interpretation of ancient philosophy, the "constitution of the self" implied a personal choice among disparate philosophical references: "Writing as a personal exercise done by the self and for the self, is an art of disparate truth."6 In a 1989 article Hadot argued from a historical point of view that, so far as Stoicism and Epicureanism were concerned, [End Page 523] eclecticism had no place in a mature practice of philosophy. Foucault's favorite example, Seneca's Letters to Lucilius, in which Stoic arguments were invoked along with Epicurean arguments, was a work for beginners. In a mature practice of Stoicism, one would stick to the arguments of the Stoic school, choose them for their coherence, and instead of trying to forge a spiritual identity for oneself through writing, one would "liberate oneself from one's individuality in order to raise oneself up to universality."7 Hadot added that "it is only in the New Academy—in the person of Cicero, for instance—that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment."8 This discussion of Foucault may give the impression that Hadot was somewhat dismissive of eclecticism. Yet in a 2001 interview Hadot claimed that he had always admired Cicero's intellectual independence, and he proposed a reappraisal "of an attitude that has always had a bad reputation: eclecticism."9Something very similar is a stake in the work of Alexander Nehamas, as Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy showed in their study of his Art of Living. In the conception of philosophy as a "way of life" (Hadot) or "care of the self" (Foucault) or "self-fashioning" (Nehamas), a central issue is the relationship between theoretical coherence and the coherence of the person who theorizes. Elaborating on Nehamas's chapter on Montaigne, Anderson and Landy argue that there is a move in Montaigne away from doctrinal coherence and towards a coherence of the self. As they put it, "the harmonious whole Montaigne commends [... ] is not a coherent body of fact or theory; it is the unified self of the theorizer."10 Anderson and Landy show that this brings up all kinds of difficulties: can this unified self be other than a fiction? If that is the case, how can philosophy be a way of life? Nehamas's answer is very much in the spirit of the late Foucault: there is a coherence of the self in Montaigne, and this coherence is the product of writing as a philosophical activity. The self is fashioned through writing.Because Montaigne writes in the ancient tradition of philosophy as a way of life, one may recall Hadot's suggestion that Foucault's notion of [End Page 524] "writing the self" is an intriguing but historically inaccurate description of ancient philosophical practice. But perhaps Hadot agrees with Foucault after all, since in his most recent interviews, he speaks favorably of eclecticism, a notion that is central to Foucault's analysis of self-fashioning through writing. The case of Montaigne is particularly interesting for these purposes, not only because the Essays seem to be the prototypical example of "writing the self," but also because eclecticism is both discussed and practiced throughout the Essays. I propose to take a fresh look at this issue by investigating the status of eclecticism in Montaigne's Essays. This must start with an examination of the philosophical tradition most closely associated with... (shrink)

The French philosopher and intellectual historian Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) is known primarily for his conception of philosophy as spiritual exercise, which was an essential reference for the later Foucault. An aspect of his work that has received less attention is a set of methodological reflections on intellectual history and on the relationship between philosophy and history. Hadot was trained initially as a philosopher and was interested in existentialism as well as in the convergence between philosophy and poetry. Yet he chose (...) to become a historian of philosophy and produced extensive philological work on neo-Platonism and ancient philosophy in general. He found a philosophical rationale for this shift in his encounter with Wittgenstein's philosophy in the mid-1950s (Hadot was one of Wittgenstein's earliest French readers and interpreters). For Hadot, ancient philosophy must be understood as a series of language games, and each language game must be situated within the concrete conditions in which it happened. The reference to Wittgenstein therefore supports a strongly contextualist and historicist stance. It also supports its exact opposite: presentist appropriations of ancient texts are entirely legitimate, and they are the only way ancient philosophy can be existentially meaningful to us. Hadot addresses the contradiction by embracing it fully and claiming that his own practice aims at a coincidence of opposites (a concept borrowed from the Heraclitean tradition). For Hadot the fullest and truest way of doing philosophy is to be a philosopher and a historian at the same time. (shrink)

Taking Pascal's appropriation of Montaigne as its main example, this article asks what it means to "say something new" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It argues that literary and philosophical innovation is best understood in reference to the rhetorical tradition, and it analyzes what "saying something new" means in terms of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, decorum, and ethos. Close attention is also paid to the relationship between economy and equity (in the rhetorical sense of these terms). For Pascal and Montaigne, (...) the "new" is desirable not for its own sake, but rather as an exercise for the soul. (shrink)

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies. This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its (...) primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well as historians of the philosophical ideas of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. (shrink)

A CLOSE READING OF HUME’S ESSAY, "OF MIRACLES", REVEALS THAT HUME SPECIFICALLY AIMS HIS SCEPTICAL ARGUMENT AT THE PROOF OF CHRISTIAN REVELATION VIA FULFILLED PROPHETIC PREDICTIONS AS WELL AS AT MIRACLES. JOHNSON IS UNAWARE OF THIS FACT AND SO I CONCLUDE THAT HE HIMSELF HAD NOT READ THE ESSAY CLOSELY, THAT HE PROBABLY ONLY KNEW THE GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE ARGUMENT AT SECOND HAND THROUGH BOSWELL.

THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE IS TO SUPPORT KEMP SMITH’S INTERPRETATION THAT PHILO, IN THE "DIALOGUES", SPEAKS FOR HUME "FROM START TO FINISH." THIS INTERPRETATION HAS RECENTLY BEEN QUESTIONED BY PROFESSOR JAMES NOXON WHO BELIEVES THAT PHILO IS A TRUE PYRRHONIAN SCEPTIC AND THEREFORE DOES NOT REPRESENT THE MITIGATED SCEPTICISM OF HUME. I SUPPORT KEMP SMITH’S INTERPRETATION BY SUGGESTING WHY PHILO SEEMS TO REVERSE HIMSELF AT THE END OF THE "DIALOGUES" AND TO ACCEPT THE DESIGN ARGUMENT AS SUPPORT FOR A (...) VAGUE SORT OF THEISM: HUME INTENDS PHILO’S ’REVERSAL’ TO APPEASE NOT THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT WHICH HE DESPISES, BUT THE SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT WHICH HE RESPECTS. (shrink)

III. INTERPRÉTATION ET CONTRARIÉTÉS 1. Contrariétés et apologétique Le Père Garasse justifie l'existence de contradictions dans la Bible en comparant les Ecritures au corpus des textes législatifs, que les juristes ont souvent du mal à ...

Professor Margaret Jo Osler of the University of Calgary, an historian of early modern science and philosophy (and a member of the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy since 2002) died on September 15, 2010. Born on November 27, 1942, she proudly proclaimed herself to be a "red diaper baby" and particularly delighted in telling her right-wing friends how her middle name was her parents' homage to Stalin. An energetic scholar with a vibrant and positive (...) personality, Maggie, as everyone who worked with her came to call her, never considered retirement and was actively working right up to her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in early July, 2010.After graduating from Swarthmore College in .. (shrink)

This latest book, whose editors were among those who prepared the first two volumes, centers on Popkin's crucial role in bringing together scholars from around ...

This study analyzes the ideals of responsibility and accountability, asking such questions as when it is legitimate to blame top officials of an organization for mistakes made by personnel below them in the bureaucratic hierarchy; when things go wrong in a large and complex organization like the Canadian Forces, who is responsible and accountable; and whether a plea of ignorance is a good excuse. The study also analyzes the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in both the British and Canadian parliamentary traditions, (...) asking whether it is realistic to expect that a government minister should be held responsible for everything that goes wrong in his/her department. Finally, traditional military values are examined, considering the kinds of attitudes and values expected from Canada's armed forces and the differences between the military and civilian sectors. (shrink)