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)

Plato’s Protagoras plays off the genre of Greek comedy in its expression of its philosophical meaning. This dialogue at points invites us to re-envision Socrates against the backdrop of Aristophanes’ criticisms of Socrates and the sophists. The Protagoras follows some of the conventions of Greek comedy but interrupts its form with moments of lengthier rational discussion absent in Greek comedy. The dialogue’s logos and antilogos lead to aporia, but this aporia shows a limit to reason that recognizes human incompleteness without (...) leading to misology. In contrast to performed drama, the written form of the dialogue both engages its audience’s emotions while allowing the reader to return to the text and to continue their rational assessment of the arguments. (shrink)

The continued development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) towards increasing resolution and complexity is a predominantly chosen strategy to advance climate science, resulting in channelling of research and funding to meet this aspiration. Yet many other modelling strategies have also been developed and can be used to understand past and present climates, to project future climates and ultimately to support decision-making. We argue that a plurality of climate modelling strategies and an equitable distribution of funding among them would be an (...) improvement on the current predominant strategy for informing policy making. To support our claim, we use a philosophy of science approach to compare increasing resolution and complexity of General Circulation Models with three alternate examples: the use of machine learning techniques, the physical climate storyline approach, and Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity. We show that each of these strategies prioritises a particular set of methodological aims, among which are empirical agreement, realism, comprehensiveness, diversity of process representations, inclusion of the human dimension, reduction of computational expense, and intelligibility. Thus, each strategy may provide adequate information to support different specific kinds of research and decision questions. We conclude that, because climate decision-making consists of different kinds of questions, many modelling strategies are all potentially useful, and can be used in a complementary way. (shrink)

Osip Mandel'štam belongs among the greatest Russian poets of the twentieth century. During the thirties, when he led a tragic existence and felt a premonition of his inevitable violent death, Mandel'štam saw in Dante not only the greatest poet, but also his own superior teacher, and his poems of that period contain a tormented meditation on the masterpiece of Dante's genius -- the "Divine Comedy". Epic poetry of Dante, Homer, Virgil and others was possible because the inner world of each (...) poet was essentially at one with the ethos of the society in which he lived. Mandel'štam's inner world was Judaeo-Christian, European, and rooted in classical and neo-Platonic philosophy, but his outer world, consisting of a new Marxist or pseudo-Marxist system, was totally at odds with it. Thus Mandel'štam could not embody the epic impulse of the society he opposed. He was left with the tormented lyric impulse. The fundamental conflict between Mandel'štam as a lyric poet and the society in which he had to live and work accounts for the fact that his vision of Stalinist society in a number of respects remarkably corresponds to Dante's vision of a perverted divine order in the Inferno. (shrink)

In Mandel'štam's writing, artistic creativity is described as based on the indispensable yet contradictory modes of compliance and deviation. The artist, by his artistic nature, must be an "obedient disciple" to the tradition that inspires him, and, at the same time, a "violator" who renders what inspires him in an individual form. Thus, art implies iterability through novelty. In the totalitarian state, this double nature of art acquires a sinister context and brings the artist to an unavoidable conflict with the (...) state. He has a choice between a servile compliance with the state's command and artistic independence. If the artist complies, he loses his ingenuity; if, on the other hand, he has the courage to break away from the established order, his fate is martyrdom. The criteria of truth and falsehood, the issue of loyalty, of compromise and collaboration or resistance become most relevant. Such words as "outcast" or "non-contemporary" acquire the meaning of "non-collaborationist" or "enemy of the people". In the totalitarian state a genuine artist is viewed as a "law-breaker", and his art leads him to "crime". The notions of compliance and deviation cease being merely aesthetic terms and assume in Mandel'štam's poetry complex, subtle and tragic overtones. (shrink)

This paper develops a largely neglected parallel between prudence and population ethics. Prudence is generally understood to be concerned with the balancing of well-being over time. How, precisely, well-being ought to be balanced over time, however, is a fervently debated question. I argue that developing a standard guiding such evaluations is exceedingly challenging. This is due to an often overlooked fact about prudence, namely that it shares a structural similarity with population ethics: In both contexts, we assess the comparative value (...) of populations of personstages/people, which may vary in number and level of well-being. Based on this analogy, I show that the development of an adequate theory of prudence runs into very similar impossibility results as obtain in population ethics. In particular, I prove that Arrhenius’ fifth impossibility theorem can be applied to prudence. I develop and compare four possible answers to this challenge. First, I discuss the possibility of accepting the very repugnant conclusion intrapersonally. Second, I present and further develop Donald Bruckner’s Minimax Regret approach, which gives up Transitivity. Third, I apply Jacob Nebel’s Lexical Threshold View to prudence and critically evaluate it. Lastly, I introduce what I call the Negative Lexicality View, which is based on Lexical Threshold View but overcomes some of its problems. (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)

The Extent of the Literal develops a strikingly new approach to metaphor and polysemy in their relation to the conceptual structure. In a straightforward narrative style, the author argues for a reconsideration of standard assumptions concerning the notion of literal meaning and its relation to conceptual structure. She draws on neurophysiological and psychological experimental data in support of a view in which polysemy belongs to the level of words but not to the level of concepts, and thus challenges some seminal (...) work on metaphor and polysemy within cognitive linguistics, lexical semantics and analytical philosophy. (shrink)

In many areas of the social and behavioral sciences, the nature of the experiments and theories that best capture the underlying constructs are themselves areas of active inquiry. Integrative experiment design risks being prematurely exploitative, hindering exploration of experimental paradigms and of diverse theoretical accounts for target phenomena.

In this paper we set out the context in which experiences of mental distress occur with an emphasis on the contributions of social and structural factors and then make a case for the use of intersectionality as an analytic and methodological framework for understanding these factors. We then turn to the political urgency for taking up the concept of recovery and argue for the importance of research and practice that addresses professional domination of the field, and that promotes ongoing engagement (...) and dialogue about recovery as both a personal and social experience. To this end, we describe a unique project that sought to deepen our understanding of how recovery is being thought about and applied in the current context of mental health care in Vancouver, BC, with a specific focus on how, and whether, people are taking up and addressing dimensions of power that we see as critical to the operationalization of recovery within a social justice framework. Emerging from our research and discussion is a set of critical questions about whether or not the political moment in Canada with respect to re-invigorating recovery should be embraced, versus a rejection of the concept of recovery as too limiting in its scope and too vulnerable to professional co-optation. (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)

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)

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)

The article is devoted to the little-studied component of architectural creativity - architectural graphics. At the same time, the purpose of the article is three-dimensional: to consider the categorical, historical and postmodern problems of architectural graphics, which will allow to outline a holistic picture of this cultural phenomenon. The article uses the methods of typological, historical and synchronous-cult analysis of both specific architectural artifacts and trends in the development of architectural graphics in general. It has been proven that architectural graphics, (...) as a unique type of graphics, are a means of expressing the creative ideas of an architect. They define, define and correct the direction of his professional searches. Graphics influence the creativity of a design as it serves as a graphical visualization of an architecture. Architectural graphics are the line between the design calculation and the creative imagination of the author. He performs artistic and engineering tasks at the same time. The article deals with the problem of architectural graphics as a specific creative activity, which, as a result of historical development, has formed into a separate genre direction. A number of conceptual and terminological issues are touched upon, including the definition of the very concept of «architectural graphics». The priority features of architectural graphics and variants of its stylistic solutions by different architects and designers have been identified. (shrink)

In the article, philosophical and methodological analysis of the program of Hilbert’s formalism as a really working direction for consideration of the bases of modern mathematics is presented. For the professional mathematicians methodological advantages of the program of formalism advanced by David Hilbert, consist primarily in the fact that the highest possible level of theoretical rigor of modern mathematical theories was practically represented there. To resolve the fundamental difficulties of the problem of bases of mathematics, according to Hilbert, the theory (...) of mathematical proof is needed, but contrary to popular belief rigorous formalization of the proof is not a synonym of reliability and rigor of mathematical reasoning from the point of view of the philosophy of the foundations of mathematics. In fact, the consistency of the theories is "more important" than their logical consistency because not every statement, which does not contradict to the reasonable ones, can be attributed to a true statement. However, for working mathematicians, Hilbert is logical and consistent and the axiomatic method and formalism are an essential part of their rules of thinking. (shrink)

It is well known that the largest philosophers differently explain the origin of mathematics. This question was investigated in antiquity, a substantial and decisive role in this respect was played by the Platonic doctrine. Therefore, discussing this issue the problem of interaction of philosophy and mathematics in the teachings of Plato should be taken into consideration. Many mathematicians believe that abstract mathematical objects belong in a certain sense to the world of ideas and that consistency of objects and theories really (...) describes mathematical reality, as Plato quite clearly expressed his views on math, according to which mathematical concepts objectively exist as distinct entities between the world of ideas and the world of material things. In the context of foundations of mathematics, so called ‘Gödel’s Platonism‘ is of particular interest. It is shown in the article how Platonic objectification of mathematical concepts contributes to the development of modern mathematics by revealing philosophical understanding of the nature of abstraction. To substantiate his point of view, the author draws the works of contemporary experts in the field of philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the analysis and identification of new philosophical aspects of the problem of justification of modern mathematics according to which to the end of the 20th century the most exact of sciences had experienced new shocks associated with the crisis of excessive complexity of the mathematical theories. In the context of justification of mathematics philosophical conclusion consists in the fact that from a methodological point of view for general assessment of whether mathematics is developed or not (...) just the lack of crises is more negative phenomenon than its too long trouble-free state. Accomplished fact is that a computer can be regarded as one of the serious revolutionary technological inventions of the last century, which has had a huge influence on mathematics. In this development of progress of contemporary mathematics, more precisely, in its instrumental technologies the new philosophical problems are revealed - this is the role of computers and the new standards of mathematical thinking. In addition, with the development of contemporary mathematics and the emergence of increasingly complicated and long proofs, they lose their methodological advantage - the property of visibility and convincingness. Within the philosophy of mathematics this problem has not been discussed yet, possibly because the leading mathematicians haven’t expressed their opinions on the subject. After that, we can wait for a methodologically important period clarifying details, which can make the process itself foundations of mathematics philosophical consummation as the crisis complexity; in mathematics it is not a ‘systemic crisis‘ carrying the potential danger of the destruction of all mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

This article traces the evolution of feelings of love that connected Vyacheslav Ivanov and Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal from the moment the two first met to the dramatic events that occurred after Lydia...

The author of the work proposes a philosophical and methodological interpretation of the mathematical objects, using the system triad of the main directions of substantiation of mathematics: the formalism of Hilbert, Brouwer’s intuitionism and Godel’s Platonism. The need for these directions in the concept of substantiation of mathematics from the point of view of the current state of the philosophy of mathematics is shown on the mathematical examples. The philosophical and methodological analysis of objects of mathematics has never been unambiguous, (...) therefore in this paper the results of studies of philosophers, logicians and mathematicians, in which the problem of substantiation is explicated in the context of trends in the development of mathematics, are used. Their professional view on philosophical characteristics of the objects of mathematics contributes to the identification of the unity of all mathematical knowledge maintaining the initial mathematical base of knowledge and revealing new ways of integrating the directions of substantiation in the philosophy of mathematics. The practical problem of substantiation of mathematics is realized through the elaboration of metatheoretical knowledge under the paradigm shift in the philosophy of mathematics to the productive direction from analysis to synthesis. (shrink)

Based on its prevalence, there is an urgent need to better understand the mechanisms, opportunities and risks of sexual interaction in digital contexts that are related with sexual arousal. While there is a growing body of literature on SIDC, there is also a lack of conceptual clarity and classification. Therefore, based on a conceptual analysis, we propose to distinguish between sexual interaction through, via, and with digital technologies. Sexual interactions through digital technologies are face-to-face sexual interactions that have been started (...) digitally or are accompanied by digital technology. Sexual interactions via digital technology are technology-mediated interpersonal sexual interactions. Sexual interactions with digital technology occur when the technology itself has the role of an interaction partner. The three types of SIDC and their respective subtypes are explained and backed up with empirical studies that are grouped according to two major mediators: consent and commerce. Regarding the causes and consequences of the three types of SIDC we suggest a classification that entails biological, psychological, social, economic, and technological factors. Regarding implications of SIDC we suggest to focus on both opportunities and risks for sexual health. The proposed conceptual framework of SIDC is meant to inform future research. (shrink)

La reflexión filosófica sobre la justicia para los animales encuentra expresión en una multiplicidad de teorías. Es fundamental la teoría centrada en el sufrimiento y la compasión (desarrollada entre otros por Peter Singer y Carol Adams), la teoría de los derechos de los animales de Tom Regan, la teoría política de Will Kymlicka sobre los derechos de los animales. El artículo identifica tres preguntas abiertas, transversales a las diferentes posiciones que configuran este rico e importante debate. Se trata de la (...) noción de persona, el tema del mal moral gratuito, el presunto principio de reciprocidad entre derechos y deberes. La creencia que subyace al artículo es que un estudio en profundidad de estas cuestiones teóricas podría ser fructífero para consolidar la idea de que la justicia para los animales es un objetivo ineludible para toda democracia. (shrink)

In this interview, Robert Sapolsky outlines his view on Free Will and related topics. The discussion anticipates his upcoming book Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will. Various topics are covered at the intersection of neuroscience with philosophy, education, and the criminal justice system.

In propounding his unified logico-linguistic theory W. S. Cooper [4] maintains that “...meaning... is so surrounded by unresolved debates and controversial distinctions that the modem investigator is sometimes well advised to dissociate himself from all precedent and define his terms afresh”. This is the line that will be adopted for this presentation carried out within the framework of Glottodidactics [5] and [10], i.e. in terms of this language-teaching discipline’s purposes as different from those of linguistics and, therefore, offering, hopefully, a (...) new angle of approach to the problem of meaning. (shrink)

This paper argues for a reorientation of speech act theory towards an Austin-inspired conception of speech acts as context-changing social actions. After an overview of the role assigned to context by Austin, Searle, and other authors in pragmatics, it is argued that the context of a speech act should be considered as constructed as opposed to merely given, limited as opposed to extensible in any direction, and objective as opposed to cognitive. The compatibility of such claims with each other is (...) discussed. Finally, the context-changing role of speech acts is analyzed differentiating between the illocutionary and the perlocutionary dimension. (shrink)

During the course of this article, we examine the use of membership categorisation practices by a high-profile celebrity public social media account that has been understood to generate interest, attention and controversy across the UK media ecology. We utilise a data set of harvested tweets gathered from a high-profile public ‘celebrity antagonist’ in order to systematically identify types of antagonistic formulation that have generated different levels of interest within the social media community and beyond. Drawing from classic ethnomethodological studies of (...) banner headlines and other means of generating public interest and ‘making sense’, we respecify high-profile antagonistic tweets as category formulations that exhibit particular and regular membership category features that are reflexively bound to potential antagonistic readings, interest and controversy. In conclusion, we consider how such formulations may be understood to represent resources that constitute ignition points within antagonistic flows of communication and information that can be metaphorically understood as ‘digital wildfires’. (shrink)

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)

Cognitive science has been traditionally organized around the individual as the basic unit of cognition. Despite developments in areas such as communication, human–machine interaction, group behavior, and community organization, the individual-centric approach heavily dominates both cognitive research and its application. A promising direction for cognitive science is the study of augmented intelligence, or the way social and technological systems interact with and extend individual cognition. The cognitive science of augmented intelligence holds promise in helping society tackle major real-world challenges that (...) can only be discovered and solved by teams made of individuals and machines with complementary skills who can productively collaborate with each other. (shrink)

Th e basi c pu r pos e o f thi s w or k consist s o f eliminatin g som e o f th e m yth s an d paradigms tha t cu r rent ly info r m th e assessmen t o f scienti f i c e vidence . I n orde r t o accomplis h this object i v e , th e autho r sta r t s fro m th e (...) premis e tha t thes e m yth s an d paradigms , produce d with th e d ev elopmen t o f forensi c science , ar e minimizin g th e rol e o f judge s i n judicia l proceedings fo r th e bene f i t o f e xpe r ts . Thi s ca n lea d t o a violatio n o f du e proces s an d n e glectin g that judicia l processe s ar e aime d a t resolvin g conflicts . Th e autho r refer s speci f ical l y t o th e m yth o f in f allibilit y an d th e pa r adig m o f identi f ication , accordin g t o w hic h scienti f i c e vidence ca n posit i v e ly identif y a n ind i vidua l o r objec t throug h p h ysica l traces . B y ana l yzin g the recen t doctrin e o n th e assessmen t o f scienti f i c e vidence , th e autho r conclude s o n th e need t o adop t th e pa r adig m o f likelihood . Thus , th e judg e stil l hold s th e rol e i n th e ev aluation o f e vidence , an d guarantee s tha t th e goal s o f th e proces s wil l b e respected. (shrink)

La investigación analiza el ingreso del Jefe de Gobierno de Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires a TikTok durante la pandemia. Esta red social representa una novedad para la política, lo que la convierte no solo en un territorio a explorar sino y, fundamentalmente, en un nuevo espacio a conquistar. Desde el punto de vista conceptual, la investigación recupera, por un lado, las discusiones teóricas de la sociología política vinculada a la estructura de oportunidades y, por otro, los desarrollos de la (...) teoría de la comunicación que buscan echar luz sobre el fenómeno del infoentretenimiento. El trabajo se configura como un estudio de caso. Como esta metodología posibilita la utilización de distintas técnicas de recolección de datos y análisis, se ha optado por la triangulación de datos primarios y secundarios. Se utilizaron dos técnicas de recolección de datos: encuesta con cuestionario estructurado, a través del formato IVR, y recolección manual de información del perfil en TikTok. Dentro de los principales hallazgos, se destaca, por un lado, que los usos que les dieron los habitantes del Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires a las redes sociales durante el contexto pandémico y las opiniones políticas de los usuarios de TikTok fueron los factores determinantes que le permitieron al Jefe de Gobierno porteño ingresar muy cómodo a la plataforma; y, por otro, que en todas las publicaciones de su cuenta se excluye el contenido formal y serio y se lo reemplaza por formatos cercanos a la informalidad, la simplicidad, la emocionalidad y el humor. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the legal protection of children must be recognised as a priority. The moral rights of children are fundamental rights with different degrees of generality. They not only reflect the fact that children merit justice, but are also indispensable for the promotion of justice in society in general, thus allowing other rights, including those of adults, to be safeguarded appropriately. The rule of law and its role in reducing violence go hand in (...) hand with protecting children from harm. A childhood that is free of violence is an essential prerequisite of a just society. (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)