This introduction to modern work in analytic philosophy uses the example of the proper name to give a clear explanation of the logical theories of Gottlob Frege, and explain the application of his ideas to ordinary language. McCulloch then shows how meaning is rooted in the philosophy of mind and the question of intentionality, and looks at the ways in which thought can be "about" individual material objects.
This is review essay of Mark Sainsbury's Reference without Referents. Its main part is a critical discussion of Sainsbury's proposal for the individuation of proper name using practices.
Although Alain Badiou dedicates a number of texts to the philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza throughout his work—after all, the author of a systematic philosophy of being more geometrico must be a point of reference for the philosopher who claims that “mathematics = ontology”—the reading offered in Meditation Ten of his key work Being and Event presents the most significant moment of this engagement. Here, Badiou proposes a reading of Spinoza’s ontology that foregrounds a concept that is as central to, (...) and celebrated in, his philosophy as it is strictly excluded by Spinoza: the void. In nuce, Badiou contends that for all of Spinoza’s efforts to offer an ontology of total plenitude, the void returns in his philosophy under the (at first sight) unlikely name of infinite mode. The presence of this errant name in Spinoza’s philosophy bears witness to the failure of his most profound intellectual endeavour. However striking Badiou’s reading of Spinoza, this paper argues that it fails to adequately grasp Spinoza’s metaphysics, particularly with respect to the central concept of modal essence, a concept which does not appear at all in the Badiouian text. By introducing a consideration of this concept, it becomes able to resolve the status of infinite modes, and to account for the move across the notorious finite–infinite divide. Thus the argument turns to the reading of Spinoza offered by Gilles Deleuze for a more thorough-going and nuanced approach, much superior to Badiou’s procrustean critique. (shrink)
Does the English demonstrative pronoun 'that' (including complex demonstratives of the form 'that F') have sense and reference? Unlike many other philosophers of language, Frege answers with a resounding 'No'. He held that the bearer of sense and reference is a so-called 'hybrid proper name' (Künne) that contains the demonstrative pronoun and specific circumstances of utterance such as glances and acts of pointing. In this paper I provide arguments for the thesis that demonstratives are hybrid proper names. After outlining (...) why Frege held the hybrid proper name view, I will defend it against recent criticism, and argue that it is superior to views that take demonstrative pronouns to be the bearer of semantic properties. (shrink)
Jizang sets forth a hermeneutical theory of “one name, infinite meanings” that proposes four types of interpretation of word meaning to the effect that a nominal word X means X, non-X, the negation of X, and all things whatsoever. In this article, I offer an analysis of the theory, with a view to elucidating Jizang's thought on meaning and reference and considering its contemporary significance. The theory, I argue, may best be viewed as an expedient means for telling us (...) how to use words provisionally without any definite understanding of their referents. (shrink)
A strictly Millian approach to proper names is defended, i.e. one in which expressions when used properly ('onymically') refer directly, i.e. without the semantic intermediaryship of the words that appear to comprise them. The approach may appear self-evident for names which appear to have no component parts (in current English) but less so for others. Two modes of reference are distinguished for potentially ambiguous expressions such as The Long Island . A consequence of this distinction is to allow a speculative (...) neurolinguistics of proper ('onymic') and semantic ('non-onymic') reference. A further consequence is that translation of onymically referring expressions is impossible (since they have no semantic content), and some apparently self-evident objections to this view are met by insisting on a distinction between a proper name as a referring expression and its etymology. The nature of the linguistic mechanism(s) by which an expression becomes proper (i.e. loses sense) shows that etymological opacity is a precondition for the survival of words in certain proper names, furnishing evidence for reference without sense. The process of becoming proper amounts to abrogation of sense for the purpose of reference, which is precisely the requirement for a systematic defence of Mill. (shrink)
The article deals with Cantor’s argument for the non-denumerability of reals somewhat in the spirit of Lakatos’ logic of mathematical discovery. At the outset Cantor’s proof is compared with some other famous proofs such as Dedekind’s recursion theorem, showing that rather than usual proofs they are resolutions to do things differently. Based on this I argue that there are “ontologically” safer ways of developing the diagonal argument into a full-fledged theory of continuum, concluding eventually that famous semantic paradoxes based on (...) diagonal construction are caused by superficial understanding of what a name is. (shrink)
This paper is about the mode of being of names. The paper begins by explaining why the joke is on commentators who see Lewis Carroll's White Knight as applying the use/mention distinction. Then it argues that the real problem with the distinction is that the idea that names are used to mention what they name depends on mistakenly conceiving of language as existing autonomously; and that philosophers have this conception because they fail to appreciate what they are doing when (...) they philosophise about language. This failure also explains why philosophers mistakenly think of any manifestation of a name as a (physical) token. (shrink)
Gareth Evans (1973) adduces a case in which a proper name apparently undergoes a change in referent. ‘Madagascar’ was originally the name of a part of Africa. Marco Polo, erroneously thinking he was following native usage, applied the name to an island off the African coast. Today ‘Madagascar’ is the name of that island. Evans argues that this kind of case threatens Kripke’s picture of naming as developed in Naming and Necessity. According (...) to this picture, the name, as used by Marco Polo, referred to a part of the African mainland, since he was connected to the latter by a historical chain of communication. Since we are historically connected to Marco Polo, the name, as it is used today, still refers to the African mainland. But it doesn’t. The aim of the present paper is to give a conclusive account of the phenomenon adduced by Evans, which is compatible with Kripke’s picture. (shrink)
An edition of three essays by the leading French philosopher and theorist Jacques Derrida on the ethical, political and linguistic issues posed by the act of 'naming'. Passions: An Oblique Offering is a reflection on the question of the response, on the duty and obligation to respond, and on the possibility of not responding - which is to say, on the ethics and politics of responsibility. Sauf le nom (Post Scriptum) considers the problematics of naming and alterity, or transcendence, raised (...) inevitably by a rigorous negative theology. Much of the text is organised around close readings of the poetry of Angelus Silesius. The final essay, Khora, explores the problem of space or spacing, of the word 'khora' in Plato's Timaeus. Even as it places and makes possible nothing less than the whole world, 'khora' opens, dislocates and displaces all the categories that govern the production of that world, from naming to gender. (shrink)
"In a complex world where competing groups claim to be speaking on behalf of incommensurate versions of 'humanity, ' the authors represented in "In the Name of ...
Preface -- Introduction -- How to value democracy -- Paper stones, the ethics of participation -- Philosophers-citizens -- Superdeliberators -- What is it like to be a citizen? -- Democracy's ethics of belief -- The division of democratic labor -- Representing principles -- Democratic complicity -- Not in my name, macrodemocratic design.
Please note that I now use my married name professionally and publish under the name "Delia Graff Fara" ("Fara, Delia Graff"), using the "Judith Jarvis Thomson"/ "Laura Ingalls Wilder "/ "Elizabeth Cady Stanton"/ "Hillary Rodham Clinton"/ "Ruth Barcan Marcus" convention ("Fara" as the last name, "Graff" as the middle name), and will use "Professor Fara" for formal purposes.
Do the terms “logical positivism” and “logical empiricism” mark a philosophically real and significant distinction? There is, of course, no doubt that the first term designates the group of philosophers known as the Vienna Circle, headed by Moritz Schlick and including Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Friedrich Waismann and others. What is debatable, however, is whether the name “logical positivism” correctly distinguishes their doctrines from related ones called “logical empiricism” that emerged from the Berlin (...) Society for Scientific Philosophy around Hans Reichenbach which included Walter Dubislav, Kurt Grelling, Kurt Lewin and a young Carl Gustav Hempel.1 The .. (shrink)
In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against or excluded from (...) Swedish society but also try to shift the understanding of the conditions under which such exclusion is possible in the first place. Being Swedish is that which the immigrant is not. What I argue and give examples of is that the 'no name' immigrant becomes a possibility for democracy to happen when he or she claims his or her presence in the demos, in such a way as to make evident a split in the self-understanding of a purely consensual Swedish democracy. In the article I argue that what is needed in order to go beyond the myth of schooling, is a pedagogy of dissensus contesting the normalizing of an unequal social order by making it contingent. (shrink)
Discussions of name (ming, ?) during the pre-Qin and Qin-Han period of Chinese history were very active. The concept ming at that time can be divided into two categories, one is the ethical-political meaning of the term and the other is the linguistic-logical understanding. The former far exceeds the latter in terms of overall influence on the development of Chinese intellectual history. But it is the latter that has received the most attention in the 20th century, due to the (...) influence of Western logic. This has led to the result of a bias in the contemporary studies of ming. Changing course by returning to the correct path of intellectual history can providing an objective and thorough ordering of the pre-Qin discourse on ming. (shrink)
This paper extends the dialogue of educational philosophy to the experience of beginners entering the teaching profession. Rather than impose the ideas of any specific philosopher or theorist, or indeed official standard, the exploration presented here owes its origins to phenomenology and the use of grounded theory. Working from a narrative data base and focussing on the knowing of name in the first instance, the authors develop their emergent ideas on self and identity in relation to children taught, through (...) connection to a wider literature that includes reference to Giddens, Illeris, Deleuze and Heidegger, for example. The paper is thus also an exercise in suggesting that research on practice by academics working in professional education, who are non-philosophers, can lead to constructive and relevant engagement with philosophy in developing theory from and about about practice, even though the approach, in the initial stages, may well be serendipitous and eclectic in nature. (shrink)
We yearn to experience the idealized love depicted in so many novels, movies, poems, and popular songs. Ironically, it is the idealization of love that arms it with its destructive power. Popular media consistently remind us that love is all we need, but statistics concerning the rate of depression and suicides after divorce or romantic break up remind us what might happened if "all that we need" is taken away. This book is about our ideals of love, our experiences, of (...) love, the actual disparity between the two, and the manners of coping with this disparity. A major study case of the book concerns men who have murdered their wives or partners allegedly 'out of love'. It is estimated that over 30% of all female murder victims in the United States die at the hands of a former or present spouse or boyfriend. How can murdering a loved one be associated with the assumed moral and altruistic love? Not only is love intrinsically ambivalent, but it can also give rise to dangerous consequences. Some of the worst evils have been committed in the name of love (as in the name of God). A unique collaboration between a leading philosopher in the field of emotions and a social scientist, In the Name of Love presents fascinating insights into romantic love and its future in modern society. (shrink)
This paper extends the dialogue of educational philosophy to the experience of beginners entering the teaching profession. Rather than impose the ideas of any specific philosopher or theorist, or indeed official standard, the exploration presented here owes its origins to phenomenology and the use of grounded theory. Working from a narrative data base and focussing on the knowing of name in the first instance, the authors develop their emergent ideas on self and identity in relation to children taught, through (...) connection to a wider literature that includes reference to Giddens, Illeris, Deleuze and Heidegger, for example. The paper is thus also an exercise in suggesting that research on practice by academics working in professional education, who are non-philosophers, can lead to constructive and relevant engagement with philosophy in developing theory from and about about practice, even though the approach, in the initial stages, may well be serendipitous and eclectic in nature. (shrink)
TAKING THE NAME OF SCIENCE IN VAIN CHAPTER I THE MEANING OF LIFE AND ITS VALUES 1. THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS He in whose honor these ...
In Plato’s later dialogues, and particularly in the Sophist, there is a general reinterpretation and rehabilitation of the name (onoma) in philosophy. No longer understood rather vaguely as one of potentially dangerous and deceptive elements of everyday language or of poetic language, the word onoma is recast in the Sophist and related dialogues into one of the essential elements of a philosophical language that aims to make claims or propositions about the way thingsare. Onoma, now understood as name, (...) is thus coupled with rhema, or verb, to form the two essential elements of any logos, that is, any claim, statement, orproposition. This paper follows Plato’s gradual rehabilitation and reinscription of the name from early dialogues through late ones in order to demonstrate thenew role Plato fashions for language in these later works. (shrink)
The article treats the concept of proper name in Juri Lotman’s semiotics, taking into account also studies in the same field by other authors of the Tartu-Moscow school (V. Ivanov, B. Ogibenin, V. Toporov, B. Uspenski). Focus is laid at three sub-topics: name and myth, name and text, name and artistic creation. One of the sources of treating proper name for both the program article by J. Lotman and B. Uspenski (“Myth — Name — (...) Culture”), and works by several other semioticians of the Tartu–Moscow school is confidence in the connection between proper name and mythical (a-semiotic) thought: semiosis equals here with nomination. Proper name plurality, different re-namings affirm the continuing importance of mythical thinking in later culture. Proper names (such as personal names, place names) belong, in addition to natural language, also into a certain individual system, forming thus an interlinguistic layer located on the boundary of language. J. Lotmanstresses that art has a specific power of uniting general and proper name (proper name characterized here by individuality, explosiveness). An artistic work is even doubly of proper name character: both the act of creation and its reception are by nature individual and unrepeated. In the opinion of the authors the treatment of proper name by the Tartu-Moscow school contains fruitful and promising standpoints for the analysis of contemporary culture that, however, have been applied unjustifiably little. (shrink)
The present article is divided into two parts. Its theoretical introductory part takes under scrutiny how proper name has been previously dealt with in linguistics, philosophy and semiotics. The purpose of this short overview is to synthesise different approaches that could be productive in the semiotic analysis of naming practices. Author proposes that proper names should not be seen as a linguistic element or a type of (indexical) signs, but rather as a function that can be carried by different (...) linguistic units. This approach allows us to develop a transdisciplinary basis for a wider understanding of naming as a sociocultural practice. The empirical part of the article uses one certain village in Estonia in Laane-Virumaa district as an example to demonstrate how toponyms structure the social space, how they carry the memory and how naming practice highlights such changes in the semiotic behaviour of the social life that otherwise could have remained hidden. (shrink)
This paper defends a direct reference view of empty names, saying that empty names literally have no meaning and cannot be used to express truths. However, all names, including empty names, are associated with accompanying descriptions that are implicated in pragmatically imparted truths. A sentence such as “Vulcan doesn’t exist” pragmatically imparts that there is no tenth planet. This view is defended against objections.
Proper names seem simple on the surface. Indeed, anyone unfamiliar with philosophical debates about them might wonder what the fuss could possibly be about. It seems obvious why we need them and what we do with them, and that is to talk about particular persons, places, and things. You don't have to be as smart as Mill to think that proper names are simply tags attached to individuals. But sometimes appearances are deceiving.
In §50 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein wrote the sentence, "There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris." Although some interpreters have claimed that Wittgenstein's statement is mistaken, while others have proposed various explanations showing that this must be correct, none have questioned the fact that he intended to assert that it is impossible to describe the standard (...) meter as being a meter long. Given that Wittgenstein introduces this sentence as analogous to the claim that "existence cannot be attributed to an element," and that the preceding passages discuss a language-game the simples of which can be described by their own names, there is good reason to think that Wittgenstein did not intend to assert this infamous sentence. (shrink)
The notion of common ground is important for the production of referring expressions: In order for a referring expression to be felicitous, it has to be based on shared information. But determining what information is shared and what information is privileged may require gathering information from multiple sources, and constantly coordinating and updating them, which might be computationally too intensive to affect the earliest moments of production. Previous work has found that speakers produce overinformative referring expressions, which include privileged names, (...) violating Grice’s Maxims, and concluded that this is because they do not mark the distinction between shared and privileged information. We demonstrate that speakers are in fact quite effective in marking this distinction in the form of their utterances. Nonetheless, under certain circumstances, speakers choose to overspecify privileged names. (shrink)
How do young children extend names for human-made artifacts, such as knife, toy, and painting? We addressed this issue by showing 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults a series of simple objects and asking them for each, `What is this?' In one condition, the objects were described as purposefully created; in another, the objects were described as being created by accident. This manipulation had a signi®cant effect on the participants' responses: even 3- year-olds were more likely to provide artifact names (e.g. `a (...) knife') when they believed the objects were intentionally created and material-based descriptions (e.g. `plastic') when they believed the objects were accidentally created. This result supports a theory of artifact naming in which intuitions about intention play an important role. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)
The present paper outlines some basic concepts of Alain Badiou’s philosophy of the subject, tracking down its inherent and complex philosophical implications. These implications are made explicit in the criticism directed against the philosophical sophistry which denies the pertinence of the concept of truth. Badiou’s philosophical innovation is based on three nodal concepts, namely truth, event and subject, and it must be revealed how the afore-mentioned concepts areorganized and interrelated, eventually leading to reformulating the concept of the subject. In its (...) exercise, philosophy is intimately affiliated to the four adjacent procedures of mathematics, art, love and politics that could be understood as overall conditions on the margins of which philosophical thinking takes place. Separating philosophy from ontology and charging philosophy with what exceeds being, Badiou transforms it to the general theory of the event. Consequently the concept of the subject is disconnected from that of the object, the subject being not an instance of knowledge, but always a part of generic procedures and thus definable simply as a finite fragment or an operative configuration of the traces of the event. Therefore, it could be stated that Badiou’s theory of the subject is formal and refuses all essentialist connotations. (shrink)
This paper discusses whether it can be known a priori that a particular term, such as water, is a natural kind term, and how this problem relates to Putnams claim that natural kind terms require an externalist semantics. Two conceptions of natural kind terms are contrasted: The first holds that whether water is a natural kind term depends on its a priori knowable semantic features. The second.
In this paper I address some related aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s unfinished texts, The Visible and the Invisible and The Prose of the World. The point of departure for my reading of these works is the sense of philosophical disillusionment which underlies and motivates them, and which, I argue, leads Merleau-Ponty towards an engagement with art in general and with literature in particular. I suggest that Merleau-Ponty’s emerging conception of ethics—premised on the paradox of a “universal singularity” and concerned with the (...) concrete experience of the individual subject, rather than with abstractions and formal categories—can best be articulated through the formalist concept of “defamiliarization,” the fundamental performativity of all literature, and the dialogic relations which, though inherent in all discourse, become most powerfully evident in the dynamics of reading. (shrink)
This paper investigates the philosophical method of Jacques Rancière, with special attention to use of the 'presumptive tautology'. It distinguishes between the Enlightenment conception of method as universally applicable technique, and the philosophical conception of method as a certain style that has been invented by a certain person. Ultimately, the paper puts the methodology of Rancière's The Ignorant Schoolmaster under scrutiny.
This paper argues that the ?traditional conception of moral responsibility? authorizes and supports denials of white complicity. First, what is meant by the ?traditional conception of moral responsibility? is delineated and the enabling and disenabling characteristics of this view are highlighted. Then, three seemingly good, antiracist discourses that white students often engage in are discussed ? the discourse of colour?blindness, the discourse of meritocracy and the discourse of individual choice ? and analysed to show how they are all grounded in (...) the ?traditional conception of moral responsibility?. The limitations of these discourses are drawn and how these discourses work to conceal white complicity is established. Finally, implications for social justice education are discussed. (shrink)
In this essay we shall examine the contemporary jurisprudential thinking and legal precedents surrounding the issue of the sanctionability of pornography. We shall catalogue them by their logical presumptions, such as whether they view pornography as speech or act, whether they view pornography as obscenity, political hate-speech or anomalous other, whether they would scrutinize legislation governing pornography by a balancing of the harm of repression against the harm of permission, and who exactly they view as the victims.We shall take a (...) special interest in the most recent, but unsuccessful, attempt by a subgroup of feminists to proscribe pornography by treating it as neither political speech nor sexual speech but speech which causes harm which is both political and sexual. They would like it to be considered as a special kind of odious propaganda undeserving of protection because it promulgates a mental state conducive to criminal activity, and hence is criminal in and of itself. However, the repression of propaganda, even odious propaganda, is not so easily accomplished in this country. (shrink)
Introduction: Evolution and mind -- The evolution of morality -- Setting the task -- The moral brain -- The first layer : kin selection -- The second layer : reciprocal altruism -- A third layer : indirect reciprocity -- A fourth layer : cultural group selection -- A fifth layer : the moral emotions -- Conclusion: From moral grammar to moral systems -- The evolution of moral religions -- Setting the task -- The evolution of the religious mind -- Conceptualizing (...) the almighty -- The moral function of gods -- Evolutionary religious ethics : Judaism -- Setting the task -- Constructing Yahweh -- TheTen Commandments : an evolutionary interpretation -- Conclusion: The evolved law -- Evolutionary religious ethics : Christianity -- Setting the task -- Constructing the Christ -- Setting the boundaries : Christian and/or Jew? -- The third race : Christians as in-group -- Putting on Christ : Christianity's signals of commitment -- Loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek -- Religion, violence, and the evolved mind -- Setting the task -- Devoted to destruction : sanctified violence and Judaism -- The blood of the Lamb -- A case study in the evolved psychology of religious violence : 9/11/01 -- Religion evolving -- Setting the task -- Varieties of religious expressions -- If there were no God -- Religion, ethics, and violence : an assessment -- Responding to religion, ethics, and violence : some proposals. (shrink)
My first experience of philosophy at the University of Sydney was as a commencing undergraduate in the tumultuous year of 1973. At the start of that year, there was one department of philosophy, but by the beginning of the next there were two. These two departments seemed to be opposed in every possible way except one: they both professed to be committed to a form of materialist philosophy. One could think that having a common enemy at least might have been (...) the cause for some degree of unanimity, but no: the traditional enemy of materialism—idealism—was regarded to have been long dead and buried. For the Marxists in the then “Department of General Philosophy”, it had been Marx who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, had “inverted” Hegelian idealism into a form of materialism, while for the analytic philosophers in the “Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy”, it had been Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore who had triumphed over British idealism at the turn of the twentieth. There may have been many things that were atypical about philosophy as it was done at Sydney in the early 1970s, but its resistance to idealism was not among them. (shrink)
In 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Human Cloning Prohibition Act" and President Bush announced his decision to allow only limited research on existing stem cell lines but not on "embryos." In contrast, the U.K. has explicitly authorized "therapeutic cloning." Much more will be said about bioethical, legal, and social implications, but subtleties of the science and careful definitions of terms have received much less consideration. Legislators and reporters struggle to discuss "cloning," "pluripotency," "stem cells," and "embryos," and (...) whether "adult" are preferable to "embryonic" stem cells as research subjects. They profess to abhor "copying humans" or "killing embryos." Do they know what they are talking about? Do we? This paper explores the historical, philosophical, and scientific contexts that inform this heated discussion. (shrink)
LECTURE I THE PRESENT DILEMMA IN PHILOSOPHY In the preface to that admirable collection of essays of his called 'Heretics,' Mr. Chesterton writes these words : "There are some people — and I am one of them — who think that the most ...
The diversity of learning differences in today's college classrooms raises an array of difficult questions that pedagogical theory and practice have yet to address. The trend toward more individualized instruction presents a puzzle when considered alongside this new diversity, particularly in the context of classical ideals of liberal education. Drawing on the surprisingly timely educational writings of John Dewey, this essay attempts to sketch a pedagogical vision for the 21st century that shifts the focus back toward the process of learning (...) itself, and that grounds learning in the personal experience of the learner without compromising the larger goals of liberal education. Meeting the challenges presented by diverse learners may hold the key to reinvigorating higher education as a whole. (shrink)
Since the beginning of the scientific revolution, believers have had to reconcile their beliefs with science. This has always proved difficult. If an all-perfect God created the universe and its physical laws, why would he have to step in to perform miracles and answer prayers? If, as all the evidence indicates, the universe, including humans and their brains, is matter and nothing more, how can we possibly live forever? Theologians try hard, but never come up with satisfactory answers.
The thesis tries to define and explain the rudiments of a 'nonphilosophical' or 'non-decisional' theory of materialism on the basis of a theoretical framework provided by the 'non-philosophy' of Francois Laruelle. Neither anti-philosophical nor anti-materialist in character, non-materialism tries to construct a rigorously transcendental theory of matter by using certain instances of philosophical materialism as its source material. The materialist decision to identify the real with matter is seen to retain a structural isomorphy with the phenomenological decision to identify the (...) real with the phenomenon. Both decisions are shown to operate on the basis of a methodological idealism; materialism on account of its confusion of matter and concept; phenomenology by virtue of its confusion of phenomenon and logos. By dissolving the respectively 'materiological' and 'phenomenological' amlphibolies which are the result of the failure to effect a rigorously transcendental separation between matter and concept on the one hand; and between phenomenon and logos on the other, non-materialist theory proposes to mobilise the non-hybrid or non-decisional concepts of a 'matter-without-concept' and of a 'phenomenon-without-logos' in order to effect a unified but non-unitary theory of phenomenology and materialism. The result is a materialisation of thinking that operates according to matter's foreclosure to decision. That is to say, a transcendental theory of the phenomenon that licenses limitless phenomenological plasticity, unconstrained by the apparatus of eidetic intuition or any horizon of apophantic disclosure; yet one which is simultaneously a transcendental theory of matter, uncontaminated by the bounds of empirical perception and free of all phenomenological circumscription. (shrink)
A useful case against voluntary euthanasia. This short article summarises at least ten reasons why voluntary euthanasia should not be legalised.On the subject of voluntary euthanasia she argues that institutionalizing medically assisted death - erodes respect for human life, underestimates human capacity for error and vice and is intrinsically discriminatory. She argues that it plays into the hands of illicit interests and trades on an improper understanding of human autonomy. She warns against dismissing “the army of corporate, financial, medical and (...) political interests that there are in controlling death, euthanasia’s corrosive effects on public and professional attitudes, and the discrimination implicit in its implementation.”. (shrink)
This paper argues that Chris Marker's 1982 film Sans Soleil derives its affective force from doublings and ‘faces’ of horror and beauty that reveal a twofold synthesis of actual and virtual. While a focus upon the material, ever in relation to transient yet lingering sensations, cannot discharge the power and force of the film, this paper endeavours nevertheless to assess and evoke Marker and Deleuze's own interrogative methods that thoroughly explore, in the manner of a revelatory ‘schizoanalysis’ or empiricism, molecular (...) and variable operations beneath our ‘molar’ structures and organisations. As Sans Soleil's voiceover states, ‘If they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black’, a provocative remark that invokes indefinable singularities and the darkness of a wound, cracking of time and splitting of self in film, life and death. Considerations of death, consciousness and subjectivity extend this paper's examinations. (shrink)
What exactly is a genetic disease? For a phrase one hears on a daily basis, there has been surprisingly little analysis of the underlying concept. Medical doctors seem perfectly willing to admit that the etiology of disease is typically complex, with a great many factors interacting to bring about a given condition. On such a view, descriptions of diseases like cancer as geneticseem at best highly simplistic, and at worst philosophically indefensible. On the other hand, there is clearly some practical (...) value to be had by classifying diseases according to theirpredominant cause when this can be accomplished in a theoretically satisfactory manner. The question therefore becomes exactly how one should go about selecting a single causal factor among many to explain the presence of disease. When an attempt to defend such causal selection is made at all, the standard accounts offered (Koch's postulates, Hill's epidemiological criteria, manipulability) are all clearly inadequate. I propose, however, an epidemiological account of disease causation which walks the fine line between practical applicability and theoretical considerations of causal complexity and attempts to compromise between patient-centered and population-centered concepts of disease. The epidemiological account is the most basic framework consistent with our strongly held intuitions about the causal classification of disease, yet it avoids the difficulties encountered by its competitors. (shrink)
This paper critically examines the argument structure of Fodor's theory of modularity. Fodor claims computational autonomy as the essential properly of modular processing. This property has profound consequences, burdening modularity theory with corollaries of rigidity, non-plasticity, nativism, and the old Cartesian dualism of sensing and thinking. However, it is argued that Fodor's argument for computational autonomy is crucially dependent on yet another postulate of Fodor's theory, viz. his thesis of strong modularity, ie. the view that functionally distinct modules must also (...) have physical counterparts in the neural architecture of the brain. Yet, Fodor offers little or no independent support for this neurological speculation. Moreover, due to the cognitivist underpinnings of Fodor's theory his view of modules as 'mental organs'faces an untenable dilemma that is to be traced back to the earliest history of modem cognitive science, viz. to the rationalist-computationalist research program initiated by Descartes and Male-branche. The tension characteristic for the Cartesian program was one that arose between information correlation and information processing accounts of the transactions between body and mind. Similarly, the tension characteristic for Fodor's theory of modularity is one between a causal account of modules on the model of simple detection mechanisms, and an information processing account of modules on the model of vast and elaborate cognitive systems. It is argued that the resulting concept of a cognitive module Fodorian style constitutes an amalgam of incompatible desiderata that fails to stake out a natural kind for cognitive science. As an alternative account, the final section shows connectionism to be capable of encompassing both Gibsonian and 'new look' accounts of cognitive achievements within one theoretical perspective, thus providing a fruitful interfield theory capable of combining the theoretical resources of the ecological approach with the indispensable theoretical complement provided by psychological processing accounts. This change of perspective would ultimately involve recasting the symbo-functionalist notion of cognitive function along bio-psychological lines. (shrink)
Our claim in this paper is that not being identified as the data source might cause harm to a person or group. Therefore, in some cases the default of anonymisation should be replaced by a careful deliberation, together with research subjects, of how to handle the issues of identification and confidentiality. Our prime example in this article is community participatory research and similar endeavours on indigenous groups. The theme, content and aim of the research, and the question of how to (...) handle property rights and ownership of research results, as well as who should be in charge of the research process, including the process of creating anonymity, should all be answered, before anonymity is accepted. (shrink)
The following paper attempts to explore, criticizeand develop Thomas Kuhn's mostmature – and surprisingly neglected – view ofincommensurability. More specifically, itfocuses on (1) undermining an influential picture ofscientific kinds that lies at the heartof Kuhn's understanding of taxonomic incommensurability;(2) sketching an alternativepicture of scientific kinds that takes advantage ofKuhn's partially developed theory ofdisciplinary matrices; and (3) using these two resultsto motivate revisions to Kuhn'stheory of taxonomic incompatibility, as well as, tothe purported bridge betweentaxonomic incompatibility and some of the traditionalproblems associated (...) withincommensurability. (shrink)
This commentary examines the ethics and law in the United States as they relate to the foregoing of life sustaining treatment when such treatment is deemed medically inappropriate. In particular the article highlights the procedural approach when there is disagreement between physicians and surrogates or patients as exemplified in Texas Law. This approach, although worthy in concept, may in practice invite opposition and dissatisfaction as it may be perceived as coercive and pitting the weak against powerful adversaries and interests, in (...) addition to discouraging the exercise of professional virtues. Too inflexible an approach erodes trust, and furthermore the Texas law allows hospital ethics committees to move from an advisory non judgmental role to a quasi legal court with real legal power but no credentialing or oversight. (shrink)
Bloom's domain general theory remains strictly cognitive and individualistic. By ignoring the contribution of social interaction and collective construction of concepts, he fails to solve the word learning problem.
I have practiced psychotherapy, family therapy, and hypnotherapy for over 25 years without a single board complaint or lawsuit by a client. For over 3 years, however, a group of proponents of the false memory syndrome (FMS) hypothesis, including members, officials, and supporters of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., have waged a multimodal campaign of harassment and defamation directed against me, my clinical clients, my staff, my family, and others connected to me. I have neither treated these harassers or (...) their families nor had any professional or personal dealings with any of them; I am not related in any way to the disclosures of memories of sexual abuse in these families. Nonetheless, this group disrupts my professional and personal life and threatens to drive me out of business. In this article, I describe practicing psychotherapy under a state of siege and place the campaign against me in the context of a much broader effort in the FMS movement to denigrate, defame, and harass clinicians, lecturers, writers, and researchers identified with the abuse and trauma treatment communities. (shrink)
The conviction ofthe New Testament writers was that there is no salvation apart from Jesus. This orthodox doctrine is widely rejected today because God’s condemnation of persons in other world religions seems incompatible with various attributes of God.Analysis reveals the real problem to involve certain counterfactuals of freedom, e.g., why did not God create a world in which all people would freely believe in Christ and be saved? Such questions presuppose that God possesses middle knowledge. But it can be shown (...) that no inconsistency exists between God's having middle knowledge and certain persons' being damned; on the contrary it can be positively shown that these two notions are compatible. (shrink)
Against standard descriptivist and referentialist semantics for fictional reports, I will defend a view according to which fictional names do not refer yet they can be distinguished from one another by virtue of their different name-using practices. The logical structures of sentences containing fictional names inherit these distinctions. Different interpretations follow.
This book is obviously about much more than education Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD, forensic psychiatrist and author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes ...
This paper is an attempt to take up the prompt in Derrida's work concerning the necessity for a deconstruction of anthropocentrism. Working through an example from Hegel's Philosophy of Right concerning animality, the paper takes up Derrida's project and connects it to the larger concern of what happens to the philosophical once it is no longer premised on the animal's exclusion but has to acknowledge the inclusion of an already present thus recalcitrant animality.
, Is it Righteous to Be?: Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas, J. Robbins (ed.), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Llewelyn, John, 'Am I Obsessed by ...
