We provide a new wrinkle to the Argument from Unfair Advantage, a rather popular one in the ethics of doping in sports discussions. But we add a new argument that we believe places the moral burden on those who favor doping in sports. We also defend our position against some important concerns that might be raised against it. In the end, we argue that for the time being, doping in sports ought to be banned until it can be demonstrated that (...) our concerns can be satisfied. (shrink)

We provide a new wrinkle to the Argument from Unfair Advantage, a rather popular one in the ethics of doping in sports discussions. But we add a new argument that we believe places the moral burden on those who favor doping in sports. We also defend our position against some important concerns that might be raised against it. In the end, we argue that for the time being, doping in sports ought to be banned until it can be demonstrated that (...) our concerns can be satisfied. (shrink)

The Monographs produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) apply rigorous procedures for the scientific review and evaluation of carcinogenic hazards by independent experts. The Preamble to the IARC Monographs, which outlines these procedures, was updated in 2019, following recommendations of a 2018 expert Advisory Group. This article presents the key features of the updated Preamble, a major milestone that will enable IARC to take advantage of recent scientific and procedural advances made during the 12 years since (...) the last Preamble amendments. The updated Preamble formalizes important developments already being pioneered in the Monographs Programme. These developments were taken forward in a clarified and strengthened process for identifying, reviewing, evaluating and integrating evidence to identify causes of human cancer. The advancements adopted include strengthening of systematic review methodologies; greater emphasis on mechanistic evidence, based on key characteristics of carcinogens; greater consideration of quality and informativeness in the critical evaluation of epidemiological studies, including their exposure assessment methods; improved harmonization of evaluation criteria for the different evidence streams; and a single-step process of integrating evidence on cancer in humans, cancer in experimental animals and mechanisms for reaching overall evaluations. In all, the updated Preamble underpins a stronger and more transparent method for the identification of carcinogenic hazards, the essential first step in cancer prevention. (shrink)

From Guillelmi de Ockham, Summa logicae, Philotheus Boehner, Gedeon Gál and Stephanus Brown, ed., (“Guillelmi de Ockham Opera philosophica et theologica,” OPh I; St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1974), pp. 744–.

The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an all-powerful God--is one of the truly momentous cultural events in Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing, showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has, from the (...) first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms, including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson, and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of the cultural highpoints of Western thought. (shrink)

The main research programs in quantum gravity tend to suggest in one way or another that most spacetime structures are not fundamental. At the same time, work in quantum foundations highlights fundamental features that are in tension with any straightforward space- time understanding. This paper aims to explore the little investigated but potentially fruitful links between these two fields.

The phrase, “Without Authority,” is used so frequently by Kierkegaard that it becomes a kind of signature; yet it remains little understood. I argue that the phrase works to resist patriarchal, top-down, institutionally sanctioned authority: the authority of “direct” communication. Kierkegaard is not alone in contesting the tyranny of patriarchy: another tyranny—of anonymity, of the crowd—threatens to do away with patriarchal authority too, and with it all authority, all communication. Kierkegaard’s “without authority” defies patriarchy and does so at the risk (...) of this wild-fire destruction, for the sake of a different communication that might yet be possible. (shrink)

The so-called daxue zhi dao 大學之道, though a Confucian way of self-cultivation, can inspire contemporary universities through a process of creative interpretation. Having examined the ethos of modern university in its four historical stages, I come up with its last stage of reaching out in the era of globalization and dialogue among civilizations, in which we have to rethink the idea of university from the fuller development of human reason. This can be achieved only through increasingly reaching out toward many (...) others by means of mutual waitui 外推 and self-reflection, which presuppose and announce an ethics of generosity in priority over and implementable by reciprocity. Universities today should learn from classical Confucianism, and we should keep in mind their initial generous spirit as exemplified by Confucius himself. Strangification and self-reflection, being moved by original generosity and implemented by reciprocity, will eventually bring us the hope of reason. (shrink)

In this article, the author presents the view that C. S. Peirce’s thought contains ideas that can help clarify and resolve many of the philosophical problems raised by contemporary thinkers. In the author’s opinion, these thinkers are more predisposed towards understanding Peirce’s thoughts than those who lived in his own time. This article discusses two such problems: the substantiality of beings and the foundations of human knowledge.

En plus d'un excellent ouvrage analytique sur Proust, cette thèse dépasse son objet en distinguant bien la pensée du romancier de celle du théoricien. Ainsi la notion de philosophie du roman est profondément explorée et la proposition d'une réforme de la théorie du récit (narratologie) est esquissée. Suppose lecture de la ##Recherche##.

Ce livre met à jour et analyse un phénomène méconnu par la science juridique : la décriture du droit. Il s'agit de l'activité par laquelle les juristes, pensant décrire le droit, le transforment sans le vouloir : rédigeant des textes pour les besoins de leurs tâches quotidiennes (enseignement, consultation, plaidoirie, jugement, rédaction de contrats, etc.), ils réalisent continûment l'ordre juridique dans leur écriture. Ainsi, l'ouvrage s'intéresse à la manière dont la communauté juridique, par l'action inconsciente de chacun de ses membres, (...) participe silencieusement à l'existence du droit. Une telle enquête, menée sur les décombres de la modernité juridique, montre ce que celle-ci dissimule encore : le droit est irréductible à ses sources formelles, comme la loi ou la jurisprudence ; son application ne saurait se résumer à une simple recherche de sens des règles. La décriture du droit apparaît finalement comme un fait politique qui appelle une réflexion sur la responsabilité morale de chacun des juristes : une réflexion sur une éthique dans l'écriture du droit L'analyse est conduite selon une méthode d'étude du droit reposant sur un dialogue avec des textes non juridiques. Des textes qui, ainsi, enrichissent, élargissent et parfois subvertissent l'horizon habituel des théories en la matière. (shrink)

One implication of Laland, Odling-Smee & Feldman's niche construction model concerns the significance of the role of behavioural or cultural traits in comparative analysis. In this commentary it is suggested that cladistic methods already recognise this importance, and that behavioural characters may play a key role in hominid speciation and the definition of species.

Généralement, on présente Husserl comme étant un penseur hostile à toute forme de spéculation philosophique qui voudrait reconduire la pensée rationnelle à son soubassement naturel et empirique. Toutefois, le problème manifeste et obvie que pose cette inter­prétation, c?est que Husserl se sert lui-même d?un vocabulaire d?inspiration vitaliste et naturaliste pour rendre compte du registre de la rationalité. En prenant pour fil conducteur la notion de pulsion d?autoconservation telle qu?elle se décline dans Expérience et jugement, les Méditations cartésiennes et l? Introduction (...) à l?éthique de 1920-1924, je voudrais clarifier le statut de la nature et de l?instinctivité chez le Husserl de la maturité. Ce parcours me mènera à compliquer, sans pourtant l?effacer, le dualisme de l?esprit et de la nature tel qu?il se met notamment en place dans les Idées II. (shrink)

Polus admires orators for the tyrannical power they have. However, Socrates argues that orators and tyrants lack power worth having: the ability to satisfy one's wishes or wants (boulēseis). He distinguishes wanting from thinking best, and grants that orators and tyrants do what they think best while denying that they do what they want. His account is often thought to involve two conflicting requirements: wants must be attributable to the wanter from their own perspective (to count as their desires), but (...) wants must also be directed at objects that are genuinely good (in order for failure to satisfy them to matter). We offer an account of wanting as reflective, coherent desire, which allows Socrates to satisfy both desiderata. We then explain why he thinks that orators and tyrants want to act justly, though they do greater injustices than anyone else and so frustrate their own wants more than anyone else. (shrink)

Comment la philosophie doit-elle traiter de l'actualité? De tous côtés, on invite les philosophes à se prononcer sur le sens de l'époque. Mais en quoi un philosophe serait-il plus qualifié que d'autres pour rédiger l'éditorial de votre journal quotidien? En réalité, la notion d'un " discours philosophique de la modernité " doit être rejetée. Le sujet de la modernité appartient aux écrivains, aux critiques des mœurs, aux sociologues de l'individualisme. C'est d'ailleurs ainsi que Baudelaire l'entendait dans ses pages sur la (...) poésie de la vie moderne. A la racine des confusions sur le sens philosophique du temps présent, il y a une assimilation abusive du moderne au rationnel. Ceux qui ont posé cette équivalence ont été partout placés devant un paradoxe : le rationnel tel qu'ils le définissent ne parvient plus à se distinguer de l'arbitraire que par une différence elle-même arbitraire. Position connue aujourd'hui sous le nom générique de " post-structuralisme ". Il appartient maintenant aux philosophes de concevoir autrement les principes de la raison, de façon à éviter l'outrecuidance d'en réserver l'intelligence à la disposition légitime aux seuls citoyens du monde moderne. (shrink)