If you have become as discouraged as I have in the past in the struggle to decipher what philosophers are really up to, then this book will provide very helpful explanations. It is not a book that can be read through quickly, and it does require a fairly broad familiarity with the language of philosophy, however the effort to understand it is very well worth it. It is also not a book that reassures the kind of person who seeks to (...) avoid personal responsibility and self-direction. It dissolves ordinary refuges of transcendently comforting words rather than promotes them. That is, this book is for fiercely independently-minded individuals. If you want to not be misled into the same mistakes philosophers have been making over the past two millennia, then this book is essential towards your quest. (shrink)

La question du langage et de la parole dans les écrits de Merleau-Ponty ne peut se comprendre indépendamment de la phénoménologie du corps-propre et de son corrélat le monde vécu, c'est-à-dire son champ spatial et temporel, avec des horizons, proches ou lointains, dans lequel il se trouve et où il se situe.Rappelons que Merleau-Ponty montre comment le but que se propose la perception par sa propre téléologie est la chose même, et comment, ce but une fois atteint, l'idée d'un monde (...) en soi ou du réel en dérive. Le sujet percevant en tant que corps s'oublie; par rapport au monde en soi ce qui paraît rester du sujet n'est que conscience désincarnée, sujet de la science, sujet qui est partout et nulle part, qui est de tout temps et de nul temps, et qui enfin n'est personne. (shrink)

Next SectionThe dominant conception of medical ethics being taught in British and American medical schools is at best pointless and at worst dangerous, or so it will be argued. Although it is laudable that medical schools have now given medical ethics a secure place in the curriculum, they go wrong in treating it like a scientific body of knowledge. Ethics is a unique subject matter precisely because of its widespread familiarity in all areas of life, and any teaching has to (...) start from this shared ethical understanding and from the familiar ethical concepts of ordinary language. Otherwise there is a real risk that spurious technocratic jargon will be deployed by teacher and student alike in the futile search for intellectual respectability, culminating in a misplaced sense of having “done” the ethics module. There are no better examples of such jargon than “consequentialism”, “deontology”, and the “Four Principles”. At best, they cannot do the work they were designed to do and, at worst, they can lead student and practitioner into ignoring their own healthy ethical intuitions and vocabulary. (shrink)

Best known for having declared the death of God, Nietzsche was a thinker thoroughly absorbed in the Christian tradition in which he was born and raised. Yet while the atheist Nietzsche is well known, the pious Nietzsche is seldom recognised and rarely understood. Redeeming Nietzsche examines the residual theologian in the most vociferous of atheists. Fraser demonstrates that although Nietzsche rejected God, he remained obsessed with the question of human salvation. Examining his accounts of art, truth, morality and eternity, (...) Nietzsche's thought is revealed to be a series of experiments in redemption. (shrink)

Targeting injustices that cut across borders, they are making the scale of justice an object of explicit struggle.Inspired by these efforts, Nancy Fraser asks: ...

Until recently, struggles for justice proceeded against the background of a taken-for-granted frame: the bounded territorial state. With that "Westphalian" picture of political space assumed by default, the scope of justice was rarely subject to open dispute. Today, however, human-rights activists and international feminists join critics of structural adjustment and the World Trade Organization in challenging the view that justice can only be a domestic relation among fellow citizens. Targeting injustices that cut across borders, they are making the scale of (...) justice an object of explicit struggle. Inspired by these efforts, Nancy Fraser asks: What is the proper frame for theorizing justice? Faced with a plurality of competing scales, how do we know which one is truly just? In exploring these questions, Fraser revises her widely discussed theory of redistribution and recognition. She introduces a third, "political" dimension of justice—representation—and elaborates a new, reflexive type of critical theory that foregrounds injustices of "misframing." Engaging with thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, Michel Foucault, and Hannah Arendt, she envisions a "postwestphalian" mapping of political space that accommodates transnational solidarity, transborder publicity, and democratic frame-setting, as well as emancipatory projects that cross borders. The result is a sustained reflection on who should count with respect to what in a globalizing world. (shrink)

Increasingly, metaphors are the target of political critique: Jewish groups condemn Holocaust imagery; mental health organizations, the metaphorical exploitation of psychosis; and feminists, “rape metaphors.” I develop a novel model for making sense of such critiques of metaphor.

Understanding Animal Welfare, 2nd Edition is revised and expanded to incorporate new research and developments in animal welfare. Updated with greater accessibility in mind, the reader is guided through animal welfare in its cultural and historical context, methods of study, and applications in practice and policy. Drawing examples from farm, companion, laboratory and zoo animals, the text provides an up-to-date overview of research and its applications, while also tracing how concepts and methods have evolved over time. Originally intended for scientists (...) and professionals, Understanding Animal Welfare has also found a home in undergraduate classrooms. It is now the essential text for students, practitioners, veterinarians, and researchers in animal welfare and related fields. (shrink)

Epistemologists of testimony have focused almost exclusively on the epistemic dynamics of simple testimony. We do sometimes testify by ways of simple, single sentence assertions. But much of our testimony is narratively structured. I argue that narrative testimony gives rise to a form of epistemic dependence that is far richer and more far reaching than the epistemic dependence characteristic of simple testimony.

Hate speech and misinformation are rife. How to respond? Counterspeech proposals say: with more and better speech. This paper considers the treatment of counterspeech in Maxime Lepoutre’s Democratic Speech In Divided Times. Lepoutre provides a nuanced defence of counterspeech. Some counterspeech, he grants, is flawed. But, he says: counterspeech can be debugged. Once we understand why counterspeech fails – when fail it does – we can engineer more effective counterspeech strategies. Lepoutre argues that the failures of counterspeech can be theorised (...) using the ideology of salience. Negative counterspeech fails because it reinforces the salience of the very ideas or associations that it contests. His solution? Positive counterspeech – a form of counterspeech which avoids the salience trap. I argue that the salience paradigm is ill-suited to theorise the failures of counterspeech. I suggest some alternatives. Further, I show that these alternative paradigms make importantly different practical recommendations – recommendations concerning how we ought to engineer our counterspeech – from those issued by the salience paradigm. (shrink)

We argue that Lewis would have rejected recent appeals to the notions of ‘metaphysical dependency’, ‘grounding’ and ‘ontological priority’, because he would have held that they’re not needed and they’re not intelligible. We argue our case by drawing upon Lewis’s views on supervenience, the metaphysics of singletons and the dubiousness of Kripke’s essentialism.

Five proposals for admitting better applicants into medical school are discussed in this article: An A level in a humanity or social science would be required, to supplement—not replace—the stringent science requirement. This would ensure that successful candidates would be better “primed” for the medical curriculum. Extra points in the applicant’s initial screening would be awarded for an A level in English literature. There would be a minimum age of 23 for applicants, although a prior degree would not be required. (...) This is to ensure that the applicants are mature enough to know themselves and the world better, to make a more informed and motivated choice of career, and to get more out of the humanities components of the curriculum. A year’s full-time experience in a healthcare or charity environment would be desirable. Applicants would be given two lists of interview discussion topics to prepare: works of literature and topics in healthcare politics. (shrink)

Whether a predicate is a referential expression depends upon what reference is conceived to be. Even if it is granted that reference is a relation between words and worldly items, the referents of expressions being the items to which they are so related, this still leaves considerable scope for disagreement about whether predicates refer. One of Frege's great contributions to the philosophy of language was to introduce an especially liberal conception of reference relative to which it is unproblematic to suppose (...) that predicates are referring expressions. According to this liberal conception, each significant expression in a language has its own distinctive semantic role or power, a power to effect the truth-value of the sentences in which it occurs. (shrink)

Underpinning all the other branches of science, physics affects the way we live our lives, and ultimately how life itself functions. Recent scientific advances have led to dramatic reassessment of our understanding of the world around us, and made a significant impact on our lifestyle. In this book, leading international experts, including Nobel prize winners, explore the frontiers of modern physics, from the particles inside an atom to the stars that make up a galaxy, from nano-engineering and brain research to (...) high-speed data networks. Revealing how physics plays a vital role in what we see around us, this book will fascinate scientists of all disciplines, and anyone wanting to know more about the world of physics today. (shrink)

What does it mean to think critically about politics at a time when inequality is increasing worldwide, when struggles for the recognition of difference are eclipsing struggles for social equality, and when we lack any credible vision of an alternative to the present order? Philosopher Nancy Fraser claims that the key is to overcome the false oppositions of "postsocialist" commonsense. Refuting the view that we must choose between "the politics of recognition" and the "politics of redistribution," Fraser argues (...) for an integrative approach that encompasses the best aspects of both. (shrink)