In this essay I will explore an understanding of the potential moral agency of robots; arguing that the key characteristics of physical embodiment; adaptive learning; empathy in action; and a teleology toward the good are the primary necessary components for a machine to become a moral agent. In this context; other possible options will be rejected as necessary for moral agency; including simplistic notions of intelligence; computational power; and rule-following; complete freedom; a sense of God; and an immaterial soul. I (...) argue that it is likely that such moral machines may be able to be built; and that this does not diminish humanity or human personhood. (shrink)

Lee emphasizes the need to better understand the moral relationship between researchers and participants connoted by precision medicine, with the framework of “the gift” offering bioethics a...

Issues of academic integrity, specifically knowledge of, perceptions and attitudes toward plagiarism, are well documented in post-secondary settings using case studies for specific courses, recording discourse with focus groups, analyzing cross-cultural education philosophies, and reviewing the current literature. In this paper, the authors examine the perceptions of graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines at the University of Florida regarding misconduct and integrity issues. Results revealed students’ perceptions of the definition and seriousness of potential academic misconduct, knowledge of (...) institutional procedures, and views on faculty actions, all with a focus on divergences between US and internationally-educated students. The open-ended questions provide anecdotal evidence to highlight personal experiences, positive and negative, aimed at the faculty, international students and undergraduates. Combined, these findings outline an important part of the campus academic integrity culture at a major American university. Recommendations for local actions also are discussed. (shrink)

Berger and Miller argue that contemporary medical education directed toward “cultural competency” fails to address the structural inequities and systemic racism underpinning health dispariti...

The project we highlight in this article stems from our philosophical work on moral disagreements that appear to be—and sometimes are—intractable. Deliberative democratic theorists tout the merits of dialogue as an effective way to bridge differences of values and opinion, ideally resulting in agreement, or perhaps more often resulting in greater mutual understanding. Could dialogue mitigate disagreements about a controversial education policy such as affirmative action? Could it foster greater understanding? We conceived of a project that would simultaneously fulfill two (...) goals that we had as philosophers, education researchers, and aspiring public intellectuals. First, it would allow us to use philosophy in research, grounding our mixed methods research in a philosophically informed framework. The tools and analytic techniques that are particular to philosophers felt uniquely suited for an empirical study concerning political theory. Second, we aimed to use philosophy in the community. We were able to put our own expertise in philosophy and race-conscious education policy to good use by purposefully creating opportunities for diverse community members in our larger metropolitan area to engage in dialogue and deliberation with each other over the issue of affirmative action. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultations exist to support patients, families and clinicians who are facing ethical or moral challenges related to patient care. They provide a forum for open communication, where all stakeholders are encouraged to express their concerns and articulate their viewpoints. Ethics consultations can be requested by patients, caregivers or members of a patient’s clinical or supportive team. Althoughpatientsand by extension their families (especially in cases of decisional incapacity) are the common denominators in most ethics consultations, these constituents are theleastlikely (...) to request them. At many healthcare organisations in the USA, ethics consultations are overwhelmingly requested by physicians and other clinicians. We believe it is vital that healthcare institutions bridge the knowledge gaps and power imbalances over access to ethics consultation services through augmented policies, procedures and infrastructure. With enhanced education and support, patients and families may use ethics consultation to elevate their voices and prioritise their unique characteristics and preferences in the delivery of their healthcare. Empowering patients and families to request ethics consultation can only strengthen the patient/family–clinician relationship, enhance the shared decision-making model of care and ultimately lead to improved patient-centred care. (shrink)

Using the symbiotic sustainability model as a framework, this research investigates how many and with which businesses top nonprofit organizations report partnerships. We examined the websites of the 122 largest, most recognizable U.S. nonprofits. These websites included information about 2,418 business–nonprofit partnerships with 1,707 unique businesses. The results suggest key differences with previous research on how U.S. Fortune 500 companies report B2N partnerships. Leading nonprofits report more B2N partnerships than U.S. Fortune 500 companies do. Furthermore, nonprofits do not maintain industry (...) exclusivity in reporting B2N partnerships, like their business counterparts do. Finally, social issue industries do not exert the same isomorphic pressures on B2N partnerships that economic industries do. New propositions that extend the symbiotic sustainability model are presented to account for nonprofits’ unique goals for capital accumulation in B2N partnering and the industry characteristics. (shrink)

The aim of this review is to show the fruitfulness of using images of facial expressions as experimental stimuli in order to study how neural systems support biologically relevant learning as it relates to social interactions. Here we consider facial expressions as naturally conditioned stimuli which, when presented in experimental paradigms, evoke activation in amygdala–prefrontal neural circuits that serve to decipher the predictive meaning of the expressions. Facial expressions offer a relatively innocuous strategy with which to investigate these normal variations (...) in affective information processing, as well as the promise of elucidating what role the aberrance of such processing might play in emotional disorders. (shrink)

Human genomics is a translational field spanning research, clinical care, public health, and direct-to-consumer testing. However, law differs across these domains on issues including liability, consent, promoting quality of analysis and interpretation, and safeguarding privacy. Genomic activities crossing domains can thus encounter confusion and conflicts among these approaches. This paper suggests how to resolve these conflicts while protecting the rights and interests of individuals sequenced. Translational genomics requires this more translational approach to law.

This paper provides new insights into the food security performance of long and short food chains, through an analysis of the resilience of such chains during the severe weather events that occurred in the Australian State of Queensland in early 2011. Widespread flooding cut roads and highways, isolated towns, and resulted in the deaths of people and animals. Farmlands were inundated and there were food shortages in many towns. We found clear evidence that the supermarket-based food chain delivery system experienced (...) significant difficulties in supplying food to flood-affected towns. In contrast, more localized food supply chains—which relied upon supply from growers in peri-urban areas and community-based food initiatives—remained largely intact, and provided food at a time when the supermarkets were limited in their ability to respond to consumer demand. However, on closer examination of food distribution during flooding in the regional city of Rockhampton and in the State capital, Brisbane, the demarcation of success between “long” and “short” food chains became blurred. Both types of food supply chains shared some key resilience characteristics in responding to crisis but diverged in other important ways. We argue that conceptualizing food chains in terms of key elements of resilience—scale, diversity, flexibility and cohesion—may be more fruitful than the short-long dichotomy alone. This approach is particularly useful when prioritizing food security as the basis for evaluating food system sustainability in a context of predicted increases in extreme weather events and future climate change. (shrink)

Power is clearly a crucial concept for feminist theory. Insofar as feminists are interested in analyzing power, it is because they have an interest in understanding, critiquing, and ultimately challenging the multiple array of unjust power relations affecting women in contemporary Western societies, including sexism, racism, heterosexism, and class oppression. In "The Power of Feminist Theory," Amy Allen diagnoses the inadequacies of previous feminist conceptions of power, and draws on the work of a diverse group of theorists of power, including (...) Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Hannah Arendt, in order to construct a new feminist conception of power. The conception of power developed in this book enables readers to theorize domination, resistance, and solidarity, and, perhaps more importantly, to do so in a way that illuminates the interrelatedness of these three modalities of power. (shrink)

Feminist theory needs both explanatory-diagnostic and anticipatory-utopian moments in order to be truly critical and truly feminist. However, the explanatory-diagnostic task of analyzing the workings of gendered power relations in all of their depth and complexity seems to undercut the very possibility of emancipation on which the anticipatory-utopian task relies. In this paper, I take this looming paradox as an invitation to rethink our understanding of emancipation and its relation to the anticipatory-utopian dimensions of critique, asking what conception of emancipation (...) is compatible with a complex explanatory-diagnostic analysis of contemporary gender domination as it is intertwined and entangled with race, class, sexuality, and empire. I explore this question through an analysis of two specific debates in which the paradoxical relationship between power and emancipation emerges in particularly salient and seemingly intractable forms: debates over subjection and modernity. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, I argue that a negativistic conception of emancipation offers the best way for feminist critical theory to transform the paradox of power and emancipation into a productive tension that can fuel critique. (shrink)

The centerpiece of the first volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality is the analysis of what Foucault terms the “repressive hypothesis,” the nearly universal assumption on the part of twentieth-century Westerners that we are the heirs to a Victorian legacy of sexual repression. The supreme irony of this belief, according to Foucault, is that the whole time that we have been announcing and denouncing our repressed, Victorian sexuality, discourses about sexuality have actually proliferated. Paradoxically, as Victorian as we allegedly (...) are, we cannot stop talking about sex. Much of the analysis of the first volume of the History of Sexuality consists in an unmasking and debunking of the repressive hypothesis. This unmasking does not take the simple form of a counter-claim that we are not, in fact, repressed; rather, Foucault contends that understanding sexuality solely or even primarily in terms of repression is inaccurate and misleading. As he said in an interview published in 1983, “it is not a question of denying the existence of repression. It’s one of showing that repression is always a part of a much more complex political strategy regarding sexuality. Things are not merely repressed.”1 Foucault makes this extremely clear in the introduction to the History of Sexuality, Volume 1, when he writes. (shrink)

This article explores the contemporary scientific practice of human genome science in light of Michel Foucault’s articulation of the problem of population. Rather than transcending the politics of social categories and identities, human genome research mobilizes many different kinds of populations. How then might we aim to avoid overgeneralized readings of the refiguring of human difference in the life sciences and grapple with the multiple and contradictory logics of population classification? In exploring the study of human variation through the case (...) of the ‘Quebec founder population’ at a private genome research laboratory in Canada, the article argues that the power to define and shape meanings of human variation and to organize vitality is not held by any one institution or form of scientific practice. While molecular genomics may be transforming conceptions of human difference, the laboratory is only one of many places where human genomic variation accrues value, meaning and relevance. Molecular configurations of human difference gain meaning through a traffic in populations that extends beyond the laboratory. In the case explored here this traffic in populations is constituted within a nexus of empire, national census practices and contemporary articulations of multicultural policies. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for bringing the work of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt into dialogue with respect to the links between power, subjectivity, and agency. Although one might assume that Foucault and Arendt come from such radically different philosophical starting points that such a dialogue would be impossible, I argue that there is actually a good deal of common ground to be found between these two thinkers. Moreover, I suggest that Foucault's and Arendt's divergent views about the role (...) that power plays in the constitution of subjectivity and agency should be seen as complementary rather than opposed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bataille and Mysticism: A “Dazzling Dissolution”Amy Hollywood (bio)Within Georges Bataille’s texts of the late 1930s and 1940s, in particular those later brought together in the tripartite Atheological Summa, he repeatedly suggests that his primary models for writing and experience are the texts of the Christian and non-Western mystical traditions (often represented, in Bataille, by women’s writings) and those of Friedrich Nietzsche. 1 Inner Experience opens with evocations of Nietzsche, (...) and the final volume of the trilogy, On Nietzsche, is “devoted” to his work. References to mystical writings occur throughout Inner Experience and Guilty, and significant portions of both texts can be read as providing “guides” for inner experience analogous to the “itineraries” of Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) and Teresa of Avila (d. 1582) or as spiritual daybooks like those of Mechthild of Magdeburg (d. ca. 1275). These models are, I think, the key to understanding Bataille’s own writing strategies in the Atheological Summa. 2 Despite their apparent divergence, moreover, Bataille insists that mystical and Nietzschean texts reflect and are constitutive of the same experience and writing practice.Like both Nietzsche and the mystics, Bataille’s “antigeneric” writing mixes genres and styles within and between texts. 3 Throughout the course of his career, experience and writing are in a constant state of movement, flux, or chaos (to echo Bataille’s self-description in On Nietzsche). The Atheological Summa encapsulates within what purport to be three unified books the diversity of genres and styles that run throughout Bataille’s corpus as a whole. They contain ample quotation of Nietzsche’s texts and those of the mystics—undigested hunks and fragments of these allusive writings 4 —together with philosophical reflections, confessional meditations, diary fragments, letters, and, at the end of On Nietzsche, a set of six brief historical and theoretical appendices. Anything broaching traditional textual commentary is reserved for the margins of these nonbooks. Like many mystics, particularly women who were denied access to the traditional genres of sermon, biblical commentary, and philosophical or theological treatise, and like Nietzsche, who eschews and subverts traditional genre distinctions, Bataille comments and critiques through practice rather than exposition. Although Bataille acknowledges the oddity of his coupling the mystics and Nietzsche, he also rigorously defends it, arguing for a mystical and ecstatic experience in Nietzsche’s work. 5 As I hope to show, Bataille’s [End Page 74] experience of the failures of mysticism and of Nietzsche speak to each other and lead to Bataille’s necessary apostasy as his true discipleship.Repetition of the divergences between Bataille and the mystics, first stated by Bataille himself in Inner Experience, has become something of a commonplace, yet his claims have not been sufficiently explored or challenged. So, for example, Alain Arnauld and Giséle Excoffon-Lafarge unproblematically assert that despite all proximities between Bataille’s texts and those of the mystics, they differ in their aims or aimlessness. Michel Surya joins a host of other scholars whose primary concern is to demonstrate (against the insinuations of Sartre, made now almost fifty years ago) that Bataille was not a Christian. Whereas the mystics’ path ends with the divine encounter, Bataille renounces all objects, aims, or end for his quest and his desire. 6 Most importantly, he rejects all idealism and any hope for salvation. Bataille himself insists on his divergence from the Christian mystics in Inner Experience and Guilty. At the same time, his citations and mimings of central texts from the Christian mystical tradition show that what fascinates him within these writings is precisely the moment in which the soul desires “to live without a why,” embracing the suffering of hell—understood as the absence of/from the “object” of desire—as desire. 7 In a move later echoed by Jacques Lacan, Bataille claims that some medieval mystics attained that beyond of which he writes, but without knowing anything about it: “Exuberance is the point where we let go of Christianity. Angela of Foligno attained it and described it, but didn’t know it.” 8Commentators follow Bataille in resisting his identification with the mystics, then, whereas Nietzsche is a less troubling model for Bataille and his readers. In fact, Bataille... (shrink)

This article re-examines the closing sections of Michel Foucault's The Order of Things in order to address the longstanding question of whether he is best understood as a philosopher or a historian. My central argument is that this question misses the crucial point of Foucault's work, which is to historicize the notion of history, which Foucault takes to be central to the historical a priori of modernity. An examination of his historicization of History thus reveals that Foucault is neither simply (...) a philosopher—because he conceives of philosophy in modernity as a historical enterprise—nor a historian—because his own historical approach is designed to transform the modern historical a priori from within. This analysis also sheds new light of Foucault's relationship to psychoanalysis and his conception of critique. (shrink)

La teoría feminista necesita tanto momentos de diagnóstico explicativo como de utopía anticipatoria con el fin de ser realmente crítica y verdaderamente feminista. Sin embargo, la tarea de diagnóstico explicativo en el análisis del funcionamiento de las relaciones de poder basadas en el género en toda su complejidad parece cortar la posibilidad misma de emancipación, de la cual depende la tarea de una utopía anticipatoria. En este artículo, considero esta inminente paradoja como una invitación a repensar nuestro entendimiento de la (...) emancipación y su relación con las dimensiones de utopía anticipatoria de la crítica; asimismo, cuestiono cuál es la concepción de emancipación compatible con un análisis de diagnóstico explicativo sobre la dominación de género, en la medida en que se encuentra ligada e involucrada con la raza, clase, sexualidad e imperio. Siguiendo a Michel Foucault, sostengo que una concepción negativista de la emancipación ofrece el mejor camino para que la teoría feminista transforme la paradoja de poder y emancipación en una tensión productiva que pueda alimentar a la crítica. (shrink)

THAT DESCARTES WAS INTERESTED from the very start of his philosophic career in developing a method for problem-solving that could be applied generally to the solution of "unknowns" is well known. Also well known is the further development of the method by the introduction of the technique of hyperbolic doubt in his mature, metaphysical works, especially in the Meditations. Perhaps less widely appreciated is the important role that accounts of systems of signs played in the development of his early accounts (...) of a method; it is crucial to the method that the elements of problems be identified and signified by simple and convenient signs that can then be arranged to display the relations among the known elements and the unknown solution. Commentators such as Michel Foucault have brought this interest in signification to our attention and shown the widespread importance of such projects in the seventeenth century. Few, however, have examined the relation between the early projects of signification and the later, metaphysical works. I suggest that one way to understand Descartes' metaphysical turn in his mature work is as an attempt to ground the accounts he has offered of signification in something further: representation, particularly mental representation. From the start, Descartes explains signification by reference to mental representation: a word, figure, or symbol signifies its objects by prompting the mind to think of those objects. Although Descartes offers detailed and comprehensive accounts in works such as the Rules for the Direction of the Mind of what constitutes effective and convenient systems of signification by way of the relations between signifying element, system, and the objects signified thereby, the mental operations that allow signification to operate, especially that of the "intuition of simple natures," is never fully explained. It remains to the mature phase of Descartes' career to crack open the basic operations of our thought by developing the full-fledged doctrine of ideas--a doctrine that makes explicit how an object is represented to a subject. (shrink)

L’hypothèse développée ici est que la « meilleure amie » évoquée par Socrate à la fin du chapitre n’est autre que son âme. L’exemple ainsi donné par Socrate de sa maîtrise de soi face à l’attrait exercé par une femme à la beauté « plus forte que les paroles»s’adresse non à cette dernière, mais aux assistants. On comprend ainsi pourquoi ce chapitre prend place dans une série d’entretiens où Socrate prodigue ses conseils à ceux qui « désirent les belles choses (...) ». Cette interprétation plaide en faveur de l’unité du livre III des Mémorables.The hypothesis exposed here is that the « better friend » called up by Socrates in the last sentence of the chapter is just his own soul. By giving a such example of self-control in face of an appealing woman whose beauty was « stronger than words », Socrates is not addressing this woman but his audience. We thus understand why this chapter is located in a series of conversations in which Socrates is giving advices to people who « desire beautiful things ». The thesis of the unity of Book III of Memorabilia is supported by this interpretation. (shrink)

L’hypothèse développée ici est que la « meilleure amie » évoquée par Socrate à la fin du chapitre n’est autre que son âme. L’exemple ainsi donné par Socrate de sa maîtrise de soi face à l’attrait exercé par une femme à la beauté « plus forte que les paroles » s’adresse non à cette dernière, mais aux assistants. On comprend ainsi pourquoi ce chapitre prend place dans une série d’entretiens où Socrate prodigue ses conseils à ceux qui « désirent les (...) belles choses » . Cette interprétation plaide en faveur de l’unité du livre III des Mémorables.The hypothesis exposed here is that the « better friend » called up by Socrates in the last sentence of the chapter is just his own soul. By giving a such example of self-control in face of an appealing woman whose beauty was « stronger than words », Socrates is not addressing this woman but his audience. We thus understand why this chapter is located in a series of conversations in which Socrates is giving advices to people who « desire beautiful things » . The thesis of the unity of Book III of Memorabilia is supported by this interpretation. (shrink)

La contribution de Michel Troper à la théorie générale du droit et à la théorie constitutionnelle est aujourd'hui reconnue et célébrée un peu partout dans le monde. Un talent d'architecte se tient à l'origine de cette audience rarement égalée dans la sphère francophone : celui qu'il faut pour accommoder toutes les exigences, quel que soit l'ordre de valeur dans lequel on les trouve : originalité, rigueur, souci de la fonction, esthétisme, solidité, adaptation, intelligence, inquiétude, esprit critique, renoncement, réalisme... A ces (...) mérites, on ajoutera une curiosité insatiable, un goût prononcé pour l'échange et le débat, un refus distingué de l'académisme, un sens exigeant de l'amitié et une méfiance profônde pour les adjectifs... C'est cet édifice de qualités que les élèves, collègues et amis de Michel Troper sont heureux de célébrer en lui offrant ces Mélanges. (shrink)

Sors de l'enfance, ami, réveille-toi ! -- Le monde est ma représentation -- Porte un regard attentif sur les choses -- Ainsi s'objective le vouloir-vivre -- Le théâtre du monde -- Conduite de la vie : ce que nous sommes -- La conduite de la vie : ce que l'on a.

Pour la première fois, Michel Onfray prend la parole sur son initiative collective, heureuse et spectaculaire : la création, en 2002, de l'Université populaire de Caen. Pourquoi, comment, pour qui, contre quoi : armé de sa plus belle plume, enthousiaste et percutant comme jamais, il explique, défend et revendique ce projet un peu fou, devenu un incroyable succès... populaire. L'Université populaire de Caen en 2002 est avant tout une réponse à la situation politique du moment : la présence d'un candidat (...) d'extrême-droite à l'élection présidentielle. Georges Deherme avait créé les universités populaires pour instruire la classe ouvrière, en réalisant le voeu formulé par Condorcet un siècle plus tôt : développer "une instruction qui rende la raison populaire". Cette ambition suppose qu'on souscrive à deux propositions : l'ignorance enchaîne et le savoir libère. En reprenant le flambeau, Michel Onfray s'inscrit en faux contre les dogmatismes étroits, la moralisation, le formatage intellectuel de l'université française. Il revendique l'exploration de ce qu'il appelle les "marges philosophiques de l'historiographie officielle", sans élitisme ni démagogie. A la demande toujours croissante de philosophie, d'aucuns répondent par la commercialisation du savoir, d'autres par le bavardage collectif (les "cafés philo"...) ou l'infantilisation. A l'extrême opposé, le projet de Caen se fonde sur des valeurs démocratiques et libertaires : il s'agit de rassembler des "amis" (comme Epicure dans son jardin), pour partager et dialoguer avec tous ceux qui ont soif de savoir, dans un but philosophique commun : "se faire libre" (Nietzsche). (shrink)

Dépositaire d’une partie des textes écrits par S. Weil à propos de la pensée grecque,son ami le P. J.-M. Perrin les publia sous le titre « Intuitions pré-chrétiennes ». Ce titre inscrit l’approche de la pensée grecque par S. Weil dans une perspective téléologique conformeà une apologétique héritée des Pères de l’Église, mais étrangère à la pensée de S. Weil.Pour elle, bien loin que la révélation chrétienne vienne accomplir ce qui n’était présentqu’en germe chez les Grecs, la vérité en était (...) déjà pleinement connue de ces derniers, commede bien d’autres civilisations disparues. (shrink)

Ce livre, composé de douze épisodes, qui peuvent être lus chacun pour soi, a été conçu – et en bonne partie « test頻 en groupe – pour aider le lecteur à entrer dans le cercle des amis de Spinoza.

La distinction de l’ami et de l’ennemi traverse toute l’histoire de la pensée politique. Elle y remplit des fonctions très diverses, de la simple description d’un état de fait à la formulation de maximes de prudence, l’analyse stratégique d’un champ de forces, la définition du droit de la guerre ou la théorisation de l’essence du politique. Ces multiples usages ne dessinent donc pas les contours d’une problématique homogène. Entre les deux termes eux-mêmes se déploie toute une gamme de rappor..

Les études rassemblées dans cet ouvrage sont le fait de philosophes, de théoriciens des arts, d'écrivains et de plasticiens. Les auteurs ont voulu rencontrer Michel Guérin sur les chemins où il conduit sa pensée, et souhaité dialoguer avec lui à partir de leurs propres préoccupations ou présupposés. Michel Guérin s'intéresse au pouvoir des gestes de faire sens de manière intelligible et sensible d'un même tour; c'est ce qui explique sans doute pourquoi l'histoire des idées comme le regard porté sur les (...) ouvres d'art, et la conceptualisation des outils propres à l'aiguiser, ont sous sa plume un air de famille dont on rencontrera les effets dans ce recueil. Les contributions y reflètent l'étendue des domaines vers lesquels la Figurologie de Michel Guérin porte bénéfice, ainsi que la multiplicité des implications théoriques et pratiques de sa pensée transversale. Le chapitre initial regroupe des commentaires et des réponses au projet global du philosophe de générer des espaces par les Figures qu'il construit. Le second réunit différents gestes et coupes de sensibilité effectués par des amis artistes aussi bien que théoriciens, dont les intentions sont avant tout plastiques (différencier, donner rythme, donner forme). Dans la dernière partie, les auteurs tentent diversement de penser l'époque au sens où Michel Guérin l'entend, sur le plan éthique autant que sur les plans historique, esthétique et sociopolitique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Derrida, quel diable d'homme! Preux de la pensée, partant en guerre contre tous et contre lui-même, chevalier de l'idéal comme Don Quichotte et politicien pragmatique comme Sancho Pança, il n'aura cessé de bouleverser de fond en comble nos idées reçues pour les relancer, accroître leur vélocité et en faire des armes concepƯtuelles redoutables. Ce livre s'attache à suivre certaines de ses campagnes, retraçant une trajectoire qui va de son enfance et adolescence algériennes vers un avenir messianique ouvert à l'Autre. Au (...) passage, il lui aura fallu en découdre avec un ami trop proche de certains thèmes éthiques, Emmanuel Levinas, ainsi qu'avec un ennemi plus vulnérable, Giorgio Agamben. À travers leurs méditations croisées, Derrida insiste sur le fait que la lutte polémique est préférable à la paix, car elle en fonde la possibilité tout en mettant en question les théologies guerrières. Le roman récent de J.M. Coetzee, Une enfance de Jésus, et les poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé vont servir à illustrer ces attentes et ces tensions entre chien et chat, entre futur et avenir, entre drôles de trêves et drôles de guerres : entre hospitalité et hostilité."--Back cover. (shrink)

This article tries to bring to light the mistaken idea that the words the law borrows from plain language, without explicit definition, should keep their original meaning; Although legal language and plain language are obviously close “friends”, they seem to be also “false friends”, because these words belonging to two different languages have, beyond their formal similarities, partially different meanings. For this purpose, this article provides a critical analysis of the reference of the belgian case law to the ordinary meaning (...) of words. This reference is analysed in relation to three different matters: interpretation, legality, and autonomy of criminal law. (shrink)

« Nous pensons qu’un recueil de lettres écrites par ces amies de notre Fédération constituerait une précieuse contribution à l’histoire de la guerre de 1939-1945 » écrit dans son rapport d’activité à l’AFDU (Association Française des Femmes Diplômées) Marie-Louise Puech en 1946. Rémy Cazals, professeur d’histoire contemporaine à l’Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, avec ce livre, met en oeuvre ce programme et nous livre ainsi un des multiples trésors qu’il a dénichés dans les archives publique...

The association between New York City’s all-over structure and the play that unfolds within it relative to difference and identity is very pertinent but is not specific enough, in my opinion. On the one hand, all of Mondrian’s neoplastic works are constituted by an opposition between the variable and the invariable . On the other hand, the type of identity produced in New York City relies on repetition, a principle which, we know, explicitly governs a whole range of paintings predating (...) neoplasticism. New York City differs from the “classic” neoplastic works, as well as from the 1918-19 modular paintings with which it seems to have a good deal in common. It is, in part, because he never discusses this last point that Masheck doesn’t entirely grasp the amplitude of the reversal that Mondrian effected in his New York works.In fact, as James Johnson Sweeney realized quite early, one must go back o the 1917 works, which gave rise to modular grids for the two years that followed, in order to understand what happens not only in New York City but also in the two Boogie-Woogie paintings.3Everyone is aware of the extraordinarily rapid evolution of Mondrian’s work during the years immediately preceding the foundation of neoplasticism: under the influence of Bart van der Leck, he dopted the colored plane and the black dash on a white background as elements of his composition for the two Compositions in Color, A and B . Mondrian, who had not yet found a means of perspicuously relating these diverse elements , tied both plane and dashes together by way of an optical dynamism, based largely on their superimposition. The immediate consequence was to make the background recede optically. The next step was the five Compositions , all entitled “With Colored Planes” . Here all superimposition was eliminated, as well as all “line.” In the last two of these canvases, the background itself is divided without remainder in to planes of different shades of white. The colored rectangles are on the way to alignment. In spite of this, the rectangles fluctuate and, consequently, the background is hollowed out behind them. 3. See James Johnson Sweeney, “Mondrian, the Dutch and De Stijl,” Art News 50 : 63. Meyer Schapiro made a similar remark, at about the same time, in his courses. 4. When I refer to a number accompanied by “Seuphor,” it refers to the “catalog by group” included in Michel Seuphor’s book on the artist. See Seuphor [Ferdinand Louis Berckelaers], Piet Mondrian; sa vie, son oeuvre, 2d ed. . Yve-Alain Bois is associate professor of art history at the Johns Hopkins University. He has published a number of essays on twentieth-century art, architecture, and criticism and is currently working on Mondrian’s neoplastic years and on a history of axonometric perspective. Amy Reiter-McIntosh is a lecturer at the University of Chicago. Her previous contribution to Critical Inquiry was a translation of Ernesto Laclau’s “Psychanalyse et marxisme”. (shrink)

Michel Serres captures the urgencies of our time; from the digital revolution to the ecological crisis to the future of the university, the crises that code the world today are addressed in an accessible, affirmative and remarkably original analysis in his thought. This volume is the first to engage with the philosophy of Michel Serres, not by writing 'about' it, but by writing 'with' it. This is done by expanding upon the urgent themes that Serres works on; by furthering his (...) materialism, his emphasis on communication and information, his focus on the senses, and the role of mathematics in thought. His famous concepts, such as the parasite, 'amis de viellesse', and the algorithm are applied in 21st century situations. With contributions from an international and interdisciplinary team of authors, these writings tackle the crises of today and affirm the contemporary relevance of Serres' philosophy. (shrink)

This volume presents an exploration of the intersection between the work of Michel Foucault and feminist theory, focusing on Foucault's theories of sex/body, identity/subject, and power/politics. Like the other books in this series, this volume seeks to bring a feminist perspective to bear on the interpretation of a major figure in the philosophical canon. In the case of Michel Foucault, however, this aim is somewhat ironic because Foucault sees his work as disrupting that very canon. Since feminists see their work (...) as similarly disruptive, Foucault and feminism would seem to find much common ground, but, as the contributors to this collection reveal, the matter is not so simple. Foucault, like many feminists, is centrally concerned with questions related to sexuality and the body. This concern has led both Foucault and feminists to challenge the founding concept of the modernist philosophical canon: the disembodied transcendental subject. For both Foucault and feminists, this subject must be deconstructed and a new concept of identity articulated. The exciting possibilities of a Foucaultian approach to issues of the subject and identity, especially as they relate to sex and the body, are detailed in several of the essays collected here. Despite these possibilities, however, Foucault's approach has raised serious questions about an equally crucial area of feminist thought-politics. Some feminist critics of Foucault have argued that his deconstruction of the concept "woman" also deconstructs the possibility of a feminist politics. Several essays explore the implications of this deconstruction for feminist politics and suggest that a Foucaultian feminist politics is not viable. Overall, this collection illustrates the range of interest Foucault's thought has generated among feminist thinkers and both the advantages and liabilities of his approach for the development of feminist theory and politics. Contributors are Nancy Fraser, Nancy Hartsock, Judith Butler, Ellen L. McCallum, Linda Alcoff, Honi Haber, Jana Sawicki, Jon Simons, Monique Deveaux, Moya Lloyd, Amy Allen, and Terry Aladjem. (shrink)

Responding to the long-standing debate concerning whether Michel Foucault is a philosopher or a historian, Amy Allen questions the incompatibility that this opposition suggests. Foucault can be considered neither a historian nor a philosopher in isolation. Rather, given his own account of history and critique in his early text, The Order of Things, we should understand Foucault as a philosopher whose critical interventions are historically contingent. This commentary asks about the role of linguistics in critical theory, as it is the (...) third counterscience listed alongside ethnology and psychoanalysis. Does a Foucault-inspired critical theory privilege the linguistic turn, even above and beyond the critical potential of either psychoanalysis or ethnology? Secondly, this commentary questions the truly critical power of Foucauldian critique in light of a defanged postcolonial theory, which is partially rooted in Foucauldian thought. Specifically, this commentary asks whether Edward Said, a postcolonial theorist explicitly influenced by Foucault, should be considered emblematic of this Foucauldian critique despite Said's complete assimilation into the status quo. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s invective is legendary among philosophers, and is unmatched in the historical canon. But these complaints are themselves worthy of careful consideration: they are rooted in Schopenhauer’s philosophy of language, which itself reflects the structure of his metaphysics. This short chapter argues that Schopenhauer’s vitriol rewards philosophical attention; not because it expresses his critical take on Fichte, Hegel, Herbart, Schelling, and Schleiermacher, but because it neatly illustrates his philosophy of language. Schopenhauer’s epithets are not merely spiteful slurs; instead, they reflect (...) deep-seated theoretical and methodological commitments to transparency of exposition. (shrink)

This volume presents an exploration of the intersection between the work of Michel Foucault and feminist theory, focusing on Foucault's theories of sex/body, identity/subject, and power/politics. Like the other books in this series, this volume seeks to bring a feminist perspective to bear on the interpretation of a major figure in the philosophical canon. In the case of Michel Foucault, however, this aim is somewhat ironic because Foucault sees his work as disrupting that very canon. Since feminists see their work (...) as similarly disruptive, Foucault and feminism would seem to find much common ground, but, as the contributors to this collection reveal, the matter is not so simple. Foucault, like many feminists, is centrally concerned with questions related to sexuality and the body. This concern has led both Foucault and feminists to challenge the founding concept of the modernist philosophical canon: the disembodied transcendental subject. For both Foucault and feminists, this subject must be deconstructed and a new concept of identity articulated. The exciting possibilities of a Foucaultian approach to issues of the subject and identity, especially as they relate to sex and the body, are detailed in several of the essays collected here. Despite these possibilities, however, Foucault's approach has raised serious questions about an equally crucial area of feminist thought-politics. Some feminist critics of Foucault have argued that his deconstruction of the concept "woman" also deconstructs the possibility of a feminist politics. Several essays explore the implications of this deconstruction for feminist politics and suggest that a Foucaultian feminist politics is not viable. Overall, this collection illustrates the range of interest Foucault's thought has generated among feminist thinkers and both the advantages and liabilities of his approach for the development of feminist theory and politics. Contributors are Nancy Fraser, Nancy Hartsock, Judith Butler, Ellen L. McCallum, Linda Alcoff, Honi Haber, Jana Sawicki, Jon Simons, Monique Deveaux, Moya Lloyd, Amy Allen, and Terry Aladjem. (shrink)