Más allá de sus diferencias y tensiones conceptuales, Hegel y Deleuze comparten el esfuerzo por concebir una filosofía de la naturaleza que no se confunda con el conocimiento científico de sus épocas respectivas – con el cual sin embargo se relacionan. En este artículo, se toma como base el orden de exposición de la “física orgánica” en la Enciclopedia de las ciencias filosóficas de Hegel para ponerla en relación con tres capítulos de Mil Mesetas, de Deleuze y Guattari. Así la (...) naturaleza geológica, la vegetal y la animal se confrontan respectivamente con “La geología de la moral”, el rizoma y los devenires-animales. El resultado, desde el estudio de Deleuze, es la posibilidad de encontrar, dentro de la caótica exposición de Mil mesetas, una determinación ontológica progresiva y una valorización de las formas existentes. Desde la interpretación de Hegel se podrá encontrar, dentro de la rígida estructura de la escala de la naturaleza, la estimación de lo anómalo y singular. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone estudiar la noción de expresión en los dos libros que Deleuze publica en 1968: _Spinoza y el problema de la expresión _y _Diferencia y repetición. _Se trazarán las correspondencias entre las formas de expresión en el primero y los planos ontológicos del segundo, para luego considerar en qué consiste el _renversement _ del spinozismo que Deleuze propone. Se mostrará que este no consiste en invertir el rol del fundamento entre lo Uno y lo múltiple, sino en (...) liberar las formas de expresión del cuádruple cepo de la razón suficiente, y darle a cada una su lógica y potencia propias. (shrink)

Resumen: Deleuze y Guattari caracterizan el capitalismo como una serie de relaciones diferenciales entre flujos: trabajo / capital; medios de pago / moneda de financiamiento; códigos científicos y tecnológicos / mercado. Al mismo tiempo consideran las formas de lucha a partir del operaismo italiano. Este artículo muestra cómo se articulan ambas dimensiones de lo político a partir de establecer que son respectivamente la aplicación de los dos conceptos ontológicos fundamentales de Diferencia y repetición : la Idea diferencial y la intensidad (...) como factor de individuación. Para ello, se concentra en la relación monetaria, a partir de la teoría de los economistas que Deleuze y Guattari usan como fuente y la lucha a nivel monetario planteada por Berti.: Deleuze and Guattari characterize Capitalism as a series of differential relations between flows: labor / capital; means of payment / financing currency; scientific and technological codes / market. At the same time, they think the ways of struggle through the Italian operaismo. This paper shows the articulation of the two dimensions of politics by holding that they are an application of the two fundamental ontological concepts of Difference and Repetition : differential Idea and intensity as factors of individuation. To do that, we will focus on the monetary relation, using the theory of the economists who are source for Deleuze and Guattari and the struggle at a monetary level proposed by Berti. (shrink)

A través de la puesta en serie de _Diferencia y repetición_ (1968) y _La imagen-movimiento_ (1983), trazaremos cuatro senderos en la ontología divergente de Gilles Deleuze, mostrando cómo cada una de las escuelas de montaje del cine clásico implica una _inversión_ determinada respecto a cuatro facetas de la tradición filosófica, representadas por Hume, Spinoza, Hegel y Descartes. La taxonomía de los estudios sobre cine abrirá caminos _claros_ en la oscura ontología de Deleuze, mientras que el libro del ‘68 revelará la (...) carga filosófica implícita en los desarrollos cinematográficos, al mismo tiempo que mostrará las divergencias e incomposibilidades que gruñen debajo de la aparente pulcritud de la clasificación de las imágenes cinematográficas. (shrink)

Proponemos confrontar el pensamiento de Gilles Deleuze y Leo Strauss a partir de las disímiles interpretaciones que estos dos influyentes filósofos del siglo XX han hecho de la ontología política de Spinoza. Ambos comparten una problemática común: cómo se relacionan la sustancia y los modos existentes. Pero donde Strauss realiza un llamado a la Revelación y el mandato de amar al prójimo para colmar la brecha y evitar que la sabiduría sea sinónimo de indiferencia ante el sufrimiento de la multitud, (...) Deleuze recurre a una propuesta de lectura de la teoría del modo finito que permite distinguir el punto de vista de la Eternidad de aquel de la Duración, sin por eso dejar a los modos finitos librados al azar de los encuentros, es decir, permitiéndoles encontrar su conatus en la potencia divina. (shrink)

El prejuicio más aciago de la filosofía es que su historia jalona rivalidades sangrientas, conflictos insuperables, superaciones radicales, reinicios absolutos, fines y clausuras. Se trata de una concepción pobre y desangelada de esta pasión que impulsa mi viaje por la tierra. El paisaje de lo trascendental se anima cuando se lo concibe como el trabajo conjunto de una saga de artistas embriagados por el pensamiento. Esto no quiere decir que se trate de una suave danza de almas bellas; por el (...) contrario, esa misma embriaguez lleva a enfrentamientos salvajes: hay interpretaciones en las que se nos va la vida, hay conceptos cuya importancia nos desvela, hay posturas que nos parecen escandalosas. Sin embargo, también cuando la danza se hace tan turbulenta que se parece más bien a una brutal pelea de box, lo que importa es esa violencia que fuerza a pensar, y no quién tiene razón. Discutimos porque pensamos juntos, nos respetamos cuando nos criticamos de forma salvaje. Así se construye el pensamiento común: en la tensión y no en la calma, en la pasión de la embriaguez que alterna afinidades radicales y diferencias que parecen irreconciliables.Este libro se propone sostener tal visión de la filosofía a través de un experimento crucial: mostrar que entrelazando a Hegel y a Deleuze podemos construir una potente ontología práctica, que tome la multiplicidad como prius, para dar cuenta del mundo y de la experiencia, donde se conjugan movimiento y devenir con identidades y persistencias. Con ese objetivo, a lo largo de estas páginas expondré a la multiplicidad como una fuerza capaz de determinarse en formas concretas y precisas. La alianza de Deleuze y Hegel nos brinda herramientas conceptuales preciosas para esa tarea: el primero nos ofrece esa ontología de la multiplicidad, mientras el segundo nos plaga de determinaciones sutiles hasta el agotamiento. Una lectura de Hegel desde una perspectiva deleuziana abre nuestros ojos a las miríadas de diferencias y al sutil recorrido incluso de lo más bajo (en su filosofía de la naturaleza hay un secreto slum naturalismo: un amor apasionado por la vileza y las formas más precarias de la existencia). Una lectura de Deleuze desde la perspectiva hegeliana abre nuestros ojos a la máquina de determinación y constitución de lo existente que se alimenta de los flujos y rizomas que lo han hecho célebre. (shrink)

En este artículo se analizan las perspectivas políticas que surgen de las diferentes interpretaciones existentes sobre la ontología que Gilles Deleuze construye en Diferencia y repetición. En primer lugar, se contemplan las implicancias de una visión restringida a su teoría de la Idea, donde el debate consiste en establecer si Deleuze se inclina por una prioridad virtual o una actual; en términos políticos, éstas lo acercan, respectivamente, a una genealogía soberana o una liberal. En un segundo momento mostramos cómo esta (...) interpretación acotada se enriquece si se toma en cuenta el otro concepto fundamental del libro de 1968: la intensidad. De allí surgen versiones sofisticadas de ambas posturas: la prioridad actual ya no se identifica con un atomismo social, sino con la corporalidad intensiva del pueblo y las minorías que lo componen; el Estado como Idea social que emerge de la prioridad virtual, por su parte, ya no está “fuera del mundo”, sino que está constituido por una materialidad intensiva. Finalmente, se mostrará que el elemento intensivo no alcanza para resolver las limitaciones de ambas perspectivas -tanto en lo especulativo como en lo político-, y la necesidad de superarlas hacia una reciprocidad absoluta, donde la inmanencia entre Idea e intensidad sólo encuentra distinción en los movimientos de plegado de un mismo espacio topológico, cuya traducción política es un Estado intensivo indisociable del pueblo que lo expresa y explica. (shrink)

This paper addresses an action that, from a Deleuzian perspective, is capable of modifying the despairing current social situation in which we are immersed, through the creation of political Ideas. Even though Deleuze conceives social Ideas as vast civilizing structures, we propose to bring into the political domain the logic of other acts of creation, such as the artistic or the philosophical, where the monumental coexists with minor figures that are nonetheless capable of introducing novelty into the world. The politician (...) is the figure of those who are capable of having an Idea that allows to break the habits that perpetuate the current situation, and gives consistency to the intensive forms of life that continually create and dissolve themselves in the flow of becoming. Thus, macro- and micro-politics do not oppose each other, but offer in their immanence an alternative to social nihilism. (shrink)

Deleuze considera a Fichte un moralista, que por tanto juzga con un criterio que trasciende el punto de vista del sujeto concreto y corporal. Sin embargo, teniendo en cuenta la doctrina de los impulsos presente en la _Sittenlehre_ de Fichte, es posible considerarlo ético en sentido deleuziano: el valor depende del aumento de potencia emergente de composiciones o armonías. Por otra parte, en Deleuze las leyes de composición y las relaciones constitutivas no son afirmadas dogmáticamente, sino como fruto de un (...) proceso genético rigurosamente determinado entre Ideas e intensidades individuantes. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone realizar un abordaje crítico de la ontología afirmativa de Gilles Deleuze a partir de las objeciones realizadas por Georg Hegel a Spinoza en su Ciencia de la lógica. La hipótesis de trabajo es que, dada la herencia spinozista del pensamiento de Deleuze, estas críticas pueden resultar pertinentes para reflexionar sobre algunos puntos fundamentales. De esta manera, se intenta contrariar la habitual tendencia de los estudios deleuzianos de trabajar en una clave anti-hegeliana, es decir, a partir de (...) una separación teórica total con la problemática de Hegel. Se descarta la posibilidad de centrar las críticas de Hegel en torno a la sentencia "omni determinatio est negatio" o la imposibilidad de progresar desde la afirmación absoluta (por lo que el verdadero comienzo en Spinoza -y por tanto en Deleuze- sería la mera realidad empírica donde los elementos se vinculan de manera extrínseca, es decir, sin concepto). El punto de inconmensurabilidad es que Hegel afirma que es necesario que exista un movimiento de retorno (zurürckkehren) para que la afirmación no se degrade al punto de la disolución, mientras que Deleuze prefiere el movimiento de eterno retorno (ewige wiederkunft) como apertura insistente en el porvenir. Este artigo se propõe a realizar uma abordagem crítica da ontologia afirmativa de Gilles Deleuze a partir das objeções realizadas por Georg Hegel a Spinoza em sua Ciência da Lógica. A hipótese de trabalho é que, visto que o pensamento de Deleuze tem uma herança spinozista, essas críticas podem resultar pertinentes para refletir sobre alguns pontos fundamentais. Desta maneira, tenta-se contrariar a habitual tendência dos estudos deleuzianos de trabalharem em um espírito anti-hegeliano, isto é, a partir de uma separação teórica total com a problemática de Hegel. Descarta-se a possibilidade de centrar as críticas de Hegel em torno à sentença "omni determinatio est negatio". Também parece não ir ao coração do problema o fato de assinalar que, já que desde a afirmação absoluta não se pode progredir, o verdadeiro começo em Spinoza (e Deleuze) é a mera realidade empírica na qual os elementos se vinculam de maneira extrínseca, isto é, sem conceito. O ponto de incomensurabilidade é que Hegel afirma que é necessário que exista um movimento de retorno (zurürckkehren) para que a afirmação não se degrade ao ponto da dissolução, enquanto Deleuze prefere o movimento de eterno retorno (ewige wiederkunft) como abertura insistente no porvir. (shrink)

The Hegel-Deleuze relation has usually been considered as one of opposition, because of Deleuze’s explicit anti-Hegelian statements. This article refutes the main conceptual grounds to this opposition: the critique of the negative and of the circle of return. It aims to present the possibilities offered by considering the Hegel-Deleuze relation as a problematic, productive one. “Hegel-Deleuze” would be a relation prior to the supposed terms. To achieve this, we bind them through the concept of Idea. This traditional concept of philosophy, (...) which crowns the Hegelian system (also known as absolute idealism), appears in a key position in Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. It allows Deleuze to consider thought not as an image of the external reality or the condition of possible experience, but as the genetic principle of real experience. Even if Deleuze accuses Hegel of positing his Idea as the ground for the eternal repetition of the same, this article proposes to interpret it as the source of creation of a reality always different from itself. (shrink)

RESUMENEl artículo se propone estudiar el rol de la apropiación de Hegel en la filosofía política francesa del siglo XX. Analizaremos de qué manera el énfasis de Kojève en la antropología, de Hyppolite en la ontología y de Weil en la teoría del Estado, implican diferentes visiones de la relación entre metafísica, naturaleza humana y organización política. y a partir de allí, intentaremos proponer una nueva lectura de Hegel, recurriendo a la matriz interpretativa de Deleuze (a pesar su habitual encuadre (...) como anti-hegeliano).PALABRAS CLAVE ANTROPOLOGíA FILOSÓFICA, ONTOLOGíA, ESTADO, IDEA.ABSTRACTThis article aims to study the role of Hegel’s appropriation in the French political philosophy of the XX century. We will analyze in which manner the emphasis of Kojève in anthropology, of Hyppolite in ontology and of Weil in the theory of State, imply different visions of the relationship between metaphysics, human nature and political organization. On that basis, we will propose a new reading of Hegel, through the interpretative matrix of Deleuze (even though he is usually regarded as anti-Hegelian).KEYWORDSPHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGy, ONTOLOGy, STATE, IDEA. (shrink)

RESUMENEl artículo se propone estudiar el rol de la apropiación de Hegel en la filosofía política francesa del siglo XX. Analizaremos de qué manera el énfasis de Kojève en la antropología, de Hyppolite en la ontología y de Weil en la teoría del Estado, implican diferentes visiones de la relación entre metafísica, naturaleza humana y organización política. y a partir de allí, intentaremos proponer una nueva lectura de Hegel, recurriendo a la matriz interpretativa de Deleuze (a pesar su habitual encuadre (...) como anti-hegeliano).PALABRAS CLAVE ANTROPOLOGíA FILOSÓFICA, ONTOLOGíA, ESTADO, IDEA.ABSTRACTThis article aims to study the role of Hegel’s appropriation in the French political philosophy of the XX century. We will analyze in which manner the emphasis of Kojève in anthropology, of Hyppolite in ontology and of Weil in the theory of State, imply different visions of the relationship between metaphysics, human nature and political organization. On that basis, we will propose a new reading of Hegel, through the interpretative matrix of Deleuze (even though he is usually regarded as anti-Hegelian).KEYWORDSPHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGy, ONTOLOGy, STATE, IDEA. (shrink)

El contrapunto ontológico entre la unidad y la multiplicidad como prius que enfrenta a Fichte con Deleuze es abordado en este artículo a partir del par luz-oscuridad. Mostramos que en la Doctrina de la ciencia de 1804 la luz aparece como el concepto central -alineándose con la larga tradición en filosofía de reivindicación de la claridad-, mientras Deleuze pone a la oscuridad como aspecto necesario de la diferencia que constituye la ontología de Diferencia y repetición. A lo largo del desarrollo, (...) se manifiesta que esta aparente inconmensurabilidad encierra una afinidad profunda, ya que tanto la luz en Fichte como la oscuridad deleuziana se expresan doblemente: como vida propia de un prius que nunca es idéntico a sí mismo, y como una vida externa (lo real-empírico) donde éste no deja de ponerse, sin por ello perder la inmanencia. Este trabajo de filosofía comparada permite, asimismo, comprender de qué manera algunos movimientos conceptuales de cada uno de estos autores que, tomados en forma aislada resultan enigmáticos, tienen una lógica y una necesidad ontológica rigurosas. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone indagar las tesis ontológicas que subyacen a la concepción que Gilles Deleuze propone del capitalismo, a partir de sus vínculos con la caracterización deleuziana de la flosofía “barroca” de Leibniz como representación órgica. Se analizará una primera hipótesis: que los repliegues de la materia conducen “naturalmente” las almas o mónadas como centro de convergencia, cuyo rol sería dar la razón de los cuerpos y garantizar la unidad en la representación. Luego se pondrá en duda esta hipótesis (...) por dar por sentado lo que se intenta demostrar, naturalizando el pasaje entre cuerpos y almas. Se presentará entonces una segunda hipótesis, según la cual la razón de los pliegues y los repliegues, de su convergencia y su composibilidad, tiene una génesis histórica; la razón sufciente sería la relación diferencial constitutiva del capitalismo (dy / dx), producida por los azares y las contingencias de la historia universal (el encuentro del fujo libre de trabajo con el fujo libre del capital) y no, como lo quiso Leibniz en la elección de Dios del “mejor de los mundos posibles”. (shrink)

En este artículo intentamos exponer algunas de las cuestiones principales elaboradas en _El anti-Edipo_, con el objeto de enfatizar su relevancia para la comprensión de una filosofía política novedosa. Para ello nos centramos en tres aspectos articulados que están presentes en el libro, pero que se vuelven más claros para nuestra actualidad al momento de ponerlos en contacto con algunas de las discusiones que han suscitado y con el corpus deleuziano-guattariano. Esos aspectos son: 1) la tematización del deseo, sometido a (...) una transformación a partir del concepto de “máquina”, 2) el análisis del capitalismo, a partir de la teorización de un _socius_ específico, donde el deseo adquiere un tratamiento singular, y 3) el descubrimiento de un fascismo molecular, que será desarrollado abiertamente en textos posteriores de ambos autores. (shrink)

The philosophy of Deleuze is as relevant to contemporary thought as it is obscure and complex. Deleuze at the End of the World guides readers through this maze by exploring the raw material that Deleuze took from thinkers in various fields of knowledge to construct his own concepts, some of them well known (such as Hegel, Kant, Husserl, Balibar and Blanchot) and some widely unexplored (Selme, Guillaume, Bakhtine and Dalcq). At the same time, readers will gain access to Latin American (...) perspectives on contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche. Best known as a pessimist, he was one of the few philosophers read and admired by Wittgenstein. In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a (...) whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the philosophy of Kant; his attempt to answer the question of what the world is; his account of science; and in particular his idea that 'will' is the essence of all things. Julian Young then introduces and assesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics, which occupy a central place in his philosophy. He carefully examines Schopenhauer's theories of the sublime, artistic genius and music, before assessing his ethics of compassion, his arguments for pessimism and his account of 'salvation'. In the final chapter, he considers Schopenhauer's legacy and his influence on the thought of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, making this an ideal starting point for those coming to Schopenhauer for the first time. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of art into (...) four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION B he Vedas tell of a conversation between a young man, Shvetaketu, and his father concerning what the son had learned in his education ...

In this paper I consider, in connection with dementia, two views of the person. One view of the person is derived from Locke and Parfit. This tends to regard the person solely in terms of psychological states and his/her connections. The second view of the person is derived from a variety of thinkers. I have called it the situated-embodied-agent view of the person. This view, I suggest, more readily squares with the reality of clinical experience. It regards the person as (...) embedded in a history and culture. The human person is also an embodied agent. I contend that this view encourages a more appropriate approach towards the ethical issues that arise in dementia and towards people with dementia. (shrink)

The recent tragic and widely publicised death of Jesse Gelsinger in a gene therapy trial has many important lessons for those engaged in the ethical review of research. One of the most important lessons is that ethics committees can give too much weight to ensuring informed consent and not enough attention to minimising the harm associated with participation in research. The first responsibility of ethics committees should be to ensure that the expected harm associated with participation is reasonable. Jesse was (...) an 18-year-old man with a mild form of ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, a disorder of nitrogen metabolism. His form of the disease could be controlled by diet and drug treatment. On September 13 1999 a team of researchers lead by James Wilson at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Human Gene Therapy (IHGT) injected 3.8 X 1013 adenovirus vector particles containing a gene to correct the genetic defect. He was the eighteenth and final patient in the trial. The virus particles were injected directly into the liver. He received the largest number of virus particles in a gene therapy trial.1 Four days later he was dead from what was probably an immune reaction to the virus vector. This was the first death directly attributed to gene therapy. It resulted in worldwide publicity, an independent investigation, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) suspending all trials at the IHGT, an FDA, and a senate subcommittee investigation. At a special public meeting at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in December 1999, James Wilson, also the director of the IHGT, said they still did not understand fully what had gone wrong.2 Even though a massive dose had been used, only 1% of transferred genes reached the target cells. (None of the patients in the trial showed significant gene expression. Art …. (shrink)

Introduction -- The type/token theory introduced -- Motivating the type/token theory : repeatability -- Nominalist approaches to the ontology of music -- Musical anti-realism -- The type/token theory elaborated -- Types I : abstract, unstructured, unchanging -- Types introduced and nominalism repelled -- Types as abstracta -- Types as unstructured entities -- Types as fixed and unchanging -- Types II : platonism -- Introduction : eternal existence and timelessness -- Types and properties -- The eternal existence of properties reconsidered -- (...) Types and patterns -- Defending the type/token theory I -- Unstructuredness and analogical predication -- Musical works as fixed and unchanging -- Abstractness and audibility (again) -- Works and interpretations -- Conclusion and resumé -- Defending the type/token theory II : musical platonism -- Platonism it is : replies to Anderson and Levinson -- The existence conditions of works of music -- Composition as creative discovery -- The nature of the compositional process : replies to objections -- Composition and aesthetic appraisal : a reply to Levinson -- Composition and aesthetic appraisal : understanding, interpretation, and correctness -- Musical works as continuants : a theory rejected -- A theory introduced -- Explicating and motivating the continuant view -- The continuant view and repeatability -- Further objections to the continuant view -- Musical works as compositional actions : a critique -- Currie's action-type hypothesis -- Davies's performance theory -- Sonicism I : against instrumentalism -- Sonicism introduced -- Sonicism motivated : moderate empiricism -- Instrumentation : timbral sonicism introduced -- Scores -- Instrumentation, artistic properties, and aesthetic content -- Levinson's rejoinder -- Sonicism II : against contextualism -- Introduction : formulating contextualism -- Contextualist ontological proposals -- Levinson's doppelgänger thought-experiments -- Artistic, representational, and object-directed expressive properties -- Aesthetic and non-object-directed expressive properties -- Conclusion : the place of context. (shrink)

Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction is the first systematic textbook in the philosophy of economics. It introduces the epistemological, metaphysical and ethical problems that arise in economics, and presents detailed discussions of the solutions that have been offered. Throughout, philosophical issues are illustrated by and analysed in the context of concrete cases drawn from contemporary economics, the history of economic ideas, and actual economic events. This demonstrates the relevance of philosophy of economics both for the science of economics and (...) for the economy. This text will provide an excellent introduction to the philosophy of economics for students and interested general readers alike. (shrink)

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate demand or rather by lowering taxes and thereby providing incentives to produce? Policy-relevant questions such as these are of immediate and obvious importance to the welfare of societies. The standard approach in dealing with them is to build a model, based on economic theory, answer the question for the model world and then (...) apply the results to economic phenomena outside. Data come in, if at all, only in testing a limited number of the model's consequences. Despite some critical voices, economic methodology too has by and large subscribed to a "theory first" approach to applied economics. Error in Economics systematically develops an alternative to the theory-based orthodoxy. It places the methodical study of evidence at the centre of the scientific enterprise and thus provides a foundation for a methodology of evidence-based economics. But the book does not stop at the truism that claims should be based on the best available evidence. Rather, detailed studies in the areas of measurement, causal inference and policy analysis show what it means for a claim to be evidence-based in the context of a concrete case. The examples discussed concern topics as diverse as consumer price indices, radio spectrum auctions, the transmission mechanism, natural experiments on minimum wages and the evaluation of counterfactuals for policy. Error in Economics is essential reading for economic methodologists, philosophers of science and anyone interested in how claims about socio-economic matters are validated. (shrink)

This paper argues that a consideration of the problem of providing truthmakers for negative truths undermines truthmaker theory. Truthmaker theorists are presented with an uncomfortable dilemma. Either they must take up the challenge of providing truthmakers for negative truths, or else they must explain why negative truths are exceptions to the principle that every truth must have a truthmaker. The first horn is unattractive since the prospects of providing truthmakers for negative truths do not look good neither absences, nor totality (...) states of affairs, nor Graham Priest and J.C. Beall’s ‘polarities’ (Beall, 2000; Priest, 2000) are up to the job. The second horn, meanwhile, is problematic because restricting the truthmaker principle to atomic truths, or weakening it to the thesis that truth supervenes on being, undercuts truthmaker theory’s original motivation. The paper ends by arguing that truthmaker theory is, in any case, an under-motivated doctrine because the groundedness of truth can be explained without appeal to the truthmaker principle. This leaves us free to give the ommonsensical and deflationary explanation of negative truths that common-sense suggests. (shrink)

This book argues that correspondence theories of truth fail because the relation that holds between a true thought and a fact is that of identity, not correspondence. Facts are not complexes of worldly entities which make thoughts true they are merely true thoughts. According to Julian Dodd, the resulting modest identity theory, while not defining truth, correctly diagnoses the failure of correspondence theories, and thereby prepares the ground for a defensible deflation of the concept of truth.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has recently released the 2021 update of its guidelines. The update includes detailed new recommendations on human–animal chimera research. This paper argues that the ISSCR recommendations fail to address the core ethical concerns raised by neurological chimeras—namely, concerns about moral status. In minimising moral status concerns, the ISSCR both breaks rank with other major reports on human–animal chimera research and rely on controversial claims about the grounds of moral status that many people (...) will rightly reject. A more robust framework for regulating human–animal chimera research still needs to be developed. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of focal stress and pitch contour in English dialogue. We argue that one should analyse and treat focus and pitch contour jointly, since (i) some pragmatic interpretations vary with contour (e.g., whether an utterance accepts or rejects; or whether it implicates a positive or negative answer); and (ii) there are utterances with identical prosodic focus that in the same context are infelicitous with one contour, but felicitous with another. We offer an account of two (...) distinct pitch contours that predicts the correct felicity judgements and implicatures, outclassing other models in empirical coverage or formality. Prosodic focus triggers a presupposition, where what is presupposed and how the presupposition is resolved depends on prosodic contour. If resolving the presupposition entails the proffered content, then the proffered content is uninteresting and hence the utterance is in-felicitous. Otherwise, resolving the presupposition may lead to an implicature. We regiment this account in SDRT. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of art into (...) four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

Julian Dodd offers an original approach to the controversial concept of authenticity in musical performance. He argues that the fundamental norm is not historical authenticity but interpretive authenticity: being faithful to the work by evincing a profound, far-reaching, or sophisticated understanding of it.

In this beautifully written account, Julian Young provides the most comprehensive biography available today of the life and philosophy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Young deals with the many puzzles created by the conjunction of Nietzsche's personal history and his work: why the son of a Lutheran pastor developed into the self-styled 'Antichrist'; why this archetypical Prussian came to loath Bismarck's Prussia; and why this enemy of feminism preferred the company of feminist women. Setting Nietzsche's thought in the (...) context of his times - the rise of Prussian militarism, anti-Semitism, Darwinian science, the 'Youth' and emancipationist movements, as well as the 'death of God' - Young emphasises the decisive influence of Plato and of Richard Wagner on Nietzsche's attempted reform of Western culture. (shrink)

The importance of fairness in machine learning models is widely acknowledged, and ongoing academic debate revolves around how to determine the appropriate fairness definition, and how to tackle the trade-off between fairness and model performance. In this paper we argue that besides these concerns, there can be ethical implications behind seemingly purely technical choices in fairness interventions in a typical model development pipeline. As an example we show that the technical choice between in-processing and post-processing is not necessarily value-free and (...) may have serious implications in terms of who will be affected by the specific fairness intervention. The paper reveals how assessing the technical choices in terms of their ethical consequences can contribute to the design of fair models and to the related societal discussions. (shrink)