How does an object persist through change? How can a book, for example, open in the morning and shut in the afternoon, persist through a change that involves the incompatible properties of being open and being shut? The goal of this reader is to inform and reframe the philosophical debate around persistence; it presents influential accounts of the problem that range from classic papers by W. V. O. Quine, David Lewis, and Judith Jarvis Thomson to recent work by contemporary philosophers. (...) The authors take on the question of persistence by examining three broad approaches: perdurantism, which holds that change over time is analogous to change over space; exdurantism, according to which identity over time is analogous to identity across possible worlds; and endurantism, which holds that ordinary objects persist by enduring. Each of these approaches appears to be coherent, but each also has its own metaphysical problems. Persistence includes papers that argue for perdurantism, exdurantism, or endurantism, as well as papers that explore some metaphysical difficulties challenging each account. In this way the collection allows readers to balance the trade-offs of each approach in terms of intuitiveness, theoretical attractiveness, and elegance.Contributors:Yuri Balashov, William Carter, Graeme Forbes, Sally Haslanger, Katherine Hawley, H. S. Hestevold, Mark Hinchliffe, Mark Johnston, Roxanne Marie Kurtz, David K. Lewis, Ned Markosian, D. H. Mellor, W. V. O. Quine, Theodore Sider, Richard Taylor, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman. (shrink)

BackgroundThe advent of learning healthcare systems (LHSs) raises an important implementation challenge concerning how to request and manage consent to support secondary use of data in learning cycles, particularly research activities. Current consent models in Quebec were not established with the context of LHSs in mind and do not support the agility and transparency required to obtain consent from all involved, especially the citizens. Therefore, a new approach to consent is needed. Previous work identified the meta-consent model as a promising (...) alternative to fulfill the requirements of LHSs, particularly large-scale deployments. We elicited the public’s attitude toward the meta-consent model to evaluate if the model could be understood by the citizens and would be deemed acceptable to prepare for its possible implementation in Quebec.MethodsEight focus groups, with a total of 63 members of the general public from various backgrounds were conducted in Quebec, Canada, in 2019. Explicit attention was given to literacy levels, language spoken at home and rural vs urban settings. We assessed attitudes, concerns and facilitators regarding key components of the meta-consent model: predefined categories to personalized consent requests, a dynamic web-based infrastructure to record meta-consent, and default settings. To analyse the discussions, a thematic content analysis was performed using a qualitative software.ResultsOur findings showed that participants were supportive of this new approach of consent as it promotes transparency and offers autonomy for the management of their health data. Key facilitators were identified to be considered in the implementation of a meta-consent model in the Quebec LHSs: information and transparency, awareness campaigns, development of educational tools, collaboration of front-line healthcare professionals, default settings deemed acceptable by the society as well as close partnerships with recognized and trusted institutions.ConclusionsThis qualitative study reveals the openness of a sample of the Quebec population regarding the meta-consent model for secondary use of health data for research. This first exploratory study conducted with the public is an important step in guiding decision-makers in the next phases of implementing the various strategies to support access and use of health data in Quebec. (shrink)

The nineteenth-century pioneer and only expert in Byzantine Studies in the territory of presentday Latvia, the Baltic German classical philologist Eduard Kurtz, was born in Mitau (Mītava, Jelgava) on December 20, 1845 into the family of a local teacher, Johann Heinrich Kurtz and Wilhelmine Auguste (née Jacobi), as the seventh of eleven children.

Long recognized as one of the main branches of political science, political theory has in recent years burgeoned in many different directions. Close textual analysis of historical texts sits alongside more analytical work on the nature and normative grounds of political values. Continental and post-modern influences jostle with ones from economics, history, sociology, and the law. Feminist concerns with embodiment make us look at old problems in new ways, and challenges of new technologies open whole new vistas for political theory. (...) This Handbook provides comprehensive and critical coverage of the lively and contested field of political theory, and will help set the agenda for the field for years to come. Forty-five chapters by distinguished political theorists look at the state of the field, where it has been in the recent past, and where it is likely to go in future. They examine political theory's edges as well as its core, the globalizing context of the field, and the challenges presented by social, economic, and technological changes."This is a unique and impressive set of analyses about scholarship in political theory. It is comprehensive, as we would expect. Beyond that, it is remarkably creative in the way that Dryzek, Honig and Phillips have organized categories, and it includes much overdue reference to scholarship on non-Western and postcolonial thought."-Iris Marion Young, Late Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago"This extraordinary series offers 'state of the art' assessments that instruct, engage, and provoke. Both synoptic and directive, the fine essays across these superbly edited volumes reflect the ambitions and diversity of political science. No one who is immersed in the discipline's controversies and possibilities should miss the intellectual stimulation and critical appraisal these works so powerfully provide."-Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia UniversityJohn S. Dryzek is Professor of Social and Political Theory at Australian National University.Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University.Anne Phillips is Professor of Gender Theory at the London School of Economics.Introduction, John S Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne PhilipsI. CONTEMPORARY CURRENTS1. Justice After Rawls, Richard Arneson2. Power After Foucault, Wendy Brown3. Critical Theory Beyond Habermas, William E Scheuerman4. Feminist Theory and the Canon of Political Thought, Linda Zerilli5. After the Linguistic Turn: Poststructuralist and Liberal Pragmatist Political Theory, Paul Patton6. The Pluralist Imagination, David SchlosbergII. THE LEGACY OF THE PAST7. Theory in History: Problems of Context and Narrative, J G A Pocock8. The Political Theory of Classical Greece, Jill Frank9. Republican Visions, Eric Nelson10. Modernity and its Critics, Jane Bennett11. The History of Political Thought, as Disciplinary Genre, James FarrIII. POLITICAL THEORY IN THE WORLD12. The Challenge of European Union, Richarad Bellamy13. East Asia and the West: The Impact of Confucianism on Anglo-American Political Thought, Daniel A Bell14. In the Beginning all the World was America: American Exceptionalism in New Contexts, Ronald J Schmidt Jr15. Changing Interpretations of Modern and Contemporary Islamic Political Theory, Roxanne L EubenIV. STATE AND PEOPLE16. Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law, Shannon Stimson17. Emergency Powers, John Ferejohn and Pasquale Pasquino18. The People, Margaret Canovan19. Civil Society and State, Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein20. Democracy and the State, Mark E Warren21. Democracy and Citize. (shrink)

The author examines the so-called paradox of identity through time. As he argues, the paradox is often elaborated by enumeration of several theses which generate a contradiction. According to these conditions, change is paradoxical and even impossible because it seems that objects persist as unchanging, or that every change destroys an object and generates a new one . In the first part of the paper the author discusses Roxanne Marie Kurtz’s version of such a view. Subsequently he (...) analyses typical attempts to resolve the paradox. The third section is devoted to applicability of the relation “=” to the correct formulation of the problem of identity through time. He argues that analytic philosophers too hastily decided that identity through time is a strict logical identity holding between quite mysterious “object before change” and “object after change”. It seems that such a view follows from the unjustified presupposition that logic is prior to ontology, i.e. that logic provides a categorial basis for ontology. Apart from this, the exact ontological status of the states described by expressions “object before change” and “object after change” escape our knowledge. In the fourth section he examines the condition of a-temporal exemplification based on the condition of simple exemplification . He argues that the latter is equivocal because one can distinguish several kinds of dependence . Some of them do not have to imply the extrinsic character of the properties involved in change. Key words IDENTITY, TIME, PARADOX. (shrink)

Roxanne Kurtz has argued that the "virtual rape" of a character in a computer-generated world (an avatar) shares many (though obviously not all) of the wrong-making features of physical rape in the real world. I agree in part, but argue that, due to the typical features of virtual worlds, its wrongfulness is dominated by the harm it does to the avatar user's capacity for social interaction and self-representation. In the course of the argument I hope to shed more (...) light upon the nature of avatars, and their relationship to "offline" avatars in, e.g., role-playing and children's games. (shrink)

A leader in the modern commentary on ethics and philosophy, Mary Warnock casts a critical eye over her life and times.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. (...) A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume were asked the following questions: The term "Humanism" is widely used, as are the terms "ethical" Humanism, "scientific" Humanism and "religious" Humanism. What is Humanism? Can you define it? If there is in your judgment no clear definition in the literature, you may wish to propose one. You may also wish to focus on the relationship of Humanism to atheism, science, its ethical position, or some other theme. Those who have contributed represent a wide spectrum (...) of Humanist opinion in the world today. They are primarily philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, ethical and religious leaders. Among the themes they discuss are historic roots of Humanism, the general problem of definition, the relationship of Humanism to ethics and morality, Humanism and religion, Humanism and atheism and Humanism on the world scene. Most of the varieties of Humanism are represented, including naturalistic Humanism, liberal Humanism, atheistic Humanism, humanistic psychology, behaviourism, Marxism, and Zen. If there is a common thread running throughout this volume, it is the conviction that Humanism is committed to the method of reason as the chief means of solving problems and the belief that mankind can survive and humans can enjoy a significant life. This conviction and this belief, however, can be realized only if men continue to have confidence in their own natural powers and abilities and the courage to use them. (shrink)

En este libro, la autora desarrolla su concepción del juicio reflexionante inspirada en Emmanuel Kant y en Hannah Arendt para concentrarse en cómo cierto tipo de narraciones modelan nuestras nociones de lo que consideramos moral. Lara nos ofrece distintas concepciones sobre el mal en su formulación histórica mediante los ejemplos de las tragedias griegas, las diferentes concepciones sobre el mal en la obra de Shakespeare, el uso literario de la metáfora en la obra de Joseph Conrad y en narraciones fílmicas (...) que describen la crueldad humana. Lara sugiere que el aprendizaje moral es un proceso en el que intervienen las instituciones sociales, la voluntad de los individuos y de las sociedades para comprometerse a un debate abierto y con ello modelar los juicios colectivos sobre el pasado. Lara enfatiza que el juicio reflexionante se da entre un evento, una narración de dicho evento y la recepción pública de dicha narrativa. En este libro se aportan importantes métodos para la comprensión del fenómeno moral del mal, porque introducen nuevas verdades desvelatorias acerca de eventos particulares que no pueden ser simplemente captados por medio de categorías conceptuales. Lara utiliza como fuentes a Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben y Ariel Dorfman para probar la conclusión de este tipo de narraciones: la acción (de crueldad) ata de manera definitiva al perpetrador con su víctima. (shrink)

This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

The weight of trace, that drips from structure. A memory encased in material – the constant desire to contain, to orchestrate the transient. Is memory. Flesh against the hardest material. What becomes of the energies that move against form?

Although nostalgia is a much-maligned orientation to the world, feminist scholars including Heather Hillsburg (2013) and Kate Eichhorn (2015) have argued that it might be recuperated for feminist ends. This article mobilises the call to rethink nostalgia through an analysis of the feminist stories and storytelling in Joan Braderman’s 2009 film, The Heretics. A documentary about a feminist collective founded in New York City in the 1970s, The Heretics sets up a way of thinking about feminism’s past that is steeped (...) in nostalgia. Throughout the film, Braderman maintains that the 1970s were ‘a time when everything seemed possible’. By contrast, she assesses the moment in which she makes the film as a time in which ‘fear corrodes even the young’. As feminist viewers of the film who did not (indeed by virtue of age could not) experience feminism in the 1970s, we initially read the nostalgic narrative of loss framing the film with suspicion. By drawing on feminist scholarship on nostalgia and feminist storytelling, however, we argue that nostalgia can function in what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2003) would call a reparative mode that enriches the relationships that feminist scholars, activists and cultural workers bear to feminisms’ pasts. (shrink)

The Iran–Iraq war, which took place from 1980 to 1988, was one of the longest and bloodiest conventional wars in the history of the last century. The war was also the largest mobilization of the Iranian population and was achieved primarily by producing and promoting a culture of martyrdom based on religious themes found in Shi'i Islam. It was the war that created and consolidated what we know today as the Islamic republic of Iran. For years there have been two (...) popular public discourses in post-war Iran: the secular discourse, which is to evade, to ignore, to escape to the Caspian; and then the state's discourse, of the strong, mourning women and the heroic martyrs. It is the group of women who exist betwixt the dominant discourses of the secular versus the religious and the idea of womanhood versus motherhood that I am interested in exploring here by looking at the most recent work of a secular female filmmaker, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad. (shrink)

Nature and Mortality is a challenging look at some of the major public issues of our time through the eyes of one of our most influential and probing liberal humanists. It is a frank account on where we stand today on such controversial matters as human embryology, genetic engineering, euthanasia and abortion. Warnock's views may seem like a red rag to a bull to some, but her contribution to the debate is always stimulating. Enlivened by autobiographical anecdote and some delicious (...) side-swipes, Nature and Mortality is Mary Warnock at her most perceptive, wise and entertaining. (shrink)

All religion and much philosophy has been concerned with the contrast between the ephemeral and the eternal. Human beings have always sought ways to overcome time, and to prove that death is not the end. This book consists then in an exploration of certain closely related ideas: personal identity, time, history and our commitment to the future, and the role of imagination in life.

Western philosophical orthodoxy places many aspects of other people's lives outside the scope of our knowledge. Demonstrating an alternative to this view, however, this book argues that Jean-Paul Sartre's application of his unique psychoanalytic method to Gustave Flaubert is the culmination of his project to show that it is possible to know everything there is to know about another person. It examines how Sartre aims to revolutionize our way of thinking about others by presenting his existential psychoanalysis as the means (...) to knowledge of both ourselves and others. By so doing, it highlights how his determination to solve the longstanding philosophical conundrum about other minds drives him not only to incorporate insights from Descartes, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Marx, and Beauvoir into his philosophy, but also to supplement and enhance his philosophy through the development and application of a new form of psychoanalysis. -/- Sartre's Existential Psychoanalysis integrates, for the first time, Sartre's psychoanalysis into his overarching philosophical project. By offering a critical interrogation of the role his psychoanalytical studies played in the development of his existentialism, Mary Edwards uncovers the overlooked philosophical significance of his existential psychoanalysis and brings it into a new and productive dialogue with current research in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

Avicenna (d. 1037) bequeathed the Arabic philosophical tradition with an aporia : self-knowledge is conceived, at times, in terms of intellection, at other times, in terms of apperception. In his Book of Discussions and Book of Notes, Avicenna has lengthy discussions on apperception, defined as a direct ontological mode of knowledge. Heir to this tradition, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191) moved away from the first conception of self-knowledge as intellection to adopt the second conception of an apperception of the self (...) as a direct, intuitive and "presential (hcombining dot belowudcombining dot belowūrī)" perception, and which he defended with four types of arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis play is based on the author’s ethnographic and archival research on the French philosopher Henry Corbin’s years in Tehran, Iran. Corbin taught in Tehran between 1947 and 1978 at the Institute of Philosophy, which he founded. The play is a dialogue between a fictional university student, Ali, and his mentor, the French philosopher Henry Corbin, with interjections from the angel of history. Ali is trying to come to grips with his love of Islamic mystical philosophy and its dangerous appropriation (...) by political actors of the time, as well as with a deeply personal mourning. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. (shrink)

Over the course of the past few decades, comparative political theory has acquired a measure of institutional legitimacy and intellectual recognition as part of the ongoing, interdisciplinary challenge to prevailing academic categories, coordinates, and borders. This arrival has been accompanied by a conspicuous focus on methodology both by those who claim the mantle of comparative political theory and those who reject it. The following reflections read this focus symptomatically, as revealing intellectual, institutional, and professional exigencies rather than as distinct to (...) any particular scholar, argument, or publication. Neither a “state of the field” nor a proprietary defense of what comparative political theory is or should be, these observations toggle back and forth between reflections on my own engagement and disengagement with the topic of comparative political theory on the one hand and, on the other, concerns about how this preoccupation with method simultaneously expresses and exacerbates the displacement of politics in the very field that aims to understand it. Among the questions I raise are: What might be driving this disproportionate focus on methodological arguments in and about comparative political theory? What are the stakes of such a focus, particularly for younger scholars in political science departments decreasingly hospitable to political theory? Finally, what does this augur for the future of the study of politics broadly understood within disciplines dedicated to the scientific study of human behavior? (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between feminist theologies and women’s poetry and fiction. Using Sheila Hassell Hughes’ work on this same relationship as a point of departure, I contend that feminist theologians rely on literature by women for a variety of reasons, and I focus on how literature by women offers feminist theologies a multitude of examples of women’s experience, embodied experience in particular. If women’s experience is the starting point for a truly feminist theology, women’s writing seems an obvious (...) source of the theologian’s materialist and semiotic quest. (shrink)