In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a new light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of (...) the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place. (shrink)

Satire was core to the work of Thomas Hobbes although his critics also used it as a weapon to ridicule him. Condren uses Hobbes as an example to demonstrate that an examination of the persona is needed to advance our understanding of a writer's philosophy.

Satire was core to the work of Thomas Hobbes although his critics also used it as a weapon to ridicule him. Condren uses Hobbes as an example to demonstrate that an examination of the persona is needed to advance our understanding of a writer's philosophy.

The paper explores satire not as a literary genre but as an idiom of political and moral reflection discussing the extent to which contexts of relative constraint or freedom of expression are adequate for its understanding. The argument deals with the satire of Early-Modern England, especially that of the Restoration and early eighteenth century, as for most of this time political authority was purposely oppressive, the satire produced was highly significant, and it allegedly is part of the beginnings of a (...) public sphere of open rational discourse. The paper outlines in turn: the significance of anonymity, differing understandings of humour, diverging satiric propensities, ritualised satire and taboo, and the distinction between constraint and restraint. It suggests that to locate satire between oppression and liberty lacks explanatory power and, in particular, that the very notion of a public sphere is of little historical value in discussing satire. If Habermas's concept is taken seriously it mythologises the early eighteenth century on scant evidence. If it is emptied of theoretical content, a healthy public sphere can be found in numerous places. The paper concludes by raising questions about how far the predominant roles of satire have changed since its 'golden age'. (shrink)

The paper explores satire not as a literary genre but as an idiom of political and moral reflection discussing the extent to which contexts of relative constraint or freedom of expression are adequate for its understanding. The argument deals with the satire of Early-Modern England, especially that of the Restoration and early eighteenth century, as for most of this time political authority was purposely oppressive, the satire produced was highly significant, and it allegedly is part of the beginnings of a (...) public sphere of open rational discourse. The paper outlines in turn: the significance of anonymity, differing understandings of humour, diverging satiric propensities, ritualised satire and taboo, and the distinction between constraint and restraint. It suggests that to locate satire between oppression and liberty lacks explanatory power and, in particular, that the very notion of a public sphere is of little historical value in discussing satire. If Habermas's concept is taken seriously it mythologises the early eighteenth century on scant evidence. If it is emptied of theoretical content, a healthy public sphere can be found in numerous places. The paper concludes by raising questions about how far the predominant roles of satire have changed since its ‘golden age’. (shrink)

Summary Although academic disciplines are given to mythologising their own histories, corrective historicisation is no straightforward matter. Anachronisms are most difficult to avoid where our own tacit understandings of the world are used to help structure contexts that are themselves often unstable and indeterminate. This is often the case in attempts to relate agents and propositions to a context of pre-existing problems. Propositions and concepts that are the result of satiric reduction, or unintended consequence, disrupt narrative sequences that lead directly (...) and neatly to present disciplinary identities. (shrink)

A model of judgment aggregation is presented in which judgments on propositions are not binary but come in degrees. The primitives are a set of propositions, an entailment relation, and a “triangular norm” which establishes a lower bound on the degree to which a proposition is true whenever it is entailed by a set of propositions. Under standard assumptions, we identify a necessary and sufficient condition for the collective judgments to be both deductively closed and free from veto power. This (...) condition says that the triangular norm used to establish the lower bound must contain a zero divisor. (shrink)

We consider two no-show paradoxes, in which a voter obtains a preferable outcome by abstaining from a vote. One arises when the casting of a ballot that ranks a candidate in first place causes that candidate to lose the election, superseded by a lower-ranked candidate. The other arises when a ballot that ranks a candidate in last place causes that candidate to win, superseding a higher-ranked candidate. We show that when there are at least four candidates and when voters may (...) express indifference, every voting rule satisfying Condorcet’s principle must generate both of these paradoxes. (shrink)

We investigate the social choice implications of what we call "the proximity condition". Loosely speaking, this condition says that whenever a profile moves "closer" to some individual's point of view, then the social choice cannot move "further away" from this individual's point of view. We apply this idea in two settings: merging functions and preference aggregation. The precise formulation of the proximity condition depends on the setting. First, restricting attention to merging functions that are interval scale invariant, we prove that (...) the only functions that satisfy proximity are dictatorships. Second, we prove that the only social welfare functions that satisfy proximity and a version of the Pareto criterion are dictatorships. We conclude that either proximity is not an attractive normative requirement after all, or we must give up some other social choice condition. Another possibility is that our normative intuition about proximity needs to be codified using different axioms. (shrink)

structure of a laboratory report (generalized from Italian, Chinese and US sources), we distill a fifth flavor, the givens, whose flip side is the freedoms or tangibles of an experiment. (Stated in terms of computer science, we are trying to find inputs and outputs, but these turn out to be surprisingly vague in chemistry.) Then, in the service of a white-boxing ethos (which sounds less severe than ‘anti black-boxing’), we establish a movable boundary between givens and tangibles, with implications for (...) ‘ontological attitudes’ and for the future of chemistry. Next, in revisiting a 2002 exchange between Schummer and Laszlo, which might be paraphrased as the chemist-as-philosopher versus chemist-as-artisan, we apply a second kind of sliding scale which seems to harmonize the discussion. Finally, on a possibly quixotic note, we look briefly at a third kind of sliding scale, now aimed squarely at ontology itself. For illustrative purposes, we adopt an atomocentric viewpoint (as distinct from atomistic), and assign it the provisional name ‘Fuzzy CH4 Ontology’. (shrink)

With certain topics the general reader experiences a double-whammy wherein one must peer through a curtain of needlessly obscure jargon to try glimpsing something that is inherently weird in nature. Bell’s nonlocality was once such a topic, but authors have had considerable success over the years in showing where the line is between the enigma itself and the human-made oddities surrounding it . Libet-ology has yet to undergo that de-mystifying process. Accordingly, our first order of business here is to restate (...) its basic tenets in plain English so that only nature’s inherent puzzle is left on the table, free of certain peculiarities of the existing technical literature. We also address the question of the central topic versus its byways, as alluded to by ‘left turn into veto-as-volition’ in our title. In the ensuing parts of the paper, we look outside the field to see how hypnotherapy and Hinduism might shed light on it. (shrink)

Recent results in the literature appear to show that it is impossible for two independent testimonies to jointly raise the probability of a proposition if neither testimony individually has any impact on that probability. I show that these impossibility results do not apply when testimonies agree on incidental details.

In a school choice problem, each school has a priority ordering over the set of students. These orderings depend on criteria such as whether a student lives within walking distance or has a sibling at the school. A priority ordering provides a ranking of students but nothing more. I argue that this information is sufficient when priority is based on merit but not when priority is based on criteria such as walking distance. I propose an extended formulation of the problem (...) wherein a ‘priority matrix’, indicating which criteria are satisfied by each student-school pair, replaces the usual priority orderings. (shrink)

The general chemistry curriculum includes a prelude that consumes nearly all of the first semester and occupies the first third of the typical textbook. This necessary prelude to the main event is comparable in scope to precalculus though not broken out as a formal ‘prechemistry’ course. Atomic orbitals account for much of this prelude-to-chemistry. By tradition, orbital theory is conveyed to the student in three disjunct pieces, presented in the following illogical order: the Pauli principle, the Aufbau principle, and Hund’s (...) rule. (Often the n + l rule is tossed into the mix as well, though with no fixed place in the scheme). In the early twentieth century, as various researchers announced new insights into the atom at unpredictable intervals, no one could have been faulted for teaching orbitals in such a manner, catch-as-catch-can. A hundred years on, the vestiges of that (presumed) practice look wrong, and are indefensible. In the approach advocated here, orbitals would be taught as a single hierarchical rule-set, with the parts coherently sequenced as Aufbau–Hund–Pauli (and with Madelung’s n + l rule rehabilitated as part of Aufbau, no longer a free-floating mnemonic aid only). Logic aside, pragmatism offers its own argument for adopting this scheme: A tighter approach to Aufbau can lighten the ‘prechemistry’ burden significantly and bring the student that much sooner to chemistry itself. (shrink)

Western practices and theories of the sacred have been ritually performed and culturally elaborated mostly by male theorists who ignored the historical exclusion of women from sacral arenas. Shaped by male morphologies, their practices and descriptions quickly became prescriptions for theological rectitude and/or healthy social functioning. Women's exclusion appears to have been essential rather than epiphenomenal to the political and ecclesiastical structures established. Through the lens of Sigmund Freud, in this article I will attempt to analyse why the question as (...) to how the Western sacred has been achieved, defined, and elaborated is inherently antithetical to the future of the earth and of women. I will argue that Freud's focus on repression rather than nurture enables the Western sacred to forge gender dichotomies and legitimize those forms of religious and political mentalities that now carry lethal capacities. For that reason, we need to de-construct its most dangerous capacities, challenge the toxic stories, develop spiritual and disciplinary practices that nurture human creativity, foster independent thinking, and radically address the acute gendered imbalance that currently pervades the religious and political social imaginary. I argue that a feminist call for mere equality within existing theological or political frameworks fails to do justice to the issues at stake. I will then point briefly to some alternative approaches to the sacred mentioned above in the work of philosopher and psychoanalyst, Luce Irigaray; anthropologist, Peggy Reeves Sanday; Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman, and artist, psychoanalyst and theorist, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. (shrink)

In her paper ‘Mercy Not Sacrifice: Toward a Celtic Theology’ delivered in Dublin in 1996, Mary Condren began by addressing the problem of ‘a way of knowing’, that is, the concept of knowing and the relationship between power and knowledge, asking, ‘When we yearn for a Celtic or female way of knowing what is the fundamental impulse behind it, what is the longing behind it? What is the myth behind it?’[1]Is it possible to look to the Celtic past for (...) answers or does any epistemology emanating from a colonized people, need to be examined carefully in regard to the inherent power politics and the question as to who owns the past? Can the myth of a pristine past be used to empower? (shrink)

BackgroundThe nature of a woman’s orgasm has been a source of scientific, political, and cultural debate for over a century. Since the Victorian era, the pendulum has swung from the vagina to the clitoris, and to some extent back again, with the current debate stuck over whether internal sensory structures exist in the vagina that could account for orgasms based largely on their stimulation, or whether stimulation of the external glans clitoris is always necessary for orgasm.MethodWe review the history of (...) the clitoral versus vaginal orgasm debate as it has evolved with conflicting ideas and data from psychiatry and psychoanalysis, epidemiology, evolutionary theory, feminist political theory, physiology, and finally neuroscience.ResultsA new synthesis is presented that acknowledges the enormous potential women have to experience orgasms from one or more sources of sensory input, including the external clitoral glans, internal region around the “G-spot” that corresponds to the internal clitoral bulbs, the c... (shrink)

A growing group of institutional investors use divestment strategically to deter misconducts that are harmful for the climate and society. Based on Kantian ethics, we propose that divestment represents investors’ universal and absolute moral commitment to socially responsible investing (SRI). Following categorical and hypothetical imperatives and reciprocity as a norm, we hypothesize how institutional investors’ commit to SRI through a divestment strategy against ethically reprehensible behaviour of banks, especially when these investors represent banks themselves. Using a hand-collected database of the (...) revelation dates of enforcement actions on banks, we find evidence that banks are less likely to divest equity holding on banks with misconduct (fined banks) than their non-bank institutional investors peers. Banks that commit to invest responsibly by signing for the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) are not significantly more likely to divest on fined banks stocks than non-signatory banks. Moreover, divestment of fined banks whose own legitimacy to operate is in question is not significantly different from non-fined banks divestment. We find that European banks are more inclined to sell their holdings permanently on fined banks than their United States peers. Therefore, bank’s moral commitment to SRI via divestments is influenced more by cultural and reciprocity norms than their moral commitment to participate in the PRI. (shrink)

The use of the category of influence in the history of ideas has been criticized by Skinner for its failure to provide explanatory links between the ideas and theorists it purports to connect and by Condren for its failure to respect the agency of thinkers. Bevir and Collingwood support the notion of influence and argue that it does accommodate the agency of thinkers. The arguments of Condren and Skinner point to significant issues and problems in the practice of (...) the history of ideas but it is argued that these points do not count decisively against employing the notion of influence. The defence of influence by Collingwood and Bevir is seen to need qualification in the light of post-structuralist arguments that challenge the monopoly of meaning that is claimed for authors of texts in the history of ideas. The article concludes by urging that the category of influence is compatible with a nuanced account of agency. (shrink)