This paper is a survey of how economists and philosophers approach the issue of comparisons. More precisely, it is about what formal representation is appropriate whenever our ability to compare things breaks down. We restrict our attention to failures that arise with ordinal comparisons. We consider a number of formal approaches to this problem including one based on the idea of parity. We also consider the claim that the failure to compare things is a consequence of vagueness. We contrast two (...) theories of vagueness; fuzzy set theory and supervaluation theory. Some applications of these theories are described. (shrink)

The utilitarian economist and Nobel Laureate John Harsanyi and the liberal egalitarian philosopher John Rawls were two of the most eminent scholars writing on problems of social justice in the last century. This volume pays tribute to Harsanyi and Rawls by investigating themes that figure prominently in their work. In some cases, the contributors explore issues considered by Harsanyi and Rawls in more depth and from novel perspectives. In others, the contributors use the work of Harsanyi and Rawls as points (...) of departure for pursuing the construction of theories for the evaluation of social justice. The introductory essay by the editors provides background information on the relevant economics, game theory, philosophy, and social choice theory, as well as readers' guides to the individual contributions, to make this volume widely accessible to scholars in a wide range of disciplines. (shrink)

Argues that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers. This book brings the history of Latin American philosophy to an English-speaking audience through the prominent voices of Mauricio Beuchot, Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg, María Luisa Femenías, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Oscar R. Martí, León Olivé, Carlos Pereda, and Eduardo Rabossi. They argue that Spanish is not a philosophically irrelevant language and that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers. (...) Part I of the book looks at why the history of philosophy has not developed in Latin America. A range of theoretical issues are explored, each focusing on specific problems that have hindered the development of a solid history. Part II details the complex task of writing a history of philosophy for a region still haunted by the specter of colonialism. Arleen Salles is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Music, and Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University and the coeditor (with Jorge J. E. Gracia) of Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century: The Human Condition, Values, and the Search for Identity. (shrink)

The ἐκπύρωσις, or world's conflagration, followed by the restoration of an identical world seems to go against the rationality of the Stoic god. The aim of this paper is to show that Cleanthes, the second head of the School, can avoid this paradox. According to Cleanthes, the conflagration is an inevitable side-effect of the necessary means used by god to sustain the world. Given that this side-effect is contrary to god's sustaining activity, but unavoidable, god's rationality requires the restoration of (...) an identical world once the conflagration subsides. The paper also deals with the relation between Cleanthes and other early Stoics on the topic of conflagration. In particular, Cleanthes' position seems to differ from Chrysippus'. For in contrast with the Cleanthean god, who causes the conflagration as a side-effect only, the Chrysippean god, according to an influential interpretation put forward by Jaap Mansfeld, causes the conflagration as his ultimate cosmological goal. (shrink)

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue , the first study in any language to provide a complete overview of Buber's thought, remains the definitive guide to the full range of his work and the starting point for all modern Buber scholarship. As well as summarizing Buber's early intellectual development and attitudes - his mysticism, his youthful existentialism, his philosophy of Judaism and religious socialism - it focuses on the two crucial issues of his mature thought: his dialogic or I-Thou philosophy, (...) and his probing of the nature and redemption of evil. As a sensitive, intuitive and perennially fascinating account of one of the twentieth century's great spiritual teachers, and as an influential classic in its own right, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue reveals the implications of Buber's thought for theory of knowledge, education, philosophy, myth, history and Judaic and Christian belief. This fully revised and expanded 4th edition includes a new preface from the author, an expanded bibliography incorporating new Buber scholarship, and two new appendices in the form of essays on Buber's influence on Emmanuel Levinas and Mikhail Bakhtin. (shrink)

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the _body_ to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others. Perhaps above all, Merleau-Ponty's (...) insights about the embodied mind are a bold and refreshing challenge to the new era of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as scientists and psychologists discover the centrality of the body to mind and intelligence. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é, primeiramente, expor os contornos gerais as críticas de David Hume ao que o filósofo escocês chamou epicurismo moderno. Trata-se das filosofias de Hobbes e de seus supostos epígonos, que, aos olhos de Hume, elegeram o amor próprio como origem fundamental de nossas ações e juízos. Num segundo momento, trata-se de delinear o lugar central do conceito de simpatia nesta crítica, bem como na constituição da moral humeana.

Usamos cotidianamente um conjunto de expressões para captar, selecionar ou referir uma determinada coisa particular e podermos em seguida dizer algo sobre essa coisa. Expressões desse tipo incluem nomes próprios, como “Platão” ou “João”, descrições definidas, como “o rei da França” ou “o autor da República”, demonstrativos, como “este” ou “isto”, etc. O uso cotidiano de tais expressões pode parecer não envolver problema filosófico algum. Afinal, o que poderia haver de mais banal? Mas, infelizmente (ou felizmente?) há problemas filosóficos dificílimos (...) envolvidos aí. Bertrand Russell notou isso, e desenvolveu uma curiosa análise das expressões do segundo tipo mencionado, estendendo-a, posteriormente, às do primeiro tipo. Russell pensava que se a sua análise estivesse correta, seria capaz de resolver um conjunto de problemas filosóficos que vão da filosofia da linguagem à metafísica. O principal objetivo deste trabalho é propor uma introdução acessível a essa análise, conhecida como Teoria das Descrições, sem esquecer o número gigantesco de críticas e defesas levantadas a favor e contra ela. (shrink)

Allocution, par M. Bouchard.--La signification historique de l'œuvre de Maurice Blondel, par H. Gouhler.--Leibniz et Blondel, par J. Brun.--L'apologétique blondélienne, par G. Maire.--Centenaire de la naissance de Maurice Blondel. Exposition de livres et de documents à la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de l'Université de Dijon, 12 mal 1962.

Ce livre ne vise pas à donner un aperçu de ce que devrait être une religion. Il ne vise pas davantage à mettre en valeur l'argumentaire de l'athéisme. Il entend plutôt montrer qu'une personne qui se dit parfaitement agnostique et adepte d'une philosophie qui valorise la rationalité avant tout peut parfaitement être croyante, voire même pratiquante, sans qu'il y ait là la moindre contradiction. Dans une telle démarche, l'armature cognitive à laquelle de nombreux croyants ont jugé approprié d'arrimer leur foi (...) risque de se voir quelque peu déboulonnée. Et nombre d'arguments qui ont fortement contribué à miner les croyances religieuses pourraient s'en trouver passablement affaiblis. Dans les deux cas, tout découlerait de la simple reconnaissance du fait que la foi n'est en rien un savoir. Croire, expose Maurice Lagueux, en un Dieu transcendant ne veut pas dire connaître quoi que ce soit à propos d'un monde transcendant qui, par définition, échappe à nos capacités cognitives et est conçu comme le lieu de mystères insondables. Croire veut dire avoir sincèrement confiance en ce qui pourrait nous réserver l'existence de ce Dieu qui, toutefois, demeure inconnaissable. On peut se reconnaître résolument croyant sans s'estimer moins agnostique pour autant. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é, primeiramente, expor os contornos gerais as críticas de David Hume ao que o filósofo escocês chamou epicurismo moderno. Trata-se das filosofias de Hobbes e de seus supostos epígonos, que, aos olhos de Hume, elegeram o amor próprio como origem fundamental de nossas ações e juízos. Num segundo momento, trata-se de delinear o lugar central do conceito de simpatia nesta crítica, bem como na constituição da moral humeana.

pt. 1. The interrelation of values. -- pt. 2. Windelband's theory of norms.

Des deux fonctions du médecin, soigner le corps et panser l'âme, la seconde est restée jusqu'au XVIIIe siècle prédominante : on pouvait seulement donner au malade le sentiment qu'il n'était pas abandonné, qu'on luttait avec lui pour obtenir sa guérison. Au début du XIXe siècle, la science, en apportant à la fois des connaissances et une méthode, a permis la naissance de la médecine moderne. Débarrassé des idées reçues et des creuses spéculations, le médecin s'est mis à confronter les signes (...) cliniques avec les lésions anatomiques puis avec les données biologiques, pour définir et classer les affections une à une. Démarche d'une prodigieuse efficacité : en deux siècles, l'espérance de vie est passée de vingt-sept à soixante-dix-sept ans. Mais ces progrès ont fait négliger l'aspect psychologique de la santé. Drogues licites et illicites, maladies sexuellement transmissibles, accidents, suicides : la mortalité des jeunes augmente aujourd'hui. Alors que la victoire semblait à portée de main, le médecin découvre qu'un corps ne petit être sain si l'esprit est malade. Devant le mal-être contemporain, en conservant la rigueur intellectuelle et méthodologique qui lui a valu ses succès, la médecine individuelle et curative doit aussi devenir collective et préventive, tenir compte d'une nouvelle donne économique et sociologique. (shrink)

The attempt to convene a discussion about childhood suggests a plurality of educative issues and raises important problems in the context of basic education. To recognize children in their specificity, and to engage and encounter them beyond the discourses produced about them seems to be a challenge today, most especially in the field of childhood education. The large majority of educational discourses assume a notion of childhood as inserted in chronological time, associated with the future, and constituting a doubtful minority. (...) The objective of this paper is to understand what significations and meanings are configuring the discursive practices maintained among teachers about the childhood.I start with the hypothesis that, despite the reconstitution of meaning that has occurred in the field, educators still associate the concept of childhood and its formation with the idea of becoming adult, and presume to explain the notion of childhood technically, in terms of a body of “scientific” knowledge. The research described here is based on an inquiry that took place in various Childhood Education Centers of the Public Municipal Network of the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. Although it is unfinished, this research, based on interviews, suggests that teacher discourses inhabit two discursive temporalities, and two childhoods: on the one side, the affirmation of the same, of unification, of linearity; on the other, the affirmation of difference, of novelty, of the singular. Although they enunciate different meanings for childhood, these meanings are not in themselves contradictory. They do, however, function in some way to maintain a form of schooling that lacks sensitivity to children and a more affirmative relationship to childhood in general, and which encloses itself in an adult vision of what children’s needs might be the. I try to show that those needs exceed the specificity of the teaching and learning typically encountered in schools, and to evaluate to what extent they are affirmed by scholarly notions of childhood. (shrink)

AI research is growing rapidly raising various ethical issues related to safety, risks, and other effects widely discussed in the literature. We believe that in order to adequately address those issues and engage in a productive normative discussion it is necessary to examine key concepts and categories. One such category is anthropomorphism. It is a well-known fact that AI’s functionalities and innovations are often anthropomorphized. The general public’s anthropomorphic attitudes and some of their ethical consequences have been widely discussed in (...) the literature. However, how anthropomorphism permeates AI research itself, and what the epistemological and ethical consequences of this might be have received less attention. In this paper we explore this issue. We first set the methodological/theoretical stage, making a distinction between a normative and a conceptual approach to the issues. Next, after a brief analysis of anthropomorphism and its manifestations in the public, we explore its presence within AI research with a particular focus on brain-inspired AI. Finally, on the basis of our analysis, we identify some potential epistemological and ethical consequences of the use of anthropomorphic language and discourse within the AI research community, thus reinforcing the need of complementing the practical with a conceptual analysis. (shrink)

Um pedaço de barro solta-se de um grande barranco, formando por coincidência, e ao mesmo tempo, uma estátua de Machado de Assis. Três dias depois a estátua é completamente destruída; ao ser atingida por um machado ela se parte em vários pedaços. Chega ao fim, então, a existência tanto da estátua como do pedaço de barro da qual ela é feita. Notemos que ambos vieram a existir ao mesmo tempo e também ao mesmo tempo deixaram de existir. No período de (...) tempo que existiram tudo o que aconteceu a uma aconteceu a outra. Allan Gibbard acredita que com um exemplo deste tipo pode nos dar um caso de identidade contingente. No artigo “Contingent Identity” ele tenta mostrar a plausibilidade de um caso onde uma estátua s é igual ao pedaço de barro c e, no entanto, é possível que ambos existam e s seja diferente de c. Com isto ele pretende atacar algumas noções de Kripke sobre coisas concretas e nomes próprios. (shrink)

The recently published BRAIN 2.0 Neuroethics Report offers a very helpful overview of the possible ethical, social, philosophical, and legal issues raised by neuroscience in the context of BRAIN’s research priorities thus contributing to the attempt to develop ethically sound neuroscience. In this article, we turn to a running theme of the document: the need for an ethical framework for the BRAIN Initiative and for further integration of neuroethics and neuroscience. We assess some of the issues raised and provide an (...) explanation of how we have addressed them in the Human Brain Project. We offer our experience in the HBP as a potential contribution to the international debate about neuroethics in the big brain initiatives. Our hope is that among other things, the type of exchange proposed by this AJOB special issue will prove productive in further identifying and discussing the issues and in inspiring appropriate solutions. (shrink)

Embodied Care is the first work to argue for the body's centrality to care ethics, doing so by analyzing our corporeality at the phenomenological level.

Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the (...) role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating. (shrink)

1. Introduction, par F. Best et al.--2. Histoire de la pédagogie, par Janine Assa et al.--3. Pédagogie comparée, par J. Auba et al.--4. Psychologie de l'éducation, par D. Lavenu et al.--5. Psychologie pédagogique, par F. Beaufils et al.--6. Aspects sociaux de l'éducation, par I. Berger et al.--7. Fonction et formation des enseignants, par F. Amiel-Lebigre et al.--8. Éducation permanente et animation socioculturelle, par P. Besnard et al.

Excerpt from La Mort On l'a dit admirablement: La mort! C'est encore elle seule qu'il faut consulter sur la vie, et non je ne sais quel avenir et quelle survivance ou nous ne serons pas. Elle est notre propre fin et tout se passe dans un intervalle d'elle a nous. Qu'on ne me parle pas de ces prolongements illusoires qui ont. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book (...) is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

De profonds déséquilibres environnementaux et sociaux caractérisent en négatif le bilan de la culture humaine en ce début de XXe siècle. La transformation radicale des sociétés sur des bases de justice sociale apparaît comme la condition pour que le genre humain poursuive son processus de libération et soit enfin fidèle à la démarche éthique qui le singularise. Pourtant, les révolutions du siècle passé, qui ont tenté de construire un nouveau monde, ont toutes échoué. La plupart d'entre elles ont étouffé la (...) liberté et bafoué les principes humanistes. De fait, les adversaires de l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme sont actuellement affaiblis et désorientés. Ils ont bien du mal à s'opposer aux offensives des classes dirigeantes qui partout dans le monde appliquent des politiques libérales antisociales. Comment galvaniser les résistances? Est-il possible de refonder l'idéal émancipateur? Quelles devraient être les caractéristiques essentielles d'une société véritablement émancipatrice? Quel cheminement peut nous y conduire? (shrink)

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is an important ethical, legal, and political theme for the European Commission. Although variously defined, it is generally understood as an interactive process that engages social actors, researchers, and innovators who must be mutually responsive and work towards the ethical permissibility of the relevant research and its products. The framework of RRI calls for contextually addressing not just research and innovation impact but also the background research process, specially the societal visions underlying it and the (...) norms and priorities that shape scientific agendas. This requires the integration of anticipatory, inclusive, and responsive dimensions, and the nurturing of a certain type of reflexivity among a variety of stakeholders, from scientists to funders. In this paper, we do not address potential limitations but focus on the potential contribution of philosophical reflection to RRI in the context of the Ethics and Society subproject of the Human Brain Project (HBP). We show how the type of conceptual analysis provided by philosophically oriented approaches theoretically and ethically broadens research and innovation within the HBP. We further suggest that overt inclusion of philosophical reflection can promote the aims and objectives of RRI. (shrink)

Ces deux essais tournent autour des deux thèmes de prédilection de Maurice Clavelin. Le premier, Galilée ou la naissance de la science moderne, interroge l'un des tournants les plus importants de l'histoire des sciences : le " moment Galilée ". L'auteur montre que ce n'est pas une simple critique des idées traditionnelles ou une meilleure attention portée aux données de l'observation qui caractérise la science de ce génie. Rallié aux théories de Copernic, Galilée crée une vraie science mathématisée du (...) mouvement, véritable révolution conceptuelle qui ouvre une ère nouvelle à la spéculation sur la Nature, et signe ainsi l'acte de naissance de la science moderne. Le second aborde sous un angle inédit le rapport entre science et philosophie. Il montre qu'au début du XXe siècle, et après une longue stagnation, la théorie empiriste de la connaissance reprend forme et rigueur sous l'influence combinée de la logique symbolique et de l'interprétation logiciste des mathématiques. Le rôle de Russell est ici décisif, comme ses réinterprétations par Wittgenstein, Quine, et le cercle de Vienne. Un livre qui clôt l'oeuvre d'un grand philosophe des sciences. (shrink)

Maurice Blanchot’s “The Strange and the Stranger” (1958) is an essential text for understanding Blanchot’s thought, its development, and its enduring importance. He presents an early account of the impersonal “neuter” in subject-less experiences like “alienation,” “alteration,” “dispersion,” “disappearance,” and “absence.” These experiences of strangeness threaten thought, which is only “itself and for-itself its own experience.” Relatedly, they also reveal “the neutrality of being or neutrality as being.” With reference to both Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Heidegger, Blanchot clarifies the (...) meaning and exigency of a neuter that can take “upon itself the reality of alienation.”. (shrink)