Alexis Tadié | : Dans cet essai, on analyse la relation entre fait et fiction dans le contexte du développement de la forme romanesque. Je suggère que l’on peut approcher la nature du récit en examinant les manières dont les fictions et les histoires fictionnelles en sont venues à constituer des artefacts philosophiques complexes, la question du genre littéraire étant subordonnée à celle de fictionnalité. | : In this essay, I would like to analyse the relationship between fiction (...) and fact within the context of the development of the novel. I suggest that we may approach narratives by looking at the ways in which fiction and fictional stories came to constitute complex philosophical artefacts — the question of genre being dependent on the idea of fictionality. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine le duel à l’époque moderne entendu à la fois comme la forme suprême de la querelle, son aboutissement naturel sous certaines conditions, alors qu’il est lui-même objet de controverses vives. Le duel, qui repose sur des lois, réglemente le dissensus en même temps qu’il le porte à son paroxysme. Il peut servir de révélateur de la place du dissensus dans la société, de la façon dont les rapports sociaux prennent acte du désaccord entre les individus et réglementent (...) les façons de le résoudre. Cet article examine la forme du duel comme fin des querelles. Il se porte ensuite sur les controverses autour des duels. Il examine enfin la place du duel dans la littérature, sa fonction poétique et dramatique, afin de souligner les façons dont le texte littéraire participe de cette réflexion sur le duel. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article examine le duel à l’époque moderne ( xvi e - xviii e siècles, jusqu’au début du xix e siècle) entendu à la fois comme la forme suprême de la querelle, son aboutissement naturel sous certaines conditions, alors qu’il est lui-même objet de controverses vives. Le duel, qui repose sur des lois, réglemente le dissensus en même temps qu’il le porte à son paroxysme. Il peut servir de révélateur de la place du dissensus dans la société, de la (...) façon dont les rapports sociaux prennent acte du désaccord entre les individus et réglementent les façons de le résoudre. Cet article examine la forme du duel comme fin des querelles. Il se porte ensuite sur les controverses autour des duels. Il examine enfin la place du duel dans la littérature, sa fonction poétique et dramatique, afin de souligner les façons dont le texte littéraire participe de cette réflexion sur le duel. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage retrace le mouvement de la pensée du philosophe anglais Francis Bacon, depuis les essais qu'il compose par petites touches pour construire une philosophie morale, jusqu'à New Atlantis, qui est à la fois utopie, programme scientifique, et mise en oeuvre des grands principes de sa philosophie naturelle.

This essay proposes to analyse the mechanisms of quarrels from a theoretical perspective largely informed by linguistics, and more specifically, by pragmatics. It connects with some of Jean-Jacques Lecercle's argument in the current issue, but takes the analysis in different directions. Looking at a number of examples of quarrels, this paper purports to identify the different participants and parameters in the development of a quarrel. These include speakers, texts, institutions that adjudicate, an audience and rules, as well as material conditions (...) under which disputes develop. These parameters provide a framework, rather than a rigid construction, within which speakers may change positions. Special attention is given to the beginnings of a quarrel and to the ends of a quarrel. The essay concludes on the dynamic of quarrels, which precludes modellization. (shrink)

This essay proposes to analyse the mechanisms of quarrels from a theoretical perspective largely informed by linguistics, and more specifically, by pragmatics. It connects with some of Jean-Jacques Lecercle's argument in the current issue, but takes the analysis in different directions. Looking at a number of examples of quarrels, this paper purports to identify the different participants and parameters in the development of a quarrel. These include speakers, texts, institutions that adjudicate, an audience and rules, as well as material conditions (...) under which disputes develop. These parameters provide a framework, rather than a rigid construction, within which speakers may change positions. Special attention is given to the beginnings of a quarrel and to the ends of a quarrel. The essay concludes on the dynamic of quarrels, which precludes modellization. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine le duel à l’époque moderne entendu à la fois comme la forme suprême de la querelle, son aboutissement naturel sous certaines conditions, alors qu’il est lui-même objet de controverses vives. Le duel, qui repose sur des lois, réglemente le dissensus en même temps qu’il le porte à son paroxysme. Il peut servir de révélateur de la place du dissensus dans la société, de la façon dont les rapports sociaux prennent acte du désaccord entre les individus et réglementent (...) les façons de le résoudre. Cet article examine la forme du duel comme fin des querelles. Il se porte ensuite sur les controverses autour des duels. Il examine enfin la place du duel dans la littérature, sa fonction poétique et dramatique, afin de souligner les façons dont le texte littéraire participe de cette réflexion sur le duel. (shrink)

Genes adjacent to species-specific loci are 6.2% older than genes adjacent to other dynamic loci (P < 10−2 by randomization; gray bars in Fig. 3); thus, species-specific genes are not randomly distributed but are found preferentially in the older regions, indicating that the incipient Escherichia and Salmonella lineages continued to participate in recombination at loci unlinked to lineage-specific genes.

Conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics are branches of philosophy concerned with questions about how to assess and ameliorate our representational devices (such as concepts and words). It's a part of philosophy concerned with questions about which concepts we should use (and why), how concepts can be improved, when concepts should be abandoned, and how proposals for amelioration can be implemented. Central parts of the history of philosophy have engaged with these issues, but the focus of this volume is on applications (...) to work in contemporary philosophy of language and mind, epistemology, gender and race theory, ethics, philosophy of science, and philosophical logic. This is the first volume devoted entirely to conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics. The volume explores the possibilities, benefits, problems, and applications of conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics. It consists of twenty chapters written by leading philosophers. (shrink)

This is a concise, advanced introduction to current philosophical debates about truth. A blend of philosophical and technical material, the book is organized around, but not limited to, the tendency known as deflationism, according to which there is not much to say about the nature of truth. In clear language, Burgess and Burgess cover a wide range of issues, including the nature of truth, the status of truth-value gaps, the relationship between truth and meaning, relativism and pluralism about truth, and (...) semantic paradoxes from Alfred Tarski to Saul Kripke and beyond. Following a brief introduction that reviews the most influential traditional and contemporary theories of truth, short chapters cover Tarski, deflationism, indeterminacy, realism, antirealism, Kripke, and the possible insolubility of semantic paradoxes. The book provides a rich picture of contemporary philosophical theorizing about truth, one that will be essential reading for philosophy students as well as philosophers specializing in other areas. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been growing discussion amongst philosophers about “conceptual engineering”. Put roughly, conceptual engineering concerns the assessment and improvement of concepts, or of other devices we use in thought and talk (e.g., words). This often involves attempts to modify our existing concepts (or other representational devices), and/or our practices of using them. This paper explores the relation between conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics, where conceptual ethics is taken to encompass normative and evaluative questions about concepts, words, and (...) other broadly “representational” and/or “inferential” devices we use in thought and talk. We take some of the central questions in conceptual ethics to concern which concepts we should use and what words should mean, and why. We put forward a view of conceptual engineering in terms of the following three activities: conceptual ethics, conceptual innovation, and conceptual implementation. On our view, conceptual engineering can be defined in terms of these three activities, but not in a straightforward, Boolean way. Conceptual engineering, we argue, is made up of mereologically complex activities whose parts fall into the categories associated with each of these three different activities. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world, and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

This book reimagines the compositional semantics of comparative sentences using words such as more, as, too, and others. The book's central thesis entails a rejection of a fundamental assumption of degree semantic frameworks: that gradable adjectives like tall lexicalize functions from individuals to degrees, i.e., measure functions. I argue that comparative expressions in English themselves introduce “measure functions”; this is the case whether that morphology targets adjectives, as in *taller* or *more intelligent*; nouns, as in *more coffee*, *more coffees*; verbs, (...) such as *run more*, *jump more*; or expressions of other categories. Furthermore, she suggests that expressions that comfortably and meaningfully appear in the comparative form should be distinguished from those that do not in terms of a general notion of "measurability": a measurable predicate has a domain of application with non-trivial structure. This notion unifies the independently motivated distinctions between, for example, gradable and non-gradable adjectives, mass and count nouns, singular and plural noun phrases, and telic and atelic verb phrases. Based on careful examination of the distribution of dimensions for comparison within the class of measurable predicates, I tie the selection of measure functions to the specific nature and structure of the domain entities targeted for measurement. The book ultimately explores how, precisely, we should understand semantic theories that invoke the "nature" of domain entities: does the theory depend for its explanation on features of metaphysical reality, or something else? Such questions are especially pertinent in light of a growing body of research in cognitive science exploring the understanding and acquisition of comparative sentences. (shrink)

Adequate measurement is an essential component of the assessment of mental health disorders and symptoms such as depression and anxiety. The present study investigated sex-specific differences in the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. This comprehensive cross-sectional design study pursued four objectives: measurement invariance of PHQ-9 and GAD-7 between male and female; depression and anxiety prevalence differences; cross-sex differences in the relationship between depression and anxiety; and a comparison of symptom heterogeneity. A sample of 1966 students from South Africa (...) completed the PHQ-9 and the GAD-7. Data analyses for measurement invariance, latent class analysis, inter-variable correlations and group comparisons were conducted in Mplus. The two-dimensional PHQ-9 achieved scalar invariance, while the GAD-7 yielded metric invariance. The somatic and non-somatic latent dimensions of depression were compared and showed no significant difference between male and female groups. The positive relationship between depression and anxiety was also not significantly different between the two groups. While the PHQ-9 symptoms formed three classes in the male group, and four classes in the female group, the GAD-7 had the same number of classes and a similar pattern between the two groups. These findings hold implications for the measurement, assessment and understanding of symptom manifestation and distribution, as well as the treatment of depression and anxiety in South Africa. (shrink)

In Against Purity, Alexis Shotwell proposes a powerful new conception of social movements as custodians for the past and incubators for liberated futures. Against Purity undertakes an analysis that draws on theories of race, disability, gender, and animal ethics as a foundation for an innovative approach to the politics and ethics of responding to systemic problems.

How are we able to experience values? Two sides are competing in contemporary literature: ‘Meinongians’ (represented notably by Christine Tappolet) claim that axiological properties are apprehended in emotions, while ‘Hildebrandians’ (represented in particular by Ingrid Vendrell Ferran) assert that such experiences of value (or valueceptions) are accomplished in special ‘value feelings’, and that emotions are only responses to these felt values. In this paper, I study the Husserlian viewpoint on this issue. I reveal that, contrary to what almost all scholars (...) have assumed so far, Husserl’s position is not reducible to Meinong’s and must on the contrary be regarded as an innovative and stimulating approach that helps unifying the two standard frameworks. It indeed recognizes (with Hildebrandians) the existence of non-emotional value feelings, while maintaining (with Meinongians) that originary axiological experiences are necessarily emotional. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world, and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

In ancient Greece, Sophia reigned over the wisdom of riddle solvers as well as the science of first principles.

This paper explores the hypothesis that all comparative sentences— nominal, verbal, and adjectival—contain instances of a single morpheme that compositionally introduces degrees. This morpheme, sometimes pronounced much, semantically contributes a structure-preserving map from entities, events, or states, to their measures along various dimensions. A major goal of the paper is to argue that the differences in dimensionality observed across domains are a consequence of what is measured, as opposed to which expression introduces the measurement. The resulting theory has a number (...) of interesting properties. It characterizes the notion of ‘measurement’ uniformly across comparative constructions, in terms of non-trivial structure preservation. It unifies the distinctions between mass/count nouns and atelic/telic verb phrases with that between gradable and non-gradable adjectives. Finally, it affords a uniform characterization of semantically anomalous comparisons across categories. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of ourexperiences of values– ourvalueceptions. In the recent literature, two main standpoints have emerged. On the one hand, the ‘Meinongian’ side claims that axiological properties are experienced exclusively in emotions. On the other hand, the ‘Hildebrandian’ side contends that since valueceptions can be ‘cold’, they are not accomplished in emotions but rather reside in ‘value-feelings’ – emotions, in this framework, being conceived of asreactionsto the values thus revealed. The aim of the paper is to argue (...) that theHusserlianphenomenology of affectivity, especially as it is developed during his Göttingen period, can help to overcome these two accounts. I start by pointing out that, contrary to what most scholars have assumed so far, Husserl’s theory of valueception is not tantamount to Meinong’s, as it is very sensitive to ‘Hildebrandian’ arguments (Part 2). The core of the paper is then devoted to a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s solution to this controversy. Drawing on the analogy between thing-perceptions and value-perceptions (Part 3), I show, first, that ‘cold’ valueceptions are to be identified with empty apprehensions (Auffassungen) of value, in which an emotion is notactually experiencedbut isanticipatedin such-and-such kinaesthetic circumstances (Part 4); second, that the realization of this anticipation amounts to thefulfillmentof the valueception (Part 5). As a result, Husserl acknowledges the relevance of ‘value-feelings’, yet his account appears more satisfactory than traditional ‘Hildebrandian’ theories in that it demystifies these ‘value-feelings’ by reducing them topotential emotions. (shrink)

Philosophical and sociological approaches in technology have increasingly shifted toward describing AI (artificial intelligence) systems as ‘(moral) agents,’ while also attributing ‘agency’ to them. It is only in this way – so their principal argument goes – that the effects of technological components in a complex human-computer interaction can be understood sufficiently in phenomenological-descriptive and ethical-normative respects. By contrast, this article aims to demonstrate that an explanatory model only achieves a descriptively and normatively satisfactory result if the concepts of ‘(moral) (...) agent’ and ‘(moral) agency’ are exclusively related to human agents. Initially, the division between symbolic and sub-symbolic AI, the black box character of (deep) machine learning, and the complex relationship network in the provision and application of machine learning are outlined. Next, the ontological and action-theoretical basic assumptions of an ‘agency’ attribution regarding both the current teleology-naturalism debate and the explanatory model of actor network theory are examined. On this basis, the technical-philosophical approaches of Luciano Floridi, Deborah G. Johnson, and Peter-Paul Verbeek will all be critically discussed. Despite their different approaches, they tend to fully integrate computational behavior into their concept of ‘(moral) agency.’ By contrast, this essay recommends distinguishing conceptually between the different entities, causalities, and relationships in a human-computer interaction, arguing that this is the only way to do justice to both human responsibility and the moral significance and causality of computational behavior. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to Creative Writing ContributionsAlexis Pauline Gumbs, Akasha Gloria Hull, Cheryl Clarke, doris diosa davenport, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Asha French, Sharon Bridgforth, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Alexis De Veaux, and Sokari Ekinewhen i first began to dream of creative writing contributions for this special issue of Feminist Studies celebrating the fortieth anniversaries of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and All the Women (...) Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies, I imagined a wealth of examples of the world and the work made possible by these two groundbreaking anthologies. I wondered what their editors and contributors were writing now. I wondered about the work of their students and people like me: those of us who understand everything we write as indebted to the path-making, silence-clearing, generative, and bodacious work of the participants in the miracles that are This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave.But today as I reread the contributions that actually emerged from this process, I realize that my dream was too small. I imagined writing that would provide evidence of the ongoing impact made by these two anthologies. Instead, the creative writing in this special issue offers something more crucial and beautiful than I had imagined. These works are not mere evidence of a transformed world; these works are continuing to transform the world in urgent and visionary ways. As repeated again and again by participants in the 2022 celebration for the fortieth anniversary celebration of This Bridge Called My Back, the work that inspired these anthologies is not over. The writings featured in this issue not only show [End Page 198] how this work continues, but they feed, nurture, and provoke us as we honor our responsibility to transform this world.For example, when Akasha Gloria Hull, coeditor of But Some of Us Are Brave, shares her daily early morning meditative writing in "Writing and Rebirth: A Set of Journal Poems," we remember not only her fundamental work excavating the daily lives of Black women writers from the nineteenth century—most notably in Give Us Each Day, her edited book based on the diaries of poet Alice Dunbar Nelson—but also our own imperative. Hull's reflections on health challenges, interpersonal conflict, resurrection, collaboration, and writing itself remind us that our feminist praxis is impactful because of its dailyness. Those of us who wake up tomorrow will need to ask the same critical questions the editors of But Some of Us Are Brave asked of the fields of Black studies and women's studies. We will find surprises and repetitions in the days we meet, and then we will have to do it again.When we read two new prose poems by Cheryl Clarke, an original contributor to This Bridge Called My Back, we have an opportunity to time travel. In "Living as a Lesbian in the Archive of Style," we venture into a critical engagement with the term "hardcore lesbian," displacing the desires of the person who needs to classify others using that term with those of someone who has been hailed by it. Clarke's poem is a reminder that as we work in literary traditions and fields of study made possible by the revolutionary identity politics of an earlier era, we are still responsible for centering the experiences of those most impacted by our fluent and fluid naming practices. In "History," Clarke offers us a timely Black lesbian feminist lens on many iterations of responding to police violence, centering the perspective of a lesbian, her lover, and her lover's husband.The poem "On Being an hbcu Graduate, Teacher, Professor-Scholar at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL, in May 2015" by doris diosa davenport—an original contributor to But Some of Us Are Brave—highlights the intimacy, hilarity, and poignancy of the daily work of intergenerational critical and creative praxis. In particular, she considers the context of institutions and regions that are sometimes excluded from the imaginary of how and where feminist work happens. davenport transmits the lessons and energy gained through her practice of thinking and gathering otherwise... (shrink)

Metasemantics comprises new work on the philosophical foundations of linguistic semantics, by a diverse group of established and emerging experts in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the theory of content. The science of semantics aspires to systematically specify the meanings of linguistic expressions in context. The paradigmatic metasemantic question is accordingly: what more basic or fundamental features of the world metaphysically determine these semantic facts? Efforts to answer this question inevitably raise others, including: where are the boundaries of semantics?; (...) what is the essence of the meaning relation?; which framework should we use for semantic theorizing?; and what are the intrinsic natures of semantic values? Metasemantic inquiry has long been recognized as a central part of the philosophy of language, but recent developments in metaphysics and semantics itself now allow us to approach these classic questions with an unprecedented degree of precision. The essays collected here provide promising new perspectives on old problems, pose questions that suggest novel research projects, and taken together, greatly sharpen our understanding of linguistic representation. (shrink)

Cognitive partitions are useful. The notion of numerical identity helps us induce them. Consider, for instance, the role of identity in representing an equivalence relation like taking the same train. This expressive function of identity has been largely overlooked. Other possible functions of the concept have been over-emphasized. It is not clear that we use identity to represent individual objects or quantify over collections of them. Understanding what the concept is good for looks especially urgent in light of the fact (...) that numerical identities themselves are tangibly trifling. (shrink)

"Draws on philosophers, political theorists, activists, and poets to explain how unspoken and unspeakable knowledge is important to racial and gender formation; offers a usable conception of implicit understanding"--Provided by publishers.

This paper answers several open questions around structures with o‐minimal open core. We construct an expansion of an o‐minimal structure by a unary predicate such that its open core is a proper o‐minimal expansion of. We give an example of a structure that has an o‐minimal open core and the exchange property, yet defines a function whose graph is dense. Finally, we produce an example of a structure that has an o‐minimal open core and definable Skolem functions, but is not (...) o‐minimal. (shrink)

At the heart of this book is the age-old question of how law and morality are related. The legal positivist, insisting on the separation of the two, explicates the concept of law independently of morality. The author challenges this view, arguing that there are, first, conceptually necessary connections between law and morality and, second, normative reasons for including moral elements in the concept of law. While the conceptual argument alone is too limited to establish a sufficiently strong connection between law (...) and morality, and the normative argument alone fails to address the nature of law, the two arguments together support a nonpositivistic concept of law, toppling legal positivism qua comprehensive theory of law. (shrink)

Robert Alexy develops his influential theory of legal reasoning exploring the nature of legal argumentation and its relation to practical reasoning. In doing so he sheds light on fundamental questions of law and rationality, which are as crucial to practising lawyers and law students as they are to scholars of legal theory.

This book analyses the general structure of constitutional rights reasoning under the German Basic Law. It deals with a wide range of problems common to all systems of constitutional rights review. In an extended introduction the translator argues for its applicability to the British Constitution, with particular reference to the Human Rights Act 1998.

The article begins with an outline of the balancing construction as developed by the German Federal Constitutional court since the Lüth decision in 1958. It then takes up two objections to this approach raised by Jürgen Habermas. The first maintains that balancing is both irrational and a danger for rights, depriving them of their normative power. The second is that balancing takes one out of the realm of right and wrong, correctness and incorrectness, and justification, and, thus, out of the (...) realm of the law. The article attempts to counter these objections by showing that there exists a rational structure of balancing that can be made explicit by a “Law of Balancing” and a “Disproportionality Rule.” These rules show, first, that balancing is not a danger for rights but, on the contrary, a necessary means of lending them protection, and second, that balancing is not an alternative to argumentation but an indispensable form of rational practical discourse. (shrink)

I defend social media’s potential to support Aristotelian virtue friendship against a variety of objections. I begin with Aristotle’s claim that the foundation of the best friendships is a shared life. Friends share the distinctively human and valuable components of their lives, especially reasoning together by sharing conversation and thoughts, and communal engagement in valued activities. Although some have charged that shared living is not possible between friends who interact through digital social media, I argue that social media preserves the (...) relevantly human and valuable portions of life, especially reasoning, play, and exchange of ideas. I then consider several criticisms of social media’s potential to host friendships, and refute or weaken the force of these objections, using this conception of a distinctively human shared life. I conclude that we should use the shared life to evaluate features of specific social media and norms for users’ conduct. (shrink)

The argument of this article is that the dual-nature thesis is not only capable of solving the problem of legal positivism, but also addresses all fundamental questions of law. Examples are the relation between deliberative democracy and democracy qua decision-making procedure along the lines of the majority principle, the connection between human rights as moral rights and constitutional rights as positive rights, the relation between constitutional review qua ideal representation of the people and parliamentary legislation, the commitment of legal argumentation (...) to both authoritative and non-authoritative reasons, and the distinction between rules as expressing a real “ought” and principles as expressing its ideal counterpart. All of this underscores the point that the dual nature of law is the single most essential feature of law. (shrink)

The status and functioning of shame is contested in moral psychology. In much of anglophone philosophy and psychology, it is presumed to be largely destructive, while in Confucian philosophy and many East Asian communities, it is positively associated with moral development. Recent work in human-robot interaction offers a unique opportunity to investigate how shame functions while controlling for confounding variables of interpersonal interaction. One research program suggests a Confucian strategy for using robots to rebuke participants, but results from experiments with (...) educational technologies imply a different and potentially opposing account of shame’s role in personal development. By digging deeper into the details of Confucian theorizing about shame, I identify a unifying explanation for these apparently conflicting results. I conclude by offering suggestions for future empirical research in human-robot interactions to further investigate shame’s role in moral development. (shrink)

Various emerging technologies, from social robotics to social media, appeal to our desire for social interactions, while avoiding some of the risks and costs of face-to-face human interaction. But can they offer us real friendship? In this book, Alexis Elder outlines a theory of friendship drawing on Aristotle and contemporary work on social ontology, and then uses it to evaluate the real value of social robotics and emerging social technologies. In the first part of the book Elder develops a (...) robust and rigorous ontology of friendship: what it is, how it functions, what harms it, and how it relates to familiar ethical and philosophical questions about character, value, and well-being. In Part II she applies this ontology to emerging trends in social robotics and human-robot interaction, including robotic companions for lonely seniors, therapeutic robots used to teach social skills to children on the autism spectrum, and companionate robots currently being developed for consumer markets. Elder articulates the moral hazards presented by these robots, while at the same time acknowledging their real and measurable benefits. In the final section she shifts her focus to connections between real people, especially those enabled by social media. Arguing against critics who have charged that these new communication technologies are weakening our social connections, Elder explores ways in which text messaging, video chats, Facebook, and Snapchat are enabling us to develop, sustain, and enrich our friendship in new and meaningful ways. (shrink)

Digital records, from chat transcripts to social media posts, are being used to create chatbots that recreate the conversational style of deceased individuals. Some maintain that this is merely a new form of digital memorial, while others argue that they pose a variety of moral hazards. To resolve this, I turn to classical Chinese philosophy to make use of a debate over the ethics of funerals and mourning. This ancient argument includes much of interest for the contemporary issue at hand, (...) including the use of impersonators of the dead to help the bereaved to deal well with their grief. I connect this historical discussion with a modern trend in clinical psychology that reframes therapeutic interventions with bereaved individuals. The trend directs practitioners away from facilitating detachment and toward affirming continuing bonds. I conclude that these chatbots can offer an important source of support to mourners, but also discuss parameters and features of social context that will be important to avoid the moral hazards identified by sceptics. (shrink)

The central argument of this article turns on the dual‐nature thesis. This thesis sets out the claim that law necessarily comprises both a real or factual dimension and an ideal or critical dimension. The dual‐nature thesis is incompatible with both exclusive legal positivism and inclusive legal positivism. It is also incompatible with variants of non‐positivism according to which legal validity is lost in all cases of moral defect or demerit (exclusive legal non‐positivism) or, alternatively, is affected in no way at (...) all by moral defects or demerits (super‐inclusive legal non‐positivism). The dual nature of law is expressed, on the one hand, by the Radbruch formula, which says that extreme injustice is not law, and, on the other, by the correctness argument, which says that law's claim to correctness necessarily includes a claim to moral correctness. Thus, what the law is depends not only on social facts, but also on what the law ought to be. (shrink)

Before engaging with intentionality, the philosopher of mind must consider the intrinsic nature of psychological elements. Conscious states, contrary to ordinary and scientific objects, seem to penetrate each another in such a way that it becomes impossible to enumerate, class or organize through laws the various experiences at stake. In this context, how is a science of consciousness conceivable? How is it possible to apply the epistemological requirements of any science to a domain whose ontological nature contradicts such demands? The (...) paper reconstructs Husserl’s solution to this issue in the Fifth Logical Investigation. I show how his appeal to the mereological framework of the Third Investigation gives him the tools to rationalize the domain of the mind and to establish phenomenology as an authentic science of consciousness. I first demonstrate that the very task of phenomenological investigations is defined in mereological terms. I then reconstruct the issue regarding the inclusion of the intentional object within the act, by exposing the nuances of the Husserlian position in this famous controversy. In a last part, I show how mereological concepts are at the core of the Husserlian reinterpretation of the Brentanian thesis according to which all acts are presentations or based on presentations. (shrink)

The author's thesis is that human rights can be substantiated on the basis of discourse theory. The argument has two steps. The first step is the justification of the rules of discourse. The second step consists in the foundation of human rights.

During the Twentieth Century, either before or after the Independence, India produced several saints. Many of these saints have preached and still preach a religion of love and devotion, the bhakti. Nowadays, many of the bhakti movements they have created are still active and other new movements are being born with the emergence of new saint-figures. Among all these modern movements, The Art of Living Foundation is the most recent one, and one of the most active today. Founded in 1982 (...) by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who is believed by his followers to be the embodiment of divine love, The Art of Living Foundation claims to possess the “keys” to a better living. Indeed, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's movement offers courses of yoga and meditation worldwide to share its precious wisdom with the widest public, regardless of walks of life, religions, societies and cultures of the aspirants. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's yoga techniques and main messages as “Life is sacred ; celebrate life” attract an ever-growing public, be it in India, in America, or anywhere else. In spite of the fact that The Art of Living Foundation is present all over the world, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his movement remain not very much known among the scholarly circles, especially outside the Indian subcontinent. So, the present study, based on observation and analysis of the movement, will introduce Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his movement in a critical way by comparing The Art of Living Foundation with the other modern Hindu bhakti movements, highlighting and critiquing the salient features it tries to enshrine. (shrink)