This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Monument as Museum, Museum as Monument Arts of Appropriation Appropriation, Property and Oppression Appropriation, Memory and Identity References.

continent. 1.4 (2011): 253—278. A Sense of French Politics Politics itself is not the exercise of power or struggle for power. Politics is first of all the configuration of a space as political, the framing of a specific sphere of experience, the setting of objects posed as "common" and of subjects to whom the capacity is recognized to designate these objects and discuss about them.(1) On April 14, 2011, France implemented its controversial ban of the niqab and burqa (...) , commonly referred to as the Islamic veil, in public places. On the coattails of the 2004 prohibition of religious artifacts, including the less concealing hijab or Islamic headscarves, in schools, the veil ban sparked equal outrage across both political and theological spectra, and many on both sides of the debate were quick to inquire about enforcement. As Steven Erlanger reports, “The police do not have the authority under the law to remove full veils, only to fine or require citizenship lessons for those who violate the new law.”(2) While the legal and social implications of this interdiction are ripe for study, the reprisals for breaking the law, notably compulsory citizenship classes, illuminate the strategic governmentality underlying the French government's targeting of the Muslim community, particularly those elements it considers affiliated with fundamentalist factions and/or terrorist organizations, if only through fashion—an integral component of French citizenship. Indeed, in allowing the (fashion) police to mandate instructional courses in citizenship for offenders, France implies that any Muslim choosing to wear the niqab or burqa , perhaps even for those who are already citizens, must not be aware of the subtle nuances of dress indicative of the French citizenry within public space. Furthermore, the degree of instruction requisite to citizenship, which clearly can and must be updated as the state sees fit, cements the imagined relation between citizens and states within the discourses on the veil ban. As Sharma contends, “Concepts of citizenship are the ideological glue that bonds the nation to the state. Citizenship provides the legal framework through which the state performs its role as ruler for the nation.”(3) Speaking for/as the state, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared in a 2009 presentation before members of the government and other citizens that the burqa “is not welcome on the territory of France.”(4) Although there is nothing unique, especially recently, about a nation-state taking extreme measures to guard itself against what it deems to be threats to its sovereignty, the way in which the ongoing discourses on hijab have (d)evolved, which coincide with recent pronouncements by governmental leaders in Germany, Britain, and France that policies of multiculturalism have “failed,”(5) points toward nationalist reterritorializations, which is also to say physical and ideological re-appropriations, of public space within democratic milieux, which remain predicated upon the mediation of spaces. As Panagia deduces from Rancière, “Democracy […] is not an institutional form of government […], but an appearance whose visibilities and audibilites arise out of the dissonant blur of the everyday.”(6) Ultimately, the veil ban represents a calculated move to regulate the every day, which is to say the micropolitics of, that which is visible and invisible within French society, which makes it nothing short of a struggle to manage (the sensation of) bodies. Re-situating the political within the context of sense, Rancière argues that the fundamental essence of politics lies within the distinction between consensus and dissensus , and whereas most consider politics proper as fundamentally concerned with the fluid operations of the state— consensus , Rancière actually locates the political within events that disrupt the normative sensory order of things— dissensus . He explains, “Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time.”(7) This reformulation of politics centers on agency and, albeit perhaps unintended, representationality and offers a useful formulation for spatializing the discourses surrounding the Islamic veil, which are mired within seemingly senseless policies and practices of objectification. Instituting a normative “regime of visibility,” the French veil ban encapsulates the political economy of agency, now both mediated and representational, under the rule of nationalist governmentalities in increasingly transnational contexts.(8) Adjudicating presence within public space signals a concern with the sensory aspects of agency itself—what Rancière terms the “distribution of the sensible,” which is “a matrix that defines a set of relations between sense and sense: that is, between a form of sensory experience and an interpretation which makes sense of it.”(9) To be concerned with sense is to focus upon the body, and this somatic repositioning of the (fashionable) citizen within the territory of the state augurs the resurgence of nationalist bio-politics within Europe, since, as Hage explicates, “Nationalism, before being an explicit practice or a mode of classification, is a state of the body. It is a way of imagining one's position within the nation and what one can aspire to as a national.”(10) The French government's attempt to make (bodily) sense of public space for its citizens by and through policies aimed against a burqa-clad Muslim minority, which might only apply to “less then 400 to fewer than 2,000” women(11), reveals the necessary, yet mercurial, transmutation of public space into national space through bio-political strategies of sense-making, which, as Hage observes, denotes that “nationalists perceive themselves as spatial managers.”(12) At the center of this concern over public space is the equally contentious dimension of governing female Islamic identity, which has become one of the main critiques levied against Islam from outsiders who view the veil in its various forms as a clear sign of the religion's actual and symbolic violence against women, even if such critiques remain ensconced within nationalist discourses. As Halim and Meyers argue, “Although Western news media may focus their coverage of Muslim women on the debate over whether and the extent to which the veil may by oppressive to the women who wear it, they have exhibited little interest in the physical oppression of violence against women in Islamic countries.”(13) While it falls outside of the scope of this analysis to arbitrate all of the dimensions of this debate, understanding some of the issues related to female identity and hijab within public space are crucial to this study. As these topics are extraordinarily complex, even and perhaps especially within the Muslim community, it is necessary to provide some context concerning the value, purpose, and meaning of the Islamic veil, which has a rich and arduous history. The Art of the Veil At present, there are only two countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that require women to wear hijab , which is a decidedly problematic term and concept whose locus is itself caught within a struggle of sensation. Noting the strategic reterritorialization of the term, Berger explains: The choice of the name, hijab , now widely adopted to designate the “Islamic veil,” it itself interesting, although the semantic shift it operates is not directly commented upon by its users. Although the design (both the cut and the symbolic function) of the hijab and the Iranian chador are indeed the same, as opposed, for instance, to the traditional Algerian haik , the word hijab has come to replace the term chador popularized by the Iranian revolution, as a properly Arabic (hence Koranic) designation. This discursive shift points to the successful reclaiming of the national revolution in Iran by a transnational pan-Islamic movement, whose language of reference can only be Koranic Arabic.(14) While the hijab is certainly a point of contention within various countries dealing with immigrant Islamic populations (of which France has the largest in Europe as part of its colonial legacy in Algeria), it is clear that the veil is a historically contextualized artifact of Muslim identity with a variety of manifestations, even as forces outside of and within Islam seek to codify its actual and symbolic value. Ultimately, the varieties of hijab , including the full-faced burqa and niqab , are complex assemblages of meaning that speak to the multitudinous flows of Islamic identities over time and space. As Gökariksel and McLarney observe, “Wearing a certain style of veil may simultaneously be a disciplinary practice crucial to the cultivation of piety (Mahmood 2005; Gokariksel 2009) and a gendered performance of social distinction in terms of class, taste, and urbanity (White 1999; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Gokariksel and Secor 2009) or of ethnicity and race (Dwyer 1999).”(15) The ideological marketplace from which the varieties of hijab ebb and flow serves both as a reflection of the ever-present materiality and dynamic functionality of spiritual economies, which are derivative of the equally ubiquitous flows of transnational capital driving agency and representationality within our historical moment. Keeping these dual, yet deeply interconnected, capital ecologies as the site of exploration for how the veil is represented within public space, one might begin to sense what lurks behind such veiled agendas. Examining the symbolic and representational nature of the Islamic “veil” in its various forms, this project situates the decidedly political contestations of public space at stake in the French ban alongside recent condemnations of multiculturalism as calculated efforts to re-distribute the sensible so as to valorize national identity within increasingly transnational and globalized socio-economic spaces, which collapse exchange values between distinct, yet interwoven, economies of (cultural/material/spiritual) capital. As the discourses on the veil rely upon representational imag(in)ings, it seems fitting to explore the political economy and art of the veil through the phenomenon of street art, which, much like hijab , is a complex assemblage of meaning of sensation mired in representationality and capital exchange. As street artists have taken up hijab in various forms, the movement offers a lens with which to situate critical responses to the veil debate across both spiritual and material economies. Situating this street art both aesthetically and historically, Lewisohn explains, “'Street art' is a sub-genre of graffiti writing and owes much to its predecessor. Though there is a good deal of crossover between the genres, they are distinct and separate in their own right.”(16) Evolving out of the graffiti explosion of the late 1970's and 1980's, street art broke the unspoken rules of the artistic underground by challenging and re-examining one's sensory experience of art in public space by experimenting with both content and form in ways that harken back to the Situationist International, which as a collective challenged one's experience of urban space through various media and experiential phenomena. Again, Lewisohn observes, “It's important to note street art's break with the tradition of the tag, and its focus on visual symbols that embrace a much wider range of media than graffiti writers would use.”(17) From stencils to prints and murals to one-liners, street artists developed a reputation for critical social and political commentary, and while it is certainly the case that not all street art is intentionally political, in challenging the normative “regime of visibility,” as Rancière puts it, of public space, street artists—even if unconsciously—call into question the common sensory experience of the politics underlying the formation of (nationalist) space.(18) Indeed, Rancière refers to the partisan sensory managers as “police,” who ultimately forge “the rules governing the circulation of appearances, of their visibility and audibility, and the proper distribution of bodies therein.”(19) As such, one can sense that street art's relationship with the police is tenous for a variety of reasons. Writing about his own experience as a street artist, Shepard Fairey observes, “With street art, there's no committee deciding whether I can put my work up on the street, there's no censorship, and I have total freedom of expression, and that concept of freedom is expressed just by using the street as a medium.”(20) As Fairey and other street artists demonstrate, the medium, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, is the most glaring aspect of street art's message, and even as it now finds itself in galleries and usurped by private collectors, the ethos of the movement remains relavent to politics as it is, first and foremost, concerned with the configuration and experience of space. Just as examining the punishments for breaking the veil ban can map the terrain of French politics, a representational genealogy of street artist's deployment of hijab and female Muslim identity can assist in mining the depths of public space as a site of bio-political control and contestation in light of recent events in France and the rising tide of anti-multiculturalist rhetoric across Europe, even though the Islamic presence there is radically heterogenous. Using the work of Shepard Fairey, Princess Hijab, br1, and Banksy, this paper sets out to answer a number of key questions concerning the deployment of hijab, and female Islamic identity in particular, within street art as a movement now integral to and critical of the economies of exchange underlying global capitalism, which as a force of influence cannot be underestimated as a driver in the resurgence of nationalist biopolitical governmentalities. Although there exists a litany of artists to choose from, the aforementioned quartet of designers integrate hijab into their work in a seminal and critical fashion, and all have been working with the veil in some way prior to the French ban, which grants some additional context to their usage of it as a symbol in regards to the breakdown of multiculturalism across Europe, even if unconsciously. Although each artist depicts various amalgamations of hijab in their respective corpus, they share common tropes that raise significant questions concerning the veil debate, namely: what are the conditions of possibility for hijab to become a marker of Islamic identity within public space? How can we make sense of the representational topologies within street art's utilization of the hijab and female Islamic identity in light of the French ban? How might these aesthetic imag(in)ings simultaneously inhabit and combat normative discourses concerning hijab , multiculturalism, female Islamic identity, and public space? With these considerations as a backdrop, it is first necessary to outline more fully the hijab as a representative marker of female Islamic identity. The (Veiled) Writing on the Wall

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Background The article defines a comprehensive concept of cognitive objectivity applied to embodied subjects in health care. The aims of this study were: to specify some necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO that will allow objective descriptions and assessments in health care, to formulate criteria for application of such a CCCO, and to investigate the usefulness of the criteria in work disability assessments in medical certificates from health care provided for social security purposes. Methods The study design was (...) based on a philosophical conceptual analysis of objectivity and subjectivity, the phenomenological notions ‘embodied subject’, ‘life-world’, ‘phenomenological object’ and ‘empathy’, and an interpretation of certificates as texts. The study material consisted of 18 disability assessments from a total collection of 86 medical certificates provided for social security purposes, written in a Norwegian hospital-based mental health clinic. Results Four necessary conditions identified for defining a CCCO were: acknowledging the patient’s social context and life-world, perceiving patients as cognitive objects providing a variety of meaningful data, interpreting data in context, and using general epistemological principles. The criteria corresponding to these conditions were: describing the patient’s social context and recognizing the patient’s perspective, taking into consideration a variety of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from the clinician’s perceptions of the patient as embodied subject, being aware of the need to interpret the data in context, and applying epistemological principles. Genuine communication is presupposed. These criteria were tested in the work disability assessments of medical certificates. The criteria were useful for understanding both how objectivity fails during work disability assessments and how it can be improved in the writing of certificates. Conclusion The article specifies four necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO in health care and social security medicine and the corresponding criteria for its application. Analysis of the objectivity of work disability assessments in medical certificates for social security confirmed the usefulness of the criteria. (shrink)

The article defines a comprehensive concept of cognitive objectivity applied to embodied subjects in health care. The aims of this study were: to specify some necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO that will allow objective descriptions and assessments in health care, to formulate criteria for application of such a CCCO, and to investigate the usefulness of the criteria in work disability assessments in medical certificates from health care provided for social security purposes. The study design was based on (...) a philosophical conceptual analysis of objectivity and subjectivity, the phenomenological notions ‘embodied subject’, ‘life-world’, ‘phenomenological object’ and ‘empathy’, and an interpretation of certificates as texts. The study material consisted of 18 disability assessments from a total collection of 86 medical certificates provided for social security purposes, written in a Norwegian hospital-based mental health clinic. Four necessary conditions identified for defining a CCCO were: acknowledging the patient’s social context and life-world, perceiving patients as cognitive objects providing a variety of meaningful data, interpreting data in context, and using general epistemological principles. The criteria corresponding to these conditions were: describing the patient’s social context and recognizing the patient’s perspective, taking into consideration a variety of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from the clinician’s perceptions of the patient as embodied subject, being aware of the need to interpret the data in context, and applying epistemological principles. Genuine communication is presupposed. These criteria were tested in the work disability assessments of medical certificates. The criteria were useful for understanding both how objectivity fails during work disability assessments and how it can be improved in the writing of certificates. The article specifies four necessary conditions for the definition of a CCCO in health care and social security medicine and the corresponding criteria for its application. Analysis of the objectivity of work disability assessments in medical certificates for social security confirmed the usefulness of the criteria. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 719 An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of lnterreligious Dialogue. By PAUL J. GRIFFITHS. New York: Orbis, 1991. ISBN: 0 88344 761 4. pp. 113. Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions. By J. DUPUIS. New York: Orbis, 1991 (ET: Robert R. Barr, from French, 1989). ISBN: 0 88344 723 1. pp. 301. Griffiths presents a rigorous argument for the possibility of con· (...) tradictory claims between different religious communities. His inspira· tion, as he acknowledges, is William Christian Snr. His basic argu· ment is: " If representative intellectuals belonging to some specific religious community come to judge at a particular time that some or all of their own doctrine-expressing sentences are incompatible with some alien religious claim(s), then they should feel obliged to engage in both positive and negative apologetics vis-a-vis these alien religious claim(s) and their promulgators" (3). He takes negative apologetics to be a critique of arguments made against one's own religious claims, showing that such arguments fail or are inconsistent or incoherent. Positive apologetics shows how a particular religious community's doctrines are cognitively superior, in some respect(s), to another religious community 's doctrines. It is essential for this enterprise that only methods of argumentation and criteria of knowledge acceptable to the adversary are employed. This requires the acceptance of natural theology. Griffiths is well aware of the lion's den he is entering, as his proposals run counter to much scholarship in the area of interreligious dialogue, so he spends three chapters apologetically tackling the lions. The objectors (who mainly remain in notes) include Derrida, Barthes, Winch, Lindbeck, Hick, Huxley, Nasr, Plantinga and others, although Mac· Intyre is curiously missing. This technique has the advantage of isolating and presenting arguments, without falling into problems of cor· rect exegesis of opponents. And this is also its weakness, as objectors will sometimes feel caricatured or misunderstood-as is surely the case with Plantinga and in one instance, Hick. First, he tackles objections that sentences from one tradition are either incomprehensible or incommensurable with those of another, convincingly showing that the strong versions of both claims are self· defeating and unsustainable. Weaker versions still allow for his proj· ect-or so he thinks. This is where Maclntyre's work should have been considered. Then he tackles various theories of religious language (following Lindbeck's typology). He argues against non-cognitive accounts that reduce beliefs to the credibility of causes for holding beliefs, a position incapable of asserting its truth over other views because of its 720 BOOK REVIEWS own presuppositions. He follows Lindbeck in criticizing experiental expressivism, and then turns upon Lindbeck's own form of rule theory (which is ambivalent regarding cognitive claims), arguing convincingly that to suggest that only sentences uttered confessionally and with performative function can possess ontological truth is confused (42). In a brief review it is not possible to rehearse Griffiths's careful argumentation. Griffiths then sets about tackling two types of universalists: Hick and Huxley. Of Hick, he argues that some criteria are required to discern true from false religions (e.g. Jim Jones) and in so doing such a position needs to support and develop such criteria, thereby effectively introducing apologetics. He neglects to deal with Hick's pragmatic criteria of beneficial ' fruits ' evident in adherents, but the logic of his argument can be applied to Hick's proposals. Using Katz and Zaehner, he argues against the esoteric universalism of the philosophia perennis. (The arguments of Robert Forman's recent book, The Problems of Pure Consciousness, are strangely neglected, despite Griffiths's being a contributor to that collection.) Finally, he tackles objections against positive apologetics-first, on the grounds that it has a negative effect on interreligious relations. Logically, this need not be the case, although Griffiths is well aware that the political context of apologetics can obscure its proper goal: deeper critical understanding, learning and problem solving. Then, in sustained dialogue with Plantinga, he argues against the objection that success is impossible. It is impossible only if " knockdown drag-out" (64) argumentative victory is expected. Griffiths suggests the cumulative -case argument and gives instances of such successful apologetics (medieval... (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 66–75 ~*~ We’re Doomed. Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a poetry written in the graveyard of philosophy. Pessimism is a lyrical failure of philosophical thinking, each attempt at clear and coherent thought, sullen and submerged in the hidden joy of its own futility. The closest pessimism comes to philosophical argument is the droll and laconic “We’ll never make it,” or simply: “We’re doomed.” Every effort doomed to failure, every (...) project doomed to incompletion, every life doomed to be unlived, every thought doomed to be unthought. Pessimism is the lowest form of philosophy, frequently disparaged and dismissed, merely the symptom of a bad attitude. No one ever needs pessimism, in the way that one needs optimism to inspire one to great heights and to pick oneself up, in the way one needs constructive criticism, advice and feedback, inspirational books or a pat on the back. No one needs pessimism, though I like to imagine the idea of a pessimist activism. No one needs pessimism, and yet everyone—without exception—has, at some point in their lives, had to confront pessimism, if not as a philosophy then as a grievance—against one’s self or others, against one’s surroundings or one’s life, against the state of things or the world in general. There is little redemption for pessimism, and no consolation prize. Ultimately, pessimism is weary of everything and of itself. Pessimism is the philosophical form of disenchantment—disenchantment as chanting, a chant, a mantra, a solitary, monophonic voice rendered insignificant by the intimate immensity surrounding it. In pessimism, the first axiom is a long, low, funereal sigh. ~*~ We’re Still Doomed. No one has time for pessimism. After all, there are only so many hours in a day. Whatever our temperament, happy or sad, engaged or disengaged, we know pessimism when we hear it. The pessimist is usually understood as the complainer, forever pointing out what is wrong with the world without ever once offering a solution. But more often than not pessimists are the quietest of philosophers, submerging their own sighs within the lethargy of discontent. What little sound it makes is of interest to no one—“I’ve heard it all before,” “tell me something I don’t know,” sound and fury, signifying nothing. In raising problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes—the crime of not pretending it’s for real. Pessimism fails to live up to the most basic tenet of philosophy—the “as if.” Think as if it will be helpful, act as if it will make a difference, speak as if there is something to say, live as if you are not, in fact, being lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied. Had it more self-assurance and better social skills, pessimism would turn its disenchantment into a religion, possibly calling itself The Great Refusal. But there is a negation in pessimism that refuses even such a Refusal, an awareness that, from the start, it has already failed, and that the culmination of all that is, is that all is for naught. Pessimism tries very hard to present itself in the low, sustained tones of a Requiem Mass, or the tectonic rumbling of Tibetan chant. But it frequently lets loose dissonant notes at once plaintive and pathetic. Often, its voice cracks, its weighty words abruptly reduced to mere shards of guttural sound. ~*~ Maybe It’s Not So Bad, After All. If we know pessimism when we hear it, this is because we’ve heard it all before—and we didn’t need to hear it in the first place. Life is hard enough. What you need is a change of attitude, a new outlook, a shift in perspective... a cup of coffee. If we have no ears for pessimism, this is because it is always reducible to something as reliably mutable as a voice. If pessimism is so frequently disparaged, it is because it brings everyone down, determined as it is to view each day as a bad day, if only by virtue of the fact that it is not yet a bad day. For pessimism the world is brimming with negative possibility, the collision of a bad mood with an impassive world. In fact, pessimism is the result of a confusion between the world and a statement about the world, a confusion that also prevents it from fully entering the hallowed halls of philosophy. If pessimism is so often dismissed, this is because it is often impossible to separate a “bad mood” from a philosophical proposition (and do not all philosophies stem from a bad mood?) The very term “pessimism” suggests a school of thought, a movement, even a community. But pessimism always has a membership of one—maybe two. Ideally, of course, it would have a membership of none, with only a scribbled, illegible note left behind by someone long forgotten. But this seems unrealistic, though one can always hope. ~*~ Anatomy of Pessimism. Though it may locate itself at the margins of philosophy, pessimism is as much subject to philosophical analysis as any other form of thought. Pessimism’s lyricism of failure gives it the structure of music. What time is to the music of sorrow, reason is to a philosophy of the worst. Pessimism’s two major keys are moral and metaphysical pessimism, its subjective and objective poles, an attitude towards the world and a claim about the world. For moral pessimism, it is better not to have been born at all; for metaphysical pessimism, this is the worst of all possible worlds. For moral pessimism the problem is the solipsism of human beings, the world made in our own image, a world-for-us. For metaphysical pessimism, the problem is the solipsism of the world, objected and projected as a world-in-itself. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism are compromised philosophically; moral pessimism by its failure to locate the human within a larger context, and metaphysical pessimism by its failure to recognize the complicity in the very claim of realism. This is how pessimism makes its music of the worst, a generalized misanthropy without the anthropos . Pessimism crystallizes around this futility—it is its amor fati , rendered as musical form. ~*~ Melancholy of Anatomy. There is a logic of pessimism that is fundamental to its suspicion of philosophical system. Pessimism involves a statement about a condition . In pessimism each statement boils down to an affirmation or a negation, just as any condition boils down to the best or the worst. With Schopenhauer, that arch-pessimist, the thinker for whom the philosopher and the curmudgeon perfectly overlap, we see a no-saying to the worst, a no-saying that secretly covets a yes-saying (through asceticism, mysticism, quietism), even if this hidden yes-saying is a horizon at the limits of comprehension. With Nietzsche comes the pronouncement of a Dionysian pessimism, a pessimism of strength or joy, a yes-saying to the worst, a yes-saying to this world as it is. And with Cioran yet another variation, futile yet lyrical, a no-saying to the worst, and a further no-saying to the possibility of any other world, in here or out there. With Cioran one approaches, but never reaches, an absolute no-saying, a studied abandonment of pessimism itself. The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer’s tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche’s laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran’s sleep). Crying, laughing, sleeping—what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent? ~*~ Cosmic Pessimism. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism point to another kind, a pessimism that is neither subjective nor objective, neither for-us nor in-itself, and instead a pessimism of the world-without-us. We could call this a cosmic pessimism ... but this sounds too majestic, too full of wonder, too much the bitter aftertaste of the Great Beyond. Words falter. And so do ideas. And so we have a cosmic pessimism, a pessimism that is first and last a pessimism about cosmos , about the necessity and possibility of order. The contours of cosmic pessimism are a drastic scaling-up or scaling-down of the human point of view, the unhuman orientation of deep space and deep time, and all of this shadowed by an impasse, a primordial insignificance, the impossibility of ever adequately accounting for one’s relationship to thought—all that remains of pessimism is the desiderata of affects—agonistic, impassive, defiant, reclusive, filled with sorrow and flailing at that architectonic chess match called philosophy, a flailing that pessimism tries to raise to the level of an art form (though what usually results is slapstick). ~*~ Song of Futility. An ethics of futility pervades pessimism. Futility, however, is different from fatality, and different again from simple failure (though failure is never simple). Failure is a breakage within the heart of relations, a fissure between cause and effect, a fissure hastily covered over by trying and trying again. With failure, there is always plenty of blame to go around; it’s not my fault, it’s a technical difficulty, it’s a miscommunication. For the pessimist, failure is a question of “when,” not “if”—failure as a metaphysical principle. Everything withers and passes into an obscurity blacker than night, everything from the melodramatic decline of a person’s life to the banal flickering moments that constitute each day. Everything that is done undone, everything said or known destined for a kind of stellar oblivion. When scaled up in this way, failure becomes fatality. Fatality is the hermeticism of cause and effect. In fatality, everything you do, whatever you do, always leads to a certain end, and ultimately to the end—though that end, or the means to that end, remain shrouded in obscurity. Nothing you do makes a difference because everything you do makes a difference. Hence the effects of your actions are hidden from you, even as you deceive yourself into thinking that, at last, this time you will outwit the order of things. By having a goal, planning ahead, and thinking things through carefully, we attempt, in a daily Prometheanism, to turn fatality to our advantage, to gain a glimpse of an order that seems buried deeper and deeper in the fabric of the universe. But even fatality has its comforts. The chain of cause and effect may be hidden from us, but that’s just because disorder is the order we don’t yet see; it’s just complex, distributed, and requires advanced mathematics. Fatality still clings to the sufficiency of everything that exists... When fatality relinquishes even this idea, it becomes futility. Futility arises out of the grim suspicion that, behind the shroud of causality we drape over the world, there is only the indifference of what exists or doesn’t exist; whatever you do ultimately leads to no end, an irrevocable chasm between thought and world. Futility transforms the act of thinking into a zero-sum game. ~*~ Song of the Worst. At the center of pessimism lies the term pessimus , “the worst,” a term as relative as it is absolute. The worst is about as bad as it gets, “the worst” as “the best” in disguise, shrouded by the passage of time or the twists and turns of fortune. For the pessimist, “the worst” is the propensity for suffering that gradually occludes each living moment, until it eclipses it entirely, overlapping perfectly in death... which, for the pessimist, is no longer “the worst.” Pessimism is marked by an unwillingness to move beyond “the worst,” something only partially attributable to a lack in motivation. In pessimism “the worst” is the ground that gives way beneath every existent—things could be worse, and , things could be better. “The worst” invariably implies a value judgment, one made based on scant evidence and little experience; in this way, pessimism’s greatest nemesis is its moral orientation. Pessimism’s propositions have all the gravitas of a bad joke. Perhaps this is why the true optimists are the most severe pessimists—they are optimists that have run out of options. They are almost ecstatically inundated by the worst. Such an optimism is the only possible outcome of a prolonged period of suffering, physical or metaphysical, intellectual or spiritual. But does this not also describe all the trials and tribulations of each day—in short, of “life?” It seems that sooner or later we are all doomed to become optimists of this sort (the most depressing of thoughts...) ~*~ Song of Doom. Rather than serving as a cause for despair, gloom and doom are the forms of consolation for any pessimist philosophy. Neither quite affects nor quite concepts, gloom and doom transform pessimism into a mortification of philosophy. Doom is not just the sense that all things will turn out badly, but that all things inevitably come to an end, irrespective of whether or not they really do come to an end. What emerges from doom is a sense of the unhuman as an attractor, a horizon towards which the human is fatally drawn. Doom is humanity given over to unhumanity in an act of crystalline self-abnegation. Gloom is not simply the anxiety that precedes doom. Gloom is literally atmospheric, climate as much as impression, and if people are also gloomy, this is simply the by-product of an anodyne atmosphere that only incidentally involves human beings. Gloom is more climatological than psychological, the stuff of dim, hazy, overcast skies, of ruins and overgrown tombs, of a misty, lethargic fog that moves with the same languorousness as our own crouched and sullen listening to a disinterested world. In a sense, gloom is the counterpoint to doom—what futility is to the former, fatality is to the latter. Doom is marked by temporality—all things precariously drawn to their end—whereas gloom is the austerity of stillness, all things sad, static, and suspended, a meandering smoke hovering over cold lichen stones and damp fir trees. If doom is the terror of temporality and death, then gloom is the horror of a hovering stasis that is life. At times I like to imagine that this realization alone is the thread that connects the charnel ground Aghori and the graveyard poets. ~*~ Song of Spite. There is an intolerance in pessimism that knows no bounds. In pessimism spite begins by fixing on a particular object of spite—someone one hardly knows, or someone one knows too well; a spite for this person or a spite for all of humanity; a spectacular or a banal spite; a spite for a noisy neighbor, a yapping dog, a battalion of strollers, the meandering idiot walking in front of you on their smart phone, large loud celebrations, traumatic injustices anywhere in the world regurgitated as media blitz, spite for the self-absorbed and overly performative people talking way too loud at the table next to you, technical difficulties and troubleshooting, the reduction of everything to branding, spite of the refusal to admit one’s own errors, of self-help books, of people who know absolutely everything and make sure to tell you, of all people, all living beings, all things, the world, the spiteful planet, the inanity of existence... Spite is the motor of pessimism because it is so egalitarian, so expansive, it runs amok, stumbling across intuitions that can only half-heartedly be called philosophical. Spite lacks the confidence and the clarity of hatred, but it also lacks the almost cordial judgment of dislike. For the pessimist, the smallest detail can be an indication of a metaphysical futility so vast and funereal that it eclipses pessimism itself—a spite that pessimism carefully places beyond the horizon of intelligibility, like the experience of dusk, or like the phrase, “it is raining jewels and daggers.” ~*~ Song of Sleep. A paraphrase of Schopenhauer: what death is for the organism, sleep is for the individual. Pessimists sleep not because they are depressed, but because for them sleep is a form of ascetic practice. Sleep is the askesis of pessimism. If, while sleeping, we have a bad dream, we abruptly wake up, and suddenly the horrors of the night vanish. There is no reason to think that the same does not happen with the bad dream we call “life.” ~*~ Song of Sorrow. Nietzsche, commenting on pessimism, once castigated Schopenhauer for taking things too lightly. He writes: ...Schopenhauer, though a pessimist, really —played the flute. Every day, after dinner: one should read his biography on that. And incidentally: a pessimist, one who denies God and the world but comes to a stop before morality—who affirms morality and plays the flute... what? Is that really—a pessimist? We know that Schopenhauer did possess a collection of instruments, and we also know that Nietzsche himself composed music. There is no reason to think that either of them would ever banish music from the Republic of philosophy. But Nietzsche’s jibes at Schopenhauer are as much about music as they are about pessimism. For the pessimist who says no to everything and yet finds comfort in music, the no-saying of pessimism can only be a weak way of saying yes—the weightiest statement undercut by the flightiest of replies. The least that Schopenhauer could’ve done is to play the bass. I’m not a big fan of the flute, or, for that matter, wind instruments generally. But what Nietzsche forgets is the role that the flute has historically played in Greek tragedy. In tragedy, the flute ( aulos ) is not an instrument of levity and joy, but of solitude and sorrow. The Greek aulos not only expresses the grief of tragic loss, but it does so in a way that renders weeping and singing inseparable from each other. The classicist Nicole Loraux calls this the mourning voice . Set apart from the more official civic rituals of funerary mourning, the mourning voice of Greek tragedy constantly threatens to dissolve song into wailing, music into moaning, and the voice into a primordial, disarticulate anti-music. The mourning voice delineates all the forms of suffering—tears, weeping, sobbing, wailing, moaning, and the convulsions of thought reduced to an elemental unintelligibility. In the collapsed space between the voice that speaks and the voice that sings, pessimism discovers its mourning voice. Pessimism: the failure of sound and sense, the disarticulation of phone and logos . Have we rescued Schopenhauer from Nietzsche? Probably not. Perhaps Schopenhauer played the flute to remind himself of the real function of the mourning voice—sorrow, sighs, and moaning rendered indistinguishable from music, the crumbling of the human into the unhuman. Failure par excellence of pessimism. ~*~ Song of Nothing. In Buddhist thought, the First Noble Truth of existence is encapsulated in the Pali term dukkha , conventionally translated as “suffering,” “sorrow,” or “misery.” The Buddhist teachings are clear, however, that this is an objective claim, and not simply one point of view among others. Existence is suffering and sorrow—and yet this is not, the teachings tell us, a pessimistic attitude. It is likely that Schopenhauer, reading the Buddhist texts available to him, recognized some filiation with the concept of dukkha . But dukkha is a multi-faceted term. There is, certainly, dukkha in the usual sense of the suffering, strife, and loss associated with living a life. But this is, in turn, dependent on the finitude and temporality of dukkha , existence as determined by impermanence and imperfection. And this ultimately points to the way in which both suffering and finitude are grounded by the paradoxical groundlessness of dukkha as a metaphysical principle—the insubstantiality and the emptiness of all that is. Beyond what is worse to me, beyond a world ordered for the worst, there is the emptiness of dukkha as an impersonal suffering... the tears of the cosmos. In this context, it is easy to see how Schopenhauer’s pessimism attempts to compress all the aspects of dukkha into a nothingness at the core of existence, a Willlessness coursing through the Will. Though one thing for certain is that with Schopenhauer we do not find the “ever-smiling” countenance of Buddhism—or do we? The texts of the Pali Canon also contain lists of the different types of happiness—including the happiness of renunciation and the strange happiness of detachment. But Buddhism considers even the different types of happiness as part of dukkha , in this final sense of nothingness or emptiness. Perhaps Schopenhauer understood Buddhism better than he is usually given credit for. Thus the experiment of Schopenhauer’s philosophy—the point at which a Western pessimus and an Eastern dukkha overlap or exchange glances. Empty sorrow, a lyricism of indifference. The result is a strange, and ultimately untenable, nocturnal form of Buddhism. ~*~ Cioran once called music a “physics of tears.” If this is true, then perhaps metaphysics is its commentary. Or its apology. ~*~ Pessimism would be more mystical were it not for its defeatism. Mysticism is much too proactive for the pessimist, and pessimism too impassive even for the mystic. At the same time, there is something enviable about mysticism—despite its sufferings. There is a sense in which pessimists are really failed mystics. ~*~ You, the Night, and the Music. In a suggestive passage, Schopenhauer once noted that, “music is the melody to which the world is the text." Given Schopenhauer’s view on life—that life is suffering, that human life is absurd, that the nothingness before my birth is equal to the nothingness after my death—given all this, one wonders what kind of music Schopenhauer had in mind when he described music as the melody to which the world is text—was it opera, a Requiem Mass, a madrigal, or perhaps a drinking song? Or something like Eine kleine Nachtmusik , a little night music for the twilight of thought, a sullen nocturne for the night-side of logic, an era of sad wings sung by a solitary banshee. Perhaps the music Schopenhauer had in mind is music eliminated to non-music. A whisper would suffice. Perhaps a sigh of fatigue or resignation, perhaps a moan of despair or sorrow. Perhaps a sound just articulate enough that it could be heard to dissipate. ~*~ Teach me to laugh through tears. ~*~ Pessimism always falls short of being philosophical. My back aches, my knees hurt, I couldn’t sleep last night, I’m stressed-out, and I think I’m finally coming down with something. Pessimism abjures all pretenses towards system—towards the purity of analysis and the dignity of critique. We didn’t really think we could figure it out, did we? It was just passing time, taking a piss, something to do, a bold gesture put forth in all its fragility, according to rules that we have agreed to forget that we made up in the first place. Every thought marked by a shadowy incomprehension that precedes it, and a futility that undermines it. That pessimism speaks, in whatever voice, is the singing testimony to this futility and this incomprehension—take a chance and step outside, lose some sleep and say you tried... ~*~ Is there a music of pessimism? And would such a music be audible? ~*~ The impact of music on a person compels them to put their experience into words. When this fails, the result is a faltering of thought and language that is itself a kind of music. Cioran writes: “Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.” ~*~ If a thinker like Schopenhauer has any redeeming qualities, it is that he identified the great lie of Western culture—the preference for existence over non-existence. As he notes: “If we knocked on the graves and asked the dead whether they would like to rise again, they would shake their heads.” In Western cultures it is commonly accepted that one celebrates birth and mourns death. But there must be a mistake here. Wouldn’t it make more sense to mourn birth and celebrate death? Strange though, because the mourning of birth would, presumably, last the entirety of that person’s life, so that mourning and living would the be same thing. ~*~ To the musical idea of the harmony of the universe corresponds the philosophical principle of sufficient reason. Like the music of mourning, pessimism gives voice to the inevitable breakdown of word and song. In this way, music is the overtone of thought. ~*~ The Patron Saints of Pessimism. The patron saints of pessimism watch over suffering. Laconic and sullen, the patron saints of pessimism never seem to do a good job at protecting, interceding, or advocating for those who suffer. Perhaps they need us more than we need them. Lest we forget, there do exist patron saints of philosophy, but their stories are not happy ones. There is, for instance, the fourth century Saint Catherine of Alexandria, or Catherine of the Wheel, named after the torture device used on her. A precocious fourteen year old scholar, Catherine was subject to continual persecution. After all forms of torture failed—including the “breaking wheel”—the emperor finally settled for her decapitation, a violent yet appropriate reminder of the protector of philosophers. There are also patron saints of music and musicians, but theirs too are sad stories. In the second century, Saint Cecilia was also subject to persecution and torture. As she knelt to receive the blade that would separate her head from her body, she ardently sang a song to God. It took three attempts before she was fully decapitated, all the while she continued, perhaps miraculously, to sing. Does pessimism not deserve its own patron saints, even if they are unworthy of martyrdom? But in our search, even the most ardent nay-sayers frequently lapse into brief moments of enthusiasm—Pascal’s love of solitude, Leopardi’s love of poetry, Schopenhauer’s love of music, Nietzsche’s love of Schopenhauer, and so on. Should one then focus on individual works of pessimism? We could include Kierkegaard’s trilogy of horror— Sickness Unto Death , The Concept of Dread , and Fear and Trembling —but all these are undermined by their fabricated and unreliable authors. Besides, how can one separate the pessimist from the optimist in works like Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life , Shestov’s Postetas Clavium , or Edgar Saltus’ under-read The Philosophy of Disenchantment ? Even in cases where the entire corpus of an author is pessimistic, the project always seems incomplete—witness Cioran’s trajectory, from his first book, On the Heights of Despair , to the last unpublished notebooks of acrid and taut aphorisms. And this is to say nothing of literary pessimism, from Goethe’s sorrowful Werther, to Dostoevsky’s underground man, to Pessoa’s disquiet scribbler; Baudelaire’s spleen and ennui, the mystical Satanism of Huysmans and Strindberg, the hauntologies of Mário de Sá-Carniero, Izumi Kyoka, H.P. Lovecraft, grumpy old Beckett... even the great pessimist comedians. All that remains are singular, perhaps anomalous statements of pessimism, a litany of quotes and citations crammed into fortune cookies. Patron saints are traditionally named after a locale, either a place of birth or of a mystical experience. Perhaps the better approach is to focus on the places where pessimists were forced to live out their pessimism—Schopenhauer facing an empty Berlin lecture hall, Nietzsche mute and convalescent at the home of his sister, Wittgenstein the relinquished professor and solitary gardener, Cioran grappling with Alzheimer’s in his tiny writing alcove in the Latin Quarter. ~*~ There’s a ghost that grows inside of me, damaged in the making, and there’s a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there’s a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down. ~*~ If pessimism has any pedagogical value, it is that the failure of pessimism as a philosophy is inextricably tied to the failure of pessimism as voice. I read the following, from Shestov’s The Apotheosis of Groundlessness : When a person is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn humankind. Later, becoming more modest, he begins to doubt his truths: and then he tries to convince himself. A few more years go by, and he knows he was mistaken all round, so there is no need to convince himself. Nevertheless he continues to write, because he is not fit for any other work, and to be accounted a superfluous person is so horrible. (shrink)

Chapter 1 First Person Access to Mental States. Mind Science and Subjective Qualities -/- Abstract. The philosophy of mind as we know it today starts with Ryle. What defines and at the same time differentiates it from the previous tradition of study on mind is the persuasion that any rigorous approach to mental phenomena must conform to the criteria of scientificity applied by the natural sciences, i.e. its investigations and results must be intersubjectively and publicly controllable. In Ryle’s view, philosophy (...) of mind needs to adopt an antimentalist stance to achieve this aim. Antimentalism not only definitively rejects the idea that mind is a substance separated from the body, it also denies that mental phenomena radically differ from physical phenomena by virtue of several unique features. Most problematically, mental phenomena have a conscious character (mental states are related to specific qualitative feelings) and are accessible only to the first-person (only the subject knows directly what s/he is experiencing inside his/her mind). Ryle takes a strong stance on antimentalism going so far as to maintain that an approach to mind which aims to meet the criteria of scientificity set by the natural sciences must avoid any reference to internal, unobservable mental states. In his view (which is considered a specifically philosophical version of psychological behaviorism and also addresses questions put forward in psychological research), mental states can be redescribed in terms of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, we address the historical roots of the antimentalist view and analyze its relation to the later tradition of research on mind. We show that, compared to the antimentalist stance, functionalism and cognitivism take a step back when they maintain that direct reference to mental states is necessary since mental states cause and therefore explain human behavior. This step backwards is often interpreted as a return to mentalism. However, this is only partially true. Indeed, we suggest that these later traditions retain one important element of Ryle’s antimentalism, i.e. the idea that mental states must be uniquely identified using external and publicly observable criteria, while excluding any reference to introspection and those qualitative dimensions of a mental state, which are accessible only to the first-person. According to the perspective we put forward, this epistemological stance has continued to influence contemporary research on mind and current philosophical and psychological theories which both tend to exclude the subjective qualities of human experience from their accounts of how the mind works. The issue we raise here is whether this is legitimate or whether subjective qualities do play a role with respect to the way our mind works. The conclusion of this chapter anticipates the argument the book makes in in favor of this latter position, starting from a particular angle, i.e. the problem of how we categorize concepts related to our internal states. -/- Chapter 2 The Misleading Aspects of the Mind/Computer Analogy. The Grounding Problem and the Thorny Issue of Propriosensitive Information -/- Abstract. After the crisis of behaviorism, cognitivism and functionalism became the predominant models in the field of psychology and of philosophy, respectively. Their success is mainly due to the new key they use for interpreting mental processes: the mind/computer analogy. On the basis of this analogy, mental operations are seen as cognitive processes based on computations, i.e. on manipulations of abstract symbols which are in turn understood as informational unities (representations). This chapter identifies two main problems with this model. The first is how these symbols can relate to and communicate with perception and thus allow us to identify and classify what we perceive through the senses. Here we limit ourselves to presenting this issue in relation to the classical symbol grounding problem originally put forward by Harnad on the basis of Searle’s Chinese room argument. An attempt to address the problem raised here will be made in chap. 3. The second point we discuss in relation to the mind/computer analogy concerns the idea of information it fosters. Indeed, following this analogy, information is something available in the external world which can be captured by the senses and transmitted to the central system without being influenced or modified by the procedures of transmission. This perspective does not take into account that – unlike computers – in living beings information is acquired by means of the body. As Ulric Neisser has already pointed out, the body is itself an informational source that provides us with additional sensory experience that influences (modifies or complements) the information extracted from the external world by the senses. To develop this line of analysis and to determine exactly what information is provided by the body and how this might influence cognition, we examine Sherrington’s and Gibson’s positions. Moving on from their views, we qualify bodily information in terms of ‘proprioception’. We use ‘proprioception’ in a broad sense to describe any kind of experience we have of our internal states (including postural information as well as sensations related to the general state of the body and its parts). Following Damasio’s and Craig’s studies, we further elaborate this position, arguing that living beings are equipped with an internal propriosensitive monitoring system which maps all the changes that constantly occur in our body and that give us perceptual (‘proprioceptive’ or propriosensitive) information about what happens inside us. Moreover, relying on Goldie’s and Ratcliffe’s view, we show that emotional information can also be considered as a form of ‘proprioception’ which contributes to determining everything we perceive. This analysis leads us to the second main thesis of this book: ‘proprioception’ is a form of internal perception and it is an essential component of the sensory information we can access and use for all cognitive purposes. -/- Chapter 3 Semantic Competence from the Inside: Conceptual Architecture and Composition -/- Abstract. Concepts are essential constituents of thought: they are the instruments we use to categorize our experience, i.e. to classify things and group them together in homogeneous sets. Here we define concepts as the internal mental information (representations) that allows us, among other things, to master words in natural language. By analyzing the way in which individuals master word meanings we explore a number of hypotheses regarding the nature of concepts. Following Diego Marconi’s research, we differentiate between two kind of abilities that underpin lexical competence – so-called ‘referential’ and ‘inferential competence’ – and we suggest that, in order to support these abilities, concepts must also include two corresponding kinds of information, i.e. inferential and referential information. We point out that the most widely used and acknowledged theories of concepts do not make this distinction, instead broadly characterizing the information used for categorization in terms of propositionally described feature lists. However, we show that while feature lists can explain inferential competence, they do not account for referential competence. To address the issue of referential competence we examine Ray Jackendoff’s hypothesis that to account for the possibility of linking perceptual and conceptual information we need to assume the existence of a (visual) representation that encodes the geometric and topological properties of objects and bridges the gap between the percept and the concept. Furthermore, we analyze the extension of this work by Jesse Prinz who introduced the notion of a proxytype, a perceptual representation of a class of objects that incorporates structural and parametric information related to their appearance. However, as we point out, proxytypes can only explain the relationship between perception and concepts with respect to instances that can be perceived through the senses and that belong to the same class by virtue of their physical similarity. We suggest that this notion be extended to include larger conceptual classes. To accomplish this, we further develop Mark Johnson, George Lakoff and Jean Mandler’s idea of a schematic image and argue that conceptual representations include a perceptual schema. Perceptual schemata are non-linguistic, structured experiential gestalts (patterns or maps) that make use of information taken from all sensory modalities, including body perception. They accomplish a quasi-conceptual function: they allow us to recognize and to classify different instances. In this work, we hypothesize that perceptual schemata are an essential component of concepts, but not identical to them. Instead, we suggest that concepts include both perceptual and propositional information with perceptual schemata providing the ‘perceptual core concept’ that grounds related propositional information. -/- Chapter 4 In the Beginning There Were Categories. The Bodily Origin of Prelinguistic Categorical Organization: The Example of Folkbiological Taxonomies -/- Abstract. Studies of categorization in psychology and the cognitive sciences have made use of the notions of ‘category’ and ‘concept’ without precisely defining what is meant by either; in fact, often these terms have been used as synonyms, making it difficult to address specific issues related to conceptual development. This chapter begins by discussing the definitions of, as well as the distinctions between, ‘categories’ and ‘concepts’ in the classical philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Kant and Husserl). We introduce our view of categories with reference to Husserl. Categorization is defined as the way in which our experience is originally (pre-linguistically) organized in a passive and fully unconscious manner on the basis of universal structuring principles. Conceptualization is explained as a later process in which the earlier categorical macro-classes are further subdivided into more specific and detailed sets; this later process also relies on linguistic learning and exposure to culture. On the basis of Ray Jackendoff, Jean Mandler, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s work, we hypothesize that categorization is a two-step process that begins with the formation of homogeneous sets of entities partitioned into regions that describe the ontological boundaries of the objects that humans perceive (categories) and continues at a later stage with the development of more specific classifications (concepts). In this chapter, we mainly address three related issues: Why should we assume that there is categorical organization which precedes the development of a conceptual system? How do categories and concepts relate to each other? Shall we hypothesize that categories are innate or that they are formed before concepts on the basis of information and organizational structure available at a very early developmental stage? We show that categorical partitions are necessary for categorization and, following Mandler, that the general categories we form at an early age do not match our adult superordinate concepts. As for the third issue, we argue that there might be no need to assume that categories are innately present in the human mind, since their formation can be explained – at least in certain cases – by basic mechanisms that work on body (propriosensitive) information. This hypothesis will not be discussed in general, but in relation to a particularly relevant example of categorical partition, i.e. the folk-biological dichotomy between ANIMATE/INANIMATE. This is compared with other dichotomies that derive from it, but are not directly categorical such as LIVING/NON-LIVING and BIOLOGICAL/NON-BIOLOGICAL. -/- Chapter 5 Internal States: From Headache to Anger. Conceptualization and Semantic Mastery -/- Abstract. Here we ask if we can also apply the distinction between referential and inferential competence we introduced in Chapter 3 to words that do not refer to things that are perceived using the external senses, especially to words/concepts that denote bodily experiences (such as pain, thirst, hunger, etc.) or emotions. We introduce and discuss the hypothesis that – even though such words/concepts do not refer to intersubjectively identifiable entities in the external world – they do have a kind of referent that can be accessed via direct perception, more specifically ‘proprioception’, as we have defined it in terms of all propriosensitive information we can consciously access. In the first part of the chapter, we specifically consider terms denoting bodily experiences such as ‘pain’ or ‘hunger’ and argue that their referents are identified and classified from a first-personal point of view on the basis of four main characteristics: their specific intensity, their localization in the body, their co-occurrence with other signals and above all their specific qualitative sensations. Emotions are addressed in the second part of the chapter. We suggest that there is a continuity between bodily experiences and emotions. In particular, we argue for a perceptual theory of emotions in line with that proposed by James and Lange at the end of the 19th century and developed more recently by authors such as Damasio (see also chap. 2§5, §6). The hypothesis we put forward is that the referential information that supports the categorization of emotions and therefore also our mastery of terms referring to emotions consists in the perception (i.e. the ‘proprioception’) of those bodily states and changes in bodily states which constitute our emotional experience. In the context of this discussion we examine some objections to this line of reasoning that arise from a cognitivist perspective and following authors such as Oatley, Johnson-Laird and Frijda, we distinguish between basic emotions that can be identified and classified solely on the basis on how they feel and complex emotions whose identification and classification additionally depends on cognitive factors. To describe how emotions are identified and classified on the basis of how they feel, we rely on Marcel and Lambie’s distinction between an ‘emotion state’ and an ‘emotion experience’. Both notions indicate kinds of feelings that we consciously experience. However, they describe first-order and second order emotion awareness respectively. The emotion state is the feeling we have of the bodily states and changes that occur when we are experiencing an emotion, while the emotion experience is the fully developed and integrated emotion we both experience and are, with reflection, aware of experiencing. On the basis of this differentiation, we also show that the same characteristics that aid in the identification and classification of bodily experiences (specific qualitative sensations; somatic localization; specific intensity; presence/absence of specific concomitant sensations) can also be used for the identification and classification of emotions – at least basic emotions. In the last two sections of the chapter we present some clinical evidence on the semantic competence of people who suffer from Alexithymia and Autism Spectrum Disorder which supports the conclusions of our preceding analyses. -/- Chapter 6 The ‘Proprioceptive’ Component of Abstract Concepts -/- Abstract. In this chapter, we address the issue of whether the mastery of abstract words requires only inferential knowledge and thus, if the concepts that support the mastery of abstract words include only linguistic information. We start by differentiating the notions of ‘abstract’ and ‘general’ which are often erroneously confused. We then identify a strict definition of abstract, as contrasted with ‘concrete’, that applies to words or concepts whose referent cannot be experienced by the senses. We argue that abstract words/concepts would be better described as theoretical, because they are usually conceived as structured sets of inferential knowledge expressed linguistically; that is, as small theories. Pointing out parallels with Carnap’s analysis of this issue in philosophy of science, we hypothesize that words/concepts denoting non-observable entities are not all ‘equally theoretical’, because their link to sensory experience can be stronger or weaker. We revive the distinction, inspired by Quine, between theoretical and intertheoretical concepts/words. This distinction relies on the fact that the former – unlike the latter – retains a strong, although indirect, connection with perception. In Quine’s discussion, perception is understood uniquely in terms of observability, i.e. of external sensory experience. Here we argue, however, that bodily, ‘proprioceptive’ (i.e. propriosensitive) experience can also serve to referentially ground theoretical (i.e. abstract) concepts/words. We frame this issue using the example of the theoretical concept ‘freedom’ and Lakoff’s hypothesis that this concept is developed on the basis of bodily information. We contrast this with the example of ‘democracy’ which more closely resembles an intertheoretical concept/word. Furthermore, we show that one of the classical views put forward in psycholinguistic research to explain how abstract concepts are mentally represented – i.e. Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory – points in the same direction as our analysis. The same is true of Barsalou’s work suggesting that we use internal information to understand at least some abstract words. To sustain this position, we put forward two lines of evidence: the first comes from psycholinguistic studies while the second examines deficits of semantic competence exhibited by people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. On the basis of our analysis, we put forward a classification that distinguishes between different kinds of concreteness and different degrees of abstraction: concepts/words referring to body experiences and basic emotions are described as analogous to concrete concepts/words because they are grounded in perceptual (i.e. propriosensitive) experience, while abstract concepts/words are considered more or less abstract depending on whether they are intratheoretical (and rely entirely on inferential information) or theoretical (and are partially grounded in perceptual – or more often in propriosensitive perceptual – information). In the last section of the chapter we consider two scales that have been used in psycholinguistic research to measure the degree of concreteness vs. abstractness of words and we show that – used conjointly – they can provide a measure of the internal vs. external grounding of specific words. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to determine the criticism to Mushabbiha and Mujassima on the basis of al-Faṣl fī l-milal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-l-niḥal whose writer is Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), one of the eminent scholars of the Andalusian civilization. In this work, Ibn Ḥazm gives systematic information about the non-Islamic religions as well as the sects emerging under the Islamic roof, criticizing the views of religion and religious sects from various perspectives. In doing so, he approached the views of the (...) sects with his identity as a kalam theologian, and he made his critics in the light of classical conception of the Ahl al-Sunnah. Ibn Ḥazm pointed out that Mushbbiha and Mujassima had an anthropomorphic understanding of God, and emphasized that this understanding does not correspond with the belief in monotheism. He strongly emphasizes that God is one and nothing is equal to Him.Summary: Islamic Civilization of Andalusia was the most important representative of Islam in the West and enlightened Europe for centuries, has made important successes in science-technic, art and literature. Also made improvements on other areas such as religous and philosophical knowledge, in these eras raised important Islam scholars who made important contributions to those areas. One of those scholars undoubtedly is Ibn Ḥazm who was born in Andalusia (d. 456/1064). The aim of this paper is to analyze and determine Ibn Ḥazm’s critiques on Mushabbiha and Mujassima, based on Ibn Ḥazm’s thought found in his al-Fasl,who was one of the leading scholars of Anatolia civilization and played an important role in development of Islam thought nearly in all areas by his precious writings.Ibn Ḥazm, in his work gives systematic information on sects under Islamic thought and beliefs and religions out of Islam, their relations and differences with Islam, which he accepts as one and unchangeable, and analyzes them gives in an analytic, defensive and rejective method, puts them under critique. In other words, with his theologian identity and dialectical method, under the Sunnī classical tradition, he criticizes other sects’ thoughts. Ibn Ḥazm used a very sharp language and rough method in his critiques. This kind of attitude was symbolized by a traditional saying “Ibn Ḥazm’s language is sharper than Hajjāj’s sword”. As it very well known in the Qurʾān, oneness (tawhīd) was emphasized very much, God does not look like anything ever created, and does not have any resemblance or sameness with anything, in order to eliminate polytheist (shirk) belief. On the other hand, in some verses representations and resemblances were used that does not seem in line with oneness (tawhīd). This problem which seems to be contradiction at first sight has been subject to many debates of how that can be solved. In the center of discussion informing attributes (revealed attributes) that drive people to comparison (tajsīm) and anthropomorphism (tashbīh) that recall humanly attributes if they are understood in artificial meanings. In history of Islamic thought, in order to understand those kind of attributes, in their artificial meanings or their changed and decided meanings (ta’wīl), has been subject to discussion and to understand the attributes different methods have been used. One of these method which is the main subject of this paper is tajsīm and tashbīh method and was accepted by Mushabbiha and Mujassima. They take informing attributes artificial meanings as base and were against the changing of the meaning. As a natural conclusion of this, they resemble God to the created and asserted God has concrete parts such as hand, face, eye, leg, etc. In his work al-FaṣlIbn Ḥazm mentions ideas of Mushabbiha and Mujassima, and criticized whether it is appropriate for Sunnah or not. His critique against these sects are mostly based on the informing attributes being taken as visual attributes in nasses, where as a result the God imagination turns to be anthropormorphist imagination. According to Ibn Ḥazm, the verses “… He does not resemble anything…” (Ṣūra 42/11) and “He is not equal to anything” put forward the onlyness and soleness of God and they do not give attention to this and try to prove the attributes fall into anthropormorphism (tashbīh) and corporealisim (tajsīm). Ibn Ḥazm believes and says that their God imagination is not in line with oneness (tawhīd) understanding and puts the verses into the center. In his critiques he emphasizes God’s oneness, he does not have pair, not resemble anything, does not have equal and tried to explain how his attributes should be understood. In this respect, in qualification of God his main principle was exploitation (tanzīh) and asserts that humanly attributes (face, eye, foot) in their visual understandings cannot be attributed to God and tried to prove that names like object (jism), accident (symptoms), substance (ore) he cannot be put into qualification. Ibn Ḥazm’s consideration of nass through an exterior perspective, his criticism of Mushabbiha and Mujassima, who take visual attributes as principles, and his re-interpretation (ta’wīl) of some nass whenever necessary may be seen as a contradiction but it is consistent in his system. Because he is not definitely against re-interpretation (ta’wīl) but he rejects re-interpretation without proof, he accepts ta’wīlthat comes from nasses and rational necessity with a proof. From this perspective if there is an occasion a word’s meaning in the Qurʾān that needs understanding different from its written meaning and there is a proof for that, he sees this a requirement for re-interpretation (ta’wīl). He practically used this theory of him in informing attributes. As a result, in attributes of God, he follows the madhhab of the Salaf (predecessors), where as in informal attributes and their understanding, he uses ta’wīlmethod and takes the path of Halaf (successors). By this way, he departed from the madhhab of the Salaf and created his own method. In this context while he was criticizing anthropormorphist and corporealist methods. Also he defended that since comprehension of God is not possible without re-interpretation of these attributes, it is necessary. He explained these attributes in verses with their dictionary meanings and related verses, with appropriate Arabic grammar and God’s greatness. From that perspective Ibn Ḥazm’s Salafī and artificial understandings, we cannot say he is from Salafī which rejects rationale and explanation all together. In addition to that when necessary in informal attributes he uses ta’wīland uses reason and the function he put upon reason, shows his position against sect like Mushabbiha and Mujassima who underestimates the value of reason. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Standards and Assumptions, the Limits of Inclusion, and Pluralism in PsychiatryBennett Knox*, MA (bio)Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to AAPP, PPP, and the Jaspers Award Committee—I am deeply honored to receive this award. So too let me thank Anke Bueter (2022) and Awais Aftab (2022) for their thought-provoking commentaries. Many of the concerns they bring up are ones that I share, so I am delighted to have (...) a chance to discuss them in my response. I will bring up three central issues in turn: 1) the role of shared standards versus background assumptions, 2) the limits of inclusion, and 3) pluralism in psychiatry.Shared Standards or Background Assumptions?Both Bueter and Aftab reference Longino's "shared public standards" criterion for social objectivity (1990, p. 77; 2002, p. 130), which I did not explicitly discuss in the original paper (Knox, 2022). This was a choice I made partly because in the case of psychiatry determining what constitutes an appropriate "shared public standard" is often not at all straightforward, which points to a potential problem for Longino's view. Namely, in some cases it is a matter of dispute whether some assumption shared within a scientific field should be counted as a "shared public standard" (which Longino requires that there be) or a "background assumption" (which she requires be subjected to critical scrutiny). And it is sometimes unclear how we could effectively adjudicate this type of disagreement.Take the example Bueter uses of "psychiatrists aiming for biomedical explanations of a particular mental disorder, whereas the critics value research that does not assume the existence of mental disorders" (2022, p. 273). A conflict along these lines often does arise between advocates of the pathology paradigm and the neurodiversity paradigm with regard to Autism, for example.1 A psychiatrist working within the pathology paradigm may argue that something like "psychiatry must deal only with mental disorders, understood as pathologies" constitutes a shared standard, and so psychiatric research on Autism must understand it as a pathology. An advocate of the neurodiversity paradigm, however, might argue that this same proposition [End Page 275] is merely a normative background assumption shared among many psychiatrists, which ought to be questioned and ultimately rejected. How might we adjudicate this meta-disagreement about the status of this standard/assumption?Bueter gives some helpful guidance on this issue by pointing to Carrier's requirement that participants exhibit the "epistemic attitude" (2013). I agree that if all participants commit themselves to this attitude, then "…differences in conceptual resources and standards of assessment need not make shared deliberation impossible, and the standards can be a subject of discussion themselves" (Bueter 2022, p. 273). For instance, since this attitude requires some commitment to empirical adequacy, we might search for some empirical evidence that favors one paradigm over the other. But advocates of both paradigms might actually agree on all the empirical facts, and yet still have a deep disagreement about which paradigm's understanding should be accepted as a shared standard. If participants are committed to some common standards and goals, we may often be able to resolve this sort of problem. But there is still a danger that we may arrive at an impasse, with no clear idea how to proceed.Though in many cases scientific experts must be allowed some power to set the standards in their domain (lest we dilute that expertise in ways that Aftab rightly points out would be problematic), I would also caution against accepting that something is a legitimate shared public standard just because the members of a scientific community say so. In keeping with the spirit of Longino's reliance on Quine, none of our shared standards are in principle immune from revision—save perhaps a minimal commitment to empirical evidence and rational argument.The Limits of InclusionMy impression is that Longino's response to the "Nazi problem" presented by Hicks (2011) might be to bite the bullet: her account does require allowing Nazi scientists to participate, and perhaps even cultivating their participation. But if (as seems likely) the Nazi shows themself to be unable to adhere to the shared standards... (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

What does Husserlian phenomenology have to offer feminist theory? More specifically, can we find resources within Husserl’s account of the living body ( Leib ) for the critical feminist project of rethinking embodiment beyond the dichotomies not only of mind/body but also of subject/object and activity/passivity? This essay begins by explicating the reasons for feminist hesitation with respect to Husserlian phenomenology. I then explore the resources that Husserl’s phenomenology of touch and his account of sensings hold for feminist theory. (...) My reading of Husserl proceeds by means of a comparison between his description of touch in Ideas II and Merleau-Ponty’s early appropriation of this account in the Phenomenology of Perception, as well as through an unlikely rapprochement between Husserl and Irigaray on the question of touch. Moreover, by revisiting the limitations in Husserl’s approach to the body—limitations of which any feminist appropriation must remain cognizant—I attempt to take Husserl’s phenomenology of touch beyond its initial methodologically solipsistic frame and to ask whether and how it can contribute to thinking gendered and racialized bodies. The phenomenology of touch, I argue, can allow us to understand the interplay between subjective, felt embodiment and social-historical context. In opening up Husserl’s account of touch to other dimensions—intersubjective and affective—sociality is revealed as residing within, and structuring of, touch. Such touch can allow us to think embodiment anew. (shrink)

The concept of death and its relationship to organ transplantation continue to be sources of debate and confusion among academics, clinicians, and the public. Recently, an international group of scholars and clinicians, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, met in the first phase of an effort to develop international guidelines for determination of death. The goal of this first phase was to focus on the biology of death and the dying process while bracketing legal, ethical, cultural, and religious perspectives. (...) The next phase of the project will include a broader group of stakeholders in the development of clinical practice guidelines and will use expert consensus on biomedical criteria for death from the first phase as scientific input into normative deliberation about appropriate policies and practices. Surely, science alone cannot resolve the normative and philosophical questions intertwined in debates about moral status, legal and moral rights, the ethics of killing, and personhood and the nature of the self; however, scientific input is necessary for informed moral deliberation. An objective and unbiased investigation of the biology of death is independent of, and should be undertaken prior to, an analysis of the normative questions engendered by debate about determination of death. This strategy is explicitly endorsed by the International Guidelines for Determination of Death and reflects the prevailing view of these issues in the mainstream medical literature. However, this mainstream literature, exemplified by the IGDD group's recent report, does not exhibit any of the characteristics usually associated with a scientifically rigorous investigation, such as making empirically testable and falsifiable claims, a commitment to evidence and logic over authoritative assertion, or a willingness to revise hypotheses and theories in light of new evidence. Indeed, the core claims and methodologies of the mainstream medical literature on death, both of which are represented by the IGDD report, are not merely scientifically unjustified; they are not science at all. This situation creates a problem for the integrity of science and the academy, and it unjustly obscures and prevents legitimate democratic and moral deliberation about issues that, at bottom, are normative, not scientific. (shrink)

Taking user’s role and features as milestones for an approach on scientific representation has become a growing trend. We shall investigate the implications that pragmatics bring in the relevant debate. Proponents of pragmatic approaches support that questions such as ‘how an object represents another’ or ‘which features of a certain object represent the target of the representation and in what way’ can be answered only within the given context of representation’s use. Thus, attention is drawn to the (...) intentionality of the representation, in contrast to the semantic tradition, according to which the representational function is based on morphic relations between the representation and the represented object. Given that scientific representations surrogate objects and phenomena in our studies, they should reproduce aspects, relations and interactions of them, possessing the appropriate features. Therefore, we support that user’s intention is not enough to build the representational relation on it. We claim that a) a sustainable and successful theory of scientific representations cannot be grounded on pragmatics b) pragmatic approaches undermine the objectivity of the knowledge inferred by representations c) the important role of the cognizing subject in a theory of scientific representation can be rescued without the burden coming with pragmatic approaches. (shrink)

Since 2008 I have been closely following the conceptual/performance/video work of Daniel Peltz. Gently rendered through media installation, ethnographic, and performance strategies, Peltz’s work reverently and warmly engages the inner workings of social systems, leaving elegant rips and tears in any given socio/cultural quilt. He engages readymades (of social and media constructions) and uses what are identified as interruptionist/interventionist strategies to disrupt parts of an existing social system, thus allowing for something other to emerge. Like the stereoscope that requires two (...) identical images to create an illusion of a three-dimensional image, Peltz sometimes visualizes two separate elements to create an object or moment that requires space and depth to focus on its varied layers. They say your brain has to process and make meaningful sense out of all that visual information before it can accept the illusion. I say your brain has to do a similar thing when looking and seeing the divine, magical, and faithful (social) art making of Daniel Peltz. Daniel Peltz is Associate Professor of Film/Animation/Video at RISD. He divides his time between Rhode Island and Sweden and is currently at work on an exhibition at Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm opening February 2013 and a new project to be included in the IASKA: Spaced Biennial (Australia) in 2014. This interview took place on Skype and is part one of a two-part interview. Feliz Lucia Molina: Are you in Providence, RI? Daniel Peltz: I’m at my house in Providence. I’ve been back for six days teaching winter session at RISD and doing this workshop series—these investors’ drum circles with a group of wealth managers. a client of the firm, 2013, photo Shirin Adhami FLM: The wealth managers were all drumming together? DP: They were all drumming in response to the performance of their retirement portfolios. FLM: Is this part of the “Unrealized Gain/Loss” piece? DP: Yes, it’s part of a show I’m working on in Sweden. I can show you because it was just today. I’ll show you some of this. Lets see—share screen [click, click, click]. This is the room. I’ve been using the camera system that’s already installed in the conference rooms to record them. So the video is being recorded directly by the wealth management office’s tech staff. These are the people I worked with in the last workshop. This conference table is less wondrous. They’ve been learning to drum in response to their retirement portfolios. I started by bringing in my little bit of wealth for them to propose a management strategy, I came to the follow-up meeting with a counter proposal, which was this workshop. So they agreed to do this series of workshops instead of managing my wealth. FLM: Does everybody in the room manage your wealth? That’s kind of a lot of people. DP: That woman in the back there and Craig —they handle new client business. So when you come there with your wealth, they sit down with you and suggest to you how they would manage it. They’re very nice, responsible people. FLM: And where is this? DP: This is in Providence and the one I was showing you is in Waltham, where I was today. Then I’m going to Newport for the last one on Friday. So I will have done four of them. This is the group in Waltham that I just played with today. I played directly with the two groups in Providence and I’m working with an ethnomusicologist at Brown, Asha Tamarisa, who is facilitating the last two. She’s helped develop the workshop in terms of figuring out how to train a group to do this and thinking about the compositional challenges of working in response to retirement portfolio data. FLM: Screensharing helps me to figure out tiny bits here and there about the project. DP: I might even be able to play you a little of the audio I’ve also been working with a group of professional percussionists on what will become a quarterly public investors’ drum circle event. Their stuff was really nice, but I want you to hear what we sounded like in the workshops. They’ve all been recorded by the a/v system in the offices. We use a simple structure where the drummer investors interpret the sensation of gain or loss as embellishments to a base heartbeat rhythm. The group holds the heartbeat and, as each person experiences gain or loss, they embellish that rhythm. "Screensharing helps me to figure out tiny bits here and there about the project" FLM: Is the process all very spontaneous? DP: Its actually quite structured. We produce a custom stock ticker that shows the performance of their collective portfolios. In advance of the workshop each participant submits assets in their retirement portfolio. Then we make a stock ticker that shows the real-time performance of their assets so that they can respond to almost live data. FLM: Are they reading the stock ticker projected up on the screen in the room? Do people drum in correspondence to the visual live data of the performance of their assets? DP: Exactly. They’re looking at the stock ticker as opposed to each other, so it’s a slightly shifted drum circle. They’re looking at the ticker but they’re listening to each other—that’s what we’re practicing. For example, NVO—the price is 172.08 but it’s down -1.16 and as that moves across the screen, the person who’s retirement is invested in that asset starts to embellish when that arrow first appears, based on their experience of loss. They stop when it exits the screen and return to the heartbeat. You could have one ticker for each retirement portfolio, but the way the workshop is constructed is that we just isolate one asset from each person’s portfolio so that everyone in the group is represented in a single ticker. So they’re drumming and looking at the ticker, but they’re hearing each other experience gain and loss. We’ve removed direct visual engagement from the social structure of a drum circle but the oral engagement is still there. FLM: So they had their own sound interpretation of gain and loss? DP: Yeah and that part is quite spontaneous as you were saying. In some of the preparatory exercises we’ve been working to give the participants more strategies for interpreting the sensations of gain and loss. We’re trying to develop their capacity to embellish a heartbeat or base rhythm but I’m not invested in having a melodious result. I’m quite curious about what this kind of structure will result in without any desire for a particular result. FLM: For context, can you talk about the project you did a couple years ago in Bali, “Unrealized Gain/Loss” in relation to this current wealth management project? DP: The workshops I’ve been doing use a similar strategy to the other components in this project. It started in Indonesia on my sabbatical and I was really trying to understand where I was physically and where I was being on sabbatical—this kind of strange jubilee structure where every seventh year you’re supposed to renew your self. And it was around the time of the global financial crisis. I was on sabbatical for the global financial crisis. I remember watching my father, in particular, respond to the financial crisis by monitoring his retirement portfolio and trying to make sense of it. I realized on a visit to their home that he checked his retirement portfolio every single day and I was really struck by that because in some way our parents are mysteries to us as children, especially their moods. We know how important their moods are but we don’t know what governs them. And somehow it was like I’d figured it out, it’s the performance of the DOW! So I think there was something in that. Then I was in Indonesia and I had been drawn there by an interest in their highly ritualized Hindu culture, where so much of life is driven by a ceremonial calendar. I was interested in Bali as this predominantly Hindu pocket within a predominantly Islamic country and life there being organized by this ritual calendar functioning as a kind of resistance to the dominant global religion of free-market capitalism. So I started to explore that correlation between the ways in which this culture that I was living in was sort of “living for the afterlife” and this idea within certain segments of American society of “living for the afterwork life”. The idea that your wellbeing in the “afterwork life” is tied to forces that are unseen and largely beyond your control has strong similarities to many religious understandings of the universe. So I started to explore that and the crafts and materials that were around me were primarily Batik and percussion. Percussion is a huge part of daily life in Bali. These gamelan troupes were everywhere. And I also happened to be there for Nyepi, the day of silence, which is preceded by a very elaborate procession and construction of demonic statues. These were the things that were around me and I started studying Batik with one of the Batik artists there and also started a conversation with two master Batik artists, one who is American and her Indonesian husband. I developed these patterns that were based on symbols from the performance of my retirement portfolio and worked with the batik artists to produce two sarongs. d. peltz - 2012 In producing the designs, I treated the performance of my retirement portfolio since my arrival at RISD [7 years] as a significant interval and then I looked at the ways in which decisions are made within retirement portfolios as having an extension outwards from the individual assets that underlie the retirement portfolio, which are kind of like the base elements of the retirement world. Then there’s the allocation of your assets, which is a global way of understanding an individual according to typologies, which are often referred to in terms of risk—this notion of a ‘risk profile’. What type of ‘person’ you are is determined by your attitude towards risk, or potentiality, and I found that to be a really fascinating way of understanding the universe. I remember looking at the tabs in my retirement portfolio and finding this one for viewing ‘Unrealized Gain/Loss’ and that’s often how I work—is just going through the Cambridge Parking Code, for example, and finding this section of the code that was called ‘Crossing Non-Signalized Locations’ and just feeling “I can’t do any better than that,” you know? That’s what I was talking about in terms of ready-mades that exist in the social sphere. So I found that tab, actually, a long time ago, and I pulled it out of a journal when I was there [in Bali] working on these pieces and I wound up making these two sarongs and later on a series of porcelain vessels for holding one’s unrealized gains and losses. At the time, I knew that I wanted a performance to come out of them, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I was inspired very much by this sort of thing: Pulls out a TIAA-CREF brochure with a man in a suit seated at a table. This guy is probably an actor, and [the brochure] says “TIAA-Cref announces “Individual counseling sessions at the Rhode Island School of Design. Individual counseling sessions at no additional cost to you. You can discuss your personal financial situation with an experienced TIAA consultant on a confidential basis. We are available to help you discuss how to achieve your financial goals by investing in financial solutions such as mutual funds, brokerage, life insurance, and annuities...etc....What retirement benefits best fits your situation?” Often I encounter this and I think O.K., this is one way to prepare for the after-work life and it seems inadequate to me. But, I also find it really inspiring. I really like the visual language of it. I kind of want to be that man. I’d like to see if I could maybe buy his clothes. FLM: What it is about the man on the brochure that interests you? DP: He’s offering personalized objective advice and a detailed evaluation of everything you need to know and do. Who wouldn’t want that? But he’s also something of a contemporary priest or priestess, mediating between the unseen all-powerful universe of global capitalism and the common worker. So I started off developing Unrealized Gain/Loss directly from the charts that represent the performance of my retirement portfolio. Then I came home and I wanted to use those. I had this word in my journal “unrealized gain/loss vessel.” I had this notion of vessels that would contain unrealized gains and losses. That felt really important to me that they would have somewhere to go. I had been thinking a lot about altars and making offerings—that somehow this really fickle, massive, difficult-to-comprehend-universe of the financial world—that somehow it might be nice if you could making an offering to it. [In Bali] they made such beautiful elaborate offerings. So I studied offering making as well with one of the women there and she taught me some of the standard forms created by folding leaves and the significance of the floral arrangements. I started working in clay and then moved to porcelain and I made these unrealized gain/loss vessels. I made a few of them, they have holes on either side that you can’t get your fingers in. But something can go in there and something can go out of there. It’s a nice size for putting on an altar. Then I got this commission from Artists in Context who was interested in my doing something for this project “Artists Perspectives for the Nation” project. I proposed initiating these investors’ drum circles as a new public performance form. I’m interested in bringing together those two symbols—the symbol of the djembe and the drum circle. unrealized gain/loss vessel - d.peltz - 2012 FLM: I can imagine the public digital stock ticker performing like a soft fleeting stream of information, a kind of (meaningless) illusory comfort blanket. DP: In some way you have to understand its relevance outside of the obvious, right? Because the obvious is illogical. Nobody is actually using that data to day trade, for example. People aren’t sitting there with their computers watching the market data in Times Square or setting up an outdoor office and being like “OK it’s up 3 points or it’s up 1.56, trade! Ok now buy, Ok now sell!” That would be a kind of a nice performance, actually. But actual day traders would want more up to date data than that. To understand what that data is doing is really important. And that’s something I’ve realized—that I’m interested in a particular kind of data visualization, which is not about what data can tell people, but what data can tell people who are visualizing it. For example, in the Cambridge Project “Crossing Non-Signalized Locations” I was interested in the 10,000 excuses archive of data recording five years worth of excuses for why people thought they shouldn’t have received their parking ticket. I was not interested in making that excuse wall so that the public could see and understand this data. Inevitably the data will be seen by others but I was really interested in what the action of visualizing the data told those who were visualizing it. The parking attendants themselves were writing those excuses on the wall—I was interested in what that kind action of writing the excuses on the wall told them about the data. Similarly, I’m interested in designing a way to allow people to pass this data from the unseen universe of the market, through their own bodies, which happens through the merging of the drum and the stock ticker. I’m interested in those two also as symbols; the drum as this symbol of the earth, the body and a pagan counterculture, and the stock ticker referring to the ethereal world of global markets—bringing those two together and making them dependent. I’m often drawn to conceptual propositions that I become invested in testing in a sincere way—at first they often they sound humorous to others, but I have to remember that there is humor in them. I don’t sit around and laugh about these things. I stop finding them funny at all. I’m interested in the proposition that we could know something about the after-work life by drumming in response to our retirement portfolio. So then I become really interested in how to craft that into a viable performance form for myself and others. FLM: The aspect of using sound in “Unrealized Gain/Loss” as a way of embodying the information to the asset holder is really intriguing—using sound as a means of embodying the asset data. Was sound a medium that made sense to use immediately or were you considering other means of attempting to embody it? DP: Well I do use other mediums within the project like textile, ceramic, and batik patterns. I was first drawn to the history of Batik patterns as a socio-economic stratification system and the vessels as a way of embodying or manifesting this data of unrealized gain and loss. My first approach was to work with meditation actually—a meditation workshop with my colleagues. I was going to offer this “Unrealized Gain/Loss” workshop where you would explore the sensations of gain and loss by adapting the way yogi-nidra brings you into contact with your physical surroundings and stretches your perception. FLM: At Naropa University there are/were business & compassion workshops—a sort of mash-up of business and compassion and how compassion could be incorporated into a business model. This process and engagement of “embodying data” also has to do with “Participatory Democracy and the Future of Karaoke” you created at the DNC in Denver in 2008. DP: That kind of appropriation and instrumentalization of spiritual practice could be disturbing and thus compelling as a strategy. For various reasons, I’ve come to be drawn to both the form of a quarterly public performance and the established performance form of a drum circle. Its something I’ve seen myself do before, that is to mess up a really good functional social system like a drum circle or karaoke. I remember I was developing language for the karaoke project and started calling it “Participatory Democracy and the Future of Karaoke” and one of my assistants on the project, who’s an incredible artist, said, “but don’t you think the future of karaoke is guitar hero?” and I realized that maybe he thought I was trying to improve the form. I’m just trying to get people to have this shifted embodied experience, I need to craft the performance context so that they can do that. In the case of the karaoke project, for example, what did I need in order to be able to do this [a person to stand up in front of a bar and deliver a karaoke speech]? I realized that the body is very vulnerable so I built a podium so that the speaker can feel secure enough to do this, otherwise you couldn’t get to this state achieved by passing these speeches through the body. Then I was, like, well you need to be able to practice the lyrics because you don’t know all the “songs” by heart, which became an insert to the massive track books carried by most karaoke VJs. And then sometimes the crowd in the bar isn’t there with me, so I needed to extract the voice of the crowd cheering from the original venue and I needed the local audience to cheer if they wanted to. I’m interested in both where the form succeeds and fails. In particular, one of the most interesting things is this auditory gap between the space where you are, the reduced scale of applause in your own little bar, and this grand scale of applause at the convention center where the speech was originally delivered. FLM: How did the concept of “Participatory Democracy Karaoke” come about and why did you use karaoke as a means of engaging what was happening at the DNC in 2008? DP: I was looking at a lot of different readymade media infrastructures within the city at the time. I was interested in the emergency broadcast systems and I developed a proposal to repurpose that system and karaoke became an important symbol because it was this populist form that was already engaged in exploring the sensation of celebrity but also visualizing the gap between ourselves and those with more power and influence. So it had this readymade capacity to play with power and celebrity and I felt like the Obama presidential campaign, the first one in particular, had some very curious overlaps with this culture of celebrity. Obama of course rose to power partly based on his oratory abilities and I was interested in how karaoke as a vehicle was so adept at offering people all that was left of authentic expression in a political speech. Managing a politician and constructing their identity is such a developed practice that it becomes, kind of automatically, a metaphor for the way that our own identities are constructed. Of course the Obama campaign was very hip and savvy and deploying this notion of grassroots. It was really pioneering in its use of social media and this deployment of notions of populism. I was interested at that time in the capacity of karaoke to track speech patterns, precise tempos of anyone’s delivery, and that to me was a way of thinking about what might be left of the authentic self. I was interested in karaoke’s capacity to extract that authentic component and offer it to others. So not just to stand up and be them, but to [literally] pass their speech patterns through your own body. A long time ago, it started to strike me as odd that one would make media at all. It struck me as a kind of un-contemporary way of going about making art in an age of media overflow. That logic extended into my thinking on delivery devices and installation as well. Why would one buy a screen or even set one up when there are so many out there? And the way in which these media displays function in karaoke bars and bars in general is very interesting to me. I’m drawn to this passive consumption of media where your primary social interaction is with the bartender or a few other individuals but these screens are around you and your attention is shifting back and forth between these spaces. So much political rhetoric is spoken to a half-listening audience. I was interested in what was happening in the slippage and that karaoke was a kind of slippage amplifier. So if you put people in a bar and they are delivering a Kucinich speech and Kucinich comes up on a screen then your getting a sound bite of Kucinich and an image of Kucinich and your friend is talking to you— FLM: A kind of magic takes place in that incongruency between sound and image and the karaoke participant who’s relaying the speech-text at the same time. DP: Exactly and there’s some kind of truth in that experience of reality. FLM: Yeah, there’s something uncanny about seeing the body close-up like that as though it can’t lie to you in that moment or context. It’s a weird moment of luminous clarity. The work you’ve done and all of what you’re saying about karaoke is so very interesting to me. Growing up, my dad and uncles sang karaoke a lot (and still do) and being first-generation Filipino American is a different cultural subtext entirely. I’m also seeing it from the position of witnessing family members who are carriers of these stories and songs. And seeing them cherish these Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley songs so much, I also see how their bodies are literal vessels of popular music that signifies something greater—it signifies their cultural and socioeconomic place in the world. The way that they cherish these American 1950s and 1960s pop songs is similar to having a certain kind of reverence for their spiritual faith or Catholicism. It’s a similar kind of care, focus, and attention exerted in karaoke and Catholicism—that these two structures and systems give something to focus on. Setsuko, Seiji and Hitoshi in Obama, Japan as Obama in Indiana — d. peltz — 2008 DP: Sure there something about the relationship we have to our candidate or the way we go about choosing a candidate, which is very similar to a deity or idol. I learned a lot about karaoke culture through this project. I’d never done karaoke. I’d never been interested in it as a form and then I travelled to Japan as part of the project when I made “Setsuko, Seiji and Hitoshi in Obama, Japan as Barack Obama in Indiana” and it was quite fascinating because my image of karaoke had always been this very public forum in a karaoke bar and then I discovered there’s this whole other world of karaoke where people even go on their own, they go and rent a room or cubicle and sing, or they go on a date—just the two of them go and sit in a room and do karaoke together. FLM: I’m interested in issues that take place within or as a result of specific karaoke culture(s). In the Philippines within the last several years there’s been occurring the “My Way Killings” phenomenon. Apparently baklas or gay men are employed by karaoke establishments to help “smooth over conflicts over karaoke singing”—these social forms of conduct, or lack thereof that arise out of the infrastructures of this social sport. In this one rural part of the Philippines there’s a village karaoke machine that the whole village shares—the Aeta indigenous people have an appointed “keeper” of the karaoke machine. I also see karaoke as a proxy to the confessional box in Catholicism where one goes to pour out their sins (minus the penance and redemption). The karaoke machine enables one to literally sing out whatever’s going on internally, but through highly saturated popular song lyrics. While karaoke is a public and social sport, it can also be a private one. Karaoke is a means of communion with each other. DP: Right, this preference for this kind of mediated communication. In Japan I was trying to organize people to work on this project and I was talking about throwing a party and they were like, well, we have to rent a karaoke machine because what else are we going to do? And I think its kind of serving that function of surrogacy—emotional surrogacy. FLM: And karaoke tools can be read as ritual tools—the magic mic that holds everything. There’s got to be some overlap at some point—between religious ceremony and devotion to the karaoke machine. DP: The way I designed the piece was so that it could slip right on top of the ready-made karaoke infrastructure. There was a flat-packed podium and it was made of a single sheet of plywood with no fasteners that slotted into itself. Those were sent out to a network of karaoke bars that I invited to become “karaoke convention centers.” The local VJs downloaded our custom-made, speech-extracted tracks that were designed to play on their existing equipment. In this sense the piece is a permanent installation. If you go to Denver today, some of the VJs still have the tracks in their library of offerings, the Ramones and Romney. It was this notion of re-purposing readymade infrastructure to create a distributable populist form. Obama was coming and the convention was in the Pepsi Center and 30,000 people were coming including 10,000 journalists. The impetus behind the larger art project that commissioned international artists to make works in Denver, was that local people weren’t going to have much access to this convention. It was like an invasion, the city was being descended upon, but if you lived a block away from the site, you had the same access as people in Zimbabwe&mash;30 second media bits excerpted from the speeches. So it seemed to me that the fundamental gesture was how do I take that signal, which was travelling out of the convention center, and create a local interruption? FLM: Is that what you mean by ‘intervention’? The term is frequently used to help describe your work. DP: It depends on the day. Around that karaoke project I had a conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko and he was proposing that maybe rather than intervention, we should consider the word interruption. Because intervention is kind of an overused term in the field of art and it has militaristic and therapeutic associations outside of the art context. Fundamentally, the idea of intervening speaks to the readymade social world as your primary material. So it’s basically suggesting a kind of subtractive process, which gets back to this question: what is the role of the contemporary media artist in a world that’s so saturated with media? You can’t work additively in a saturated field. If you want to make a visible mark you have to work subtractively. That’s what intervention is about to me, just another way of saying “to work subtractively.” FLM: So the interventions or interruptions aren’t necessarily adding or subtracting, but are they putting orange cones there? What are they doing exactly? DP: I think you’re right about that, they’re not really subtracting. They’re adding to the scope of possibility. I’ve been thinking (with this exhibition I’m mounting next month) about the work as explorations and expansions of social possibility. Maybe it’s more insertion. I started calling the pieces ‘insertions’ that I was making in Rejmyre—a small town in Sweden where I’ve been working for six years now. My favorite site to install there is the tourist bureau. I started calling the video pieces that I made for the tourist bureau, video insertions. This idea that you’re inserting something into the readymade media infrastructure of the world resonates with me. Insertion leverages a context, creating a possibility that the inserted object might be naturalized in the process — that someone can encounter my video in Rejmyre as tourist information. And then all of a sudden tourist information can include some American guy prostrating through town and it can include really bad relationship advice. Maybe insertion is a better word. tourist information – d. peltz 2009-present  . (shrink)

This paper argues that international development research should be submitted to the oversight of research ethics committees from the countries where data will be collected. This includes research conducted by individuals who may fall outside the jurisdictions of most ethics guidelines or policies, such as individuals contracted by non-governmental organizations. The argument is grounded in an understanding of social justice that recognizes that not seeking local ethics approval can be an affront to the decolonization movement, and may lead to significant (...) direct harms to participants. Local ethics oversight can help ensure projects appropriately take into consideration local laws, regulations, priorities and context. For example, a local research ethics committee may be in a better position than a foreign one to assess whether any given proposed project carries context-specific risks. In addition, submitting to a local research ethics committee is to acknowledge the legitimacy of local authorities, thereby taking a stance against the history of colonizing disempowerment. Local oversight is a mechanism to increase the accountability of researchers working abroad: if respect for local authority and tailoring to local context are to be upheld, there must be mechanisms to ensure that research that does not meet these requirements does not proceed. Objections based on the limited oversight capacity in some countries and on concerns related to the politicization of the review process are discussed. Finally, the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in the implementation of greater local ethics oversight are laid out. (shrink)

Global environmental problems, such as global warming, pollution, or deforestation, are critical issues that require a rapid and common response. In this context, companies play a decisive role in achieving environmental objectives through the ecological knowledge they can store and manage. In this context, the present research focuses its interest on analyzing how the set of green intangibles possessed by organizations, i.e., Green Intellectual Capital, affects their Green Performance. Specifically, the study shows how GP is influenced by GIC through the (...) mediating role of the Green Innovation variable. Therefore, the research questions to be answered by this study are as follows: Does GIC influence environmental performance? Does GI mediate the GIC-GP relationship? What actions can companies take to improve their GP? There are several reasons that have led us to carry out this research. First, there is little empirical evidence of the relationships proposed in this study. Second, to the best of our knowledge, there is no previous research that has contextualized the relationships raised in the wine industry, thus representing an advance in the comprehension of the constructs studied. Third, GIC represents an incipient field of study that needs to be developed and established within the literature linked to Intellectual Capital. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, data from a survey of 202 wineries in Spain were used and a quantitative approach was followed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the research indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between GIC and GP. In addition, GI partially mediates the relationship between these two variables, playing a key role in the environmental management of wineries. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study improve the understanding of the relationships raised, being a pioneering study due to its contextualization in the wine industry, as well as providing a series of guidelines for both environmental managers and winemakers to improve their GP. (shrink)

For sociologists, interpretations of cultural objects, whether grouped into genres or taken individually, are intermediate steps toward understanding more fully the contexts in which they are produced. This does not deny the satisfaction implicit in grasping the significance of aspects of objects themselves; I hope that the analysis I have presented lends viewing the Sangatsu-dō sculptures a degree of comprehension, and pleasure, not present before. The ultimate test, however, and the justification for undertaking any sociological examination of (...) cultural objects, is the usefulness of the resulting account in confirming or rejecting ideas about the social conditions surrounding their production. The important question in judging the appropriateness of examining individual objects is therefore not whether sociologists (as opposed, for example, to art historians) ought to concern themselves with such analysis; it is whether such analyses increase the ability of objects to serve as evidence in investigations of interesting social phenomena. My goal is not therefore to supplant generic analysis with a focus on individual objects: it is as possible to fetishize the study of the object as it is to ignore its potential. In fact, it is most useful to see the two approaches as complementary, making possible fuller analyses than each can enable separately. We would do well to take more seriously the benefits of locating objects in the contexts in which people deal with them most commonly: as distinct elements in more inclusive fields, in which meaning and appeal are closely tied to difference. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals often face ethical conflicts and challenges related to decision-making that have necessitated consideration of the use of conscientious objection (CO). No current guidelines exist within Spain’s healthcare system regarding acceptable rationales for CO, the appropriate application of CO, or practical means to support healthcare professionals who wish to become conscientious objectors. As such, a procedural framework is needed that not only assures the appropriate use of CO by healthcare professionals but also demonstrates its ethical validity, legislative compliance through (...) protection of moral freedoms and patients’ rights to receive health care. Our proposal consists of prerequisites of eligibility for CO (individual reference, specific clinical context, ethical justification, assurance of non-discrimination, professional consistency, attitude of mutual respect, assurance of patient rights and safety) and a procedural process (notification and preparation, documentation and confidentiality, evaluation of prerequisites, non-abandonment, transparency, allowance for unforeseen objection, compensatory responsibilities, access to guidance and/or consultative advice, and organizational guarantee of professional substitution). We illustrate the real-world utility of the proposed framework through a case discussion in which our guidelines are applied. (shrink)

Scientific models are important, if not the sole, units of science. This thesis addresses the following question: in virtue of what do scientific models represent their target systems? In Part i I motivate the question, and lay out some important desiderata that any successful answer must meet. This provides a novel conceptual framework in which to think about the question of scientific representation. I then argue against Callender and Cohen’s attempt to diffuse the question. In Part ii I investigate the (...) ideas that scientific models are ‘similar’, or structurally morphic, to their target systems. I argue that these approaches are misguided, and that at best these relationships concern the accuracy of a pre-existing representational relationship. I also pay particular attention to the sense in which target systems can be appropriately taken to exhibit a ‘structure’, and van Fraassen’s recent argument concerning the pragmatic equivalence between representing phenomena and data. My next target is the idea that models should not be seen as objects in their own right, but rather what look like descriptions of them are actually direct descriptions of target systems, albeit not ones that should be understood literally. I argue that these approaches fail to do justice to the practice of scientific modelling. Finally I turn to the idea that how models represent is grounded, in some sense, in their inferential capacity. I compare this approach to anti-representationalism in the philosophy of language and argue that analogous issues arise in the context of scientific representation. Part iii contains my positive proposal. I provide an account of scientific representation based on Goodman and Elgin’s notion of representation-as. The result is a highly conventional account which is the appropriate level of generality to capture all of its instances, whilst remaining informative about the notion. I illustrate it with reference to the Phillips-Newlyn machine, models of proteins, and the Lotka-Volterra model of predator-prey systems. These examples demonstrate how the account must be understood, and how it sheds light on our understanding of how models are used. I finally demonstrate how the account meets the desiderata laid out at the beginning of the thesis, and outline its implications for further questions from the philosophy of science; not limited to issues surrounding the applicability of mathematics, idealisation, and what it takes for a model to be ‘true’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:OBJECT AND INTENTION IN MORAL JUDGMENTS ACCORDING TO AQUINAS JOHN FINNIS U'flkueTBity Oollege Unwersity of Oa:ford INTENTION IS OF END, choice is of means. A human aict ~s specified by (and s? is co.rrect:ly describe~ in terms of) its end. A human act IS specified by (and so Is correctly described in terms of) its object. An a:ct which is bad by reason of its object (...) cannot be justified by its end (its: good intention ). A human a:ct is specified by (and so is correctly described in iterms of) its intention.... Such a sequence of statements of St. Thomas ought to leave an impression of confusion. That impression would be heightened by the traditional representation of his analysis of acting in a schema of 12 terms signifying a sequence of psychological acts involved in willing and doing something. For in this analysis, intention seems to precede ·deliberating, judging, and choosing, and so, as deliberating, judging, and choosing often present themselves to consciousness distinctly, intention is presented in this analysis as if it were a distinct content of consciousness. When intention is so conceived, iit becomes possible to imagine that one can, so to speak, choose to direct (an) intention to or withhold it from the various aspects of one's chosen behavior, e.g. it.hose consequences which one foresees and welcomes or those one chooses to bring about onJ.y with regret. To some contemporary moralists, such approving or regretting of consequences is precisely what engages or disengages one's will and thus one's responsibility; what Christians or Jews used to regard as immoral can be uprightly done if done merely as a means to good ends and only with reluctance, I JOHN FINNIS regret, disapproval, i.e. if in no way approved or adopted as an end, i.e. if not really intended.1 Other modern moralists deny that one's responsibility for consequences of deliberate behavior can be so dependent on an inner ruct of intending (as distinct from the choosing and doing) ; they judge one responsible for everything one deliberately and with foresight causes.2 So they too reject the " doctrine " of double effect which Christian moralists had articulated as a development or codification of the elements of St. Thomas's discussion of self-defense, a disoussion whose first premise is that a human ad is specified (i.e. identified for the purposes of moral assessment) by its intention. Today there are other moralists again who combine the two foregoing lines of thought: they reject the doctrine of double effect as giving exaggernted importance to choice (means) over intention (end); one should take into account alil foreseeable consequences of one's chorce and ensure that it is likely to have a greater proportion of good than of bad consequences, and one must never approve (intend) any bad consequences -one may never deliberately cause them as ends hut only as means, means which one deliberwtely causes, not for their own sake, hut only for the sake of those proportionately greater good (or less bad) consequences which one does intend.8 1 Cf., e.g., Richard McCormick, S.J., "Medicaid and.Abortion," Theological Studies 45 (1984): 716-717. 2 Cf. Bruno Schueller, "The Double Effect in Catholic Thought: A Re· evaluation," in McCormick and Ramsey, Doimg Evil to Achieve Good (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1978), 191: "... 'intend as a means' and 'permit', when referring to a non-moral evil, denote exactly the same mental attitude." Schueller, "La moraliM des moyens," Recherches de Science Religieuse 68 (1980) : 211 (causilng moral evil is never justified, causing non-moral evils is justified in pursuit of non-moral good of corresponding importance); 221· 2: "pour tous les biens dont la possession contribue au bien-etre de l'homme... [q]uoi que l'on choisisse... les consequences negatives qui resultent du choix sont un pur moyen en vue des consequences positives qui en resultent." s Cf. K.-H. Peschke, "Tragfaehigkeit und Grenzen des Prinzips der Doppelwirkung," Studia Moralia 26 (1988): 110-112, where Peschke states the "principle of double effect" (which he ascribes to Catholic theology and attacks ) in terms not of what is directly or... (shrink)

RESUMEN La formación de profesionales competentes y comprometidos con el ideal de justicia social y solidaridad humana es un reto para las universidades médicas en Cuba. El protagonismo estudiantil en este contexto contribuye a formar jóvenes autodeterminados, críticos, reflexivos, que se hagan cargo de su desarrollo profesional y participen de forma creadora en la transformación de la sociedad. Se realizó una investigación cualitativa en la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Camagüey, con el objetivo de valorar la visión que tienen los (...) líderes estudiantiles sobre el protagonismo estudiantil, los factores que lo limitan y acciones para perfeccionarlo. Se utilizaron las técnicas entrevista estructurada, entrevista grupal y observación participante a una muestra de once dirigentes estudiantiles. Se logró identificar que los dirigentes estudiantiles tienen una visión acertada sobre el protagonismo estudiantil y señalan factores que limitan el protagonismo, asociados a los propios estudiantes, los profesores, las autoridades universitarias y la institución. ABSTARCT The formation of competent and committed professionals with the ideal of social justice and human solidarity is a challenge for the medical universities in Cuba. The student-leading role in this context helps to form self-determined, critical, reflective young people, who take charge of his professional development and take part of creative form in the transformation of the society. A qualitative investigation was carried out in the University of Medical Sciences, with the objective to value the vision that the student leaders have on the student-leading role, the factors that limit it and actions to perfect it. There used the techniques structured interview, group interview and taking part observation to a sample of eleven student leaders. It was identified that the student leaders have an appropriate vision on the student-leading role and indicated factors that limit the leading role, associated with the proper students, the teachers, the university authorities and the institution. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Philosophy Can't Say About Literature:Stanley Cavell and EndgameBenjamin H. OgdenIn "Ending the Waiting Game," the philosopher of ordinary language Stanley Cavell attempts to say what Samuel Beckett's Endgame means by explaining what the characters in the play mean by what they say. Cavell attempts to do the very thing that the work says cannot be done, or mocks as foolish and misguided, or resists giving clues to how (...) it could ever be done: he tries to say just "how Beckett's objects mean at all, the original source of their conviction."1 This is not simply a reading tactic that Cavell thinks is well-suited to the difficult task of making sense of a difficult play. It is a demonstration of the theory of language (ordinary language philosophy) that Cavell defends and applies in his collection of essays Must We Mean What We Say?, of which "Ending the Waiting Game" is a chapter. Cavell's literary criticism is in the service of his philosophy. His work of criticism is in search of something that it must find (that is, something that it claims to have found even when it may not have); what it must find is a work of literature that demonstrates the utility and validity of ordinary language philosophy.If we are to take issue with Cavell for too strenuously transposing philosophy onto literature, then we must also know something of the philosophy he draws upon. Ordinary language philosophy traces its origins to Wittgenstein, and was popularized by J. L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle at Oxford in the 1940's. It is a branch of analytic philosophy that foregoes any attempt to create an "ideal philosophical language" of the sort Wittgenstein developed in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Instead of seeing the abstractions and ambiguities of ordinary usage as something to be supplanted by a more logically rigorous system, ordinary language philosophers argue that debates over the meaning [End Page 126] of abstract terms come about precisely because words are removed from their ordinary context. For Cavell, the whole idea of an "ideal language" is absurd because, as anyone who has ever tried to learn a foreign language knows, every language has its own unique set of usages and idioms and unspoken rules. In order to speak a language properly, then, one cannot just know the dictionary or formal definitions of words (its "ideal" generative grammar), but must understand the "natural environment" in which phrases and words are logical or appropriate. Often these contexts (which determine the rules for "what we should say when" [p. 20]) invest words with meanings that you won't find in any dictionary, and cannot be catalogued in a grammatical or syntactical system.So, if one asks, "Did you dress that way voluntarily?" (p. 9), the word "voluntarily" takes on a meaning that is not included among its dictionary definitions (according to Cavell). Clearly, in asking whether you dress voluntarily one is not asking whether you have free-will to dress as you please, but is calling attention to the funny way you dress. In this case, successful communication is only possible if the one who is being questioned understands from context and the ordinary use of language precisely what is being asked. If he answers, "Of course I dressed voluntarily, I believe in free will," he will have misspoken, been incorrect. Clearly, he doesn't understand what the question must mean because the statement "MUST MEAN that my clothes are peculiar" (p. 9). For it to mean anything else would be a mistake and a misuse of language by the speaker, or a misunderstanding of language by the listener. To learn a language (which for Cavell means to become like a native speaker) is to learn the nature of the contingency between the explicit meaning of an expression and the occasion on which an expression is appropriate, and to be aware of what you must mean when you speak (what you cannot help but mean or imply by the language you use).What this means is that for Cavell reading literature becomes a process of readers "naturalizing ourselves to a new form of life, a new... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:F/Actual Knowing:Putting Facts and Values in PlaceHolmes Rolston III (bio)Knowing needs to be actualized, an act of ours, yet also a discovery of what is actually, factually there. In place ourselves, we manage some awareness of other places. Agents in our knowing, we co-respond, and this emplaces us. But we humans have powers of dis-placement too, of taking up, whether empathetically or objectively, the situations of others, other (...) humans, sometimes others than humans. How do our facts depend on our acts? Do we humans always put in place, or sometimes find put, placed there before us, what we variously value on Earth?To put this provocatively: We need to "green" our beliefs; but every educated person knows that nothing out there is really "green." "Seeing green" is an interaction experience. Perhaps this perceptual experience is a model for the whole: all of our human concepts and percepts color up the world. This is true alike of facts and of values, discoveries and evaluations. Such knowing might be well enough placed, but it is always and only "placed." Our geographical position controls our epistemic composition. Epistemology is inevitably anthropocentric; we are always located in the center of our knowing.But what if the "green" we see is mostly chlorophyll? Photosynthesis is not something we can see at all. In place on Earth, we humans breathe oxygen and would die in minutes without it; we depend on photosynthesis at the foundation of our food chains. We know our own respiratory [End Page 137] and trophic interactions with the plants, and this not simply at the native range experiences of breathing and eating. We have figured out the oxygen/carbon-dioxide/water cycles taking place at molecular levels.Now it seems, however, that we are discovering ourselves placed where the facts are bigger than our acts, including our respiratory (and perceptual) interactions; these extend systemically and are hardly anthropocentric. Epistemologically, we have more to evaluate. "Greening" our belief, environmentally grounding it, will require knowing and appropriately respecting these vital life processes—of which we are a part, but which also are "in place" and "take place" apart from us.1. Embodied, Knowledgeable PersonsWhatever knowledge we gain has to "come through" at our native range. That seems uncontroversial, but what are the implications? Knowledge is relative to our location, our embodiment, our size, our terrestrial habitat. This situation constricts, it may be claimed, what can "come through." Mark Johnson concludes: "Our consciousness and rationality are tied to our bodily orientations and interactions in and with our environment. Our embodiment is essential to who we are, to what meaning is, and to our ability to draw rational inferences and to be creative." He urges us to "put the body back into the mind," that is, epistemologically, to become aware of how the body is there, willy-nilly (1987, xxxviii, xxxvi). Joining with George Lakoff, he claims: "Reason, even in its most abstract form, makes use of, rather than transcends, our animal nature" (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 4).Katherine Hayles continues: "To be incorporated within a different body would be to live in a different world." She features "interactivity" and explains:Interactivity foregrounds rather than obscures the importance of embodiment. In the interaction model, the body does more than provide a biological support system for the mind. Interaction is possible only because we are embodied, and the precise conditions of our embodiment have everything to do with the nature of those interactions. The range and nature of sensory stimuli available to us, the contexts that affect how those sensory stimuli achieve meaning, the habituated movements and postures that we learn through culture and that are encoded for gender, ethnicity, and class—all affect how learning takes place and how the world comes into being for us.(1995, 56) [End Page 138]All this seems true, if one means that with reincarnation our native range experiences would be different. Wolves have keen noses and with them they experience, if you like, a different world. But the survival value of wolf noses, a situated knowledge for them, is equally true for humans, wolves, and elk, because all three... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Can The Psychopathologized Speak?Notes on Social Objectivity and Psychiatric ScienceAwais Aftab*, MD (bio)In "Exclusion of Psychopathologized Standpoints Due to Hermeneutical Ignorance Undermines Psychiatric Objectivity" (2022), Bennett Knox offers a compelling argument that failure of psychiatric community to engage with the "psychopathologized" in processes such as the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) constitutes a form of epistemic injustice and threatens the social objectivity of (...) psychiatric science. I find myself in agreement with the central thesis and I am glad to see it articulated so well by Knox. While it is clear that the exclusion of psychopathologized standpoints in psychiatric science cannot be justified, there are issues that arise that require further clarification, and may generate disagreements, when we consider the complexities of how this inclusion is to take place, what requirements can be imposed on this process of inclusion, and the relationship between the DSM and psychiatric science broadly when it comes to social objectivity.The Methodological Objectivity of the DSM Does Not Exhaust the Methodological Objectivity of Psychiatric ScienceThe DSM is a nosological project within a particular historical context, operating with a certain set of assumptions (Aftab & Ryznar, 2021). The DSM has limitations in terms of what sorts of perspectives it can meaningfully incorporate, but the limitations of the DSM are not the limitations of psychiatric science. This is because psychiatric science is a pluralistic domain and includes many different methodologies and perspectives (Jerotic & Aftab, 2021). As one example, the DSM is poorly equipped to capture the phenomenology of psychiatric conditions. It is not something that it sets out to do. This, however, only becomes a serious problem if we adopt the attitude "if it's not in the DSM then it doesn't really count." Unfortunately, many in the psychiatric community have [End Page 267] adopted this sort of attitude, at least implicitly, resulting in a serious neglect of phenomenology (and various other perspectives, including those of the psychopathologized), leading Nancy Andreasen to bemoan the "death of phenomenology." (Andreasen, 2007) The DSM is methodologically limited by design; there are things that it will fail to do. The appropriate response is to acknowledge these inherent limitations. Other perspectives such as neurodiversity or Hearing Voices Movement also bring their own sets of assumptions and limitations. The DSM is simply one element, one perspective, one methodology in a scientific field that is capable of and ought to adopt a plurality of perspectives and methodologies. This is worth pointing out because Knox appears to assume that if it proves difficult or impossible for the DSM to include radically diverse perspectives, then "all the worse for psychiatry's objectivity." If it is impossible for the DSM, that does not mean that it is also impossible for psychiatric science.1In Determining What Counts as Inappropriate Exclusion, What Is the Role of Scientific Expertise?Longino herself brings up this question: "in determining what counts as inappropriate exclusion of dissenting perspectives, does it matter what kind of issue is involved? Are the duties of inclusion different when the question is, Should we be trying to learn about such and such, for example, atomic fission? than when it is, Is atomic fission a controllable or uncontrollable process?" (Longino, 2002, p. 133) The danger that needs to be averted here is that of trivializing expertise and placing experts on an equal footing with non-experts, a danger that is strikingly illustrated by our social response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.Take an example from medicine. Individuals with lung cancer have a lot to offer when it comes to the treatment of lung cancer, including their experiences of care, and choice of, say, aggressive chemotherapy vs palliative comfort care, etc. but how much do they have to contribute on the matter of the histopathological classification of lung cancer? Consider the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) (Kotov et al., 2021). This quantitative nosological project has a very specific aim: to determine the patterns of covariation among psychiatric symptoms using statistical techniques such as factor analysis. This... (shrink)

Even good lawyers get a bad rap. One explanation for this is that the professional rules governing lawyers permit and even require behavior that strikes many as immoral. The standard accounts of legal ethics that seek to defend these professional rules do little to dispel this air of immorality. The revisionary accounts of legal ethics that criticize the professional rules inject a hearty dose of morality, but at the cost of leaving lawyers unrecognizable as lawyers. This article suggests that the (...) problem with both the professional rules and the extant accounts of legal ethics is that they treat the role of lawyer as largely uniform, whereas lawyers actually serve several importantly different roles in different contexts. The central insight of the article is that legal ethics must be fundamentally context-sensitive: what lawyers are morally permitted or required to do depends on the background context in which they are working. Additionally, by taking context into account, this article is the first to present a theory of legal ethics as appropriately shaped and constrained by normative political philosophy and norms of political legitimacy. -/- Specifically, the article argues that people act as lawyers in three different contexts: State v. Individual (situations in which the State seeks to apply some general law to a particular individual), Individual v. Individual (situations in which private individuals are engaged in a dispute), and Individual v. State (situations in which individuals object to State conduct on constitutional or other grounds unrelated to the question of whether a general law applies to their particular case); that the value of lawyers, qua lawyers, stems from a different source in each of these contexts; and that a theory of legal ethics must take into account both of these first two claims. This article develops one such theory - the Multi-Context View. To demonstrate how the theory applies in practice, the article applies the Multi-Context View to two significant issues in legal ethics: the ethical issues involved in deciding whether to represent a client and the moral permissibility of the use of tactical delay. (shrink)

Crafted within a knowledge-first epistemological framework, Mona Simion’s engaging and wide-ranging work ensures that both the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) and Classical Invariantism (CI) can be part of a viable and productive research program.Dissatisfied with current strategies on offer in the literature, she successfully counters objections to the pair sourced in “shiftiness intuitions”—intuitions that seem to indicate that mere changes in practical context can impact the propriety of assertions and knowledge attributions. For example, in Keith DeRose’s famous pair of (...) low stakes versus high stakes bank cases, the consequences of Keith’s acting on The bank is open on Saturday if it were false change from trivial in low stakes to catastrophic in high stakes. We are to suppose that the proposition is true, and that Keith has access to the same quantity and quality of evidence for it in both cases. In low stakes, but not in high stakes, we are inclined to think that Keith can appropriately assert to his inquiring wife “The bank is open on Saturday.” In low stakes, Keith’s knowledge ascription “I know that the bank is open on Saturday” strikes us as aptly asserted and true. In high stakes only a knowledge denial on Keith’s part strikes us as aptly asserted and true.If we want to hang on to KNA, it looks like we will have to abandon CI and concede that ‘knows’ or knowledge is sensitive to changes in practical considerations. If we want to retain CI, we can try to say that, while Keith does still know that the bank is open on Saturday in high stakes, he does not have sufficient warrant to properly assert that it is. But such a move seems to run counter to KNA. We appear to be stuck in the Shiftiness Dilemma.Keen to get us out of the dilemma and to preserve the idea that epistemically good thinking and asserting are independent of practical concerns, Simion suggests a strategy that can also be used to protect other epistemic speech-act norms and notions from similar threats of practical shiftiness. She notes that having an impact on the degree of epistemic warrant required is not enough to make a norm an epistemic one. Fair enough. If I am given strong practical reason (a million dollars, or a gun to the head) not to adopt full belief until I have gathered more evidence, there is potentially some nonepistemic norm at work in the demand for further evidence. So it is a live possibility (indeed, a plausible one, as Simion would say) that our intuitions in the Shiftiness Dilemma are being misdescribed: they are tracking all-things-considered propriety of assertion, not epistemic propriety. In high stakes, practical norms override the epistemic norm KNA. Keith’s asserting “The bank is open on Saturday” would be epistemically proper but all-things-considered improper.Simion backs up her account with an etiological-function origin story and typology for the norms of assertion. Here is her characterization of etiological function for traits, artifacts, and actions. E-function.A token of type T has the e-function of type B of producing effect E in a system S iff (1) tokens of T produced E in the past, (2) producing E resulted in benefit of type B in S/S’s ancestors, and (3) producing E’s having B-benefited S’s ancestors contributes to the explanation of why T exists in S.In this schema, norms governing an action are typed by the functions or purposes of the action, which in turn are typed by the benefits the action delivers. The epistemic norm of assertion will be the one that characteristically and reliably enables participants in the practice of assertion to secure its primary epistemic good, which Simion identifies as knowledge (testimonial knowledge in hearers generated under normal conditions by the assertions of knowledgeable speakers). Moves in a practice either directly or indirectly aim at fulfilling the goal of the practice. Assertion is a move in the practice of inquiry, which has the generation of knowledge as its aim. Hence, Simion concludes, assertion aims at generating knowledge.This account helps to explain why, in cases like high stakes, Keith all-things-considered ought not to assert “The bank is open on Saturday,” even though he knows it is true. Prudential norms of assertion override the epistemic KNA, for when multiple functions come into conflict, the ones that are more important to the survival of the organism will generate weightier normative constraints.Simion then applies her account to the general category of constatives—for example, speech acts that express a speaker’s belief and the intention that the hearer form or continue to hold the like belief. Employing the taxonomy of Bach and Harnish, she argues that, as expressions of belief and hence varieties of assertion, constatives are subject to knowledge norms as well. Bach and Harnish identify fifteen different subcategories of constatives, each characterized in terms of the kind of belief and intention they express. The norms governing a species have to be at least as strong as the norms governing the corresponding type. As species of the type assertion, each subcategory, then, is subject to at least the necessary direction of KNA. Ultimately, we arrive at a knowledge norm for every speech act on the list, such as The Knowledge Norm of Conjecture (KNC):One’s conjecture that p is epistemically permissible only if one knows that there is reason, but not sufficient reason, to believe that p. Most of the proposed interpretations of various constatives are on the whole reasonable enough, though J. L. Austin would surely be unhappy to see so many different speech acts fashioned into varieties of assertion. Simion concludes with reflections on conjecturing, telling, and moral assertion.Construing the challenge of shiftiness intuitions in terms of the Shiftiness Dilemma allows Simion to declare success when the compatibility of KNA and CI with the relevant data of intuition is secured. Ensuring empirical adequacy for an explanatory framework is an important step, but pronouncements of victory by way of inference to the best explanation would be premature.Other candidates have been shown to match KNA’s familiar explanatory successes (involving lottery propositions, Moorean statements, etc.). Unlike KNA, alternatives that require only epistemically justified or rational belief or credence can allow that a subject is epistemically proper to assert what they believe when their belief is epistemically rational, even under conditions where there are defeating reasons that they are not in a position to be aware of. Furthermore, such norms seem better suited for philosophical or heated moral discussions where there is little consensus and individuals routinely fail to know that what they assert is true. Simion sounds the alarm that the Shiftiness Dilemma threatens to generalize “to epistemic normativity as a whole” (xi–xii), but norms concerning rational credence seem particularly immune.As Simion notes, the etiological-function model of norms that she proposes could be rebuilt with a different central epistemic aim at its core. Indeed, Millikan-inspired models along these lines are appealed to in other areas in philosophy where the concept of information takes center stage—a concept that may be more amenable to rigorous definition and use in dialogue with the sciences than knowledge. We can wonder, also, what special weight the etiological-function model accords to a knowledge-first perspective on epistemic normativity when the model is malleable in this way.The effectiveness of Simion’s strategy for shielding epistemically good thinking and assertion from practical shiftiness becomes less apparent when we try to apply it to Keith’s belief or judgment that the knowledge ascription/denial he asserts is true. It is unclear whether we are to suppose that, in high stakes, Keith epistemically ought to believe/judge that his asserted knowledge denial is false, but all-things-considered he ought to believe/judge that it is true. We do not have to accept that the knowledge-first, etiological function account of normativity for assertion carries over to belief, of course, but then what progress have we made in accounting for the shiftiness in Keith’s judgment that he knows the bank is open on Saturday in low stakes but not in high stakes?Furthermore, there are other ways to generate problems for fallibilist Classical Invariantists in low versus high stakes pairs of cases. Here is a simplified version of a puzzle from the debate over pragmatic encroachment. Consider low cases where you meet the invariant standards for knowing that p, but your justified confidence falls short of certainty. Among these cases, there must be some where you also meet the invariant standards for knowing that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. Say, for instance, that you have a machine with a ϕ button, and your machine, which you know to be extremely reliable, tells you what the cost or benefit will be if you push the button and p is true versus if p is false. If you ϕ (push the ϕ button) and p is true, you win one hundred dollars; if you ϕ and p is false, you lose one hundred dollars. You face the choice: to ϕ or not to ϕ. Since you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, you rationally conclude that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, and hence that you ought to ϕ. If you know which choice of action has the best overall outcome, that is what you all-things-considered should do. Now consider high, where the quantity and quality of your evidence for p is the same, and you still know that your machine is extremely reliable. This time, however, the machine tells you that if you push ϕ and p is true, you win one hundred dollars, but if you push ϕ and p is false, you lose $1 million. Your rational confidence in p is not high enough to justify pushing the button, so you rationally conclude that you ought not to ϕ. Since in high nothing evidentially relevant has changed (all that has changed is the machine informing you of a new, more serious cost of acting on p if p is false), the classical invariantist will have to say that you still know that ϕ, and you still know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. So, according to CI, you should still be able to reason properly as follows: you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, so you know that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, hence you ought to ϕ. Classical invariantists owe us an explanation concerning how we can avoid the paradox here without conceding that knowledge is practically shifty. (shrink)

This article explores the problems of Russian engineering in the context of the world studies in philosophy of engineering. Firstly, the author highlights the main questions and topics of the modern philosophy of engineering: what engineering is, the “magic” and “human-oriented” nature of technologies, and models of engineering ethics. Secondly, the article presents a specific mythological narrative of domestic engineers (“the theory of a missed chance”) and shows the inclusion of this “theory” in alternate historical fiction. Thirdly, the article identifies (...) the reasons for emergence of such mythology in the engineering environment. The author highlights a historical context of “missed chances” for the turning of technical inventions into innovations and claims that the country's engineering potential was not used to a full extent. For greater objectivity, the article uses the works both of foreign and domestic researchers. In addition, the author raised a question about the relatedness of the concepts of engineer and innovation. Finally, the article gives an answer to the question about the essence of the engineer; the author believes that the engineering is primarily an environment, close to the human life world, understanding and maintaining the links between science and technology, providing the necessary channels for transforming inventions into innovations, i.e. commercially realized technologies. The given definition demonstrates the prospects for the development of socio-humanitarian research in the field of engineering. (shrink)

Humankind is concerned with scientific enquiry because humans want to understand the milieu in which they find themselves. They want to engineer and reliably control or cooperatively modulate as much of the environment as possible to sustain, enrich, and propagate their lives. Following this path, the goal of science is to gain a reliable description of all natural phenomena so as to allow accurate prediction (within appropriate limits) of nature’s behavior as a function of an ever-changing environment. As such, science (...) is incapable of providing us with absolute truth. Rather, it provides relative knowledge, internally self-consistent knowledge, about the relationships between different phenomena and between different things. The goal of engineering, on the other hand, is to build on this fundamental understanding to generate new materials, devices, structures, attitudes, moralities, philosophies, and so on, for producing tangible order, harnessing the latent potential in nature’s phenomena and expanding human capabilities in an ever-changing environment. In this context, medicine is to human biology as engineering is to physical science. As each of us rides the “river of life,” the great consciousness adventure, we perceive events occurring around us, but more often than not, we do not perceive the total information content inherent in those events nor the true reality of those events. The latter point is so because what we take as the reality of an observation is actually a convolution between (1) what our sensory system actually senses and (2) our mindset or belief structure that filters and/or selectively amplifies segments of the basic gathered data stream. Further, only what we call the five physical senses are well-developed and integrated in our overall sensory system, so only a portion of the total available data becomes our basic internal data stream. We are thus always making personal observations through the distorting and spectrally-limited lens of our mindsets, and we have no way at present to perform a deconvolution and perceive the pure information inherent in our basic input data stream. By using designed instruments to access information patterns in nature, we gain a more objective perspective of these events. However, we must always remember that these instruments were designed on the basis of the logic of our average cognitive development and therefore probably also have only a limited access to the total information spectrum for these events occurring in nature. In particular, these instruments only respond to positive energies. Over the course of the past four to five centuries, we have learned how to conduct true scientific investigations, first under the rubric of classical mechanics and, more recently, quantum mechanics. Let us now look a little more deeply to see what this means. (shrink)

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash ABSTRACT The coverage of healthcare costs allegedly brought about by people’s own earlier health-adverse behaviors is certainly a matter of justice. However, this raises the following questions: justice for whom? Is it right to take people’s past behaviors into account in determining their access to healthcare? If so, how do we go about taking those behaviors into account? These bioethical questions become even more complex when we consider them in the context (...) of a commitment to publicly funded, universal healthcare coverage. INTRODUCTION Healthcare coverage of lifestyle-related conditions is certainly a matter of justice. However, this raises the following justice-related question: Is it right to consider people’s past behaviors in determining their access to healthcare? If so, the methods of taking those behaviors into account must be fair and justifiable. This bioethical question becomes even more complex when we consider it in the context of a commitment to publicly funded, universal healthcare coverage. This paper takes an old, classic debate, evaluates newer approaches, and offers an argument favoring a combined approach which alters the liberal-egalitarian solution to account for social justice. ANALYSIS I. Causes of Disease If healthcare coverage were universal, irrespective of socioeconomic status and lifestyle, people would contribute to the cost of remedying the lifestyle-induced health problems of others. In the West, lifestyle-related diseases are burdensome.[i] This paper approaches this concern from a western lens that incorporates both a European tradition of “social safety nets” and an American tradition of personal freedoms. By taking such an approach, solutions to the consequences of one’s past behavior burdening others must consider an individual’s personal freedom to choose to act as he or she wishes, with the distributive social and economic equality of the many. The concept of disease caused by lifestyle and diet is proven. Many health conditions include behavioral risk factors. Multi-pack smoking increases the risk of chronic lung disease, while obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Inattention to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a lack of exercise leads to increased risks of coronary artery disease.[ii] While poor lifestyle choices certainly influence these conditions, their causes are multifactorial, and it is difficult to say that any single string of poor choices led to their development. In a scenario where two men excessively eat fast food for 20 years, several discrete factors impact whether any of them might suffer an ischemic-embolic stroke or not. Genetics, circumstances, and activity will also contribute to outcomes. II. Alcohol-Related End-Stage Liver Disease One paper suggests that alcohol-related end-stage liver disease (ARESLD) differs from other multifactorial disorders as alcohol alone causes the disease.[iii] It justifies attributing personal responsibility to patients with ARESLD because the condition develops only after the cumulative effects of large quantities of alcohol consumed from years to decades.[iv] However, the paper undermines its position by admitting that even the susceptibility to becoming an alcoholic has some degree of genetic predisposition.[v] Given the extreme scarcity of donor livers, some patients may be prioritized over others on the transplant waiting list. Since donor livers cannot be given to everyone, transplanting a liver into an alcoholic may result in death for competing candidates whose liver disease was not their fault. All else being equal, if bioethicists avoid claiming moral deficiency or judgment, those with apparently self-inflicted ARESLD will not be deprived of treatment but will have a lower priority for transplant.[vi] In contrast, another position suggests that it is often difficult to define what behaviors are punishable as these are largely personal and value-laden.[vii] Still, people do not support using their own resources to support the consequences of others’ poor choices, no matter how objective.[viii] In democratic societies, one must take into consideration community morals and values.[ix] Even if we were to punish people for their health-adverse behaviors, we could not logistically employ the vigorous and sustained efforts necessary to determine whose actions are morally weak.[x] III. The Liberal-Egalitarian Proposal One past argument proposes a liberal-egalitarian solution to manage personal responsibility for so-called “lifestyle diseases.”[xi] This Rawlsian system combines the European-style “social safety net” commitment to social and economic equality with the American liberal notion of pluralist toleration and personal freedoms. This idealized system aims to hold people responsible for their choices rather than the consequences to mitigate the downside of blaming those who might not be blameworthy. The approach avoids determining the questionable nature of luck and personal responsibility for health outcomes, fairness in the distribution of economic burden, and the intrusiveness required to practically determine who acts in a morally wrong and health-adverse way. The liberal-egalitarian model, a theory of distributive justice, has two facets: the liberal principle that people should be held accountable for their choices and the egalitarian principle that people who make the same choices should have the same outcomes.[xii] This model attempts to fuse responsibility with equity by seeking to reward good behavior and tax bad behavior rather than punish the consequences of the action and navigate who deserves treatment. For instance, the hospital bedside is not the appropriate place to introduce responsibility for one’s health outcomes.[xiii] This appeals to the reality that, at that time, discerning the true causes of disease was not plausible and to humanity in avoiding a heartless and cruel approach. An argument in favor of the liberal-egalitarian model considers its method of implementation. This approach assumes that the healthcare system treats all individuals regardless of their choices or ability to cover costs. The liberal-egalitarian model also assumes that a certain adverse health condition is related, statistically speaking, to the consumption of a certain good and that good can be taxed. As such, it proposes to tax the consumption of that good to finance the collective burden which arises from that good’s consumption rather than require individuals to pay for their own treatment. In the example of ARESLD, the recommended solution would be taxing all alcohol. While a systematic infrastructure is not explicit, there is the implication that a per-unit tax can be imposed on alcohol so the total tax revenue would make up for the additional healthcare costs due to consumption.[xiv] Upholding the principle that all people who make the same choices should face the same costs, all consumers of alcohol would pay the same tax, regardless of factors such as genetic predisposition to alcoholism, lifestyle, or expected cost of treatment. Upholding the principle of individual responsibility, this model does not deny treatment to anyone, neutralizing factors outside that individual’s control by imposing the tax ex-ante. Other people are not burdened by those who consume the good. People who consume alcohol face a burden proportional to the amount consumed. This tax-based implementation is justified so long as the tax is not prohibitively high for the average consumer. Further, the model mitigates concerns over the intrusiveness of ascribing morality to health-adverse behaviors. IV. Moral and Social Arguments Against the Liberal-Egalitarian Position Arguments against the liberal-egalitarian model concerns its many assumptions. First, this model assumes that consumption of such goods is directly related to the health outcome and that these goods can be taxed.[xv] Certain people genetically predisposed to alcoholism would be predisposed to consume more alcohol. The model falls short when applied to scenarios where health outcomes are not consumption-based, such as engaging in unsafe sex or abstaining from healthy lifestyle choices like exercise. Second, some might argue that the liberal-egalitarian model fails to remain neutral. Residual moral judgments tied to consumption choices introduce non-neutrality. Although taxation in free societies is determined by democratic procedures rather than by individuals in the healthcare system, moral and value-based judgments will be implicit in deciding what behaviors are taxable, such as the purchase of cigarettes. Third, the liberal-egalitarian model fails to determine whether one’s behavior is autonomous, as socio-cultural-economic factors may influence it and behavior is more a product of society, peer pressure, or income. Those also may reflect systemic inequalities. Therefore, this model, which rewards, or taxes based solely on decisions, regardless of their consequences and motivations, fails to consider that a person’s decisions may not be completely autonomous. V. Libertarian Arguments Against the Liberal-Egalitarian Model a. State Intrusiveness as Counter to the Liberal-Egalitarian Model Last, there is a libertarian worry that if the state guarantees universal healthcare coverage to all people, the state will have to become highly intrusive and investigate people’s morals.[xvi] At least one-third of all disease burden in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific is attributable to lifestyle measures such as tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, high cholesterol, and obesity.[xvii] With these various lifestyles, it is not likely to agree on what conduct to tax or condemn.[xviii] The fine-toothed comb required to determine whether each citizen has been engaging in these behaviors would intrude on daily life and personal freedom. Libertarians champion the argument that impractical intrusiveness would result from universal healthcare, and such a degree of intrusiveness would likely be universally unacceptable.[xix] The liberal-egalitarian model mitigates the libertarian worry about state intrusiveness as it does not involve prying into one’s life and choices other than taxing goods. A liberal state should ideally be neutral to how people decide to live their lives. In all, libertarians can rest assured that the liberal-egalitarian tax-based model, through its ex-ante implementation, will require no prying state eyes. States that provide universal healthcare coverage and wish to condemn certain misconduct do not need to become overly intrusive to carry out measures to hold individuals accountable. b. Fairness Another libertarian worry regarding the guarantee of universal healthcare coverage in the context of lifestyle-driven diseases is that the public will be burdened unfairly with covering others’ ill-advised mistakes or bad luck. An ideal system to address this worry would link treatment or payment for treatment with whatever behavior caused that need.[xx] The distribution of burdens should be linked to how different individuals contributed to the creation of those burdens. Applied to health policy, we should ask how the need for a certain treatment arose when determining how to distribute its cost.[xxi] The liberal-egalitarian model aspires to hold individuals responsible for their choices, not for the consequences of such choices. This model significantly mitigates the libertarian worry over unfair burdens for covering other people’s mistakes or social conditions, which lead to those bad outcomes, by ensuring to not burden others with any of the costs for the treatment of people who decide to engage in certain health-adverse behaviors. The aforementioned taxation-based system would only tax those who also engage in the health-adverse behavior through consumption, and that tax directly pays for the necessary collective treatment. As such, those who do not consume the good are not involved with the payment scheme, while those who do consume the good are responsible for payment in a matter proportional to the amount of the good they have consumed. VI. Universal Coverage Taking a step back, one should consider whether these worries regarding the coverage of apparently self-inflicted health conditions in the context of universal healthcare are worthwhile issues. One perspective raises what is called the culturally imagined objection — an idea erroneously held by many that sick people, especially those who are poor and uneducated, bring these illnesses upon themselves due to poor decision-making and irresponsible risk-taking.[xxii] This perspective critiques the uniquely American view that, since individuals are free to choose their lifestyles, they should bear the costs of their lifestyle.[xxiii] Taking this argument further, some (perhaps the strongly libertarian) would say that the poor health status among many individuals is the price individuals must pay for their American way of life and the liberty and freedom to live as they wish. However, people should not completely punish individuals for their health-adverse behaviors because these choices are largely pre-determined by a person’s socioeconomic influences.[xxiv] The outcomes from these allegedly ill-advised behaviors, which largely affect poorer people, are not just poor behavior but rather a public health crisis. Perhaps the state and its people should take collective responsibility and cover the costs of treatment for those health outcomes without question, as a form of public service. Rather than worrying about accountability and taxing bad behavior or intrusiveness into personal decisions, some might argue that people need to collectively take responsibility for reducing the overarching systemic inequalities and covering the associated treatment costs as a measure of public health. VII. Proposed Solution Given the strengths of the liberal-egalitarian model and taking into account libertarian and social justice-oriented objections, an ideal solution for the coverage of lifestyle-related health problems needs to consider the complex relationship between a person’s behaviors and their apparent health outcomes. It must consider how society as a whole passes judgment on behaviors and how to take into account that many health-adverse decisions are not truly autonomous decisions, as various genetic and socioeconomic factors influence them. An ideal solution combines the liberal-egalitarian tax-based model with the social justice concerns of universal coverage. Whatever the cost for the treatment of medical issues resulting in part or entirely from lifestyle and diet, taxes collected from spending associated with the behavior (like the purchase of alcohol, junk food, and cigarettes) ex-ante should fund 50 percent of the cost of treatment, while the universal healthcare taxation scheme should include the other 50 percent. Such a system would provide an incentive to avoid the purchases that can lead to unhealthy consumption and make healthier choices, slightly punish and discourage such purchases through taxation, yet not overly punish people whose outcomes may have more to do with socioeconomic factors and genetics. Adding public responsibility demonstrates acknowledgement that health care is in the public interest and can mitigate public health inequalities. This solution would fuse personal responsibility with the public responsibility of state-sponsored social improvement while ensuring that all people have fair access to necessary treatment, no matter their ability to pay. CONCLUSION The 50-50 system this paper proposes reflects both justice and personal responsibility in covering healthcare costs allegedly brought about by people’s own health-adverse behaviors. By allocating tax revenue from consumption that contributes or even alone causes poor health outcomes, such a system incorporates personal responsibility. By using general tax revenue for health care, such a system would meet the libertarian requirement of providing care without any moral investigation of past behaviors and the social justice consideration of providing health care to those who may have unwittingly ventured into ill-health due to systemic injustice, socioeconomics, or genetics. - [i] Cappelen, A. W. (2005). Responsibility in health care: A liberal egalitarian approach. Journal of Medical Ethics, 31(8), 476–480. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2004.010421 [ii] Moss, A. H. (1991). Should alcoholics compete equally for liver transplantation? JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(10), 1295–1298. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1991.03460100097032 [iii] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [iv] Moss, p. 1296. [v] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [vi] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [vii] Cohen, C. IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE COHEN AND BENJAMIN (1991). Alcoholics and liver transplantation. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(10), 1299–1301. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1991.03460100101033 [viii] Cohen, p. 1299-1301. [ix] Moss, p. 1297. [x] Cohen, p. 1300. [xi] Cappelen, p. 478-480. [xii] Cappalen, p. 478-480. [xiii] Cappelen, p.479. [xiv] Cappelen, p. 479. [xv] Cappelen, p. 479 [xvi] Cohen, p. 1301. [xvii] Cappelen, p. 478. [xviii] Cohen, p. 1299-1301. [xix] Cohen, p. 1301. [xx] Cappelen, p. 476-480. [xxi] Cappelen, p. 476-480. [xxii] Kawachi, I. (2005). Why the United States is not number one in Health. Healthy, Wealthy, and Fair, 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195170665.003.0013 [xxiii] Kawachi, p. 18-33. [xxiv] Kawachi, p. 18-33. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 555-575 [Access article in PDF] Measurer of All Things:John Greaves (1602-1652), the Great Pyramid, and Early Modern Metrology Zur Shalev [Figures]Writing from Istanbul to Peter Turner, one of his colleagues at Merton College, Oxford, John Greaves was deeply worried: Onley I wonder that in so long time since I left England I should neither have received my brasse quadrant which I (...) left to be finished for my journey thither, nor any notice of it [...]. I agreed with mr. Allen upon price and the time that he should finish it, if he hath failed me he hath done me the greatest injury that can be. 1A great injury indeed, because Greaves's journey to Italy and the Levant was all about measuring—luckily the instrument did reach him at some later stage. The thirty-six-year-old Professor of Geometry at Gresham College was taking the measurements of countless monuments and objects in the locations he visited. In Rome he measured, among many other ancient structures, Cestius' Pyramid and St. Peter's basilica. In Lucca, deeply impressed, he counted his paces around the beautiful city walls. In Siena he observed together with a "Mathematical Professor" one of the Sidera Medicea using "a glass." In Egypt he even hurt his eyes gazing at the sun, looking for sunspots and measuring its diameter. 2 His measuring mission, however, culminated in the fixing of the [End Page 555] latitudes of Istanbul, Rhodes, and Alexandria. As Bishop Juxton wrote before the trip to Greaves's employers at Gresham College (apparently using Greaves's own promotional language): This worke I find by the best astronomers, especially by Ticho Brache [ sic ] and Kepler, hath beene much desired as tending to the advancement of that science, and I hope it wil be an honour to that nation and prove ours if we first observe it. 3A mathematician-Orientalist, commanding the ancient and modern astronomical and geographical literature of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian authors, Greaves was arguably the best qualified European at the period to perform the task. That he miscalculated the latitude of Rhodes is of less consequence for his present-day readers. 4 However, one of the most obscure and therefore telling of his measurement activities was the survey of the Pyramids of Giza, which resulted in the Pyramidographia (1646). 5 This remarkable learned treatise and travel account hybrid, which is at the focus of the present study, gives us a glimpse into the rich and complex world of scientific antiquarians.Greaves is most conveniently remembered today as an Orientalist. While we must be thankful to Edward Said for broadening the meaning of Orient-alism—from an academic discipline, accumulating objective knowledge of the East, into a much wider cultural discourse, his emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and on the European colonial mindset is less useful for making historical sense of what early modern Orientalists were doing—physically and culturally. We can understand Greaves's "Oriental" enterprise in its [End Page 556] depth and variety only within long established European traditions of scholarship and keeping the intellectual concerns of his time in mind. 6But beyond articulating for us the nature of early Orientalism, the Pyramidographia, as well as Greaves's entire scientific career, situated in their wider European context, provide a fine entry point into a foreign world of learned practices and methods. It teaches us how well into the seventeenth century astronomy and philology, observation and bookishness, could coalesce in one figure, in one enterprise. 7 We still lack a modern biography of Greaves, a complex protagonist of a complex period, and even a full evaluation of his intellectual work. While this paper surely cannot compensate for that, I do attempt here a brief exposition of Greaves's Pyramidographia. 8Modern historians of archaeology and Egyptology, preoccupied mostly with the disciplines' progress and development of scientific standards, have noted the Pyramidographia in passing and praised its precise language and rigorous research... (shrink)

We apply the distinction between parameter independence and outcome independence to the linear and nonlinear models of a recent nonrelativistic theory of continuous state vector reduction. We show that in the nonlinear model there is a set of realizations of the stochastic process that drives the state vector reduction for which parameter independence is violated for parallel spin components in the EPR-Bohm setup. Such a set has an appreciable probability of occurrence (≈ 1/2). On the other hand, the linear model (...) exhibits only extremely small parameter dependence effects. We investigate some specific features of the models and we recall that, as has been pointed out recently, if one wants to be able to speak of definite outcomes (or equivalently of possessed objective elements of reality) at finite times, one has to slightly change the criteria for their attribution to physical systems. The concluding section is devoted to a detailed discussion of the difficulties which one meets when one tries to take, as a starting point for the formulation of a relativistic theory, a nonrelativistic scheme which exhibits parameter dependence. Here we derive a theorem which identifies the precise sense in which the occurrence of parameter dependence forbids a genuinely relativistic generalization. Finally we show how the appreciable parameter dependence of the nonlinear model gives rise to problems with relativity, while the extremely weak parameter dependence of the linear model does not give rise to any difficulty, provided one takes into account the appropriate criteria for the attribution of definite outcomes. (shrink)

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash ABSTRACT The coverage of healthcare costs allegedly brought about by people’s own earlier health-adverse behaviors is certainly a matter of justice. However, this raises the following questions: justice for whom? Is it right to take people’s past behaviors into account in determining their access to healthcare? If so, how do we go about taking those behaviors into account? These bioethical questions become even more complex when we consider them in the context (...) of a commitment to publicly funded, universal healthcare coverage. INTRODUCTION Healthcare coverage of lifestyle-related conditions is certainly a matter of justice. However, this raises the following justice-related question: Is it right to consider people’s past behaviors in determining their access to healthcare? If so, the methods of taking those behaviors into account must be fair and justifiable. This bioethical question becomes even more complex when we consider it in the context of a commitment to publicly funded, universal healthcare coverage. This paper takes an old, classic debate, evaluates newer approaches, and offers an argument favoring a combined approach which alters the liberal-egalitarian solution to account for social justice. ANALYSIS l. Causes of Disease If healthcare coverage were universal, irrespective of socioeconomic status and lifestyle, people would contribute to the cost of remedying the lifestyle-induced health problems of others. In the West, lifestyle-related diseases are burdensome.[1] This paper approaches this concern from a western lens that incorporates both a European tradition of “social safety nets” and an American tradition of personal freedoms. By taking such an approach, solutions to the consequences of one’s past behavior burdening others must consider an individual’s personal freedom to choose to act as he or she wishes, with the distributive social and economic equality of the many. The concept of disease caused by lifestyle and diet is proven. Many health conditions include behavioral risk factors. Multi-pack smoking increases the risk of chronic lung disease, while obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Inattention to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a lack of exercise leads to increased risks of coronary artery disease.[2] While poor lifestyle choices certainly influence these conditions, their causes are multifactorial, and it is difficult to say that any single string of poor choices led to their development. In a scenario where two men excessively eat fast food for 20 years, several discrete factors impact whether any of them might suffer an ischemic-embolic stroke or not. Genetics, circumstances, and activity will also contribute to outcomes. ll. Alcohol-Related End-Stage Liver Disease One paper suggests that alcohol-related end-stage liver disease (ARESLD) differs from other multifactorial disorders as alcohol alone causes the disease.[3] It justifies attributing personal responsibility to patients with ARESLD because the condition develops only after the cumulative effects of large quantities of alcohol consumed from years to decades.[4] However, the paper undermines its position by admitting that even the susceptibility to becoming an alcoholic has some degree of genetic predisposition.[5] Given the extreme scarcity of donor livers, some patients may be prioritized over others on the transplant waiting list. Since donor livers cannot be given to everyone, transplanting a liver into an alcoholic may result in death for competing candidates whose liver disease was not their fault. All else being equal, if bioethicists avoid claiming moral deficiency or judgment, those with apparently self-inflicted ARESLD will not be deprived of treatment but will have a lower priority for transplant.[6] In contrast, another position suggests that it is often difficult to define what behaviors are punishable as these are largely personal and value-laden.[7] Still, people do not support using their own resources to support the consequences of others’ poor choices, no matter how objective.[8] In democratic societies, one must take into consideration community morals and values.[9] Even if we were to punish people for their health-adverse behaviors, we could not logistically employ the vigorous and sustained efforts necessary to determine whose actions are morally weak.[10] lll. The Liberal-Egalitarian Proposal One past argument proposes a liberal-egalitarian solution to manage personal responsibility for so-called “lifestyle diseases.”[11] This Rawlsian system combines the European-style “social safety net” commitment to social and economic equality with the American liberal notion of pluralist toleration and personal freedoms. This idealized system aims to hold people responsible for their choices rather than the consequences to mitigate the downside of blaming those who might not be blameworthy. The approach avoids determining the questionable nature of luck and personal responsibility for health outcomes, fairness in the distribution of economic burden, and the intrusiveness required to practically determine who acts in a morally wrong and health-adverse way. The liberal-egalitarian model, a theory of distributive justice, has two facets: the liberal principle that people should be held accountable for their choices and the egalitarian principle that people who make the same choices should have the same outcomes.[12] This model attempts to fuse responsibility with equity by seeking to reward good behavior and tax bad behavior rather than punish the consequences of the action and navigate who deserves treatment. For instance, the hospital bedside is not the appropriate place to introduce responsibility for one’s health outcomes.[13] This appeals to the reality that, at that time, discerning the true causes of disease was not plausible and to humanity in avoiding a heartless and cruel approach. An argument in favor of the liberal-egalitarian model considers its method of implementation. This approach assumes that the healthcare system treats all individuals regardless of their choices or ability to cover costs. The liberal-egalitarian model also assumes that a certain adverse health condition is related, statistically speaking, to the consumption of a certain good and that good can be taxed. As such, it proposes to tax the consumption of that good to finance the collective burden which arises from that good’s consumption rather than require individuals to pay for their own treatment. In the example of ARESLD, the recommended solution would be taxing all alcohol. While a systematic infrastructure is not explicit, there is the implication that a per-unit tax can be imposed on alcohol so the total tax revenue would make up for the additional healthcare costs due to consumption.[14] Upholding the principle that all people who make the same choices should face the same costs, all consumers of alcohol would pay the same tax, regardless of factors such as genetic predisposition to alcoholism, lifestyle, or expected cost of treatment. Upholding the principle of individual responsibility, this model does not deny treatment to anyone, neutralizing factors outside that individual’s control by imposing the tax ex-ante. Other people are not burdened by those who consume the good. People who consume alcohol face a burden proportional to the amount consumed. This tax-based implementation is justified so long as the tax is not prohibitively high for the average consumer. Further, the model mitigates concerns over the intrusiveness of ascribing morality to health-adverse behaviors. lV. Moral and Social Arguments Against the Liberal-Egalitarian Position Arguments against the liberal-egalitarian model concerns its many assumptions. First, this model assumes that consumption of such goods is directly related to the health outcome and that these goods can be taxed.[15] Certain people genetically predisposed to alcoholism would be predisposed to consume more alcohol. The model falls short when applied to scenarios where health outcomes are not consumption-based, such as engaging in unsafe sex or abstaining from healthy lifestyle choices like exercise. Second, some might argue that the liberal-egalitarian model fails to remain neutral. Residual moral judgments tied to consumption choices introduce non-neutrality. Although taxation in free societies is determined by democratic procedures rather than by individuals in the healthcare system, moral and value-based judgments will be implicit in deciding what behaviors are taxable, such as the purchase of cigarettes. Third, the liberal-egalitarian model fails to determine whether one’s behavior is autonomous, as socio-cultural-economic factors may influence it and behavior is more a product of society, peer pressure, or income. Those also may reflect systemic inequalities. Therefore, this model, which rewards, or taxes based solely on decisions, regardless of their consequences and motivations, fails to consider that a person’s decisions may not be completely autonomous. V. Libertarian Arguments Against the Liberal-Egalitarian Model a. State Intrusiveness as Counter to the Liberal-Egalitarian Model Last, there is a libertarian worry that if the state guarantees universal healthcare coverage to all people, the state will have to become highly intrusive and investigate people’s morals.[16] At least one-third of all disease burden in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific is attributable to lifestyle measures such as tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, high cholesterol, and obesity.[17] With these various lifestyles, it is not likely to agree on what conduct to tax or condemn.[18] The fine-toothed comb required to determine whether each citizen has been engaging in these behaviors would intrude on daily life and personal freedom. Libertarians champion the argument that impractical intrusiveness would result from universal healthcare, and such a degree of intrusiveness would likely be universally unacceptable.[19] The liberal-egalitarian model mitigates the libertarian worry about state intrusiveness as it does not involve prying into one’s life and choices other than taxing goods. A liberal state should ideally be neutral to how people decide to live their lives. In all, libertarians can rest assured that the liberal-egalitarian tax-based model, through its ex-ante implementation, will require no prying state eyes. States that provide universal healthcare coverage and wish to condemn certain misconduct do not need to become overly intrusive to carry out measures to hold individuals accountable. b. Fairness Another libertarian worry regarding the guarantee of universal healthcare coverage in the context of lifestyle-driven diseases is that the public will be burdened unfairly with covering others’ ill-advised mistakes or bad luck. An ideal system to address this worry would link treatment or payment for treatment with whatever behavior caused that need.[20] The distribution of burdens should be linked to how different individuals contributed to the creation of those burdens. Applied to health policy, we should ask how the need for a certain treatment arose when determining how to distribute its cost.[21] The liberal-egalitarian model aspires to hold individuals responsible for their choices, not for the consequences of such choices. This model significantly mitigates the libertarian worry over unfair burdens for covering other people’s mistakes or social conditions, which lead to those bad outcomes, by ensuring to not burden others with any of the costs for the treatment of people who decide to engage in certain health-adverse behaviors. The aforementioned taxation-based system would only tax those who also engage in the health-adverse behavior through consumption, and that tax directly pays for the necessary collective treatment. As such, those who do not consume the good are not involved with the payment scheme, while those who do consume the good are responsible for payment in a matter proportional to the amount of the good they have consumed. Vl. Universal Coverage Taking a step back, one should consider whether these worries regarding the coverage of apparently self-inflicted health conditions in the context of universal healthcare are worthwhile issues. One perspective raises what is called the culturally imagined objection — an idea erroneously held by many that sick people, especially those who are poor and uneducated, bring these illnesses upon themselves due to poor decision-making and irresponsible risk-taking.[22] This perspective critiques the uniquely American view that, since individuals are free to choose their lifestyles, they should bear the costs of their lifestyle.[23] Taking this argument further, some (perhaps the strongly libertarian) would say that the poor health status among many individuals is the price individuals must pay for their American way of life and the liberty and freedom to live as they wish. However, people should not completely punish individuals for their health-adverse behaviors because these choices are largely pre-determined by a person’s socioeconomic influences.[24] The outcomes from these allegedly ill-advised behaviors, which largely affect poorer people, are not just poor behavior but rather a public health crisis. Perhaps the state and its people should take collective responsibility and cover the costs of treatment for those health outcomes without question, as a form of public service. Rather than worrying about accountability and taxing bad behavior or intrusiveness into personal decisions, some might argue that people need to collectively take responsibility for reducing the overarching systemic inequalities and covering the associated treatment costs as a measure of public health. Vll. Proposed Solution Given the strengths of the liberal-egalitarian model and taking into account libertarian and social justice-oriented objections, an ideal solution for the coverage of lifestyle-related health problems needs to consider the complex relationship between a person’s behaviors and their apparent health outcomes. It must consider how society as a whole passes judgment on behaviors and how to take into account that many health-adverse decisions are not truly autonomous decisions, as various genetic and socioeconomic factors influence them. An ideal solution combines the liberal-egalitarian tax-based model with the social justice concerns of universal coverage. Whatever the cost for the treatment of medical issues resulting in part or entirely from lifestyle and diet, taxes collected from spending associated with the behavior (like the purchase of alcohol, junk food, and cigarettes) ex-ante should fund 50 percent of the cost of treatment, while the universal healthcare taxation scheme should include the other 50 percent. Such a system would provide an incentive to avoid the purchases that can lead to unhealthy consumption and make healthier choices, slightly punish and discourage such purchases through taxation, yet not overly punish people whose outcomes may have more to do with socioeconomic factors and genetics. Adding public responsibility demonstrates acknowledgement that health care is in the public interest and can mitigate public health inequalities. This solution would fuse personal responsibility with the public responsibility of state-sponsored social improvement while ensuring that all people have fair access to necessary treatment, no matter their ability to pay. CONCLUSION The 50-50 system this paper proposes reflects both justice and personal responsibility in covering healthcare costs allegedly brought about by people’s own health-adverse behaviors. By allocating tax revenue from consumption that contributes or even alone causes poor health outcomes, such a system incorporates personal responsibility. By using general tax revenue for health care, such a system would meet the libertarian requirement of providing care without any moral investigation of past behaviors and the social justice consideration of providing health care to those who may have unwittingly ventured into ill-health due to systemic injustice, socioeconomics, or genetics. - [1] Cappelen, A. W. (2005). Responsibility in health care: A liberal egalitarian approach. Journal of Medical Ethics, 31(8), 476–480. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2004.010421 [2] Moss, A. H. (1991). Should alcoholics compete equally for liver transplantation? JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(10), 1295–1298. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1991.03460100097032 [3] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [4] Moss, p. 1296. [5] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [6] Moss, p. 1295-1298. [7] Cohen, C. IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE COHEN AND BENJAMIN (1991). Alcoholics and liver transplantation. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(10), 1299–1301. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1991.03460100101033 [8] Cohen, p. 1299-1301. [9] Moss, p. 1297. [10] Cohen, p. 1300. [11] Cappelen, p. 478-480. [12] Cappalen, p. 478-480. [13] Cappelen, p.479. [14] Cappelen, p. 479. [15] Cappelen, p. 479 [16] Cohen, p. 1301. [17] Cappelen, p. 478. [18] Cohen, p. 1299-1301. [19] Cohen, p. 1301. [20] Cappelen, p. 476-480. [21] Cappelen, p. 476-480. [22] Kawachi, I. (2005). Why the United States is not number one in Health. Healthy, Wealthy, and Fair, 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195170665.003.0013 [23] Kawachi, p. 18-33. [24] Kawachi, p. 18-33. (shrink)

Cyberstalking is a significant challenge in the era of Internet and technology. When dealing with cyberstalking, institutions and governments struggle in how to manage it and where to allocate resources. Therefore, it is important to understand how individuals feel about the problem of cyberstalking and how it can be managed. In this paper, we use Nissenbaum’s :119–158, 2004) contextual integrity as a theoretical framework for applying Keeney’s value-focused thinking technique to develop actionable objectives aimed at the prevention of cyberstalking. By (...) systematically interviewing over 100 individuals, we extract 20 objectives based on the underlying norms of distribution and appropriateness relevant to the context of cyberstalking. The objectives ensure that contextual integrity is maintained and cyberstalking prevented. Organizations can benefit from the objectives developed in this research since they are a means for developing an ethical policy regarding cyberstalking. Therefore, they help to ensure an ethical engagement with society at large by organizations when dealing with cyberstalking. Researchers can use these objectives to explore the best means for their implementation by organizations and institutions. Additionally they can explore the network mapping of fundamental and means objectives to determine relationships and their strengths in the cyberstalking context. (shrink)

In the history of İslāmic thought, Māturīdī is a famous scholar both in the field of kalām and tafsir. Being approved by Māturīdī, the distinction of tafsir and ta’wīl, which makes possible to take the comments made about the verses into sistematic framework, is quite important. There is an important information both about content of the distinction approved by Māturīdī and the main reasons that necessiated this distinction in the introduction of Samarqandī’s Sharh at Ta’wīlāt. From this information, it is (...) understood that the distinction of tafsir and ta’wīl had dated back to older time than Māturīdī and previous scholars dealed with the problem that necessiated this distinction and Māturīdī inherited this distinction from his predecessors. Information in the Sharh at Ta’wīlāt reveals that according to Māturīdī the companions had made interpretation (ta’wīl) in addition to tafsir and the explanations made by certain evidences is tafsir too. Therefore this information gives us the opportunity flexing the acceptance of the idea “tafsir, is dedicated to the companions, ta'wīl is dedicated to fuqaha (jurists)” and asserting that companions and scholars made both tafsir and ta’wīl. In this paper, we will research whether the distinction tafsir and ta’wīl regarded by Māturīdī completely belonged to his or not and content of the distinction and its reasons. We will also analyze this distinction according to examples in the Ta’wîlāt. Summary: An important distinction is made between the concepts of tafsir and ta’wīl in the short preface of Māturīdī's tafsir, and this distinction is particularly prominent in contemporary tafsir studies. Because from the point of view of the value they carry, the explanations for these differences and concepts express the legitimacy of the following mufassirūn (writers of a commentary on the Qur’an) to be able to perform tafsir, as well as the value of the explanations found in tafsir literature in terms of certainty. In Ta'wīlāt, tafsir is described as the precise determination of what is intended. Determination of what is exactly intended in verse/wording is bound to certainly know the conditions under which it was revealed. Because they are the first to be addressed directly and they witnessed the context, the tafsir is only for the companions (ṣaḥābah pl. aṣḥāb). On the other hand, ta’wīl is not a definite determination of what is intended, but rather it is explained as putting the possibilities forward. In this case, ta’wīl is dedicated to the scholars after the companions. When we look at the other tafsir sources that include his views, it can be understood that this brief information in the preface of the tafsir which survived to our day is partially incomplete. Samarqandī's Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt is the most important of these sources. According to the information here, Māturīdī states that some scholars distinguish tafsir and ta’wīl from each other. In these distinctions, tafsir is either described in relation to a definitive statement or in relation to being familiar with the conditions of revelation, while ta’wīl is described as extracting meanings from the verses and making possible meanings without claiming certainty. These explanations show that the distinction between tafsir and ta’wīl in Ta'wīlāt's preface was mainly based on the period before Māturīdī. These statements, which Māturīdī transmitted from some scholars in the beginning of Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt, were then transmitted by Omar al-Nasafī, Mahāyimī and Molla Husrev. In some sources, it was also transmitted that similar explanations were made by scholars such as an-Nadr b. Shumayl, al-Hussein b. Fadl al-Bacelī and Ibn Durayd before Māturīdī.Some explanations of Māturīdī in Ta'wīlāt enables the theory of tafsir-ta’wīl to be understood at a wider level. When the examples are examined, it is observed that Māturīdī exhibited two types of attitude against the tafsir of the companions. He states that one of these is that if the transmission is true, what is intended is exactly what is stated in the narrated. The second is that he sometimes does not accept these explanations and suggests additional opinions. The reason he refuses is that sometimes he does not find the transmission reliable, and sometimes he thinks that companions performed ta'wīl. If this is the case, the dedication of ta’wīl to those coming later should not be absolutized. Because the companions can perform both tafsir and ta’wīl. The examples in Ta'wīlāt clearly reveal what areas tafsir, which is defined as a definite statement, covers. According to this, first, tafsir is related to the field of “invisible” about the past and the future. Secondly, its meaning and practice is only about the information of the “statement” about the issues that can be revealed by the Prophet (pbuh). In the third aspect, it is related to “revelation” information reporting the context in which the verses descended. In the beginning of Sharhu’t-ta'wīlāt, Māturīdī says that the explanations made based on the definitive evidences such as mutawātir (repetition; narration reported by large number reporters) and ijmā (consensus) also fall under the category of tafsir. However, it is also necessary to add intellectual evidence to these evidences. Because intellectual evidence is also important in the epistemology of Māturīdī. In fact, the truthfulness of nass (text) is primarily based on intellectual evidence. First, the issues of theology are proven by certain intellectual evidence, and then, on the basis of this, the meanings expressed by the nass acquire the value of certainty and truthfulness. With the definitive acceptance of reason in theology, what some nass express confirm each other and are used as evidence in the process of interpretation. Therefore, since some of the intellectual evidence, ijmā and mutawātir news provide definitive information, explanations based on them are also seen as tafsir. Considering the fact that the above-mentioned evidence was also used by those coming after the companions, it can be concluded that tafsir can be performed by not only the companions but also those coming after them. In this case, it should be accepted that tafsir is not performed only by the companions, and that the succeeding mufassirūn can also perform tafsir as well as ta’wīl. When we look at the examples based on these evidence, there are two different situations in Ta'wīlāt. The first is that Māturīdī sometimes has views on evidence based on mutawātir and ijmā and sometimes suggests different opinions from the assumptions that he said there was ijmā in particular. Because these evidences are certain, it is understandable that he remains bound to them. However, as a possible reason for his opposition to ijmā, it can be said that he thinks only the following generations enter the scope of ijmā. Because, according to Samarqandī, Māturīdī's objection to such information does not seem possible, since ijmā of the companions in a matter is accepted. Although he sometimes said that there was ijmā, the reason why no such ijmā was mentioned in other tafsir sources and sometimes, it may be considered that he did not respect other views in the face of ijmā as a reason for including different views or it may be thought that he was unaware of the different views that were transmitted. The second remarkable situation is that according to Māturīdī, intellectual evidence, in particular, can reveal only the “knowledge of existence” of the issues related to theology. Māturīdī thinks that their nature cannot be certainly known, and that the explanations made regarding their nature are only ta’wīl. For this reason, he firmly rejects the interpretation of the khabarī attributes about Allah in accordance with the idea of tashbīh and tajsīm (anthropomorphism). (shrink)

ObjectiveIn Belgium, people with an incurable psychiatric disorder can file a request for euthanasia claiming unbearable psychic suffering. For the request to be accepted, it has to meet stringent legal criteria. One of the requirements is that the patient possesses decision-making capacity. The patient’s decision-making capacity is assessed by physicians.The objective of our study is to provide insight in the assessment of decision-making capacity in the context of euthanasia for patients with psychic suffering caused by a psychiatric disorder.MethodTwenty-two semistructured interviews (...) with psychiatrists and neurologists were analysed with NVivo, a qualitative analysis software to code and organise transcribed data.ResultsDifferent views and approaches regarding decision-making capacity in the context of euthanasia emerged from the data.Most of the physicians have some knowledge of the cognitive ability approach on decision-making capacity. According to this approach, four abilities constitute decision-making capacity: communication, understanding, appreciation and reasoning. We observed differences in the way these abilities are valued in relation to competence. Some physicians take additional elements into consideration when assessing decision-making capacity.Physicians acquired their knowledge on the subject in many different ways. Most of the physicians reported that decision-making capacity was not part of their training.ConclusionWe conclude that physicians assess decision-making capacity in different ways and that personal values and beliefs influence their approach. As such, a common approach in assessing the decision-making capacity of a patient among the interviewed physicians is lacking. Less arbitrariness could be obtained by consistently implementing the cognitive ability approach. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stewart R. Sutherland LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION IN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF some novels it is possible to argue with justification that the problems of interpretation and understanding begin on the first page. Of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment it is possible to contend that the problems of interpretation and understanding begin on the title page. The terms "crime" and "punishment" are overtly moral. The novel is read in the context (...) of a title which exhibits its values where they may be seen by all. What significance must we attach to the choice of such a title? It is possible that the title gives to us a characterization of the content of the novel which, retrospectively, we can only regard as either self-consciously ironical, or perhaps pathetically so, but how are we to decide whether this is more than a possibility? Having raised this question, I propose to set it aside in the hope of returning to it equipped with the experience derived from a number of literary and philosophical digressions. The literary and conceptual style of critical comment upon a novel often betrays much that is definitive of the response being elucidated. If one compares and contrasts Philip Rahv's essay on Crime and Punishment with the appropriate chapter of Mochulsky's Dostoevsky,2 the implication of this general claim may be clarified. My intention here is to use largely ostensive means to suggest the radically different accounts of the novel given to us by these two writers. That the conclusions are different is hardly in need of statement. What is worth examining is the character of the language and of the arguments used to substantiate those conclusions. The point of my discussion will rest not upon assessing the accuracy or legitimacy of particular judgments, but rather upon delineating the general contours of the intellectual contexts in which these judgments are offered. 223 224Philosophy and Literature Rahv's focus is on the character or psyche of Raskolnikov. The novel is seen largely in the form of a psychological study of the mind of the murderer. He reminds us that a central problem for Raskolnikov, for the reader, and for Dostoyevsky himself, is the identification of Raskolnikov's motive—not that there is an absence of motives, indeed quite the reverse: "He is soon lost in the maze of his own motivation" (p. 20). His mind spins incessantly upon an axis the nature of which is nowhere made unambiguously apparent. Nor, it seems, can we replace our search for a motive, or the sufficient reason for action, by identifying a supreme assertion of will: again, on the contrary, we are told, "Dostoyevsky is the first novelist to have fully accepted and dramatized the principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy in the presentation of character" (p. 21). Despite that, however, the success of the novel rests upon Dostoyevsky's skills in allying the insight "... that human consciousness is inexhaustible and incalculable" (p. 19), to "his capacity to combine [seeming contradictions] in a single brain and a single psyche, while staving off the danger of incoherence at one end and of the specious reconciliation at the other..." (p. 38). The mood ofRahv's treatment of the novel is dominated in this way by the language of (largely popularized) psychology—"pathological depression," "nameless guilt-feelings," "wishful fantasy"—and not surprisingly, he sees his own preoccupations as mirroring those of Dostoyevsky: "What Dostoyevsky has done in revising Raskolnikov's justification is to convert into a theory of human nature what is in Hegel not a psychological theory at all but a theory of men as subjects and objects of history" (p. 34). Mochulsky, on the other hand, breathes a very different atmosphere. From the outset he talks of "the spiritual existence of Dostoyevsky's heroes," and he says of a man who wills a murder or one who "betrays himself to the powers of dark necessity" (pp. 302-303), "The murderer has stepped beyond something more than the moral law: the very basis ofthe spiritual worlditself" (p. 303). "The whole tragedy of man-godhood," he tells us, "is expressed in these few words: 'It seems to me,' Raskolnikov says, 'truly great people experience an immense... (shrink)

In large and small villages, regardless of tourist attraction, cultural life is faded; people's initiative is low as urban migration is extremely high. Many ethnographic villagers do not realize that they live in a significant for the state areas. The younger generation is embarrassed by local traditions, folklore. The low level of aesthetic education, and the poor possibilities of organizing artistic celebrations for the younger generation make them the users of the lowest level of urban culture. The relevance of the (...) research: employees of Lithuanian rural culture centers - a group uniting almost three thousand people, invited to make sense of rural people's leisure time, to create conditions for the development of amateurism in small villages. 882 country cultural centers in villages, towns and cities are institutions of universal use or specific activities. Their work varies, depending on what traditions have formed, the ambitions of the district or eldership that local cultural and sports departments seek. You will not find a cultural center where they would not sing, dance, play, perform, or celebrate. Also, exhibitions are regularly opened. Obviously, more intensive activity takes place in metropolitan areas, district centers, and in resorts during the summer. As here there is more space, more culture and more communities. Village and town culture institutions that are constantly communicating with schools, libraries, religious communities, neighborhoods, and sports clubs are also gaining significant results. However, it is appropriate to move to specific data from the theoretical point of view. Those members of rural communities who go in for sport individually face health supervision problems. Inadequate attention is paid to the development of personal responsibility for one's health and the promotion of a healthy life: proper nutrition, active rest, less health-hazardous environment, abandoning harmful habits and etc. in an environment contrary to life in the countryside. It is important to develop a physically active and healthy society, consciously aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, to create a favorable environment for leisure time and sport and for the improvement of health of rural population, moreover, to increase the development of physical education and sports services in rural districts of Lithuania, to increase the quality of sports services, giving rural residents wider opportunities to meet their needs. The problem of the research: the lack of cultural and sporting services in rural communities. The analysis of the problem is based on scientific data of Aleksandravičius and Žukovskis, Baršauskienė, Leliūgienė, Kroeber A., Kluckhohn, Nefas, Paulikas, Adomonis, Putnam, Biologur, documents regulating the activities of rural communities. Methodology of the research: In order to achieve the goal, the analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, legal documents and other information sources and statistical data are used. The aim of the research: to reveal the factors of cultural and sports development in rural communities. Research objectives: to describe the development of cultural and sports services in the context of rural communities' activities; to identify the most significant factors in the development of cultural and sporting services in rural communities. Conclusion. Activities carried out by organizations of rural communities include a wide range of community needs, including the organization of cultural and sporting events, improvement of environmental management assistance, and others. As the main problems of rural community activities, the poor condition of rural social infrastructure objects are mentioned, therefore the process of establishment of community centers for the establishment of universal multifunctional centers is one of the significant tools for the development of rural communities and thus the development of cultural and sports activities. (shrink)

Having emerged as an important concept in the organizational field, entrepreneurial orientation has also become a key idea in the context of education. Indeed, entrepreneurial education is now one of the common objectives for education and training systems in the European Union. Despite its importance, however, there is a scarcity of valid and reliable measures for assessing entrepreneurial orientation in students. The present study aimed to address this by developing and examining the psychometric properties of the Entrepreneurial Orientation Scale (EOS). (...) A second objective is to study the relationships between entrepreneurial orientation and gender, self-efficacy, and personal initiative. The sample comprised 411 vocational training students (50.36% male, 49.64% female). The final version of the instrument comprised 32 items assessing six dimensions: innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitiveness, achievement orientation, and learning orientation. The EOS showed good psychometric properties and its dimensions demonstrated concurrent relationships with self-efficacy and personal initiative. The EOS may be used to measure entrepreneurial orientation in the educational context and to evaluate interventions designed to promote an entrepreneurial spirit in schools, colleges, and universities. (shrink)

This last result leads, rather naturally, to some concluding observations and a series of questions for further investigation. These case studies show that in all of the sites examined, the institutionalization of molecular biology as a “discipline” was primarily driven by the need to separate groups of practitioners with divergent but overlapping interests within the local context. Thus molecular biology was contingently separated from agricultural or medical biochemistry, virology, work on the physiology of nucleic acids, and so forth for contingent (...) local institutional reasons. This makes it even more pressing to try to understand how molecular biology came to be delimited on a larger scale. How did it come to be a discipline with specific intellectual content (or did it?), including some problems, tools, and practices and excluding others? How did it gain authority as the forefront biological science by the mid-1960s? We need to understand the ways in which the tensions between different practices, projects, aims, understandings of the goals of molecular biology, and so on were resolved, on what scale and in what venues, so that something approximating the political character of a discipline, rather than a federation, was achieved. If these case studies provide a sound starting point, it will nevertheless prove difficult to answer the interconnected questions implicit here satisfactorily.One means of getting at such questions that should prove of considerable interest is to examine carefully the work of those who were widely cited in the papers of the late fifties through the mid-seventies by the people now considered major founders of molecular biology. By studying the contributions of those who are now omitted in the standard histories and recollections, we will gain a clearer sense of the possibilities that were open as molecular biology took shape. It is already widely recognized that the contributions of a number of biochemists have been given short shrift, but (as the example of Ernest Gale in Rheinberger's study illustrates) there are a great many more figures whose line of work were then crucial but who are now overlooked.6 To understand both what molecular biology was at the time of its early institutionalization and what is has become, it will be enormously helpful to understand at what point the definition or ideology “hardened” and the grounds for inclusion and exclusion of individuals and lines of work were reformed. Studies of this sort are appropriate in many other areas as well, of course; in general, they should different histories, political standing, and institutional bases of those disciplines in their national cultures. It is likely (but a matter for investigation!) that such differences influenced the opportunities for introducing new bench practices, if in no other way than by delimiting the niches within which certain practices could be initiated.7 And since new practices can fail to achieve their objectives, can transform the direction of work and disciplinary allegiances of their practitioners, can lead to only routine results, or can open up important new vistas, the character of the available niches from which to work can prove to have a strong influence on the direction that new work takes if and when it starts to flourish. A key aspect of this problematic (not yet adequately studied, I believe) is the problem of drawing boundaries between different kinds of work and determining where each should fit among established disciplines and/or within some new construct. To the extent that an “international” solution is ultimately achieved to such problems, it must surely be achieved in light of initially different ways of dealing with it in different countries.Underlying work of the sort we have been exploring is the thorny problem of how best to contextualize the work being studied. This, I believe, is one of the major historiographic problems that we must face in the history of science. It is by no means a new problem, of course, but a particularization of the age-old problem of the (seeming) overdetermination of historical events. If we deal with local cultures, to understand how they develop and their fate we need to understand their location within larger cultures. But it is utterly unclear how to draw appropriate boundaries on the relevant larger culture(s). As even this brief discussion has shown, institutional cultures, the cultures of sponsoring agencies, “the” culture of science (or of biological science, physical science, etc., as appropriate), and national cultures all can provide relevant contexts, all can occasionally determine the fate of work undertaken in a particular local context. The potentially intractable problem of delimiting the boundaries of investigation looms large here, but it is one that must be faced explicity if we are to profit fully from the enormously stimulating investigations of local cultures exemplified in the four papers published in this symposium. My own view is that we have no abstract standard available for determining which boundaries are appropriate to a given study, and, indeed, that no single contextualization is adequate to the examination of any given case, but that, nonetheless, we can (at least sometimes) distinguish useful and explanatory delimitations of the larger context from others that prove to be misleading.Against this background, I hope that the four papers published in this special issue will stimulate the readers of the JHB to carry out similar studies—that is, studies that seek to characterize and contextualize local experimental cultures —over a wide range of cases. I also hope that some of those who take up this challenge will deal with the larger questions raised by the need to find a way of balancing different, sometimes competing, contextualizations of such studies. The fact that any given case requires multiple contextualizations, resulting in multifaceted representations no one of which is alone adequate, will surely land us in fascinating, hopefully fruitful and productive, controversies. (shrink)

Abstract:AbstractDrawing from qualitative data in a Southern African context, this article explores meanings assigned to names for female genitalia to establish whether males and females assign the same meanings to the same vocabulary used in naming or whether they associate the same vocabulary with different meanings. The study illustrates that while males associate the meanings of terms for female genitalia with well-established, stigmatized views of women, female informants associate the same terms with different meanings that provide alternative views about women (...) and, at the same time, appear to be a form of reclamation of Southern African women’s personhood, identity, and agency. Although males, through these vocabulary items, metaphorically associate female genitalia with possession, which discursively constructs women as powerless objects that can be owned and commoditized, females draw from the philosophy of Africana womanism, indicating that even in asymmetrically structured societies, some women subjectively and purposefully construct their own identities as strong, smart, socially conscious, and independent. (shrink)

This article deals with a phenomenological standpoint on paradoxicality of image-consciousness, i.e., an analogical representation in which an image possesses material support. Contrary to tradition, E. Husserl thought of imagination as being both an intuitive and a mediate act. Husserl’s opinion results from paradoxical nature of an image itself: an image appears but it doesn’t exist, while the exhibited thing does exist but doesn’t appear in proper sense. The paradoxicality of an image results in its double conflict — with actual (...) present and with Bildsujet. Initially, Husserl considered that the more analogous features an image possesses the less conflict exists between it and Bildsujet, but then his own experience made him change his mind. Examining a wax figure example, he came to the conclusion that this perfectly human-like object is rather a fiction than an image for it is constituted in a position-taking intention, not in a neutralized one. However, despite we’ve got knowledge of illusory nature of such an object our consciousness keeps on fluctuating between an imaging intention and a perceptual one. Unlike Husserl neither J.-P. Sartre nor M. Richir draws a distinction between an image and an illusion. Sartre considers the imaginary in its radical form to be a world of schizophrenic. As for Richir, he supposes the imaginary to be a mass-consumption product being used for ideological manipulations. He follows Plato’s intellectual strategy and characterizes an image as εἴδωλον which represents the reality instead of reaching it. Being saturated by visible an image lacks any gap that would give an impulse to a work of imagination. At the same time, Richir admits that simulacre does relate to art, whereas an artefact doesn’t. An artefact is made by technical device which imitates not reality but consciousness. Thus, an artefact in its turn is not a reality illusion but an illusion of a reality illusion. Its hallucinatory effect makes us believe that we look into a mirror of reality as if a technical agent had better access to it than a human eye does. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toleration and Justice in the Laozi:Engaging with Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early ChinaAi Yuan (bio)IntroductionThis review article engages with Tao Jiang's ground-breaking monograph on the Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China with particular focus on the articulation of toleration and justice in the Laozi (otherwise called the Daodejing).1 Jiang discusses a naturalistic turn and the re-alignment of values in the Laozi, resulting in a naturalization (...) of justice (impartiality) by rejecting artificial humaneness and rigid hierarchical moral-political structures. In this Laozian just world, there is no room for human intervention and rigid top-down enforcement of values, thus leaving justice to naturalized Heaven or Dao as the ultimate source of the cosmos.Based on Jiang's interpretative context, I show that there is a twofold justification for the "paradoxical" and "elusive"2 value of political toleration.3 A negative expression of toleration focuses on non-interference with choices, and non-enforcement of values toward those whom one reasonably disagrees with and regards as morally wrong. Such an attitude of toleration results in practical advantages such as avoiding entrenchment in bloodshed, abandonment, and deprivation.A positive expression of toleration operating in the Laozian ideal world requires equal protection of people as capable knowers, including those to whom we object. Such protection includes their ways of expression and an unbiased recognition of them as equally capable knowers so that they are heard without bias and prejudice. Such a kind of toleration is revealed as a constituent component of justice since it enables equal contribution toward the shaping of society without discrimination. In other words, toleration is seen as naturalized justice in a Laozian world within which no one is "being wronged with the capacity as a knower"—a kind of epistemic justice articulated by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007).4 [End Page 466]This article discusses how Jiang's political reconstruction of Laozian philosophy contains the seeds for a discussion of toleration, a value associated with distributive justice and against epistemic injustice. First, it introduces Jiang's arguments on a naturalization of justice and impartiality as Heavenly attributes in the Laozi. Second, it articulates the value of tolerance in the Laozi. Finally, I compare Laozian toleration with Confucian toleration using youwei- wuwei metaethical criticism.Moral-Political Philosophy in the LaoziJiang's interpretative framework about the origins of distributive justice in the Laozi starts with a discussion of the cosmogonic-mystical worldviews that signal "a new understanding of the nature of the cosmos, as well as a broad reorientation in the Heaven-human relationship in the mid-Warring States period" (p. 192). Differing from the interests in the origins of human culture or civilization in the Ru and Mo traditions, Jiang agrees with Franklin Perkins and identifies a "cosmogonic turn" in the late fourth century b.c. that reveals a demotion of anthropomorphic Heaven. By paring Heaven with earth and accordingly decentering human beings in the intellectual discourse, the Laozi directs equal values to the ten thousand things, with humans as just one among them (Perkins 2016, quoted in Jiang 2021, p. 196).5 Laozi's philosophy thus stands out by rejecting Heaven as caring for human affairs while taking Dao as the ultimate origin of the cosmos, as claimed in chapter 5 of the received text: "Heaven and earth are not humane; they treat ten-thousand things in the world as straw dogs; the sage is not humane; he treats people as straw dogs" (p. 199).With Jiang's reading of a naturalistic heaven, we see a re-alignment between cosmos and the human since sage-rulers follow the Heaven-Dao. The Laozian Dao is "self-so-ing" (ziran 自然), "accommodating" (rong 容), and "impartial" (gong 公), and thus marks a sharp contrast to Confucian familial bias resulting in "actively intervening in human affairs on behalf of the (certain) humans by appointing them to carry out its mission" (p. 200). With the sage emulating the ultimate Dao, the Laozi replaces the Confucian anthropocentric Heaven, which focuses on partiality (qin 親) and humaneness (ren 仁).This Laozian understanding of the cosmos also grounds its philosophical departure from Mohism despite both having a political... (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. According to the genre characteristics, the article is a form of publicizing analytical conclusions from the experience of research in the field of the history of philosophy in the local community of philosophers of Ukraine. The material for understanding was supplied from the environment of educational and scientific professional activity of the authors and was based on the long experience of using a certain type of historical and philosophical sources, which (...) even now constitute the main resource of sources of Ukrainian philosophical education. The article explores the concept of "physical object" in the context of the history of philosophy and examines its relevance for philosophical reflections. It is noted that the variety of interpretations of the term in the history of philosophy creates the need for new methods of revealing its essence M e t h o d s. Problems with establishing the authenticity and verifiability of such sources prompted the search for methods and techniques of source studies in related fields of knowledge, in particular analytical philosophy and philosophy of science. The article uses an analytical approach based on the study of historical and philosophical sources. Methods of source studies are used to solve problems related to the authenticity and reliability of sources R e s u l t s. With this in mind, the purpose of scientific research was to justify the appropriateness of using such a phenomenon as a "physical object" in historical-philosophical research. It was established that, despite the significant unusualness of the presence of a terminological counterpart to this phenomenon in the historical-philosophical realm, its implementation and application has significant creative potential. C o n c l u s i o n s. After a concise inquiry, the authors have reached a consensus that, in contemporary research on the history of philosophy within the Ukrainian philosophical community, it is pertinent and essential to develop a methodology. This methodology should be founded on the imperative of establishing the initial point for comprehensively studying the philosophical primary source, treating it as a "physical object". (shrink)

This book explores the evolving nature of objectivity in the history of science and its implications for science education. It is generally considered that objectivity, certainty, truth, universality, the scientific method and the accumulation of experimental data characterize both science and science education. Such universal values associated with science may be challenged while studying controversies in their original historical context. The scientific enterprise is not characterized by objectivity or the scientific method, but rather controversies, alternative interpretations of data, ambiguity, and (...) uncertainty. Although objectivity is not synonymous with truth or certainty, it has eclipsed other epistemic virtues and to be objective is often used as a synonym for scientific. Recent scholarship in history and philosophy of science has shown that it is not the experimental data but rather the diversity / plurality in a scientific discipline that contributes toward understanding objectivity. History of science shows that objectivity and subjectivity can be considered as the two poles of a continuum and this dualism leads to a conflict in understanding the evolving nature of objectivity. The history of objectivity is nothing less than the history of science itself and the evolving and varying forms of objectivity does not mean that one replaced the other in a sequence but rather each form supplements the others. This book is remarkable for its insistence that the philosophy of science, and in particular that discipline’s analysis of objectivity as the supposed hallmark of the scientific method, is of direct value to teachers of science. Meticulously, yet in a most readable way, Mansoor Niaz looks at the way objectivity has been dealt with over the years in influential educational journals and in textbooks; it’s fascinating how certain perspectives fade, while basic questions show no sign of going away. There are few books that take both philosophy and education seriously – this one does! Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, chemist, writer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. (shrink)

Background:The debate over the ethical implications of care robots has raised a range of concerns, including the possibility that such technologies could disrupt caregiving as a core human moral activity. At the same time, academics in information ethics have argued that we should extend our ideas of moral agency and rights to include intelligent machines.Research objectives:This article explores issues of the moral status and limitations of machines in the context of care.Design:A conceptual argument is developed, through a four-part scheme derived (...) from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. No empirical data are used.Ethical consideration:No primary data were gathered for this study. Secondary sources and authorship have been acknowledged throughout.Findings / discussion:Certain kinds of social experience, including the narrative unity of a life, and the giving and receiving of care, are essential for moral development. Machines, no matter how advanced, cannot participate in such experiences in key respects, and thus cannot develop as practical reasoners.Conclusion:It follows that they cannot be moral agents and that they cannot care. There are, it seems, no such things as care robots. In view of the institutional power of tech companies and commissioning bodies, care practitioners need to take more of a lead in developing new assistive technologies which are appropriate to their practice. (shrink)

The study presents the Russian historical-philosophical process in the context of the discovery of a new object, themes, personae, set of reactions and formation of a product for the intellectual community. The author's reliance on philosophical empirical material and appropriate hermeneutics in its processing allows the author to highlight those factors that influenced individual and collective reception. The author sees as a convenient case study the “discovery” by the Russian philosophical community of the early 20th century of both American (...) philosophy in general and C.S. Peirce in particular. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Russian thinkers have turned their attention to American philosophy in all the diversity of its manifestations. Russian intellectuals paid special attention to American pragmatism and everything associated with it. In Russia, in addition to translations, numerous reviews of foreign publications on this topic are appearing. Of particular interest to us in the Russian “collective reflection” of American ideas is the system of preferences for ideas, texts, events, and names. The point is that what might have been a priority for a European thinker, for a Russian one turned out to be on the “periphery” of his consciousness, as well as vice versa. While James appeared among the priority figures for Russian thinkers, Peirce was in his “shadow”. Using rich empirical material, the author shows all the stages of Peirce’s image formation in the Russian intellectual community. The research shows that “image” of Peirce, which represents not so much the thinker himself, but characterizes the intellectual community that turned to him. The results of the study may be useful both for contemporary foreign and Russian interpreters of Peirce and for historians of philosophy who are rethinking the past and forming in the present new objects of reception and reflection. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss and develop the risk account of scientific objectivity, which I have recently introduced, contrasting it to some alternatives. I then use the account in order to analyse a practice that is relatively common in anthropology, in the history of science, and in the sociology of scientific knowledge: withholding epistemic judgement. I argue that withholding epistemic judgement on the beliefs one is studying can be a relatively efficient strategy against collective bias in these fields. However, (...) class='Hi'>taking into account the criticisms presented against the strategy, I also argue that it is a usable strategy only when the distance between the researchers and their ideas, and the people and ideas being studied, is significant enough. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:150 PERCEPTIONS, OBJECTS AND THE NATURE OF MIND In this paper I consider the relation between perceptions and objects for Hume and the bearing which this has on his conception of the mind as composed of perceptions. But first it is necessary to distinguish at least two senses in which he uses the term 'object'. In the first, "perceptions of the human mind" — both impressions (...) and ideas — are referred to as "our objects" (T 1,2). Objects in this sense are intentional objects. Hume almost consistently uses the noun 'perception', rarely the verb 'to perceive'. This serves to emphasize that for him perception is an object, not the perceiving of an object — a departure from the tradition of Locke and Berkeley for whom perceptions are cognitive acts having objects. That perception is not conceived by Hume as a cognitive act or form of awareness but purely as an object of awareness is evident when he says, For since all actions and sensations of the mind are known to us by consciousness, they must necessarily appear in every particular what they are, and be what they appear. Everything that enters the mind, being in reality a perception, 'tis impossible anything shou'd to feeling appear different. This were to suppose, that even when we are most intimately conscious, we might be mistaken (T 190). 1 Or again, "The only existences, of which we are certain, are perceptions, which being immediately present to us by consciousness, command our strongest assent...." (T 212). In its other sense the term 'object' is used to denote bodies, or that to which we attribute a continued existence "distinct from the mind and perception", or, borrowing Locke's expression "external 151 objects". It is just because we attribute a continued and independent existence to bodies that we distinguish them from perceptions, for "all impressions are internal and perishing existences, and appear as such" (T 194). But while we make this distinction in our everyday role of common man, the difference between a perception and an (external) object is really only a difference between two types of perceptions, on the one hand those that are characterized in their occurrence by constancy and coherence, and on the other those, for example the passions, which exhibit a different type of "regularity" in their occurrence (T 195). The constancy and coherence which some perceptions exhibit, together with a natural tendency of the mind "to bestow on the objects a greater regularity than what is observ'd in our mere perceptions" (T 197) causes us to attribute to these perceptions an uninterrupted and independent existence, an existence which is, of course, fictitious, because all perceptions are really internal and perishing. 'Tis certain, that almost all mankind, and even philosophers themselves, for the greatest part of their lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects, and suppose, that the very being, which is intimately present to the mind, is the real body or material existence (T 206). This is not to say, however, that "what any common man means by a hat, or shoe, or stone" (T 202) he also believes to be a perception. What he does believe is that the hat or the shoe is immediately present to the mind, or directly appears to his consciousness. It is Hume, the philosopher, who is here interposing the philosophical doctrine that "no beings are ever present to the mind but perceptions" (T 212). This is, of course, not an empirical generalization. It is the definition of a perception as "whatever can be present 152 to the mind" (Abstract 647). It is this definition which gives sense to the statement "their perceptions are their only objects", the term "objects" here referring to "external objects". And the common man would, no doubt, be surprised to learn that these hats, shoes, etc., which directly appear to his consciousness, are by that circumstance really only his own perceptions which he has imagined, falsely, to have a continued and independent existence. Only a few experiments, however, are needed for the philosopher to realize that perceptions, i.e., what is present to the mind, do not have a continued and independent existence. Unable to give up his vulgar... (shrink)

"Republicanism" in Kant's political philosophy describes the type of state and the kind of politics demanded by freedom. Thus understood, republicanism expresses the limits of practical reason in politics. ;Kant sets his political thought against Hobbes' empirical description of political individuals, for whom norms arise through imaginative "picturing" of various conditions. For Kant free practical subjects are motivationally independent of sensed objects and possess ability for self-legislation . Kant further maintains that ideas are "regulative", not constitutive, of human understanding, (...) such that correct use of them requires knowledge of their "principles." ;Because autonomy governs internal determinations, it cannot be the principle of republicanism, which as a matter of "right" concerns actions in their external aspect alone. Actions are subject only to moral possibility, or "permission". Kant's "permissive law" can be understood as law only if moral obligation is distinguished from the specification of duty, a distinction drawn by Achenwall, who influenced Kant. Right built on "permission" connects "first taking" and "intelligible possession". This explains two notions permeating Kant's political writings: obedience to state authority as such, and skepticism regarding any identification of existing arrangements with the idea of a perfectly rightful state. ;Thus conceived, right legitimizes various constitutions. The republican idea and its principle of "representation" are civil elaborations of permission's skeptical aspect. State authority represents the "universal united will", and cannot legitimately be resisted. ;This interpretation faces two challenges. One is unreserved cosmopolitanism, the claim that no right is conclusive without global authority. However, this position misinterprets "permission" as a preliminary violation of right, and therefore not as law. Secondly, the state may be seen as "rightfully" constituted for "fairness". This mistakenly attributes to Kant a Hobbesian view of individuals, and employs ideas not according to their principles , but in a direct, "pictorial" manner . ;Kant's "republicanism" is not an institutional arrangement but a principle of governance. The republican idea is the condition of the possibility of gradual, nonrevolutionary progress. Kant's "permission"---through its lack of specification and its deference to existing authority---is the expression of freedom in external contexts and the foundation of properly critical politics. (shrink)

Context: The main aim in organizing academic conferences is to share and develop knowledge in the focus area of the conference. Most conferences, however, are organized in a traditional way: two or three keynote presentations and a series of parallel sessions where participants present their research work, mainly using PowerPoint or Prezi presentations, with little interaction between participants. Problem: Each year, a huge number of academic events and conferences is organized. Yet their typical design is mainly based on a passive (...) way of sharing knowledge. No models for an adequate conference design and an appropriate learning environment are available. The overall conference design, however, is a crucial aspect in the learning of the participants and deserves special attention from conference organizers. Method: I have organized around 15 carefully designed conferences and on the way knowledge sharing and knowledge development was stimulated at these events. These conferences included less traditional conference designs, collective learning and explicit sharing of understanding between participants. Results: Collaboration in small groups and joint plenary discussions, plenty of time for interaction and generous feedback to presenters turn out to be very valuable for consolidating knowledge and envisioning future developments in a discipline. Also, it is our experience that the presence of design objects as a trigger and catalyst for discussing and learning makes a huge difference in sharing and developing new knowledge. This paper aims to highlight the importance and raise awareness of different methods of stimulating the construction of knowledge by conference participants. I hope it will inspire future conference organizers and help them to induce more deliberate knowledge construction amongst participants. Implications: Insights from this paper are relevant for all conference organizers, especially those in the domain of architecture, arts and design. It has become clear that it is beneficial to have exhibit-type presentations as well as moments of collective learning. Organizers are recommended to adopt an explicit conference design. Constructivist content: Following a constructivist approach to learning environments, this paper stresses the importance of scheduling moments of active and collective learning and knowledge construction explicitly during academic conferences. (shrink)