This study investigated students’ perceptions of ethical organizational climates, attitudes towards ethical issues, and the perceived relationship between ethical behavior and success in business organizations. Comparisons were made between the attitudes of these future managers with previously published studies of Russian managers’ attitudes. A survey of 100 business students in three Moscow universities showed that their attitudes toward ethical behavior were more negative than those of Russian managers. No significant differences were found in the perceptions or attitudes of students who (...) had attended an ethics course and those that did not. The implications for both managers and researchers were reported. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that curiosity is sometimes induced by novel information one has no relevant knowledge about, but it is sometimes induced by new information about something that one is familiar with and has prior knowledge about. However, the conditions under which novelty or familiarity triggers curiosity remain unclear. Using metacognitive confidence judgments as a proxy to quantify the amount of knowledge, this study evaluates the relationship between the amount of relevant knowledge and curiosity. We reviewed previous studies on the (...) relationship between subjective curiosity and confidence and reanalyzed existing large‐sample data. The findings indicate that the relationship between curiosity and confidence differs depending on the nature of the stimuli: epistemic versus perceptual. Regarding perceptual stimuli, curiosity is stronger when individuals have lower confidence levels. By contrast, for epistemic stimuli, curiosity is stronger when individuals have higher confidence levels. These results suggest that curiosity triggered by perceptual stimuli is based on perceived novelty, whereas that triggered by epistemic stimuli is based on familiarity with prior knowledge. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to reveal the essence of economic security in the Internet environment, to identify and analyze statistical data on this issue. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time a comparison with foreign practice is made. As a result, some places that require improvement in this area are identified, the essence and understanding of new terms are revealed, and the principle of neural networks is explained. This work is (...) devoted to the problem of the spread of economic crime associated with the use of new technologies. In view of the development of the innovative sphere, the emergence of new technologies, there are also new threats to economic security. The article examines the history of cybercrime in the economic sphere, the basic principles of economic security from the side of new technologies, and provides current statistics on economic crimes from the point of view of the loss of information security by economic entities. Recommendations for reducing the level of economic crime in the information environment are formulated. (shrink)

The development of new methods in the field of prenatal testing leads to an expansion of information that needs to be provided to expectant mothers. The aim of this research is to explore opinions and attitudes of gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia towards access to prenatal testing and diagnostics in these countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with n = 18 gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia. The interviews were analyzed using the methods of content analysis and thematic analysis. Visible (...) in all three countries is a connection of prenatal medicine with the politically and socially contentious issue of pregnancy termination. Respondents in Poland and Russia concentrated on the topic of inadequate resources. Quality of information for expectant mothers is an important point in all three countries. Only in Germany was the issue of language barriers in communication raised. With regard to non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) respondents in Germany focused on the ethical issues of routinization of testing; in Poland and Russia they concentrated on fair access to NIPT. Challenges in all three countries arise from structural factors such as imprecise and prohibitive regulations, lack of resources or organization of healthcare services. These should be addressed on a political and medico-ethical level. (shrink)

A fundamental notion in a large part of mathematics is the notion of equicardinality. The language with Hartig quantifier is, roughly speaking, a first-order language in which the notion of equicardinality is expressible. Thus this language, denoted by LI, is in some sense very natural and has in consequence special interest. Properties of LI are studied in many papers. In [BF, Chapter VI] there is a short survey of some known results about LI. We feel that a more extensive exposition (...) of these results is needed. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the present knowledge about the language LI and list a selection of open problems concerning it. After the Introduction $(\S1)$ , in $\S\S2$ and 3 we give the fundamental results about LI. In $\S4$ the known model-theoretic properties are discussed. The next section is devoted to properties of mathematical theories in LI. In $\S6$ the spectra of sentences of LI are discussed, and $\S7$ is devoted to properties of LI which depend on set-theoretic assumptions. The paper finishes with a list of open problem and an extensive bibliography. The bibliography contains not only papers we refer to but also all papers known to us containing results about the language with Hartig quantifier. Contents. $\S1$ . Introduction. $\S2$ . Preliminaries. $\S3$ . Basic results. $\S4$ . Model-theoretic properties of $LI. \S5$ . Decidability of theories with $I. \S6$ . Spectra of LI- sentences. $\S7$ . Independence results. $\S8$ . What is not yet known about LI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Imagine cells that live in a high‐gradient magnetic field (HGMF). Through what mechanisms do the cells sense a non‐uniform magnetic field and how such a field changes the cell fate? We show that magnetic forces generated by HGMFs can be comparable to intracellular forces and therefore may be capable of altering the functionality of an individual cell and tissues in unprecedented ways. We identify the cellular effectors of such fields and propose novel routes in cell biology predicting new biological effects (...) such as magnetic control of cell‐to‐cell communication and vesicle transport, magnetic control of intracellular ROS levels, magnetically induced differentiation of stem cells, magnetically assisted cell division, or prevention of cells from dividing. On the basis of experimental facts and theoretical modeling we reveal timescales of cellular responses to high‐gradient magnetic fields and suggest an explicit dependence of the cell response time on the magnitude of the magnetic field gradient. (shrink)

Alexandre Koyré. of the fixed stars is infinite commit a contradiction in adjecto. In truth, an infinite body cannot be comprehended by thought. For the concepts of the mind concerning the infinite are either about the meaning oftheterm "infinite,"  ...

This paper considers the medium of videogames from a goodmanian standpoint. After some preliminary clarifications and definitions, I examine the ontological status of videogames. Against several existing accounts, I hold that what grounds their identity qua work types is code. The rest of the paper is dedicated to the epistemology of videogaming. Drawing on Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin's works, I suggest that the best model to defend videogame cognitivism appeals to the notion of understanding.

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

Questions embedded under responsive predicates and definite descriptions both give rise to a variety of phenomena which can be grouped under the term plurality effects: quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects. This similarity has not gone unnoticed, and many proposals have taken inspiration in theories of definite plurals to account for these effects with embedded questions. Recently these phenomena have received less attention, as the field has focused on the so-called intermediate exhaustive reading of embedded questions instead, after Spector called (...) into question the traditional dichotomy between weak and strong exhaustive readings. As a result, the intermediate exhaustive reading has been accounted for at the expense of empirical coverage in other areas. In this paper, I propose a modular theory which derives the currently much discussed exhaustive readings without giving up the rich semantics necessary to account for plurality effects. My account of quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects builds on recent work on these phenomena in the nominal domain by adopting a categorial approach to embedded questions, while the strong and intermediate exhaustive readings are implemented using an independent strengthening mechanism suggested in Klinedinst and Rothschild :1–23, 2011). The resulting theory not only recovers important results on plurality effects; it offers new, simple solutions for some puzzles presented in George :166–177, 2013) and Paillé and Schwarz Proceedings of WCCFL 36, vol 36, Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, 2018), naturally derives readings that had been postulated in previous literature, makes correct predictions in many unexplored cases, and is compatible with recent results in psycholinguistics. In the last sections I justify my assumptions and show how possible limitations I inherit from the theories I build on can be accommodated under standard assumptions. (shrink)

This collection of six essays centers on Professor Koyre;'s great theme: the relative importance of metaphysics and observation, with controlled experiment a kind of marriage between the two. Professor Koyre;'s thesis might be summed up as a claim that when one is seeking to explain the scientific revolution, attention must be concentrated on the philosophical outlook of the scientist and away from speculative theories. At the time of his death, Alexandre Koyre; was a professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes (...) Études (Sorbonne) and a memeber of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. (shrink)

This collection of six essays centers on Professor Koyre's great theme: the relative importance of metaphysics and observation, with controlled experiment a kind of marriage between the two. Professor Koyre's thesis might be summed up as a claim that when one is seeking to explain the scientific revolution, attention must be concentrated on the philosophical outlook of the scientist and away from speculative theories. At the time of his death, Alexandre Koyre was a professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes (...) Etudes (Sorbonne) and a memeber of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. (shrink)

Using emotional film clips is one of the most popular and effective methods of emotion elicitation. The main goal of the present study was to develop and test the effectiveness of a new and comprehensive set of emotional film excerpts. Fifty film experts were asked to remember specific film scenes that elicited fear, anger, sadness, disgust, amusement, tenderness, as well as emotionally neutral scenes. For each emotion, the 10 most frequently mentioned scenes were selected and cut into film clips. Next, (...) 364 participants viewed the film clips in individual laboratory sessions and rated each film on multiple dimensions. Results showed that the film clips were effective with regard to several criteria such as emotional discreteness, arousal, positive and negative affect. Finally, ranking scores were computed for 24 classification criteria: Subjective arousal, positive and negative affect (derived from the PANAS; Watson & Tellegen, 1988), a positive and a negative affect scores derived from the Differential Emotions Scale (DES; Izard et al., 1974), six emotional discreteness scores (for anger, disgust, sadness, fear, amusement and tenderness), and 15 “mixed feelings” scores assessing the effectiveness of each film excerpt to produce blends of specific emotions. In addition, a number of emotionally neutral film clips were also validated. The database and editing instructions to construct the film clips have been made freely available in a website. (shrink)

"Alexandre Vanautgaerden's research shows that Erasmus never ceased to adapt, depending on each type of text, the layouts of his books to best control their reception. A reversal of the traditional countdown of the exegesis of Erasmus's works, which lends at times a blind faith to his correspondence, this present work focuses on the study of manuscripts and printed books. Erasmus would not settle for just writing his texts, but preoccupied himself, with a growing scrupulousness, with the manner in which (...) they would be read. In addition to this new biography of an Erasmus who we discover riveted to the material existence of his books, the reader will find a great number of unedited documents, in Latin or in translation, as well as a list of the humanist's first editions. This volume offers a new look on the status of authors and readers at the beginning of the 16th century. It will interest historians of books as much as of humanism"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In this theoretical contribution, we interpret the notion of professional development in the light of concepts coming from cognitive development. This brings us to consider teacher training as not only having to allow the elaboration of skills, but also as having to encourage the development of new cognitive structures. We explore the theoretical concepts in relation with certain processes revealed by the reflexive texts of the students. Finally, we propose ways that could foster certain dimensions of global professional development in (...) learners, among which self-regulated learning, the focus on certain concerns and taking into account certain types of information. (shrink)

An important challenge in bilingualism research is to understand the mechanisms underlying sentence processing in a second language and whether they are comparable to those underlying native processing. Here, we focus on verb-particle constructions (VPCs) that are among the most difficult elements to acquire in L2 English. The verb and the particle form a unit, which often has a non-compositional meaning (e.g., look up or chew out), making the combined structure semantically opaque. However, bilinguals with higher levels of English proficiency (...) can develop a good knowledge of the semantic properties of verb-particle constructions (Blais and Gonnerman, 2013). A second difficulty is that in a sentence context, the particle can be shifted after the direct object of the verb, (e.g., The professor looked it up). The processing is more challenging when the object is long (e.g. The professor looked the student’s last name up.). This shifted structure favors syntactic processing at the expense of VPC semantic processing. We sought to determine whether or not bilinguals’ reading time (RT) patterns would be similar to those observed for native monolinguals (Gonnerman and Hayes, 2005) when reading VPCs in sentential contexts. French-English bilinguals were tested for English language proficiency, working memory and explicit VPC semantic knowledge. During a self-paced reading task, participants read 78 sentences with verb-particle constructions that varied according to parameters that influence native speakers’ reading dynamics: verb-particle transparency, particle adjacency and length of the object noun phrase (NP; 2, 3, or 5 words). RTs in a critical region that included verbs, NPs and particles were measured. Results revealed that RTs were modulated by participants’ English proficiency, with higher proficiency associated with shorter RTs. Examining participants’ explicit semantic knowledge of VPCs and working memory, only readers with more native-like knowledge of VPCs and a high working memory presented RT patterns that were similar to those of monolinguals. Therefore, given the necessary lexical and computational resources, bilingual processing of novel structures at the syntax-semantics interface follows the principles influencing native processing. The findings are in keeping with theories that postulate similar representations and processing in L1 and L2 modulated by processing difficulty. (shrink)

The elucidation of the gauge principle ‘‘is the most pressing problem in current philosophy of physics’’ said Michael Redhead in 2003. This paper argues for two points that contribute to this elucidation in the context of Yang–Mills theories. (1) Yang–Mills theories, including quantum electrodynamics, form a class. They should be interpreted together. To focus on electrodynamics is potentially misleading. (2) The essential role of gauge and BRST symmetries is to provide a local field theory that can be quantized and would (...) be equivalent to the quantization of the non-local reduced theory. If this is correct, the gauge symmetry is significant, not so much because it implies ontological consequences, but because it allows us to quantize theories that we would not be able to quantize otherwise. Thus, in the context of Yang–Mills theories, it is essentially a pragmatic principle. This does not seem to be the case for the gauge symmetry in general relativity. (shrink)

Cauchy’s contribution to the foundations of analysis is often viewed through the lens of developments that occurred some decades later, namely the formalisation of analysis on the basis of the epsilon-delta doctrine in the context of an Archimedean continuum. What does one see if one refrains from viewing Cauchy as if he had read Weierstrass already? One sees, with Felix Klein, a parallel thread for the development of analysis, in the context of an infinitesimal-enriched continuum. One sees, with Emile Borel, (...) the seeds of the theory of rates of growth of functions as developed by Paul du Bois-Reymond. One sees, with E. G. Björling, an infinitesimal definition of the criterion of uniform convergence. Cauchy’s foundational stance is hereby reconsidered. (shrink)

In a previous article on cosmological arguments, I have put forward a few examples of complete infinite and circular explanations, and argued that complete non-wellfounded explanations such as these might explain the present state of the world better than their well-founded theistic counterparts (Billon, 2021). Although my aim was broader, the examples I gave there implied merely causal explanations. In this article, I would like to do three things: • Specify some general informative conditions for complete and incomplete non-wellfounded causal (...) explanations that can be used to assess candidate explanations and to generate new examples of complete non-wellfounded explanations. • Show that these conditions, which concern chains of causal explanations, easily generalize to chains of metaphysical, grounding explanations and even to chains involving other “determination relations” such as supervenience. • Apply these general conditions to the recent debates against the existence of nonwellfounded chains of grounds and show, with a couple of precise examples, that the latter can be complete, and that just like in the case of causal explanations, non-wellfoundedness can in fact be an aset rather than a liability. (shrink)

Cet article propose une analyse croisée du discours médical sur la masturbation et sur la lecture en France au XVIIIe siècle. Son but est d’interroger la construction de la définition « naturalisante » des qualités attribuées à l’un et l’autre sexe. A partir de traités physiologiques sur les maladies des femmes, la réflexion porte sur trois points principaux. Pourquoi la lecture et la masturbation sont-ils devenus des problèmes médicaux? Comment un médecin neutralise-t-il le danger, pour une femme, de lire un (...) traité sur un sujet tel que la masturbation? Comment le discours sur la lecture et la masturbation fonctionne-t-il comme système discriminant entre les sexes? (shrink)

Computational reproducibility possesses its own dynamics and narratives of crisis. Alongside the difficulties of computing as an ubiquitous yet complex scientific activity, computational reproducibility suffers from a naive expectancy of total reproducibility and a moral imperative to embrace the principles of free software as a non-negotiable epistemic virtue. We argue that the epistemic issues at stake in actual practices of computational reproducibility are best unveiled by focusing on software as a pivotal concept, one that is surprisingly often overlooked in accounts (...) of reproducibility issues. Software is not only about designing and coding but also about maintaining, supporting, distributing, licensing, and governance; it is not only about developers but also about users. We focus on openness debates among computational chemists involved in molecular modeling software packages as empirical grounding for our argument. We then identify and analyse four epistemic characteristics as key to the role of software in computational reproducibility. (shrink)

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and (...) that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics”, a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science”. We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity. (shrink)

Les travaux d'Alexandre Matheron sur Spinoza et sur la philosophie de l'âge classique représentent un des points forts de l'école française d'histoire de la philosophie. Après Individu et Communauté chez Spinoza et Le Christ et le salut des ignorants, ces études complètent la vision du spinozisme et de son contexte, de ses racines et de sa signification historique. Elles traitent de tous les domaines du rationalisme classique : métaphysique, théorie de la connaissance, analyse des passions, éthique, politique et religion. La (...) méthode qui anime ces textes est celle d'une analyse structurale de la pensée philosophique : il s'agit de prendre au sérieux le caractère conceptuel des doctrines, leurs enchaînements argumentatifs, la rigueur et la cohérence de leurs catégories. Mais la considération de l'architecture d'un monument théorique ne se conçoit pas sans la biographie non de l'auteur mais de l'oeuvre : comment Spinoza est devenu Spinoza ; en d'autres termes, comment il a forgé sa pensée en traversant les arguments et les concepts de Machiavel, de Hobbes ou de Descartes pour arriver à des formulations de plus en plus spinozistes de son ontologie de la puissance. Le rationalisme absolu apparaît ainsi non seulement comme contenu des pensées étudiées mais aussi comme méthode d'histoire de la philosophie. Une démarche qui a donné des outils intellectuels à plusieurs générations de chercheurs et qui indique aujourd'hui le chemin pour pénétrer dans l'univers de la pensée classique. La seule façon rigoureuse de nous demander ce qui pour nous, de ces philosophies, est vrai. (shrink)

Patients suffering from the Cotard syndrome can deny being alive, having guts, thinking or even existing. They can also complain that the world or time have ceased to exist. In this article, I argue that even though the leading neurocognitive accounts have difficulties meeting that task, we should, and we can, make sense of these bizarre delusions. To that effect, I draw on the close connection between the Cotard syndrome and a more common condition known as depersonalisation. Even though they (...) are not delusional, depersonalised patients seem to have experiences that are quite similar to those of Cotard patients. I argue that these experiences are essentially characterised by a lack of subjective character and of two other structural features of experience, which I call ‘the present character’ and ‘the actual character’. Cotard's nihilistic delusions simply consist in taking these anomalous experiences at face value. (shrink)

Consider an infinite series whose items are each explained by their immediate successor. Does such an infinite explanation explain the whole series or does it leave something to be explained? Hume arguably claimed that it does fully explain the whole series. Leibniz, however, designed a very telling objection against this claim, an objection involving an infinite series of book copies. In this paper, I argue that the Humean claim can, in certain cases, be saved from the Leibnizian “infinite book copies” (...) objection, and that this provides an interesting way to defuse some cosmological arguments for the existence of God and to give a non-theistic but complete explanation of the Universe. In the course of my argumentation, I also show that circular explanations can be “self-explanatory” as well: explaining two items by each other can explain the couple of items tout court. (shrink)

This paper focuses on one particular case that connects climate justice and climate economics. Its contribution is twofold. First, it aims at providing a sound normative foundation for carbon pricing mechanisms around the notions of a ‘right to energy’, the ‘duty not-to-harm’ and an argument for ‘restricted compensation’. Second, it identifies the normative elements from theories of climate justice that should guide the design of market-based instruments for climate change mitigation. This will cast light on the particular moral relevance of (...) the act of internalizing a negative externality and of the funds generated by putting a price on carbon. (shrink)

L’idée d’articuler la phénoménologie et le marxisme peut sembler aujourd’hui quelque peu dépassée, comme elle a pu autrefois apparaître contingente et artificielle. Pourtant, la récurrence et l’insistance avec laquelle, depuis près d’un siècle, ce projet a été réactivé sont peut-être le signe d’une affinité insoupçonnée entre ces deux courants de pensée. Si Husserl n’a pas accordé d’intérêt particulier au marxisme et si Heidegger ne l’a fait qu’assez tardivement, certains de leurs élèves et m...

Many believe that the treatment-enhancement distinction marks an important ethical boundary that we should use to shape public policy on biomedical interventions. A common justification for this purported normative force appeals to the idea that, whereas treatments respond to genuine medical needs, enhancements can only satisfy mere preferences or “expensive tastes”. This article offers a critique of that justification, while still accepting the TED as a conceptual tool, as well as some of the key ethical axioms endorsed by its proponents. (...) I begin by laying out the TED, the practical implications that tend to be drawn from it, and the justification just sketched for these implications. Using examples drawn from preventive medicine, biomedical technology, and other categories of biomedical interventions, I then go on to challenge both the presupposition of a fundamental dichotomy between treatments and enhancements, and the assumption that enhancements – barring rare exceptions – cannot serve legitimate medical needs. Finally, I consider some ways in which supporters of the TED might try re-formulating the distinction to blunt the force of my critique. I conclude that such a move cannot fully succeed, and that while the TED does have some degree of normative force, it nevertheless cannot play the role that its advocates expect from it. Seeking to justify a general presumption against enhancements based on the rationale I critique here would mean ignoring their various potential benefits, including medical or therapeutic, and would reflect a prejudice – which I refer to as “treatment fetishism”. (shrink)

I first propose to distinguish between two kinds of external validity inferences, predictive and explanatory. I then argue that we have a satisfactory answer to the question of the conditions under which predictive external validity inferences are good. If this claim is correct, then it has two immediate consequences: First, some external validity inferences are deductive, contrary to what is commonly assumed. Second, Steel’s requirement that an account of external validity inference break what he calls the ‘Extrapolator’s Circle’ is misplaced, (...) at least when it comes to predictive external validity inferences. (shrink)

Motivationally unconscious (M-unconscious) states are unconscious states that can directly motivate a subject’s behavior and whose unconscious character typically results from a form of repression. The basic argument for M-unconscious states claims that they provide the best explanation to some seemingly non rational behaviors, like akrasia, impulsivity or apparent self-deception. This basic argument has been challenged on theoretical, empirical and conceptual grounds. Drawing on recent works on apparent self-deception and on the ‘cognitive unconscious’ I assess those objections. I argue that (...) (i) even if there is a good theoretical argument for its existence, (ii) most empirical vindications of the M-unconscious miss their target. (iii) As for the conceptual objections, they compel us to modify the classical picture of the M-unconscious. I conclude that M-unconscious states and processes must be affective states and processes that the subject really feels and experiences —and which are in this sense conscious— even though they are not, or not well, cognitively accessible to him. Dual process psychology and the literature on cold-hot empathy gaps partly support the existence of such M-unconscious states. (shrink)

The Image of Law is the first book to examine law through the work of Gilles Deleuze, activating his thought within problems of jurisprudence and developing a concept of judgment that acknowledges its inherently creative capacity.

In their target article, Kammerer and Frankish (K&F) wonder what forms introspection could take in non-human animals, enhanced humans, artificial intelligences, and aliens. In this short note, I focus on disordered or neurodiverse minds. More specifically, I assess a claim that has often been made more or less implicitly to the effect that, in virtue of their conditions, people with schizophrenia or depersonalization disorder have superior introspective abilities that allow them to discern some important but normally hidden characteristics of our (...) experiences — call this the superintrospectionitis thesis. In the course of my argumentation, I introduce distinctions and questions concerning the nature of the architecture and the function of introspection that might enrich K&F's framework. (shrink)

Descartes was certain that he was thinking and he was accordingly certain that he existed. Like Descartes, we seem to be more certain of our thoughts and our existence than of anything else. What is less clear is the reason why we are thus certain. Philosophers throughout history have provided different interpretations of the cogito, disagreeing both on the kind of thoughts it characterizes and on the reasons for its cogency. According to what we may call the empiricist interpretation of (...) the cogito, I can only claim to be certain of having experiences, and this certainty, as well as that of my own existence, stems from their phenomenal and subjective character. According to rationalist interpretations, on the other hand, I am certain of having some self-reflexive propositional attitudes, and this certainty derives from their rational features. Psychiatric patients suffering from acute forms of depersonalization or of the Cotard syndrome often doubt that they think and exist, and might even believe that they don't. I argue that their study allows us to favor the empiricist interpretation of the cogito. (shrink)

Alexandre Baril | : Cet article traite de la sous-représentation des personnes trans spécialistes des enjeux trans, professeur.e.s dans les universités canadiennes, et s’attarde au cas des départements d’études féministes et de genre. La question de recherche est : quelles sont les barrières systémiques empêchant le décentrement du sujet cis-centré du féminisme universitaire francophone canadien et contribuant à l’exclusion des personnes trans? Cet essai analyse ces obstacles. La première partie démontre la présence d’un cisgenrisme dans l’enseignement et la recherche, créant (...) un plafond de verre pour les personnes trans dans le milieu universitaire. La deuxième étudie l’absence du traitement des enjeux trans dans l’enseignement et la recherche féministe francophone, malgré l’intérêt des étudiant.e.s pour ces enjeux. La troisième partie utilise l’approche transféministe pour troubler la cisgenrenormativité des études féministes et de genre, et les divisions disciplinaires qui marginalisent les personnes trans dans le milieu universitaire. | : This article considers the under-representation of trans persons who specialize in trans issues employed as professors in Canadian universities, with particular attention paid to the case of departments of gender and feminist studies. The research question is : what are the systemic barriers preventing the displacement of the cis-centric subject from the center of francophone Canadian academic feminism, and contributing to the exclusion of trans persons? This article analyzes these obstacles. The first part demonstrates the presence of cisgenderism in teaching and research, creating a glass ceiling for trans persons in academia. The second studies the absence of trans issues in feminist francophone teaching and research, despite the interest of students in these issues. The third part employs a transfeminist approach to trouble the cisgender normativity of gender and feminist studies and the disciplinary divisions that marginalize trans persons in academia. (shrink)

Depersonalization is a pathological condition consisting in a deep modification of the way things appear to a subject, leading him to feel estranged from his body, his actions, his thoughts, his mind and even from himself. In this article, I argue that the study of depersonalization raises three challenges for recent theories of the sense of bodily ownership. These challenges—which I call the centrality challenge, the dissociation challenge and the grounding challenge— thwart most of these theories and suggest that the (...) sense of bodily ownership hinges on a phenomenal mark of mineness that can not be accounted for in terms of our sensory, interoceptive, agentive, cognitive or affective dispositions and that is psychologically primitive. In short: that mineness is first. (shrink)

Patients suffering from depersonalization complain of feeling detached from their body, their mental states, and actions or even from themselves. In this chapter, I argue that depersonalization consists in the lack of a phenomenal feature that marks my experiences as mine, which is usually called “mineness,” and that the study of depersonalization constitutes a neglected yet incomparable probe to assess empirically the scope, role, and even the nature of mineness. Here is how I will proceed. After describing depersonalization (§2) and (...) arguing that it involves a lack of mineness (§3) I will confront a series of objections (§4). I will then spell out what depersonalization can teach us about the scope of mineness (§5), about its role and psychological function (§6) and even about its nature (§7). (shrink)

Basic self-awareness is the kind of self-awareness reflected in our standard use of the first-person. Patients suffering from severe forms of depersonalization often feel reluctant to use the first-person and can even, in delusional cases, avoid it altogether, systematically referring to themselves in the third-person. Even though it has been neglected since then, depersonalization has been extensively studied, more than a century ago, and used as probe for understanding the nature and the causal mechanisms of basic self-awareness. In this paper, (...) I argue that depersonalized patients indeed have an impaired basic self-awareness, and that their study allows us both to favor one specific theory of basic self-awareness and to understand what is wrong with its rivals. According to the favored theory, which I call Cartesian, we are basically self-aware in virtue of being acquainted with ourselves through introspection. (shrink)

Natural modalities are often analysed from an abstract point of view where they are associated with putative laws of nature. However, the way possibilities are represented in physics is more complex. Lagrangian mechanics, for instance, involves two different layers of modalities: kinematical and dynamical possibilities. This paper examines the status of these two layers, both in the classical and quantum case. The quantum case is particularly problematic: we identify four possible interpretive options. The upshot is that a close inspection of (...) the way possibilities are represented in physics could lead to new ways of thinking about natural modalities. (shrink)