Since 2016, drones have been deployed in various development projects in sub-Saharan Africa, where trials, tests, and studies have been rolled out in countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The use cases of drones vary, ranging from imagery collection to transportation of vaccines, lab samples, blood products, and other medical supplies. A wide range of stakeholders is involved, including governments, international organizations, educational institutions, as well as industry. Based on a field study (...) conducted in 2019, this article investigates how drones are used for medical supply delivery in Malawi-a country where the community is underserved for healthcare and related infrastructure underdeveloped, while airspace is largely open and regulations generally relaxed. The objective of presenting this case study is to contribute to the evidence regarding the rapid deployment of medical cargo drones across the African continent, and to spark critical reflections over the utility, suitability, and impacts of incorporating drones in the existing health supply chain systems in resource-poor settings. The discussion revolves around two aspects: 1) the emergent “African Drone Rise”-is it ok “as it is Africa”? and 2) the normative role of technology in the aid sector-is it “a solution looking for a problem”? In conclusion, a call for more structured guidance for the systematic examination and evaluation of the medical cargo drone case is raised. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce begins his 1903 lectures on pragmatism from the premise that the starting point for pragmatic philosophy as he envisions it must not be a concept of Being but rather of Feeling. Pragmatism, he explains, will be ‘an extreme realism’. Its first category will be ‘immediate consciousness’ conceived as a ‘pure presentness’ whose self-appearing is elemental to experience. Firstness cannot be couched in terms of recognition, cannot be contained in any first-person accounting of experience, and most of all can (...) in no way be construed as being ‘in the mind’ of a subject, however the subject is conceived. This article follows some of the byways of Peirce’s thinking on this constitutive field of experience prior to subject/object determinations, making links to James’s ‘pure experience’, Whitehead’s ‘critique of pure feeling’, and Deleuze/guattari’s ‘being of sensation’. (shrink)

With the 2015 publication of Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si', many people of faith have found themselves challenged to seek new ways of addressing serious ecological questions -- issues essential to the flourishing of all creatures and not just human beings. This volume brings together fifteen select scholars to consider pressing contemporary environmental concerns through the lens of Catholic theology. Drawing from the early church fathers and other authoritative voices in the Christian tradition, the contributors to On Earth as It (...) Is in Heaven show how ancient, creedal Christianity offers significant insights into our current ecological dilemmas and speaks powerfully about what it means for us today to care well for God's good creation. CONTRIBUTORS and TOPICS Robert Louis Wilken on honoring centipedes and toads -- and all of God's created works Christopher J. Thompson on not reducing creatures to "resources" solely to be "used" Steven A. Long on understanding the created order as a participation in the divine, eternal law Marie George on human stewardship of creation as both kingship and kinship Matthew Levering on "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" -- a good idea? Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, on sustainability from a Franciscan perspective John A. Cuddeback on land use and household stewardship Faith Pawl on animal flourishing and suffering Paul M. Blowers on evolutionary theory and the promise of restoration for all creation Christopher A. Franks on Job, poverty, gratitude, and "a gentle life" Jonathan J. Sanford on how Aristotle and Maritain illuminate our obligation to care for creation Paige E. Hochschild on contemplating rather than dominating nature, building on Augustine and George Grant Chris Killheffer on how monastic sources help us rethink gluttony and its remedies David Vincent Meconi, SJ, on the wonderful, awe-filled interrelationship between creatures and their Creator Esther Mary Nickel, RSM, on the liturgy as the space in which all creation is consecrated before the cross of Christ. (shrink)

A collection of readings by modern philosophers presents an overview of current thought and trends in the areas of morality, aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and theology.

It is often supposed that Marxist philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy are not just very different but that they are opposed to each other. Wittgenstein was notoriously against theorizing in philosophy whereas Marx tried to give a scientific account of human society and culture. Marx famously said that ‘[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’, while Wittgenstein was concerned with conceptual considerations and had very little to say about workers' struggles. My aim (...) in this paper is to show that these apparent differences dissolve once one realizes that Marx and Wittgenstein thought differently about the nature of philosophy. In the course of coming to this conclusion I will look at misinterpretations of Wittgenstein's philosophy from Perry Anderson and Alex Callinicos as well as at Wittgensteinian criticisms of Marxist philosophers such as Leon Trotsky, John Rees and Slavoj Žižek. I will conclude that Marxist philosophers stand to gain from a clearer understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy and that Wittgensteinians can similarly gain from an appreciation of the kind of analysis of economics, society and politics offered by Marxists. (shrink)

This article is an overview of Rene Girard's mimetic theory and its application to and implications for conflict in Africa. It accepts Girard's basic idea that imitation is a feature of all individuals but disagrees with his view that the Christian gospel can adequately eliminate mimetic rivalry and thereby lead to a non-sacrificial culture. Drawing from the concept of culture and the African experience of Christianity, it argues that the Christian influence in Africa has only produced a hybrid culture, which (...) draws heavily from the traditional culture. Thus, instead of demythologizing the culture, the gospel has actually introduced new myths into the African setting, which generate a new type of mimetic crisis that traditional forms of intervention are incapable of ameliorating. It argues that the Christian gospel as the precursor of the new myths cannot, in its current form, diffuse the crisis. The article suggests a re-engineering of the gospel to cater for this new reality and thus diffuse the crisis. (shrink)

The phyi dar or ‛later dissemination’ of Buddhism in Tibet is known to be a crucial formative period of Tibetan Buddhism; yet, many questions still wait to be answered: How did Tibetan Buddhist teachers of this time approach the Buddhist scriptures? Did they quote from books or from memory? Did they study Buddhism through original Sūtras or exegetical literature? To what degree was the text of the scriptures fixed and standardised before the Bka’ ’gyur and the Bstan ’gyur were compiled? (...) In search for some answers to questions such as these, the present article focuses on the gzhung pa or ‛scriptural tradition” of the Bka’-gdams-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Their works contain quotations from the Indian Buddhist scriptures that sometimes differ markedly from the mainstream editions of the Bka’ ’gyur and Bstan ’gyur. There are several possible explanations for such discrepancies: The Tibetan authors might be quoting a different Tibetan translation that was later discarded by the redactors of the Tibetan canon; they might be quoting from a secondary source such as a commentary or Buddhist anthology; or they might be quoting from memory, changing the text either deliberately or by accident. Giving examples from works of the early Bka’-gdams-pa masters this article discusses how textual deviations from the canonical versions can be explained. It will thereby provide insights into the way the Indian Buddhist scriptures were studied and transmitted in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition around the 11th–13th centuries. (shrink)

This paper is trying to put together two different researches, from theology and from genetics, about a general and undetermined topic, death. It is undetermined because no one can say something demonstrable and unequivocal about it, since no person alive can cross over the edge of life and come back from the domain of death with information about it. But we can discuss nevertheless things that are obvious and possible to be reasonably inferred about death even by livings. In this (...) regard Theology will provide the mainline of what is to be known as death for religion in general, while Genetics will try to come with its research to sustain or contradict the general premise: death is not an ontological behavior of living matter, but an imposed attribute after the sin occurred into the world. (shrink)

This compilation offers us the rare opportunity to come in contact with the spontaneous words of an enlightened master. With refreshing insight, Prabhuji reveals a unique message of selfinquiry and evolution. For Prabhuji, yoga is "a path that begins and ends in you, from what you believe yourself to be to what you really are." The transcribed lectures included in this book encompass teachings from various paths of the ancient wisdom of yoga and invite the readers to study, contemplate, and (...) integrate the different aspects of the human experience in order to rediscover their authentic nature. The deep observations of the author, explained with great eloquence and clarity, can help each one to see what is, as it is. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to suggest an alternative view to the conventional distinction between ontology and epistemology, thereby reconstituting the relationship between the cognitive self and the real world. More specifically, we will criticize the distinction by shedding light on a peculiar character of the body, which can provide a critical perspective against Cartesian dualism. Furthermore, we will give a sketchy description of the philosophy of touch, and propose the notion of skin-self, or self-manifesting self, as a (...) radical alternative to the modern conception of self. (shrink)

Does photography leave everything as it is? Clearly not. It scalps Uncle George, as he stands at the church door, proudly, innocently, in the role of bride's father, and it decapitates his nephew James, who had until now been a head taller than any other member of the wedding group. It reduces to two dimensions, and to black and white, such solid three-dimensional objects as the Rocky Mountains and St Paul's Cathedral, such colourful scenes and sights as the Aurora Borealis (...) and sunset in the desert. (shrink)

Does photography leave everything as it is? Clearly not. It scalps Uncle George, as he stands at the church door, proudly, innocently, in the role of bride's father, and it decapitates his nephew James, who had until now been a head taller than any other member of the wedding group. It reduces to two dimensions, and to black and white, such solid three-dimensional objects as the Rocky Mountains and St Paul's Cathedral, such colourful scenes and sights as the Aurora Borealis (...) and sunset in the desert. (shrink)

Although Arendt is widely cited as an early proponent of what is sometimes called “forward-looking” or “future-looking” responsibility, scholars have not dwelled at length on Arendt’s claim that th...

Quine’s thesis of underdetermination is significantly weaker than it has been taken to be in the recent literature, for the following reasons: (i) it does not hold for all theories, but only for some global theories, (ii) it does not require the existence of empirically equivalent yet logically incompatible theories, (iii) it does not rule out the possibility that all perceived rivalry between empirically equivalent theories might be merely apparent and eliminable through translation, (iv) it is not a fundamental thesis (...) within Quine’s philosophy, and (v) it does not carry with it the anti-realistic consequences often associated with the thesis in recent debates. The paper analyzes Quine’s views on the matter and the changes they underwent over the years. A conjecture is put forth about why Quine’s thesis has been so widely misrepresented: Quine’s writings up to 1975 tackled primarily the formulation and justification of the thesis, but afterwards were concerned mostly with the question whether empirically equivalent rivals to the theory we hold are to be considered true also. When this latter discussion is read without bearing in mind Quine’s earlier formulation and justification of the thesis, his thesis seems to have stronger epistemic consequences than it actually does. A careful reading of his later writings shows, however, that the formulation of the thesis remained unchanged after 1975, and that his mature and considered views supported only a very mitigated version of the thesis. (shrink)

In this article the public-theological motives in the film As it is in heaven is analised to demonstrate the film producer Kay Pollack's ideal to communicate through the film that people should live their lives here and now authentically without seeking excuses for being happy. In this article the principles of narratology is applied in the analysis of the film's plot, characterisation, plotted time and narrated spaces. It is also argued that the protagonist in the film can be regarded as (...) a 'Christ-figure' and that the film conveys a 'Christ narrative' in a secularised context. Societal issues such as emotional abuse and violence against children, women, people with disability and animals constitute building blocks of the narrative. Ecclesiastical hypocrisy and outdated sexual values endorsed by the institutional church are replaced by a choir consisting of common people which leads a whole world to sing in harmony. (shrink)

Dale Dorsey’s wide-ranging A Theory of Prudence contains ideas and arguments worthy of our attention on quite a variety of self-interest-related normative topics. In this essay I focus on Dorsey’s theory of prudential rationality, which is designed to deliver a negative answer to this essay’s titular question. Dorsey’s negative answer may be more intuitive, but I believe the positive answer is more defensible. From the perspective of prudence, it is just as reasonable to change your desires to fit the world (...) as it is to change the world to fit your desires. (shrink)

Compositions representing the Heavenly Liturgy - the liturgy that is presided over by Christ in heaven, of which the earthly liturgy is a reflection - first appear around the beginning of the fourteenth century in the decoration of Byzantine domes. Most scholars argue that such scenes depict an ancient concept, almost as old as liturgical exegesis itself. I contend that this view is based on a flawed reading of liturgical commentaries, of the biblical texts from which the commentaries draw inspiration, (...) and of the Divine Liturgy itself. I argue that the scene of the Heavenly Liturgy represents both an exegetical stream independent of texts and an understanding of the eucharistic liturgy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that existed in visual form in tandem with traditional textual interpretations of the rite. The scene, devised by painters and their patrons, therefore constitutes a concurrent exegetical tradition that both derived from the commentaries and deviated from them. (shrink)

A distinctive feature of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work after 1930 was his turn to a conception of philosophy as a form of social inquiry, John G. Gunnell argues, and Thomas Kuhn's approach to the philosophy of science exemplified this conception. In this book, Gunnell shows how these philosophers address foundational issues in the social and human sciences, particularly the vision of social inquiry as an interpretive endeavor and the distinctive cognitive and practical relationship between social inquiry and its subject matter. Gunnell (...) speaks directly to philosophers and practitioners of the social and human sciences. He tackles the demarcation between natural and social science; the nature of social phenomena; the concept and method of interpretation; the relationship between language and thought; the problem of knowledge of other minds; and the character of descriptive and normative judgments about practices that are the object of inquiry. Though Wittgenstein and Kuhn are often criticized as initiating a modern descent into relativism, this book shows that the true effect of their work was to undermine the basic assumptions of contemporary social and human science practice. It also problematized the authority of philosophy and other forms of social inquiry to specify the criteria for judging such matters as truth and justice. When Wittgenstein stated that "philosophy leaves everything as it is," he did not mean that philosophy would be left as it was or that philosophy would have no impact on what it studied, but rather that the activity of inquiry did not, simply by virtue of its performance, transform the object of inquiry. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience increasingly relies on complex data analysis methods. Researchers in this field come from highly diverse scientific backgrounds, such as psychology, engineering, and medicine. This poses challenges with respect to acquisition of appropriate scientific computing and data analysis skills, as well as communication among researchers with different knowledge and skills sets. Are researchers in cognitive neuroscience adequately equipped to address these challenges? Here, we present evidence from an online survey of methods skills. Respondents (n= 307) mainly comprised students and (...) post-doctoral researchers working in the cognitive neurosciences. Multiple choice questions addressed a variety of basic and fundamental aspects of neuroimaging data analysis, such as signal analysis, linear algebra, and statistics. We analyzed performance with respect to the following factors: undergraduate degree (grouped into Psychology, Methods, and Biology), current researcher status (undergraduate student, PhD student, and post-doctoral researcher), gender, and self-rated expertise levels. Overall accuracy was 72%. Not surprisingly, the Methods group performed best (87%), followed by Biology (73%) and Psychology (66%). Accuracy increased from undergraduate (59%) to PhD (74%) level, but not from PhD to post-doctoral (74%) level. The difference in performance for the Methods vs. non-methods (Psychology/Biology) groups was especially striking for questions related to signal analysis and linear algebra, two areas particularly relevant to neuroimaging research. Self-rated methods expertise was not strongly predictive of performance. The majority of respondents (93%) indicated they would like to receive at least some additional training on the topics covered in this survey. In conclusion, methods skills among junior researchers in cognitive neuroscience can be improved, researchers are aware of this, and there is strong demand for more skills-oriented training opportunities. We hope that this survey will provide an empirical basis for the development of bespoke skills-oriented training programs in cognitive neuroscience institutions. We will provide practical suggestions on how to achieve this. (shrink)

The assumed difference and continuing estrangement between political philosophy and political science is a relatively recent development. Both fields sprang from closely entwined concerns about democracy and matters of social and political justice, and today both must still confront their practical as well as cognitive relationship to their subject matter. This issue, however, has receded into the background of these discourses. Ludwig Wittgenstein's vision of philosophy is in effect a vision of social inquiry. His work, when viewed from this perspective, (...) prompts us to reconsider the logical status of various modes of political inquiry: how can these practices, descriptively and normatively, do justice to their subject matter? How can they deal with such foundational issues as the nature of social phenomena, the concepts of representation and interpretation, the problem of knowledge of other minds and what is involved in making explanatory and evaluative judgments about the objects of inquiry? (shrink)

Narcissus has no need of art because his own reflection preoccupies him.

Political philosophy offers a range of utopian proposals, from open borders to global egalitarianism. Some object that these proposals ought to be constrained by what is feasible, while others insist that what justice demands does not depend on what we can bring about. Currently, this debate is mired in disputes over the fundamental nature of justice and the ultimate purpose of political philosophy. I take a different approach, proposing that we should consider which facts could fill out a feasibility requirement. (...) This search for the facts requires requires looking to the social sciences, but I argue that it turns out that the social sciences will not provide us with findings that rule out, nor even count against, the kinds of proposals that political philosophers actually make, whether ideal or non-ideal. At the least, to deny this requires adopting deeply controversial commitments within the philosophy of social science. Thus, I conclude that a feasibility requirement has little practical use for political philosophers. Disputes over that requirement ought to be replaced by other, more fruitful ways for political philosophers to address both the findings of social science and the debates over non-ideal theory or political realism. (shrink)

In this note, we cast doubt on the requirement of spacetime inextendibility; it is not at all clear that our universe is “as large as it can be.”.

Locke’s concepts of person and self as they first appeared in the 1694 essay were not original to him but had already appeared in the Trinitarian controversy in England in the early 1690s. In particular, William Sherlock, who in 1690 argued that the Trinity might be understood as composed of three distinct self-conscious minds or persons in one God, previously used not only concepts but also phrases that Locke used in his definition of person. Both Sherlock and Locke defined person (...) as a unity of mind or self that, in Sherlock’s terms, extends as far as consciousness reaches. (shrink)

People who believe they have greater efficacy to address climate change are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviour. To confront the climate crisis, it will therefore be essential to understand the processes through which climate change efficacy is promoted. Some interventions in the literature assume that efficacy emerges from analytic reasoning processes: that it is deliberative, verbal, conscious, and influenced by information and education. In the current paper, we critique this notion. We review evidence showing that climate change efficacy (...) perceptions are (a) associated with climate-related distress and threat, (b) prescribed by social norms, (c) associated with social desirability and identity-expressive concerns, (d) surprisingly difficult to change through explicit, verbal instruction, but (e) responsive to imagery. We conclude by examining applied implications of these five propositions and discuss why non-analytic processes might (ironically) be beneficial for sustaining green activism. (shrink)

Compersion is an affective state commonly discussed in the context of consensually non-monogamous relationships. It is typically described as a positive emotional reaction to one’s partner’s enjoying time and/or intimacy with another person, sort of ‘the opposite of jealousy’. Recent years have seen an increased interest in this seemingly startling emotion. Part of what makes understanding compersion so difficult is the mononormative expectations of our culture. We suggest that a non-Western, in particular Buddhist, perspective might be more helpful to understand (...) that love and/or intimacy need not be an affair between two people only. We approach compersion through a Buddhist lens based on the ‘four immeasurables’, i.e. non-egocentric states that Buddhists take to promote well-being, and their ‘near enemies’, i.e. states which are easily conflated with them, but egocentric and harmful. Our goal is not to formulate a definition of compersion, nor to raise a normative bar for anyone who feels compersion, but to describe important facets of it that stand out more clearly against a Buddhist background than they might otherwise do. Such an approach not only enriches our understanding of compersion but contributes to people’s flourishing in all kinds of relationships and shows that non-monogamous relationships might be compatible with some forms of Buddhist practice. (shrink)

Concepts of inter-personal relations are most elusive. They conceal assumptions, norms, beliefs and various associated notions, and become even more opaque and potent when they transcend the language in which they are used and come to reflect a culture or a tradition. Escaping the critical gaze of those “in” the tradition, these concepts and their theoretical baggage remain largely alien to those outside it. This gap fosters a sense of alienation, if not of exclusion, on the part of those living (...) outside what they often regard as a charmed circle. No doubt, friendship is unlikely to figure on the danger list of such concepts. Yet, the concept is not innocent. It reflects philosophical and social presuppositions accumulated in the course of its long history and bears the weight of the paradigm shifts it underwent. This essay identifies some of these presuppositions built into it, outlines major steps in its development, and offers reasons why this particulate inter-personal relation came to be conceived the way it is conceived in “the Western tradition”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT McGowan’s notion of norm ‘enactment’ is the linchpin of her practical project, designed to provide an objective standard that circumvents the need to assess actual subjective uptake of discriminatory norms proposed by racist utterances in public spaces. However, the essential role of uptake to potential norm-imposing utterances—and responses like dismissing, countermanding, and ignoring—cannot be waved away. Contributions to conversations, and even more so to other social interactions, do not exert the normative compulsion upon participants that McGowan’s theory needs. People’s (...) words, even their ugly words, are not invariably norm ‘enactments’ that ‘constitute harm’—sometimes they are just words. (shrink)

This paper critiques a number of standard ways of understanding the role of the metalanguage in a semantic theory for natural language, including the idea that disquotation plays a nontrivial role in any explanatory natural language semantics. It then proposes that the best way to understand the role of a semantic metalanguage involves recognizing that semantics is a model-based science. The metalanguage of semantics is language for articulating features of the theorist's model. Models are understood as mediating instruments---idealized structures used (...) to represent select aspects of the world, aspects the theorist is seeking some theoretical understanding of. The aspect of reality we are seeking some understanding of in semantics is a dimension of human linguistic competence---informally, knowledge of meaning. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to trace a pathway connecting contemplative knowledge and practices with the social sciences. Contemplative knowledge and practices offer material for reflection in social science even concerning their very foundation. I'll found an opportunity for meshing our disciplinary tools with this knowledge as I introduced it in a health promotion program. The result will be a transdisciplinary confluence of different lines of inquiry contributing to a new perspective of self and social action. First of all (...) I will give a definition of contemplative knowledge and practices. Then, I will make a bridge between the contemplative approach and the social sciences, showing the contribution that symbolic interactionism can play. I will illustrate the perspective drawing on an action research program called Auriga aimed at smoking cessation and reduction among health professionals. The aim of this paper is focused on the specification of the conceptual background in which such kind of program has been developed. Finally, I outline some implications it could represent for what might be called transformative sociology. I believe that contemplative knowledge could contribute to disentangle some of the unanswered questions and concerns in the social sciences, once they dismiss for a while their scientistic perspective. The secular redefinition of tools mainly belonging to the wisdom traditions represents an innovation that can reshape what we intend by the self and experience, contributing to what is called the “social transformation from within,” a pragmatic and wise approach to change at any level. (shrink)

There is longstanding interpretive dispute between commentators over Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism, the doctrine that all things are metaphysically necessary and none are contingent. Those who affirm Spinoza’s commitment to the doctrine adhere to the necessitarian interpretation whereas those who deny it adhere to what I call the semi-necessitarian interpretation. As things stand, the disagreement between commentators appears to have reached an impasse. Notwithstanding, there seems to be no disagreement among commentators on the question of necessitarianism’s philosophical plausibility as a (...) metaphysical view: the doctrine is wildly untenable. This consensus view is more relevant to the interpretive debate than few have recognized, since leading semi-necessitarian commentators take the doctrine’s alleged absurdity to be one of the most compelling reasons (if not the most compelling reason) to prefer their reading over the necessitarian interpretation: for, as a matter of methodological principle, great philosophers like Spinoza should not be ascribed ridiculous views in the absence of better evidence. -/- This dissertation seeks to defend Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism on both the interpretive and philosophical fronts. I argue not only that the necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza is more plausible than the semi-necessitarian interpretation on textual grounds, but that Spinoza’s necessitarianism is a serviceable philosophical view whose tenability has been almost entirely overlooked and perfunctorily rejected. The principal basis upon which I build this defense is Spinoza’s rich and fascinating view of essences—what I simply refer to as his essentialism. Spinoza’s essentialism forms the bedrock of his metaphysics and is significant not least because it underlies and informs doctrines like his necessitarianism. Spinoza’s essentialism supplies resources to answer not just interpretive problems associated with necessitarianism, but philosophical challenges to the plausibility of the doctrine. My defense of Spinoza’s necessitarianism on philosophical grounds also offers a novel way of getting past much of the current interpretive impasse among commentators by effectively undercutting the methodological motivation for the semi-necessitarian reading. In addition to my defense on the interpretive front, then, my defense on the philosophical front provides supplementary reason to a fortiori favor the necessitarian reading of Spinoza. (shrink)

In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari make the claim that ‘[i]t may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task, or the task of a mode of existence still to be discovered on our plane of immanence today. This is the empiricist conversion.’ What are we to make of such a calling? The paper explicates why and in what sense this statement is of exemplary significance both for an appropriate understanding of Deleuze's political (...) thought and for a most timely conceptualisation of politics in a world so clearly defined by immanence, and nothing but immanence. I argue that Deleuze's rigorously constructive approach to the world is not beyond politics, as some recent readings have declared (e.g. those of Badiou and Hallward). Rather, we have to appreciate that in Deleuze and Guattari's demand for a ‘belief in this world’ the political intersects with the dimension of the ethical in such a way that our understanding of both is transformed. Only after this ‘empiricist conversion’ can we truly think of a Deleuzian politics that does justice to a plane of immanence ‘immanent only to itself’. (shrink)

In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari make the claim that ‘[i]t may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task, or the task of a mode of existence still to be discovered on our plane of immanence today. This is the empiricist conversion.’ What are we to make of such a calling? The paper explicates why and in what sense this statement is of exemplary significance both for an appropriate understanding of Deleuze's political (...) thought and for a most timely conceptualisation of politics in a world so clearly defined by immanence, and nothing but immanence. I argue that Deleuze's rigorously constructive approach to the world is not beyond politics, as some recent readings have declared. Rather, we have to appreciate that in Deleuze and Guattari's demand for a ‘belief in this world’ the political intersects with the dimension of the ethical in such a way that our understanding of both is transformed. Only after this ‘empiricist conversion’ can we truly think of a Deleuzian politics that does justice to a plane of immanence ‘immanent only to itself’. (shrink)

‘What it is like’ talk (‘WIL-talk’) — the use of phrases such as ‘what it is like’ — is ubiquitous in discussions of phenomenal consciousness. It is used to define, make claims about, and to offer arguments concerning consciousness. But what this talk means is unclear, as is how it means what it does: how, by putting these words in this order, we communicate something about consciousness. Without a good account of WIL-talk, we cannot be sure this talk sheds light, (...) rather than casts shadows, on our investigations of consciousness. The popular technical account of WIL-talk (see e.g. Lewis, 1995, and Kim, 1998) holds that WIL-talk involves technical terms — terms which look like everyday words but have a distinct meaning — introduced by philosophers. I argue that this account is incorrect by showing that the alleged technical terms were not introduced by philosophers, and that these terms do not have a technical meaning. (shrink)

In Knowledge and Lotteries, Hawthorne argues for a view on which whether a speaker knows that p depends on whether her practical environment makes it appropriate for her to use p in practical reasoning. It may seem that this view yields a straightforward account of why knowledge is important, based on the role of knowledge in practical reasoning. I argue that this is not so; practical reasoning does not motivate us to care about knowledge in itself. At best, practical reasoning (...) motivates us to care about several other concepts in themselves, and ascriptions of knowledge provide economical summaries of these independently important desiderata. (shrink)