"Open Democracy envisions what true government by mass leadership could look like."—Nathan Heller, New Yorker How a new model of democracy that opens up power to ordinary citizens could strengthen inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability in modern societies To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative (...) democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people—with the right suit, accent, wealth, and connections—are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the lost openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy in which power is genuinely accessible to ordinary citizens. Hélène Landemore favors the ideal of “representing and being represented in turn” over direct-democracy approaches. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Landemore recommends centering political institutions around the “open mini-public”—a large, jury-like body of randomly selected citizens gathered to define laws and policies for the polity, in connection with the larger public. She also defends five institutional principles as the foundations of an open democracy: participatory rights, deliberation, the majoritarian principle, democratic representation, and transparency. Open Democracy demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, today more than ever, urgently needed. (shrink)

The maze and the masses -- Democracy as the rule of the dumb many? -- A selective genealogy of the epistemic argument for democracy -- First mechanism of democratic reason: inclusive deliberation -- Epistemic failures of deliberation -- Second mechanism of democratic reason: majority rule.

This paper takes stock of a recent but growing movement within the field of deliberative democracy, which normatively argues for the epistemic dimension of democratic authority and positively defends the truth-tracking properties of democratic procedures. Authors within that movement call themselves epistemic democrats, hence the recognition by many of an ‘epistemic turn’ in democratic theory. The paper argues that this turn is a desirable direction in which the field ought to evolve, taking it beyond the ‘fact of disagreement’ that had (...) previously blocked the conceptual road to acknowledging more than intrinsic properties to democratic decision procedures. The paper shows how two authors in particular – Joshua Cohen and David Estlund – have successfully lifted the Rawlsian requirement of epistemic abstinence and defends epistemic democrats and the implications of the epistemic turn in democratic theory against various misconceptions. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of the epistemic properties of inclusiveness in the context of democratic deliberative assemblies and derives the implications of this argument in terms of the epistemically superior mode of selection of representatives. The paper makes the general case that, all other things being equal and under some reasonable assumptions, more is smarter. When applied to deliberative assemblies of representatives, where there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be included in the group, (...) the argument translates into a defense of a specific selection mode of participants: random selection. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe idea that the crowd could ever be intelligent is a counterintuitive one. Our modern, Western faith in experts and bureaucracies is rooted in the notion that political competence is the purview of the select few. Here, as in my book Democratic Reason, I defend the opposite view: that the diverse many are often smarter than a group of select elites because of the different cognitive tools, perspectives, heuristics, and knowledge they bring to political problem solving and prediction. In this (...) essay I defend my epistemic argument against proceduralist democrats; the value of model thinking against empiricists; the bracketing of fundamental value diversity against critics who see such diversity as an essential feature of politics; the intelligence of the masses in the face of voter ignorance and systematic biases; and the normative priority of democracy over market mechanisms. I also consider challenges to my use of Hong and Page's formal results, the epistemically proper selection method for representatives, and the role of deliberation in problem solving. I finally chart three avenues for further research. (shrink)

Consensus plays an ambiguous role in deliberative democracy. While it formed the horizon of early deliberative theories, many now denounce it as an empirically unachievable outcome, a logically impossible stopping rule, and a normatively undesirable ideal. Deliberative disagreement, by contrast, is celebrated not just as an empirically unavoidable outcome but also as a democratically sound and normatively desirable goal of deliberation. Majority rule has generally displaced unanimity as the ideal way of bringing deliberation to a close. This article offers an (...) epistemic perspective on this question of consensus versus disagreement. For ensuring the production of better decisions, we argue, the normative appeal of consensus varies depending on the deliberative task – whether it entails problem solving or prediction. We argue that in pure problem-solving contexts, consensus retains a strong normative appeal and forms the ideal deliberative outcome of deliberation. In contrast, on predictive tasks, consensus should generally not be used as a stopping rule noris it likely to be epistemically desirable as an outcome. Instead deliberators may be better served by ending the deliberation with a form of deliberative disagreement we call ‘positive dissensus’, which paves the way for more accurate aggregate predictions. (shrink)

Disclosure is a common response to conflicts of interest; it is intended to expose the conflict to scrutiny and enable it to be appropriately managed. For disclosure to be effective the receiver of the disclosure needs to be able to use the information to assess how the conflict may impact on their interests and then implement a suitable response. The act of disclosure also creates an expectation of self-regulation, as the person with the conflicting interests will be mindful of their (...) own potential biases and aware that their decisions may be monitored. This article discusses some of the problems of relying on disclosure as a solution to address conflicts of interest in research, including the added complexities around institutional conflicts of interest. The case of Dan Markingson illustrates these issues and highlights the vulnerable position relying on disclosure as a solution leaves research participants in. (shrink)

Inequity has been a hallmark of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, especially in the sharply disproportionate impacts among people of color. Recent studies have confirmed that t...

ML-HCAs have the potential to significantly change an entire healthcare system. It is not even necessary to presume that this will be disruptive but sufficient to assume that the mere adaptation of...

Chronic kidney failure is a serious somatic disease. Addressing the issue of living with a chronic disease means fully considering the patients’ entourage, their families, and those close to them, especially their children and spouses.Objectives: The present paper focuses on the couple’s psychological experience when one of them suffers from a chronic disease, in this instance kidney disease. In particular, how is the spouse affected by the treatment provided? The aim is not only to see how care for sick people (...) can be improved, but also, more specifically, how relatives and especially partners can receive attention.Methodology: A qualitative approach is not only adopted, being based on the psychotherapeutic follow-up of the partners of patients with chronic kidney disease, but also of the patients themselves, addressing the matter of their life as a couple. Three couples were considered, and two case studies are presented here. The issues that cut across these different situations are examined.Results and Discussion: Some couples show considerable resourcefulness. However, over the years, that capacity for adaptation and inventiveness can also be interrupted by the periods of greater suffering and even despair, especially when the somatic pathology becomes chronic. Many spouses talk about how living with a sick partner weighs down on them, causing severe fatigue. Some aspects of the illness can also become traumatic. The disease regularly disrupts the daily life of the couple and the family. This leads to a reworking of family relations. Each couple has its own history with the condition. As it emerges, it can disrupt the bonds of filiation, especially when the illness is hereditary. Making psychological care more accessible to the partners involved constitutes a major challenge for our hospital care systems. (shrink)

Ideomotor actions are behaviours that are unconsciously initiated and express a thought rather than a response to a sensory stimulus. The question examined here is whether ideomotor actions can also express nonconscious knowledge. We investigated this via the use of implicit long-term semantic memory, which is not available to conscious recall. We compared accuracy of answers to yes/no questions using both volitional report and ideomotor response . Results show that when participants believed they knew the answer, responses in the two (...) modalities were similar. But when they believed they were guessing, accuracy was at chance for volitional report , but significantly higher for Ouija response . These results indicate that implicit semantic memory can be expressed through ideomotor actions. They also suggest that this approach can provide an interesting new methodology for studying implicit processes in cognition. (shrink)

In the burgeoning debate about neuroscience’s role in contemporary society, the issue of brain optimization, or the application of neuroscientific knowledge and technologies to augment neurocognitive function, has taken center stage. Previous research has characterized media discourse on brain optimization as individualistic in ethos, pressuring individuals to expend calculated effort in cultivating culturally desirable forms of selves and bodies. However, little research has investigated whether the themes that characterize media dialogue are shared by lay populations. This article considers the relationship (...) between the representations of brain optimization that surfaced in a study of British press coverage between 2000 and 2012 and interviews with forty-eight London residents. Both data sets represented the brain as a resource that could be manipulated by the individual, with optimal brain function contingent on applying self-control in one’s lifestyle choices. However, these ideas emerged more sharply in the media than in the interviews: while most interviewees were aware of brain optimization practices, few were committed to carrying them out. The two data sets diverged in several ways: the media’s intense preoccupation with optimizing children’s brains was not apparent in lay dialogue, while interviewees elaborated beliefs about the underuse of brain tissue that showed no presence in the media. This article considers these continuities and discontinuities in light of their wider cultural significance and their implications for the media–mind relationship in public engagement with neuroscience. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Mutz argues that there is an inverse correlation between deliberation and participation. However, the validity of this conclusion partly depends on how one defines deliberation and participation. Mutz's definition of deliberation as ?hearing the other side? or ?cross-cutting exposure? is narrower than a minimal conception of deliberation with which deliberative democrats could agree. First, a minimal conception of deliberation would have to revolve around the principle of a reasoned exchange of arguments, as opposed to mere exposure to dissenting views. (...) Second, Mutz's almost exclusive focus on participation as partisan activism gives the impression of an essential tension between participation and deliberation. But another form of civic participation, which I call ?critical-deliberative involvement,? is perfectly compatible with the incentives for reasoned exchange of arguments with others. We should thus encourage people to participate in politics in ways that engage their reasoning faculty, not just their party loyalty. This also requires teaching people how to disagree constructively. (shrink)

Toward illuminating the structure of Llewellyn's dream theory, I compare it in formal terms to Freud's dream theory. An alternative to both of these dream machines, grounded in the distribution of cholinergic activation in the central nervous system, is presented. It is suggested that neither nor dream theory is sufficient to account for the properties of dreams.

This article furnishes a philosophical background for the current debate about responsibility and culpability for war crimes by referring to ideas from three important just war thinkers: Augustine, Francisco de Vitoria, and Michael Walzer. It combines lessons from these three thinkers with perspectives on current problems in the ethics of war, distinguishes between legal culpability, moral culpability, and moral responsibility, and stresses that even lower-ranking soldiers must in many cases assume moral responsibility for their acts, even though they are part (...) of a military hierarchy and act under orders. The questions addressed in this article are arguably among the hardest and most muddled in military ethics and deserve close philosophical analysis and scrutiny. (shrink)

Η υδροδότηση της κρύπτης-δεξαμενής του Σαραπιείου Α παρέμενε άγνωστη σε μεγάλο βαθμό. Δοκιμαστικές τομές που πραγματοποιήθηκαν σε ανοικτό οχετό κατά μήκος του νότιου τμήματος του ιερού αποκάλυψαν αρχαίο αγωγό που παροχέτευε τα νερά της κατώτερης δεξαμενής του Ινωπού, γειτονικού κτίσματος του Σαραπιείου Α. Ο αγωγός αυτός είχε συνδεθεί με άλλον οχετό που εξερχόταν από την κρύπτη : η υδροδότηση της κρύπτης-δεξαμενής γινόταν επομένως απευθείας από τα νερά του Ινωπού. Γνωρίζουμε εξ άλλου ότι η έναρξη λειτουργίας του Σαραπιείου Α στοίχισε μια (...) δίκη στον ιερέα Απολλώνιο.' Ισως αυτή ακριβώς η σύνδεση, ενός ιδωτικού αγωγού με ένα δημόσιο του Ινωπού, στάθηκε αιτία για να κατηγορηθεί ο ιερέας. (shrink)

NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) refers to an oppositional attitude from local residents against some risk generating facility that they have been chosen to host either by government or industry. The attitude is claimed to be characteristic of someone who is positive to a facility but who wants someone else to be its host. Since siting cannot be provided if everyone has this attitude, society ends up in a worse situation. The attitude is claimed to be egoistic and irrational. Here (...) it is argued that the NIMBY critique rests on questionable assumptions about the rightness of weighing total benefit against total cost. This weighing-principle will sometimes have to yield so that the rights of individuals can be acknowledged. (shrink)

Once Apollonius' Conics had been translated from Greek into Arabic, they became a main reference and the principal tool in studying solid problems, algebraic equations of 3rd and 4th degrees, infinitesimal mathematics, etc. Mathematicians of the 9th–10th centuries also studied the conic sections' constructions, as well as their continuous drawing and their drawing by points. Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān, as his grandfather Thābit ibn Qurra, was one of the most active and inventive mathematicians in these fields. Late Hélène Bellosta examined (...) in this article Ibn Sinān's contribution.Une fois les Coniques d'Apollonius traduits en arabe, ces livres sont devenus la référence indispensable et le principal instrument dans l'étude des problèmes solides, des équations algébriques des 3e et 4e degrés, des problèmes des mathématiques infinitésimales, etc. Les mathématiciens des ixe-xe siècles ont également étudié les constructions des sections coniques ainsi que leur tracé par points et leur tracé continu. Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān, comme son grand-père Thābit ibn Qurra, était l'un des mathématiciens les plus actifs et les plus inventifs en ce domaine. Dans cet article, la regrettée Hélène Bellosta a examiné la contribution d'Ibn Sinān.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.DE L'USAGE DES CONIQUES CHEZ IBRĀHĪM IBN SINĀNVolume 22, Issue 1Hélène Bellosta DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000129Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. DE L'USAGE DES CONIQUES CHEZ IBRĀHĪM IBN SINĀNVolume 22, Issue 1Hélène Bellosta DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000129Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. DE L'USAGE DES CONIQUES CHEZ IBRĀHĪM IBN SINĀNVolume 22, Issue 1Hélène Bellosta DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000129Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

Les enfants s’interrogent sur la mort comme sur la vie ou d’autres sujets tels que la sexualité. Devenir grand, c’est confronter sa représentation du monde à celle des adultes, c’est apprendre, comprendre, pouvoir parler même des choses les plus difficiles. L’objet de cet article est d’aborder la façon de parler de la mort à un enfant. Si les enfants ont pu apprendre à parler de la mort simplement, en dehors de tout contexte de drame, il leur sera alors bien plus (...) facile d’affronter l’épreuve de la perte d’un proche. L’auteur s’appuie sur son expérience de psychothérapeute d’enfants et de chercheure sur ce sujet et adopte une approche qualitative illustrée par différents cas cliniques issus de ses travaux et de sa pratique clinique. Apprivoiser la mort, faire connaissance avec elle, c’est avoir pu communiquer sur ce sujet avant qu’elle ne s’impose dans la réalité. Parler de la mort avec l’enfant est donc essentiel pour l’aider à grandir et lui donner les ressources pour faire face aux épreuves de la vie. (shrink)

Bien que l’incinération soit une pratique funéraire de plus en plus fréquente en France, les enfants endeuillés restent souvent privés d’explication sur ce rituel, comme si celui-ci était plus traumatique et difficile à aborder que l’inhumation. L’article fait l’hypothèse que les théories thanatologiques infantiles présentent des spécificités dans de tels contextes. Cette réflexion s’appuie sur l’expérience clinique de l’auteur auprès d’enfants endeuillés et plus particulièrement sur le suivi de trente-six enfants de moins de 10 ans dont un proche a été (...) incinéré. Après un rappel de la place de l’incinération dans la culture française, l’article montre comment les enfants se représentent l’incinération en fonction de leur âge. Enfin, il aborde des perspectives pour la prise en charge de ces enfants et le soutien à leurs proches. (shrink)

Bien que l’incinération soit une pratique funéraire de plus en plus fréquente en France, les enfants endeuillés restent souvent privés d’explication sur ce rituel, comme si celui-ci était plus traumatique et difficile à aborder que l’inhumation. L’article fait l’hypothèse que les théories thanatologiques infantiles présentent des spécificités dans de tels contextes. Cette réflexion s’appuie sur l’expérience clinique de l’auteur auprès d’enfants endeuillés et plus particulièrement sur le suivi de trente-six enfants de moins de 10 ans dont un proche a été (...) incinéré. Après un rappel de la place de l’incinération dans la culture française, l’article montre comment les enfants se représentent l’incinération en fonction de leur âge. Enfin, il aborde des perspectives pour la prise en charge de ces enfants et le soutien à leurs proches. (shrink)

The sanctuary of Demeter at Vamies (Itanos, East Crete). Topography, architecture and small terracotta figurines The survey conducted on the territory of Itanos has led to the discovery of numerous sites. This paper focuses on a small sanctuary located in the immediate vicinity of the ancient town. The site was cleared of brushwood and intensively surveyed in 1996. This work revealed the foundations of a rectangular building and produced a lot of pottery and terracotta figurines. This paper offers a general (...) presentation of the topography of the site, as well as a comprehensive catalogue and full discussion of the terracotta figurines. The latter offer various hints for the identification of the worshipped deity, probably Demeter, whereas the analysis of their stylistic features provide clues to the origin of these pieces, offering interesting parallels with other cult deposits in Eastern Crete. Finally, they allow examining the notion of Eteocretan identity when applied to material culture. (shrink)

Η στήλη που δημοσιεύεται εδώ ανακαλύφθηκε το 2003 στη Δεξαμενή του Ινωπού στη Δήλο, όπου είχε επαναχρησιμοποιηθεί ως οικοδομικό υλικό, και φέρει το ψήφισμα του Ινωπού. Μπορούμε να δείξουμε, ξαναδιαβάζοντας τους λογαριασμούς των Ιεροποιών, ότι το όνομα Ινωπός αναφέρεται στην ίδια τη Δεξαμενή - η οποία από τυπολογική άποψη είναι μια κρήνη - και όχι στο ρέμα του Ινωπού. Το κείμενο παρουσιάζει άλλωστε μια δυσκολία, καθώς εμπεριέχει αντιφατικές ενδείξεις για τη χρονολόγησή του. Μπορούμε να υποθέσουμε ότι πρόκειται για ένα ελληνιστικό (...) αντίγραφο ενός αρχαιότερου κανονισμού, ο οποίος χρονολογείται στην κλασική εποχή. Στην περίπτωση αυτή πρέπει να δεχθούμε ότι οι πρώτες εργασίες διαμόρφωσης της Δεξαμενής του Ινωπού ανέρχονται σε εποχή παλαιότερη από αυτήν που πιστεύαμε μέχρι σήμερα. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to Ibn Sinn's text deals with two distinct, though closely related, subjects. First he considers the classification of problems, founded on the logical criteria which are the number and degree of indetermination of the solutions and the number of hypotheses and their possible independence. This classification does not replace the Hellenistic one, which remains relevant insofar as it purports to solve geometrical problems, but complements it and has a different frame of reference, applying principally to algebra, (...) that new born science. Ibn Sinn to bestow more importance on the role played by analysis in the course of the proof, the only role left to synthesis being to check that all implications involved in the course of analysis are in fact equivalences. This method will prove to be productive in algebra too, so much so that some algebraists will explicitly identify algebra with analysis. (shrink)

The concrete insertion of nurses into the context of an inquiry contributes to empirical evaluation research of health promotion programs. As interveners and concrete actors in social movements, nurses are in a privileged position to give realism to a local understanding of the political and cultural context of evaluative research. Drawing on the practice of empirical evaluation research, this paper seeks to generate new methodological approaches in a way that broadens nursing inquiries in community health nursing. It explores new ways (...) of thinking about epistemology and knowledge production in nursing practice. For 5 months an evaluative research project adopting a participatory‐action research approach was conducted with local community actors in an AIDS prevention project in Amazonas (Brazil) in a prostitution setting. An auto‐ethnographic journal was used as a reflective approach for the critical analysis of nursing research activities. This paper calls for a closer relationship between scientific research settings and the sociopolitical and the sociocultural aspects of nursing practice. It increases an incorporation of popular, social and professional experiential learning and skill acquisition in embedded knowledge production. (shrink)

This article is another unapologetic contribution to ‘the gentle art of rational choice bashing’. The debate over rational choice theory (RCT) may appear to have tired out; yet RCT is as dominant in political sciences as ever. The reason is that critics typically take aim at the symptoms of RCT’s failings, rather than their root cause: RCT’s very ambition of being the ‘science of choice’. In this article I argue that RCT fails twice, first as a science of choice and (...) then as a science of choice. Both failures suggest that political sciences need an epistemologic (re)conversion away from the Platonic ideal of a deductive and universal science of choice toward a more inductive and pluralist paradigm. While advocates of RCT rightly insist that ‘you can’t beat something with nothing’, I take their advice, with a grain of salt: in order for alternatives to appear, the frame of references needs to be modified. I draw a few perspectives for the political sciences. (shrink)