Some scholars argue that Aquinas inconsistently characterizes Christ's human nature as both common and individual. This study shows the consistency of his position by placing it in its historical and metaphysical context. In light of Aquinas' reaction to Peter Lombard's «three theories» of the Incarnation, it is shown that this objection is based on an inaccurate account of how the different ways of understanding the human nature are related to the supposit.

The field of quantitative analysis is often mistaken to be a discipline free from ethical burdens. The quantitative financial analyst or “quant” profession holds a position of significant responsibility as the keeper of mathematical models used in complex derivative security pricing and risk management. Despite this responsibility very few postgraduate programs address the teaching of ethics and professional standards in their curriculum, and the credibility of the profession has suffered as a result of several high-profile financial losses. Some of these (...) failures could have been avoided and their impacts diminished if ethical considerations were integrated with quantitative method. Appropriate development in ethics education for quants is needed to identify points in the decision-making process where ethical questions can arise, and to explain how quants can protect stakeholders from the costs of unethical behaviour. An approach to ethics education needs to be flexible and allow for different methods to infuse ethical coverage into the course. Such an approach will go some way towards aligning the profession with other specialisations in banking and avoid the need for complex and unnecessary regulation. (shrink)

Quantitative analysts or “Quants” are a source of competitive advantage for financial institutions. They occupy the relatively powerful but often misunderstood role of modeling, structuring, and pricing complex financial instruments in the capital markets. But Quants often function in a discipline free from ethical burdens. Models used to price complex instruments are usually beyond the mathematical understanding of financial sector participants who rely heavily on the integrity of the Quant who built them. Although there has been some attempt to cover (...) the ethics of mathematics applied to the capital markets, designing a set of rules to guide the ethical behavior of Quants cannot be made explicit and remains inexpressible. Because Quants generally experience a sense of detachment from moral obligation, there is a growing need to convert moral detachment into engagement. Our framework is indebted to key elements of Wittgenstein’s practical ethics philosophy and Rawls’ justice principle. The burden of balancing justice as fairness as defined by Rawls with the inability to explicitly articulate ethical rules as defined by Wittgenstein must fall to the Quant. We propose that the threshold delineating the barrier between ethical detachment and engagement can only be defined by the Quants themselves. It is their moral duty to disclose their level of ethical engagement when their models are put into practice. (shrink)

To attract complementary assets, firms that sponsor proprietary de facto compatibility standards must trade off control of the standard against the imperative for adoption. For example, Microsoft and Intel in turn gained pervasive adoption of their technologies by appropriating only a single layer of the standards architecture and encouraging competition in other layers. In reaction to such proprietary strategies, the open source movement relinquished control to maximize adoption. To illustrate this, we examine the rise of the Linux operating system from (...) 1995–2001, particularly the motivations of organizational buyers and suppliers of complementary assets, and Microsoft’s reaction to its success. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Maritain rejects any attempt to reduce ethics to a set of moral rules that can be derived from natural law. Rather, in his work we find a nuanced account of the virtue of prudence, which applies the precepts of the natural law to particular situations. We also find him insisting that the appropriate animation of ethical action springs not from the law, but from love. Maritain’s metaphysical existentialism leads him to insist that the natural (...) law is never sufficient to meet the exigencies of determining action. Accordingly, the authentically metaphysical basis of his ethics is thoroughly existential (in the Thomistic sense) and must include the prudential governance that guides human action, because an account of human nature and its ends only informs us of the range of possibilities for human goodness, without showing how to actually achieve them. In arguing for this claim I begin by situating Maritain’s ethical discussion in the context of his metaphysics. I then explore his understanding of natural law and its limitations when it comes to governing action. Finally, I explain the place of prudence as the virtue that applies the natural law to the particular. From this the role of existence and love as the interconnected basis for the foundations of ethics in Maritain’s thought is made clear. (shrink)

This article examines Michel Foucault’s critical investigation of neoliberalism in the course published as Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au Collège de France, 1978-1979. Foucault’s lectures are interrogated along two axes. First, examining the way in which neoliberalism can be viewed as a particular production of subjectivity, as a way in which individuals are constituted as subjects of “human capital.” Secondly, Foucault’s analyses is augmented and critically examined in light of other critical work on neoliberalism by Wendy Brown, David Harvey, (...) Christian Laval, Maurizo Lazzarato, and Antonio Negri. Of these various debates and discussions, the paper argues that the discussion of real subsumption in Marx and Negri is most important for understanding the specific politics of neoliberalism. Finally, the paper argues that neoliberalism entails a fundamental reexamination of the tools of critical thought, an examination of how freedom can constitute a form of subjection. (shrink)

En este texto se examina la alteración de la subjetividad kantiana propuesta por Jean-Luc Marion. Marion cuestiona la noción de un sujeto estable y autónomo, argumentando que el sujeto debe estar en constante relación con lo saturado y lo otro. Rechaza la idea de un yo cogito cartesiano y busca una reconcepción del ser en relación con el otro y lo trascendente. Marion destaca la importancia del amor como centro de la subjetividad y plantea que el sujeto no busca tanto (...) su subsistencia como el amor y ser amado. El texto explora las implicaciones de esta perspectiva en relación con la temporalidad y la manifestación fenomenológica. Marion propone una reconfiguración del sujeto que se revela en la relación con lo saturado y la co-constitución con el otro. (shrink)

This chapter seeks clarification into how Marion understands “desire,” especially in The Erotic Phenomenon. Philosophies of “objectivity” have lost sight of love and its uniquely supporting evidences, and desire plays a number of roles in restoring to love the “dignity of a concept,” in its contribution to forming selfhood and “individualization,” and in its establishing the paradoxical bases of the erotic reduction and “eroticization.” Since he claims in La Rigueur des Choses that “The Erotic Phenomenon logically completes the phenomenology of (...) the gift and the saturated phenomenon,” it is necessary to conceive of how and to what degree. The erotic reduction demands that one bracket oneself and return to the Ursprung of intuition by asking the important question “can I be the first to love?” This chapter initiates an application of these findings on the manifold of desire back onto Marion’s understanding of “the gift” and his phenomenology of givenness. How might the erotic reduction and the reduction to givenness interrelate? Might love and desire be modes or “capacities” of alteration of one’s experience within intuition? Desire, which is conceived in relation to “lack” as a resource, provides a kind of “negative assurance” that allows the adonné to access an affirmation of love. (shrink)

Fictionalism is the view that the claims of a target discourse are best seen as being fictional in some way, as being expressed in some pretense manner, or as not being about the traditional posits of the discourse. The contemporary taxonomy of fictionalist views is quite elaborate. Yet, there is a version of fictionalism that has failed to develop and which corresponds to the earliest form of the view found in the history of philosophy, East and West. I call (...) this view “reactionary fictionalism.” I argue that traces of reactionary fictionalism can be found in Classical Daoism, Madhyamaka Buddhism, and Pyrrhonian Skepticism. Reactionary fictionalism is a kind of fictionalism that differs from both the hermeneutic and revolutionary kinds discussed today. Hermeneutic fictionalism says we already treat the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner. Revolutionary fictionalism recommends we all start treating the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner for reasons mostly of social utility. Reactionary fictionalism recommends, by contrast, that only those concerned with obtaining maximal therapeutic release from the pathology of literally asserting genuine beliefs in the claims of a target discourse should react in a pretense manner to inescapable contexts demanding the use of the claims of that discourse. I aim to show that reactionary fictionalism was a technique utilized in premodern skeptical traditions as a means for enduring one's condemnation to near‐permanent sociality. I recommend slotting reactionary fictionalism into our present taxonomy once we note that employing fictionalism can have a primarily therapeutic motivation and not merely a semantic, epistemic, or metaphysical one. (shrink)

Članek ponovno odpira razpravo o recepciji dela Louisa Althusserja v teoriji in kritiki kulture v luči nedavnih angleških prevodov posthumnih del tega francoskega filozofa, vključno z nedokončanim Sur la reproduction, ki vsebuje tudi spis »Ideologija in ideološki aparati države«. Izmed marksističnih mislecev njegove generacije ni bil nihče v tolikšni meri tarča očitkov teoreticizma in političnega odpadništva kot prav Althusser, kar Rancière opisuje kot »althusserjansko zanikanje političnih učinkov«. Članek predstavi pregled zgodovinskih teženj in nasprotnih teženj, ki jih najdemo v Althusserjevih spisih (...) med »dolgimi šestdesetimi«, in trdi, da ne smemo podcenjevati vloge teorije in teoretikov v prid osvobajajočih praks maja 1968, ampak moramo Althusserjev domnevni teoreticizem misliti v kontekstu politično motiviranih teoretskih bojev in rivalstev, ki so določali »politiko njegovega časa«. V zaključku opažamo, da bi preusmeritev pozornosti k tem bojem lahko pripeljala do drugačnega pojmovanja vloge teorije po letu ‘68. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, they (...) are involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

US citizens perceive their society to be one of the most diverse and religiously tolerant in the world today. Yet seemingly intractable religious intolerance and moral conflict abound throughout contemporary US public life - from abortion law battles, same-sex marriage, post-9/11 Islamophobia, public school curriculum controversies, to moral and religious dimensions of the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, and Tea Party populism. Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society develops an approach to democratic discourse and coalition-building across deep (...) moral and religious divisions. Drawing on conflict transformation in peace studies, recent American pragmatist thought, and models of agonistic democracy, Jason Springs argues that, in circumstances riven with conflict between strong religious identities and deep moral and political commitments, productive engagement may depend on thinking creatively about how to constructively utilize conflict and intolerance. The result is an approach oriented by the recognition of conflict as a constituent and life-giving feature of social and political relationships. (shrink)

Ces études débordent le problème du temps chez les Stoïciens et se proposent d’établir que cette question, en apparence modeste, permet d’éclairer, et en même temps commande l’ensemble du système.Au premier abord en effet, la théorie du temps se présente comme une simple section d’un chapitre de la Physique, celui qui traite des Incorporels. Mais déjà la simple interprétation des textes transmis fait voir que cette théorie tient étroitement à d’autres théories, comme celle des incorporels en général, des catégories, de (...) la substance. Abordant ensuite les thèses majeures de la logique et de l’éthique, on s’aperçoit qu’à leur tour elles sont solidaires de la conception du temps qui, dans bien des cas, fait évanouir leur apparence de paradoxe. A cela même, il n’y a rien d’étrange, si l’on se souvient que le stoïcisme, plus que tout autre philosophie antique, constitue un système cohérent. Mais plus particulièrement, le problème du temps a dû former comme le noeud de la réflexion stoïcienne qui vise, contre les lourdes autorités de Platon et d’Aristote, à rétablir dans sa réalité et dans sa dignité, le concret, le sensible, disqualifié comme « sujet à la génération et à la corruption », c’est-à-dire, en un mot, comme « l’être dans le temps ». (shrink)

Résumé: Les analogies peuvent être des outils précieux d’argumentation lors-qu’elles sont bonnes, mais quand elles sont mauvaises, elles faussent inévitablement la question qu’elles sont censées élucider. Tel est le cas de la comparaison entre la sécession et le divorce, qu’il s’agisse du divorce sous conditions ou du divorce sans égard à la faute. L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que la sécession se distingue empirique ment d’un divorce par trois différences significatives: entre personnes et peuple, entre mariage et union (...) politique, et entre divorce et sécession. Cela révèle que les deux versions de l’analogie du divorce sont inadéquates. Même si, cependant, ces écarts pou vaient être comblés et que l’analogie du divorce sous condition puisse être sauvée, je conteste le caractère approprié de l’autre version en montrant qu’aborder la sécession comme un divorce civil entraînerait des implications normatives contre-intuitives qui enlèveraient tout attrait à l’analogie du divorce sans égard à la faute, ou qui amèneraient ceux qui l’emploient à promouvoir des modifications irréalistes aux institutions légales internationales. (shrink)

This article makes the case for the necessity of a multi-focal conception of violence in religion and peacebuilding. I first trace the emergence and development of the analytical concepts of structural and cultural violence in peace studies, demonstrating how these lenses both draw central insights from, but also differ from and improve upon, critical theory and reflexive sociology. I argue that addressing structural and cultural forms of violence are concerns as central as addressing direct (explicit, personal) forms of violence for (...) purposes of building just and sustainable peace. Moreover, religiously informed and/or motivated peacebuilders are especially well-appointed and equipped to identify and address violence in its structural and cultural manifestations. I the examine how concepts of structural and cultural violence, in effect, centrally inform the efforts of Martin Luther King and Cornel West to cultivate just and sustainable peace in a context as putatively peaceful and prosperous as the United States. (shrink)

RésuméLes analogies peuvent être des outils précieux d'argumentation lors-qu'elles sont bonnes, mais quand elles sont mauvaises, elles faussent inévitablement la question qu'elles sont censées élucider. Tel est le cas de la comparaison entre la sécession et le divorce, qu'il s'agisse du divorce sous conditions ou du divorce sans égard à la faute. L'objectif de cet article est de montrer que la sécession se distingue empiriquement d'un divorce par trois différences significatives: entre personnes et peuple, entre manage et union politique, et (...) entre divorce et sécession. Cela révèle que les deux versions de l'analogie du divorce sont inadéquates. Même si, cependant, ces écarts pouvaient être comblés et que l'analogie du divorce sous condition puisse être sauvée, je conteste le caractère approprie de l'autre version en montrant qu'aborder la sécession comme un divorce civil entraînerait des implications normatives contre-intuitives qui enlèveraient tout attrait à l'analogie du divorce sans égard à la faute, ou qui amèneraient ceux qui l'emploient à promouvoir des modifications irréalistes aux institutions légales internationales. (shrink)

Questo articolo esplora la nascita della Fenomenologia americana nella "Nuova Fenomenologia" di Josiah Royce, proposta nel suo Thought Diary (1878-1880), in dialogo sia con il tema della pratica contemplativa di Husserl sia con la versione del pragmatismo di Peirce.

Magic and Vegas have a lot in common. Both have a reputation for bad taste and cheap thrills, and they’ve both generally been ignored—or at best ridiculed—by the art-critical establishment. It’s fitting, then, that no city loves magic like Vegas loves magic. Today, more than one-third of its top-selling shows feature magic, and this means that no complete treatment of art and entertainment in Sin City can afford to ignore it. But what’s at risk here is more than theoretical completeness. (...) Magic provides a distinctive—and distinctively powerful—form of aesthetic experience whose appeal spans very different cultures, age groups, and historical periods. Recognizing this opens a variety of theoretical doors and raises a host of questions, among them the issue of the relationship between magic and other genres and art forms. Indeed, magic performances are often complex theatrical events that incorporate drama, humor, elements of horror, and—critically for present concern—music. While these are sometimes incidental accretions, mere presentational window-dressing for the magic trick itself, they can also be tools in the magician’s toolbox. For example, magicians widely appreciate that a joke can be good for more than a laugh: in virtue of how it shapes the audience’s attention, it can directly contribute to the success of a trick. -/- In this chapter, I argue that the same is true of music, and that magicians employ it not only to set the mood and highlight dramatic moments, but to facilitate the deception that’s necessary for the experience of magic itself. As we will see, music can frame, stimulate, and illuminate, but it can simultaneously also block and blind. No wonder, then, that it’s everywhere in Vegas, which, like magic, works only if we’re receptive to the illusions it openly manufactures. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that, if it is true that maximum self-development is better both for individuals and society, and if it is true that that self-development is being seriously curtailed by pervasive environmental tech forces, then clearly educational systems, since they are guardians of “developing” young humans, have a moral imperative to push back against forces that diminish the self. On the other hand, if it is not true that “more self is always better,” that perhaps “goodness of (...) fit” between self and society is optimum, then education systems are justified in continuing to pay scant attention to the forces of self-development (or lack thereof). In line with Sherry Turkle’s (2011) argument that tech forces are diminishing the sort of reflective reasoning necessary for self-development, we will argue that since communicative interchange is necessary for self-development, and an ever-developing self is necessary for ever deeper and more meaningful dialogue (hence forming a dialectic), the fact that social media and other forms of tech connection stunts deep and meaningful interchange has serious implications. Specifically, we will argue that, in contemporary high-tech society (what we are calling Society 2.0), the dialectic between self and communication is going the “wrong” way; that genuine dialogue is becoming ever more rare, which in turn is resulting in “diminished-I’s,” which in turn is resulting in ever more complacency in the face of utterly superficial communicative interchange. We will begin with an overview of what we mean by a “diminished-I,” and then follow by noting how social media, the reading vacuum, roboticism, crowd communication, and decreasing social capital are resulting in diminished-I’s. Since this is resulting in an “I-diminished” society, we will reflect on the question of whether those dialogical educational initiatives that promote self-development are, in fact, making dodos, i.e., making youngsters unfit for the environment in which they find themselves. Ultimately, we will argue that, if educators choose to fight back against the I-diminishing forces of Society 2.0, they need to take selves seriously and actively engage youngsters in dialogue with those with opposing viewpoints. Ultimately, youngsters in Society 2.0 will need all the assistance educators can muster to fight the addictive, literally mind-numbing forces of being “happily” “alone together,” and instead chose the riskier often unhappy-making option of diving into the truth-seeking process with varying coalitions of the willing. (shrink)

The contemporary rise in the West of cosmetic surgery as a cultural practice expresses the story of the late modern self as autonomous renovator, and the body as disenchanted raw material and individual possession. Technological biomedicine offers itself as the institution ready to assist this reflexive self in aligning the body to an individual’s inner identity. A Christian body politics, however, challenges this narrative of the human person, by claiming that gift and dependence more aptly represent human being than (...) possession and autonomy. The rite of footwashing, particularly as articulated by Jean Vanier and practised in the communities of L’Arche, represents a sacramental practice which forms Christians in a different narrative of the body and being human. Footwashing reminds and trains members of the Body in a non-violent gentleness towards all bodies, and a recognition of humans as creatures of a good God rather than mere possessors of inert flesh. (shrink)

This paper has already been published in Policy Futures in Education, 0 1–14, 2017. It is freely available on Academia. We thank Jason Thomas Wozniak for the permission to republish it here.: Debt shapes subjectivity by rhythmically training indebted subjects. Stated slightly differently, there exists a debt dressage that produces indebted subjectivity. One of the principle aims of this article is to introduce rhythm into the debt analysis debates. Building on Henri - Sciences de l'éducation et de la formation (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

“Neologism” refers to new meanings that are given to old words (which we might call “paleologisms”). This chapter deals with neologisms in the first sense. Neologisms run the gamut from the atrocious to the sublime. On a more theoretical plane, as every word was a neologism at some point, figuring out how words become words at all—how something becomes a meaningful word in a language—will enrich our understanding of language in general, of what it means to mean. The chapter explains (...) how words get to have the meanings that they do, and how they become the words they are. New words run from the merely cute to the hilarious, and they remind us of two important things: one, an individual's power to create words, to create meaning, is much greater than is often supposed, and two, because of this, it's essential to use that power wisely and sparingly. (shrink)

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid application of invasion (...) biology’s a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class. (shrink)

It has been argued by philosophers and cultural historians that the notion of wilderness as it has been developed in the West problematically separates—conceptually and practically—humans from wild nature. The human/wilderness dichotomy, it is said, potentially leads even well-intentioned, environmentally minded people to work for wilderness preservation at the expense of paying attention to our local, lived environment. Although Henry David Thoreau and John Muir are often taken to be key architects of the inherited notion of wilderness, I draw (...) from their differing descriptions of spending time in wild areas in orderto argue that Thoreau provides a view of the human-nature relationship that is not susceptible to this particular worry. Thoreau, much more than Muir, provides us with reasons to not ignore our local lived space in favor of protecting only more wild (i.e., less humanized) places. The contrast between the two does not diminish the value of Muir’s work, but it does remind us that key figures—Thoreau in this case—in the development of the dominant wilderness paradigm should not be set aside as unhelpful in our own efforts to better understand our relationship with local place. (shrink)

This paper addresses two key works in the eighteenth‐century debate on the problem of taste: the Abbé Du Bos's Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture and David Hume's ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ . A successful solution to the ‘paradox of taste’ should sustain the democratising impulse behind Du Bos's appeal to the judgment of the ‘public’ whilst, at the same time, acknowledging the role of learning and discovery which underpins Hume's recourse to the opinion of the (...) best qualified critics. This can be achieved, it is argued, by taking up a standpoint which is internal to our actual arguments or disputes about art, drawing upon and recommending a set of practices which allow for the development and revision of our judgments about works of art. (shrink)

This paper addresses two key works in the eighteenth‐century debate on the problem of taste: the Abbé Du Bos's Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719) and David Hume's ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ (1757). A successful solution to the ‘paradox of taste’ should sustain the democratising impulse behind Du Bos's appeal to the judgment of the ‘public’ whilst, at the same time, acknowledging the role of learning and discovery which underpins Hume's recourse to the opinion of (...) the best qualified critics. This can be achieved, it is argued, by taking up a standpoint which is internal to our actual arguments or disputes about art, drawing upon and recommending a set of practices which allow for the development and revision of our judgments about works of art. (shrink)

In a recent conference volume, American philosopher Michael Sandel engages the Confucian tradition in the search for alternatives to what Sandel calls the “unencumbered self,” the unattached liberal subject as detailed in the philosophy of John Rawls. Responding to Sandel, American Confucianist Roger Ames draws on a lifetime of comparative thought to advance the Pragmatism of John Dewey as a way to interrogate Western philosophy in general, arguing that “humane becomings,” a view of the human person facilitated, Ames writes, by (...) Deweyan Pragmatism, are the Confucian ideal and the key to recovering a holistic anthropology within the Western tradition. In this essay, I intervene in the Ames-Sandel debate to argue that Charles Peirce, and not John Dewey, is the best American Pragmatist for bridging the divide between the Confucian and Rawlsian views of the human person. Peirce’s emphasis on love as true intersubjectivity and on communication as the exchange of real meaning is, I argue, the key to unlocking the Confucian ideal to the West. (shrink)

It has been argued by philosophers and cultural historians that the notion of wilderness as it has been developed in the West problematically separates—conceptually and practically—humans from wild nature. The human/wilderness dichotomy, it is said, potentially leads even well-intentioned, environmentally minded people to work for wilderness preservation at the expense of paying attention to our local, lived environment. Although Henry David Thoreau and John Muir are often taken to be key architects of the inherited notion of wilderness, I draw (...) from their differing descriptions of spending time in wild areas in orderto argue that Thoreau provides a view of the human-nature relationship that is not susceptible to this particular worry. Thoreau, much more than Muir, provides us with reasons to not ignore our local lived space in favor of protecting only more wild (i.e., less humanized) places. The contrast between the two does not diminish the value of Muir’s work, but it does remind us that key figures—Thoreau in this case—in the development of the dominant wilderness paradigm should not be set aside as unhelpful in our own efforts to better understand our relationship with local place. (shrink)

Pendant des décennies, l’objectif de concevoir une « philosophie concrète » a orienté les travaux philosophiques de Günther Anders. Pourtant, il nous faut encore fournir une contextualisation historique et un examen critique de cet aspect crucial de sa pensée. Dans cet essai, j’examine les textes publiés et non publiés (de son vivant) qu’Anders a écrits contre Martin Heidegger à partir de la fin des années 1940. C’est bien dans ces textes qu’Anders explicite et détaille ce qu’est pour lui une philosophie (...) de la « concrétude ». Cet article nous permettra, du moins je l’espère, de faire apparaître la philosophie d’Anders et de mieux discerner comment s’est formé le système d’idées qui sous-tend l’ opus magnum d’Anders, L’Obsolescence de l’homme. (shrink)

This article examines the role of social theory in Cornel West's account of radical democracy. I explicate and extend the critical implications of Richard Rorty's views for the revolutionary impulses in West's project, and then I examine West's use of Sheldon Wolin's notion of "fugitive democracy" as a potential instance of the "theoretical resentment" against which Rorty cautions. Drawing from John Howard Yoder and Karl Barth, I conclude by demonstrating how West's account of the Black Church (...) contains resources to chasten the detrimental excesses in Wolin's account, while maintaining a robust sense of radical democracy. (shrink)

Résumé Steven Burns soutient que les œuvres d'art riches ont tendance à donner lieu à des lectures meilleures plutôt qu’à des interprétations ambiguës. Ce n'est pas une simple affirmation statistique. Burns soutient qu'une telle richesse rendra l'ambiguïté moins probable ou moins durable. Dans cet article, je critique la position de Burns à partir de mon point de vue de champion de l'interprétabilité multiple. Ajouter des détails à une œuvre ambiguë pourrait ne pas lever son ambiguïté, et pourrait au contraire augmenter (...) la gamme d'interprétations tout aussi enrichissantes les unes que les autres. Les œuvres ambiguës sont nombreuses et remarquables, et couvrent diverses formes d'art. Toutes choses étant égales par ailleurs, l'ambiguïté semble ajouter à la richesse de la plupart des œuvres plutôt que la réduire. (shrink)

RésuméUne partie des raisons invoquées par Wright en faveur de sa théorie «neutre» de la vérité tiennent à ce qu'il considère comme déficiente à plusieurs égards une approche apparentée proposée par Putnam. Je soutiens ici que ces déficiences affectent soit les deux doctrines, soit ni l'une ni l'autre, mais que celle de Wright est néanmoins supérieure. À mettre ensemble l'explication du prédicat de vérité offerte par Putnam et l'extension qu'il entend lui attribuer, on se heurte en effet à un dilemme (...) : revenir au réalisme traditionnel, ou verser dans un optimisme épistémique radical. Or Putnam rejette explicitement la première branche de cette alternative, tandis que la seconde est extrêmement peu plausible. Wright, lui, évite le dilemme en demeurant en retrait par rapport aux prises de position de ce genre. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Une partie des raisons invoquées par Wright en faveur de sa théorie «neutre» de la vérité tiennent à ce qu'il considère comme déficiente à plusieurs égards une approche apparentée proposée par Putnam. Je soutiens ici que ces déficiences affectent soit les deux doctrines, soit ni l'une ni l'autre, mais que celle de Wright est néanmoins supérieure. À mettre ensemble l'explication du prédicat de vérité offerte par Putnam et l'extension qu'il entend lui attribuer, on se heurte en effet à un (...) dilemme: revenir au réalisme traditionnel, ou verser dans un optimisme épistémique radical. Or Putnam rejette explicitement la première branche de cette alternative, tandis que la seconde est extrêmement peu plausible. Wright, lui, évite le dilemme en demeurant en retrait par rapport aux prises de position de ce genre. (shrink)

Precis by the autor of the book How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press, 2015).Sinopsis del autor del libro How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press, 2015).

G. A. Cohen and David Estlund have recently defended utopophilia against utopophobia. They argue we should not dumb down the requirements of ethics or justice to accommodate people’s motivational failings. The fact that certain people predictably will not do the right thing does not imply they are unable to do so, or that they are not obligated to do so. Utopophiles often defend left-wing ideas; for instance, Cohen argues that people’s unwillingness to do what socialism requires does not imply that (...) socialism is bad, but instead that people are bad. This essay shows that utopophiles must also endorse certain “conservative” conclusions, such as that most poor adults in the developed West are obligated to act more prudently, get jobs, become net taxpayers, avoid having children they cannot afford, and act to avoid needing welfare or assistance. (shrink)

In this article, I examine what the ethical and political implications of conceptualizing and practicing philosophy for/with children in the neoliberal debt economy are. Though P4wC cannot alone bring about any significant transformation of debt political-economic realities, it can play an important role in cultivating oppositional debt ethics and consciousness. The first half of this article situates P4wC within the current global debt economy. Here, I summarize the analyses made by critical theorists of the ways that debt impacts public institutions, (...) and shapes individual subjectivity. The second half of this article builds on Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of “counter-conduct.” For Foucault, counter-conduct is an ethical/political act of resistance against governmentality, one that makes possible alternative social relations and ways of being in the world. I argue in this section that P4wC should be conceptualized, and practiced, as form of counter-conduct that challenges power in the debt economy. Both the form of P4wC pedagogy, and the content that can be taken up in a collective manner in communities of inquiry, make P4wC a potential site for debt counter-conduct practices. Thought of as counter-conduct, P4wC is an educational practice with liberatory promise. I conclude this piece with brief ruminations on practicing P4wC in the time of COVID, and during the uprisings around the world against racial capitalism. It is suggested here that P4wC not only be practiced within formal education settings, but also in the social movements that are fighting to bring into being a world more just for all of us. En este artículo, examino cuáles son las implicaciones éticas y políticas de conceptualizar y practicar la filosofía para / con niños en la economía de la deuda neoliberal. Aunque P4wC no puede provocar por sí solo ninguna transformación significativa de las realidades político-económicas de la deuda, puede desempeñar un papel importante en el cultivo de una ética y una conciencia de la deuda opuestas. La primera mitad de este artículo sitúa a P4wC dentro de la economía de deuda global actual. Aquí, resumo los análisis realizados por teóricos críticos sobre las formas en que la deuda afecta a las instituciones públicas y configura la subjetividad individual. La segunda mitad de este artículo se basa en la conceptualización de la "contra-conducta" de Michel Foucault. Para Foucault, la contra-conducta es un acto ético / político de resistencia contra la gobernamentalidad, que posibilita relaciones sociales y formas de estar en el mundo alternativas. Sostengo en esta sección que P4wC debe conceptualizarse y practicarse como una forma de contra-conducta que desafía el poder en la economía de la deuda. Tanto la forma pedagógica de P4wC, como su contenido adoptados de manera colectiva en las comunidades de investigación, hacen de P4wC un sitio potencial para las prácticas de contra-conducta de la deuda. Pensada como una contra-conducta, P4wC es una práctica educativa con promesa liberadora. Concluyo este artículo con breves reflexiones sobre la práctica de P4wC en la época de COVID y de los alzamientos en todo el mundo contra el capitalismo racial. Aquí se sugiere que P4wC no solo se practique dentro de los entornos de educación formal, sino también en los movimientos sociales que luchan por crear un mundo más justo para todos nosotros. Key Words: Debt, Philosophy for/with Children, Counter-Conduct. (shrink)