Ces deux ouvrages qui font la matière de ce volume se complètent parfaitement, c'est pourquoi ils paraissent sous le même titre. L'auteur analyse dans Esquisse d'une esthétique l'activité gratuite de l'artiste. Le procès de la conscience dénonce d'un côté la conscience de l'autre, reconnaît que les religions et les philosophies ne sont que des issues qui permettent de combler le vide d'être que la conscience a creusé en nous.

We are currently facing global healthcare crisis that has placed unprecedented stress on healthcare workers as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019. It is imperative that we develop novel tools to assist healthcare workers in dealing with the significant additional stress and trauma that has arisen as a result of the pandemic. Based in research on the effects of immersive environments on mood, a neuroscience research laboratory was rapidly repurposed using commercially available technologies and materials to create a nature-inspired (...) relaxation space. Frontline healthcare workers were invited to book 15-min experiences in the Recharge Room before, during or after their shifts, where they were exposed to the immersive, multisensory experience 496 Recharge Room users completed a short survey about their experience during an unselected, consecutive 14-day period. Average self-reported stress levels prior to entering the Recharge Room were 4.58/6. After a single 15-min experience in the Recharge Room, the average user-reported stress level was significantly reduced 1.85/6. Net Promoter Score for the experience was 99.3%. Recharge Rooms such as those described here produce significant short-term reductions in perceived stress, and users find them highly enjoyable. These rooms may be of general utility in high-stress healthcare environments. (shrink)

Les musées contemporains sont en pleine mutation, ils passent du statut de « temples de l’art et de la culture » à celui de pourvoyeurs d’activités culturelles et ludiques. Censés instruire, ils s’engagent dans la voie controversée de plaire en vue d’exister, le but ultime étant de drainer le plus de « clients » possible pour assurer la continuation. Et dans la mouvance, ils n’hésitent pas à s’exporter au même titre que les enseignes commerciales vers des cités-nations à la recherche (...) d’une « présence » sur la mappemonde globalisée. Le Louvre-Abou Dabi est un exemple saillant de cette tendance mondialisée, tout comme Guggenheim, il devient un jalon mobile de l’art et de la culture. Dans cette phénoménologie de « l’existence par l’architecture », les œuvres architecturales deviennent des objets-outils de notoriété et de communication, plus inhérents au marketing qu’à la culture. Mais quelle part d’intérêt va pour les collections dans ce nouveau statut du musée ou le bâtiment est à lui seul un gage d’existence et de contemporanéité ? Et dans quelle mesure, la part de responsabilité publique qui incombe aux musées dans le développement culturel de la collectivité, risque-t-elle d’être compromise par les lois du marché?Contemporary museums are rapidly evolving from “temples of art and culture” to providers of cultural and recreational activities. Although supposed to be instructive, they are embarking on a controversial policy of pleasing the public in order to exist, the ultimate aim being to draw as many “customers” as possible to secure their future. And in pursuing these aims, they have been exporting themselves, just like any commercial brand, to nation-cities seeking a “place” on the globalised map. The Abu Dhabi Louvre is a striking example of this global trend, as is the Guggenheim, which has now become a movable landmark in the arts and culture landscape. This phenomenon of “existence through architecture” is turning architectural works into objects as well as tools to enhance communication and notoriety, a development that has more to do with marketing than with culture. But given this new status, where the building itself guarantees the museum’s existence and contemporaneity, how much interest is there in its collections? And to what extent is every museum’s share of public responsibility for collective cultural development likely to compromised by “market forces”? (shrink)

Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise.

Jules Michelet: Vico and the origins of nationalism -- James Joyce: Vico and the origins of modernism -- Erich Auerbach: Vico and the origins of historism -- Isaiah Berlin: Vico and the origins of pluralism.

We examine two competing solutions to Benardete paradoxes: causal finitism, according to which nothing can have infinitely many causes, and the unsatisfiable pair diagnosis (UPD), according to which such paradoxes are logically impossible and no metaphysical thesis need be adopted to avoid them. We argue that the UPD enjoys notable theoretical advantages over causal finitism. Causal finitists, however, have levelled two main objections to the UPD. First, they urge that the UPD requires positing a ‘mysterious force’ that prevents paradoxes from (...) arising. Since such a force is implausible, the UPD is in trouble. Second, they employ recombination or patchwork principles to argue that paradoxical situations would be possible if causal finitism were false. Since such situations are not possible, causal finitism is true, and so a substantive metaphysical thesis is needed to avoid the paradoxes. We argue that the UPD proponent can successfully respond to these objections. (shrink)

This essay takes issue with Alasdair MacIntyre's denial that teaching is a practice. It does so less by appeal to MacIntyre's concept of practice than by criticism of his conception of teaching. It argues that this conception, as reconstructed from adversions to teaching in a range of his writings, does less than justice to what good teachers accomplish; and that, if this inadequacy is rectified—as much else in his writings suggests that it ought to be—there are clearer grounds for acknowledging (...) teaching as a practice. (shrink)

This essay takes issue with Alasdair MacIntyre’s denial that teaching is a practice. It does so less by appeal to MacIntyre’s concept of practice than by criticism of his conception of teaching. It argues that this conception, as reconstructed from adversions to teaching in a range of his writings, does less than justice to what good teachers accomplish; and that, if this inadequacy is rectified—as much else in his writings suggests that it ought to be—there are clearer grounds for acknowledging (...) teaching as a practice. (shrink)

Biomedical engineering technologies such as brain–machine interfaces and neuroprosthetics are advancements which assist human beings in varied ways. There are exciting yet speculative visions of how the neurosciences and bioengineering may influence human nature. However, these could be preparing a possible pathway towards an enhanced and even posthuman future. This article seeks to investigate several ethical themes and wider questions of enhancement, transhumanism and posthumanism. Four themes of interest are: autonomy, identity, futures, and community. Three larger questions can be asked: (...) will everyone be enhanced? Will we be “human” if we are not, one day, transhuman? Should we be enhanced or not? The article proceeds by concentrating on a widespread and sometimes controversial application: the cochlear implant, an auditory prosthesis implanted into Deaf patients. Cochlear implantation and its reception in both the deaf and hearing communities have a distinctive moral discourse, which can offer surprising insights. The paper begins with several points about the enhancement of human beings, transhumanism’s reach beyond the human, and posthuman aspirations. Next it focuses on cochlear implants on two sides. Firstly, a shorter consideration of what technologies may do to humans in a transhumanist world. Secondly, a deeper analysis of cochlear implantation’s unique socio-political movement, its ethical explanations and cultural experiences linked with pediatric cochlear implantation—and how those wary of being thrust towards posthumanism could marshal such ideas by analogy. As transhumanism approaches, the issues and questions merit continuing intense analysis. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl EDMUND GUSTAVE ALBRECHT HUSSERL was born in Prossnitz, Moravia, on April 8, 1859. After receiving his secondary education in Vienna, ...

How certain neural mechanisms momentarily endow with the subjective awareness percepts and affects represented elsewhere is more likely to be clarified when structures essential to Mc are identified. The loss of C with bilateral thalmic lesions involving the intralaminar nuclei contrasts with retention of C after large cortical ablations depriving C of specific contents. A role of ILN in the perception of primitive sensations is suggested by their afference of directly ascending pathways. A role for ILN in awareness of cortical (...) activity is suggested by their widespread afference from cortex, a property shared with striatum. A role for ILN in volition is suggested by their heavy projection to striatum. Unlike striatum, ILN also project widely to almost all neocortex, enabling an effect on ideation; this last property is in common with other structures but none of them has the same direct cortical afference. And passage through the reticular nucleus of ILN efferents to cortex could impact the attention-selective action of nRt. It is suggested that the quickest route to a better understanding of C involves more intensive study of ILN. No other structure seems, in the light of our current knowledge, a more likely site for Mc. (shrink)

Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A leading neuroscientist offers a history of the evolution of the brain from unicellular organisms to the complexity of animals and human beings today Renowned neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux digs into the natural history of life on earth to provide a new perspective on the similarities between us and our ancestors in deep time. This page-turning survey of the whole of terrestrial evolution sheds new light on how nervous systems evolved in (...) animals, how the brain developed, and what it means to be human. In The Deep History of Ourselves, LeDoux argues that the key to understanding human behavior lies in viewing evolution through the prism of the first living organisms. By tracking the chain of the evolutionary timeline he shows how even the earliest single-cell organisms had to solve the same problems we and our cells have to solve each day. Along the way, LeDoux explores our place in nature, how the evolution of nervous systems enhanced the ability of organisms to survive and thrive, and how the emergence of what we humans understand as consciousness made our greatest and most horrendous achievements as a species possible. (shrink)

Climate models calibrated exclusively with observations from the 19th through 21st centuries are unsuitable for assessing many important hypotheses about the future. Many systems in the modern climate are expected to cross dynamic thresholds in the near future, requiring more than the instrumental record for adequate calibration. In this paper I argue that paleoclimate analogues from earth’s past can mitigate this threshold problem, even if the modern climate exhibits features that make it historically unique. While this requires that paleoclimatologists be (...) increasingly discriminate in the past systems they target for modern analogues, the upshot is a practice of climate model construction that improves the reliability of future projections. All of this is achieved by integrating features of past climate systems discovered by the study of earth deep in the past. My analysis synthesizes important empirical work done by climate modelers and paleoclimatologists with relevant philosophical work on analogical reasoning in science. (shrink)

Ecology and sustainability are current narratives about the behavior of humans toward themselves and the environment. Ecology is defined as a science, and a philosophy of ecology has become a recognized domain of the philosophy of science. For some, sustainability is an accepted, important moral goal. In 2013, a Special Issue of the journal Sustainability dealt with many of the relevant issues. Unfortunately, the economic, ideological, and psychological barriers to ethical behavior and corresponding social action remain great as well as (...) obvious. In this paper, I propose that a new, non-standard and non-propositional logic of real processes, Logic in Reality (LIR) grounded in physics applies to the science and philosophy of these narratives and helps to explicate them. Given the ecological role of organizations and institutions, reference is often made to organizational or institutional logics as guides to ecological practice. This paper suggests that these logics are either too abstract or too informal to have an impact in a conflictual world. Recognition of the suggested new, transdisciplinary logical dimension of ecological processes may provide credibility and support to new initiatives in ecology and its philosophy. (shrink)

Joseph Grange's beautifully written book provides a unique synthesis of two major figures of world philosophy, John Dewey and Confucius, and points the way to a global philosophy based on American and Confucian values. Grange concentrates on the major themes of experience, felt intelligence, and culture to make the connections between these two giants of Western and Eastern thought. He explains why the Chinese called Dewey "A Second Confucius," and deepens our understanding of Confucius's concepts of the way (dao) (...) of human excellence (ren). The important dimensions of American and Chinese cultural philosophy are welded into an argument that calls for the liberation of what is finest in both traditions. The work gives a new appreciation of fundamental issues facing Chinese and American relations and brings the opportunities and dangers of globalization into focus. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that the difference between standard measurement and proxy measurement in paleoclimatology should not be understood in terms of ‘directness’. Measurements taken by climatologists to be paradigmatically non-proxy exhibit the kinds of indirectness that are thought to separate them proxy measurement. Rather, proxy measurements and standard measurements differ in how they account for confounding causal factors. Measurements are ‘proxy’ to the extent that the measurements require vicarious controls, while measurements are not proxy, but rather ‘standard’, to (...) the extent that the measurement apparatus provides sufficient physical control on its own. Guided by this account of proxy measurement, we then consider some of the challenges specific to historical proxy measurement and how it is that historical scientists address these challenges. Historical scientists rely on significant causal dependencies and naturally preserved signals to mitigate the influence of destructive processes over time. (shrink)

The connection between action, reason, and value is explored by examining the connection between reasons and intentions, and between reasons and what we take to be good. This is done in comparison to the classical view, which maintains that valuable aspects of the world constitute reasons for agents. In attempting to explain common features of what it is for people to be rational agents, Raz examines whether there are reasons, which are neutral in values, the explanatory and justificatory role of (...) reasons, the intelligibility of acting for reasons, and the ability to intentionally act in an expressive, yet unreasoned fashion. (shrink)

The hoary philosophical tradition of hedonism – the view that pleasure is the basic ethical or normative value – suggests that it is at least reasonably and roughly intuitive. But philosophers no longer treat hedonism that way. For the most part, they think that they know it to be obviously false on intuitive grounds, much more obviously false on such grounds than familiar competitors. I argue that this consensus is wrong. I defend the intuitive cogency of hedonism relative to the (...) dominant desire-based and objectivist conceptions of well-being and the good. I argue that hedonism is still a contender, and indeed that our current understanding of commonsense intuition on balance supports it. (shrink)

The main scientific problems of chemical bonding were solved half a century ago, but adequate philosophical understanding of chemical combination is yet to be achieved. Chemists routinely use important terms ("element," "atom," "molecule," "substance") with more than one meaning. This can lead to misunderstandings. Eliminativists claim that what seems to be a baseball breaking a window is merely the action of "atoms, acting in concert." They argue that statues, baseballs, and similar macroscopic things "do not exist." When macroscopic objects like (...) baseballs move, exceedingly large numbers (1025) of microscopic components coordinate their activities. Understanding how this happens requires attention to the interactions that link parts into larger units. Eliminativists say that everything that truly exists has causal relationships in addition to those of its components—"nonredundant causality." This paper holds that if a number of entities interact in such a way that the effect of that collection on test objects is different than it would have been in the absence of the interaction, then identification of that collection as a single composite agent is warranted, for purposes to which that difference is relevant. Ordinary "chemical substances" (both elementary materials such as dihydrogen and compounds such as water) fulfill this version of the requirement of nonredundant causality. Other sorts of chemical coherences, including chemical dissipative structures (e.g., flames), also fulfill that criterion. All these types of coherences qualify as "substances" (as that term is used in philosophy) even though they are not all "chemical substances.". (shrink)

Professional associations, like the Academy of Management, exist to foster and promote scholarship, exchange among faculty, and an environment conducive to member professional ethics development. However, this last purpose of such organizations has received the least amount of attention. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that there are differences in perceived needs for professional ethics development between tenured and untenured faculty. In the current research 260 Academy of Management members were surveyed. The research identified differences between tenured and untenured management faculty (...) with respect to expectations for the Academy of Management to provide ethics education and research with respect to the professional code of conduct. Implications of the findings are discussed from a developmental perspective. Directions for future research are provided. (shrink)

When can a Bayesian investigator select an hypothesis H and design an experiment (or a sequence of experiments) to make certain that, given the experimental outcome(s), the posterior probability of H will be lower than its prior probability? We report an elementary result which establishes sufficient conditions under which this reasoning to a foregone conclusion cannot occur. Through an example, we discuss how this result extends to the perspective of an onlooker who agrees with the investigator about the statistical model (...) for the data but who holds a different prior probability for the statistical parameters of that model. We consider, specifically, one-sided and two-sided statistical hypotheses involving i.i.d. Normal data with conjugate priors. In a concluding section, using an "improper" prior, we illustrate how the preceding results depend upon the assumption that probability is countably additive. (shrink)

When can a Bayesian investigator select an hypothesis H and design an experiment to make certain that, given the experimental outcome, the posterior probability of H will be lower than its prior probability? We report an elementary result which establishes sufficient conditions under which this reasoning to a foregone conclusion cannot occur. Through an example, we discuss how this result extends to the perspective of an onlooker who agrees with the investigator about the statistical model for the data but who (...) holds a different prior probability for the statistical parameters of that model. We consider, specifically, one-sided and two-sided statistical hypotheses involving i.i.d. Normal data with conjugate priors. In a concluding section, using an "improper" prior, we illustrate how the preceding results depend upon the assumption that probability is countably additive. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction I II.

Genetic discrimination is becoming an increasingly important problem in the United States. Information acquired from genetic tests has been used by insurance companies to reject applications for insurance policies and to refuse payment for the treatment of illnesses. Numerous states and the United States Congress have passed or are considering passage of laws that would forbid such use of genetic information by health insurance companies. Here we argue that much of this legislation is severely flawed because of the difficulty in (...) distinguishing genetic from nongenetic tests. In addition, barring the use by insurance companies of a genetic test but not a nongenetic test (conceivably for the same multifactorial disease) raises issues of fairness in health insurance. These arguments suggest that ultimately the problems arising from genetic discrimination cannot be solved by narrowly focused legislation but only by a modification of the entire health care system. (shrink)

: Peirce's fallibilism is shown to be the "linchpin" of his mature philosophy. In passing, objections regarding a seemingly serious paradox, a textual discrepancy, and the plausibility of an alternative approach to Peirce are answered. Peirce's fallibilism is indeed a puzzling thesis, particularly in that it appears to violate familiar finitist, practical, "here and now" (pragmatist) constraints. But that's precisely where Peirce's ingenuity takes its most interesting form. The solution provided shows the paradox and aporias of Peirce's account to be (...) no more than apparent, the textual infelicity of what would otherwise be a contradiction to be part of Peirce's rhetorical strategy (in combating the effects of James' misreading of his theory of truth), the doctrine of the continuum to be already entailed by Peirce's fallibilism, and the ultimate reconciliation between the infinite limit of inquiry and its finite phases to be essential to Peirce's theory of science cast in terms of what may be described as a Hegelianized reading of Kantian Hope—in effect, a reading of abduction as an original pragmatist version of what may be saved in the sparest way within the post-Kantian tradition. (shrink)

GRAF PAUL YORCK VON WARTENBURG I Origin of Contemporary Philosophy i . The Nineteenth Century a. the nature and growth of modern philosophy Modern ...