Questions of ethics and politics have a long tradition in the classroom as well as the political world. Those who act in the political realm¿including the media, political strategists and consultants, educators, and religious leaders¿are in professions for which a clear code of conduct or an accepted set of ethical norms exists. By contrast, Donald J. Trump, as candidate and as President, has upended the political and ethical context in which he and others operate. This book explores emerging ethical questions (...) that face professionals interacting with a new executive order. Some say the age of Trump is unique and that the norms of ethical professional behavior must be bent to meet this challenge. Others maintain that responding to someone like Trump is precisely why their profession has ethical norms, and that they must put their judgments on hold and respond in what has always been deemed the appropriate professional manner. Each chapter opens with an introduction setting the framework of ethical analysis for a particular profession, is followed by original contributions by notable practitioners, and concludes with a set of questions for students and other readers to ponder and discuss. (shrink)

The starting point for my reading of the exchanges between Marx and Balzac is the repetition in The Eighteenth Brumaire of a striking image employed in Colonel Chabert to represent the force of ideology as experienced by a man forcibly set outside the conventions it endorses. Balzac first: “The social and judicial world weighted on his breast like a nightmare.”3 Marx’s appropriation occurs in a much-quoted meditation on the past as impediment to the future.Men make their own history, but they (...) do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.4What is the weight of an nightmare, and why do Balzac and Marx agree that invoking it is a valid means to express humanity’s relation to its history?5 4. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 15; my emphasis. Further references to this work, abbreviated EB, will be included in the text.5. In French and German: “Le monde social et judiciare lui pesait sur la poitrine comme un cauchemar”; “Die Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Lebenden.” This strikes me as so obvious a borrowing that I have to wonder why it does not seem to be generally known. On contributing factor may be that the standard French translation of The Eighteenth Burmaire gives a fanciful version of the sentence in Marx: “La tradition de toutes les generations mortes pèse d’un poids très lourd sur le cerveau des vivants”. Does this poids très lourd come from a misreading of ein Alp as eine Alp? Sandry Petrey is professor of French and comparative literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The author of History in the Text: Quatrevingt-Treize and the French Revolution, he is completing a book entitled Realism and Revolution. (shrink)

The ‘prohibitionist’ idea that slurs have the same linguistic properties as their neutral counterparts hasn’t received much support in the literature. Here I offer a modified version of prohibitionism, according to which the taboo on using slurs is part of their conventional meaning. I conclude with explanations of the behaviour of slurs in embedded constructions.

Our aim in this paper is to extend the semantics for the kind of logic of ground developed in (deRosset and Fine, 2023). In that paper, we very briefly suggested a way of treating universal and existential quantification over a fixed domain of objects. Here we explore some options for extending the treatment to allow for a variable domain of objects.

This paper is concerned with the semantics for the logics of ground that derive from a slight variant GG of the logic of (Fine, 2012) that have already been developed in (deRosset and Fine, 2023). Our aim is to outline that semantics and to provide a comparison with two related semantics for ground, given in (Correia, 2017) and (Kraemer, 2018). This comparison highlights the strengths and difficulties of these different approaches.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Catholic Social Teaching in Global PerspectiveRon MercierCatholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective Edited by Daniel Mcdonald, SJ Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2010. 218 pp. $26.00The collection of essays in Catholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective, the second in a Gregorian University series, responds to a question posed to its authors: “How can you reflect on your particular continent and its ‘culture’ in order to best apply... CST [Catholic social (...) teaching] in your area of the world?” (x). Although the responses of the various authors to that challenge are uneven, the deliberate emphasis on a cultural-critical approach makes this [End Page 211] volume noteworthy and a significant contribution to the discussions in the field.Thomas Hughson’s introductory essay frames the task provocatively. Exploring the work of Bernard Lonergan and Robert Doran on culture, he takes aim at the ways in which “common good” and “Catholic social teaching” too often serve as categorical realities, as if they had a universal and absolute meaning applicable to any concrete situation. He recasts CST by placing it in dialogue with contemporary currents in philosophy and social science and notes both the broader meaning and the fluidity of social justice within CST. He develops what he calls a “modified eudemonistic perspective... to highlight incompleteness in social justice and a common good taken by themselves” (25). This calls for a “reflexive culture,” along the lines of the “transcendental humanism” in Benedict XVI’s Caritas in veritate. While the emphasis on “human flourishing” certainly has a long history in the tradition, Hughson’s approach empowers local communities to make CST their own as a mode of discerning what fosters or undermines human flourishing. For too long CST “has ignored how movement toward just social practice depends on two factors, reflexive culture ‘from above’ and popular culture ‘from within’ practicality” (22). This perspective links well with the insights and concerns of liberation theology, notably its ecclesiology, and helps clarify the meaning and potential of CST.Several essays in the volume pick up this theme even as they explore the many prisms through which one can understand “culture.” David Kaulemu reflects on the African situation in ways similar to Paulinus Odozor and Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, calling for “moral/cultural/spiritual efforts to accompany our political and economic reforms” (37). He explores cultural resources for and barriers to human flourishing in an African context. Agnes Brazal (East Asia) and Joseph Jadhav (India) write in a similar vein: Brazal on the relationship between the role of “harmony” in an East Asian world view and the fragmentation and hybridity engendered by globalization; Jadhav on the interplay between CST and local culture in an arid rural part of India, which has created possibilities for culturally transformative action. John Coleman’s rich and nuanced reflection on North American (especially US) culture underlines the challenges CST faces.Sandie Cornish and David Freeman (Australia) and Johan Verstraeten (EU) explore ecclesiological perspectives: how episcopal, religious, and lay groups have read “the signs of the times” in their area, though largely without a cultural-critical frame. Curiously, the volume avoids any cultural critique of the Church; the dialectic “from above” and “from below” remains ad extra, although Coleman does note how US bishops have frequently undercut their ability to engage culture by focusing narrowly on the institutional interests of the Church. [End Page 212]In sum, the volume advances the work of CST by reframing key concepts within a broader perspective, in particular one that invites voices “from below.” It exposes the reader, especially those familiar with CST, to contemporary dialogues on the ethical significance of “culture” while deepening the value of CST for contemporary reflection. Contributions from Latin America and Eastern Europe, though, would have strengthened the volume.Ron MercierSt. Louis UniversityCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Contemporary diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa explicitly refer to affective states of fear and anxiety regarding weight gain, as well as a fixed and very strong attachment to the pursuit of thinness as an overarching personal goal. Yet current treatments for that condition often have a decidedly cognitive orientation and the exact nature of the contribution of affective states and processes to anorexia nervosa remains largely uncharted theoretically. Taking our inspiration from the history of psychiatry, we argue that conceptualizing anorexia (...) nervosa as a passion is a promising way forward in both our understanding and treatment of that condition. Building on the theory of the passions elaborated by Théodule Ribot, the founder of scientific psychology in France, we argue that there is convincing empirical evidence in defense of the empirical hypothesis that anorexia nervosa is a passion in Ribot’s specific, technical sense. We then explore the implications of this finding for current approaches to treatment, including cognitive–behavioral therapy, and clinical and ethical issues associated with treatment refusals. (shrink)

Philosophers have spilled a lot of ink over the past few years exploring the nature and significance of grounding. Kit Fine has made several seminal contributions to this discussion, including an exact treatment of the formal features of grounding [Fine, 2012a]. He has specified a language in which grounding claims may be expressed, proposed a system of axioms which capture the relevant formal features, and offered a semantics which interprets the language. Unfortunately, the semantics Fine offers faces a number of (...) problems. In this paper, I review the problems and offer an alternative that avoids them. I offer a semantics for the pure logic of ground that is motivated by ideas already present in the grounding literature, and for which a natural axiomatization capturing central formal features of grounding is sound and complete. I also show how the semantics I offer avoids the problems faced by Fine’s semantics. (shrink)

Though the study of grounding is still in the early stages, Kit Fine, in ”The Pure Logic of Ground”, has made a seminal attempt at formalization. Formalization of this sort is supposed to bring clarity and precision to our theorizing, as it has to the study of other metaphysically important phenomena, like modality and vagueness. Unfortunately, as I will argue, Fine ties the formal treatment of grounding to the obscure notion of a weak ground. The obscurity of weak ground, together (...) with its centrality in Fine’s system, threatens to undermine the extent to which this formalization offers clarity and precision. In this paper, I show how to overcome this problem. I describe a system, the logic of strict ground (LSG) and demonstrate its adequacy; I specify a translation scheme for interpreting Fine’s weak grounding claims; I show that the interpretation verifies all of the principles of Fine’s system; and I show that derivability in Fine’s system can be exactly characterized in terms of derivability in LSG. I conclude that Fine’s system is reducible to LSG. (shrink)

Some metaphysicians believe that existence debates are easily resolved by trivial inferences from Moorean premises. This paper considers how the introduction of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that command Moorean certainty—complicates this picture. In particular, it shows how such facts, when combined with certain plausible metaontological principles, generate a puzzle that commits the proponents of this method to a contradiction.

ABSTRACTWe propose a compatibilist theory of free will in the tradition of naturalized philosophy that attempts to: 1) provide a synthesis of a variety of well-known theories, capable of addressing problems of the latter; 2) account for the fact that free will comes in degrees; and 3) interface with neurobiology. We argue that free will comes in degrees, and that these degrees vary with the agent's capacity to make assumptions and use theories. Our model, then, highlights that free-willed actions are (...) consciously monitored by the agent, through beliefs, assumptions, and ultimately theories — hence, the CMT model.RÉSUMÉNous proposons une théorie compatibiliste du libre arbitre, dans la tradition de la philosophie naturalisée, qui tente : 1) de fournir une synthèse de théories bien connues, capable de résoudre certains problèmes de ces dernières; 2) de tenir compte du fait que le libre arbitre a des degrés; 3) d’établir des liens avec la neurobiologie. Nous arguons que le libre arbitre d'un agent varie par degrés en fonction de la capacité de l'agent à faire des hypothèses et à utiliser des théories. Notre modèle met en évidence que des actions «libres» sont consciemment surveillées par l'agent, à travers des croyances, des hypothèses et finalement des théories — d'où l'expression «modèle CMT». (shrink)

In No Caption Needed, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites provide the definitive study of the iconic photograph as a dynamic form of public art. Their critical analyses of nine individual icons explore the photographs themselves and their subsequent circulation through an astonishing array of media, including stamps, posters, billboards, editorial cartoons, TV shows, Web pages, tattoos, and more. Iconic images are revealed as models of visual eloquence, signposts for collective memory, means of persuasion across the political spectrum, and (...) a crucial resource for critical reflection. Arguing against the conventional belief that visual images short-circuit rational deliberation and radical critique, Hariman and Lucaites make a bold case for the value of visual imagery in a liberal-democratic society. No Caption Needed is a compelling demonstration of photojournalism’s vital contribution to public life. (shrink)

La médecine change de visage. Le progrès dans les sciences médicales a modifié l’aspect des maladies. La relation médecin-malade se désagrège. Le phalanstère médical est agité par la contestation. Tous ses membres, malades, médecins et non-médecins sont assujettis aux contraintes de l’Economie de la Santé. Les paradoxes qui obscurcissent la vie médicale appellent des solutions nouvelles. L’enseignement n’est plus réservé aux futurs médecins mais aussi, à travers l’Education sanitaire, aux futurs malades que sont les gens bien portants. La part qui (...) se déroule en Faculté n’est plus qu’une préparation à la Formation permanente. La recherche n’est plus réservée seulement à un étroit sérail, mais s’inscrit dans les préoccupations de tous au service de tous. L’informatique offre au médecin le moyen le plus sûr de faire rayonner le savoir et de mieux organiser le service public qu’est aujourd’hui la médecine. L’hôpital enfin est appelé à devenir le foyer de toutes les activités médicales, la « Maison » du malade aussi bien que celle du médecin. Le paradoxe du médecin est celui de la médecine tout entière. Il est l’occasion de faire naître un autre malade, un autre médecin pour une autre médecine et d’assurer le passage de l’éthique médicale vers une éthique de santé. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

An eminent scholar of modern culture argues that the Enlightenment—the importance of which has been vigorously debated in recent years—was a more complex phenomenon than either its detractors or advocates assume. “Ranging as it does over art, morality, religion, science, philosophy, social theory, and a good deal besides, [Dupré’s book] is a marvel of scholarly erudition.... Formidably well-researched,... [this] would make an excellent introduction to Enlightenment ideas for the general reader.”—Terry Eagleton, _Harper’s Magazine _“This immensely readable book will cause readers (...) to rethink the Enlightenment and to see its positive aspects. It will also add crucial historical perspective to current discussions of modernity.”—Donald Verene, Emory University. (shrink)

Here we consider interpersonal experience in schizophrenia, melancholia, and mania. Our goal is to improve understanding of similarities and differences in how other people can be experienced in these disorders, through a review of first-person accounts and case examples and of contemporary and classic literature on the phenomenology of these disorders. We adopt a tripartite/dialectical structure: first we explore main differences as traditionally described; next we consider how the disorders may resemble each other; finally we discuss more subtle but perhaps (...) foundational ways in which the phenomenology of these disorders may nonetheless be differentiated. These involve disruptions of common sense and conventionality, abnormalities of empathy, distinct forms of paranoia and the sense of personal centrality, and altered perceptions of intentionality, deadness, and artificiality. We end by considering some neurocognitive research relevant to these abnormal forms of subjectivity, including work on theory of mind, experience of human movement, and perception of faces. (shrink)

I very much enjoyed reading the interesting and original article by Steel and colleagues (2017). But I found myself strongly disagreeing with its conclusion once the real point of the argument became clear to me. At the same time, I believe that the authors are correct to draw attention to the importance of context and inequities in framing discussions of the ethics of voluntary consent in heroin prescription research. I begin with a brief summary of the authors’ conclusion, quoting directly (...) and adding my own emphases, since there are major philosophical points I wish to make that hinge on nuances in wording... (shrink)

Signifiance du monde propose une "harmonisation intégrale" entre la linguistique saussuro-guillaumienne des langues naturelles et la pensée phénoménologique heideggérienne de la vérité de l'être en tant qu'alètheia, dans son sens grec de "ce qui sort de la latence" et que Jean-Louis Tristani nomme illatence. En d'autres termes, cet essai donne accès à une compréhension des "relations grammaticales évidentes qui articulent l'être, dans sa vérité, et la pensée, telles qu'elles sont a priori données dans le système linguistique de n'importe quelle (...) langue naturelle". Cette mise au jour de la co-originarité de la langue et de la pensée corrobore la formule du linguiste français Antoine Meillet, maintes fois citée par Gustave Guillaume, selon laquelle, en ce lieu intelligible de la langue "tout se tient et a un plan d'une pleine rigueur". Une rigueur qui intègre le système morpho-lexical d'une langue, en tant qu'intégrale des conditions d'effection du discours, avec les conditions existentiales de possibilité du Dasein en tant qu'être-au-monde. D'où Signifiance du monde, ce titre qui annonce la composante linguistique de notre présence au monde."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

La rencontre du beau nous laisse-t-elle indemnes? Sa joie neuve peut-elle s'ouvrir sans briser d'abord en nous ce qui était trop vieux pour elle, de cette blessure que seul sait donner l'invulnérable? Son excès sur tous nos possibles apporte dans la proximité même l'offrande du lointain. Ce qui nous saisit reste insaisissable et, comme autrui, l'est d'autant plus qu'il s'approche. Ainsi Platon fait de l'effroi le premier présent de la beauté, et pour Dostoïevski et Rilke elle n'est que le commencement (...) du terrible. Cette joie douloureuse, démesurée comme tout amour, est la dimension oubliée par l'esthétique, qui la relègue dans le sublime, distingué du beau. Il faut surmonter l'esthétique pour penser la beauté, si elle est le visage même de l'Etre. Les questions qu'elle fait surgir ne sont pas régionales, elles mettent en cause l'être entier de l'homme et les voies selon lesquelles il peut se perdre ou se trouver. La beauté nous éprouve, et cette épreuve décide de tout. Tel est le sens du mythe du Phèdre de Platon, dont Heidegger médita ce qu'il nous donne toujours à penser. La beauté qui se suffit pourtant nous appelle, et nous impose, sans esquive possible, la charge de lui répondre et de lui correspondre. Cette réponse ne saurait résider dans le jugement esthétique, elle peut seulement être l'acte de louer. Elle ne répond à la beauté qu'en la communiquant, et de la blessure qu'elle reçut ne veut pas guérir, mais accroître le chœur de ceux qui souffrent d'elle. L'insupportable du beau ne peut être porté que par le chant, un chant qui devienne existence. (shrink)

Necessitists hold that, necessarily, everything is such that, necessarily, something is identical to it. Timothy Williamson has posed a number of challenges to contingentism, the negation of necessitism. One such challenge is an argument that necessitists can more wholeheartedly embrace possible worlds semantics than can contingentists. If this charge is correct, then necessitists, but not contingentists, can unproblematically exploit the technical successes of possible worlds semantics. I will argue, however, that the charge is incorrect: contingentists can embrace possible worlds semantics (...) as wholeheartedly as necessitists. Williamson offers a criterion for a class of models of quantified modal logic to be intended, and argues on its basis that contingentists must deny that there is an intended class of models. I argue that Williamson’s criterion is objectionable, supply an alternative that does not support Williamson’s argument, and adapt Williamson’s construction of an intended model structure to the needs of contingentist metaphysics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 1 Seiten: 59-78.

Paradoxically, the profession whose primary mandate is to instruct and comment on matters of ethics spends inordinately little time reflecting on its own ethical practices. Consider the fact that while professional ethicists of all stripes crusade to expose and denounce conflicts of interests in all other branches of the health care system, they typically fail to pay much attention to their own potential ‘ethical’ conflicts of interest. Admittedly, there have been some efforts to address the problem. However, despite laudable intentions, (...) they are highly unsatisfactory. Unenforceable ‘model’ draft codes of ethics on professional websites,1 and obscure addenda to technical reports that are only available at a cost,2 do not constitute acceptable responses to this predicament. Th is is a problem of profound social importance, a matter that threatens the very foundation, integrity and accountability of one of the most powerful forces in the modern health care system. (shrink)

Contemporary commentators such as Rosalind Hursthouse misconstrue Aristotle’s doctrine of the ethical mean. They propose a monist account of his moral psychology, explaining each virtue in terms of the presence or absence of a single psychological trait. In contrast, the author argues that Aristotle depicts virtue as a balancing of two opposed psychological inclinations that push and pull in different directions. Each inclination is a positive force in its own right; neither is mere privation. This dualistic account of moral psychology (...) is a more specific application of a recurrent explanatory model one finds elsewhere in Aristotle’s wide-ranging philosophy. In discussing the virtuous mean, moral success can be attributed to the human agent as composite whole or to the indivisible soul. (shrink)

Engaging a listener’s trust imposes moral demands upon a presenter in respect of truthtelling and completeness. An agent lies by an utterance that satisfies what are herein defined as signal and mendacity conditions; an agent deceives when, in satisfaction of those conditions, the agent’s utterances contribute to a false belief or thwart a true one. I advert to how we may fool ourselves in observation and in the perception of our originality. Communication with others depends upon a convention or practice (...) of presumed nonuniversal truthfulness. In support of an asserted duty of nondeceptiveness, I offer a reconciliation of pertinent Kantian passages, a sketch of arguments within utilitarianism, contractarianism, and other views, and an account arguing for application of that duty to assertions, implicatures, omissions, equivocation, prevarication, and sophistry insofar as they affect listeners’ doxastic states. For scholarship, this duty is exceptionless. I describe the kernel of intellectual honesty as a virtuous disposition such that when presented with an incentive to deceive, the agent will not deceive. Intellectual honesty delivers candor when it counts. I contrast this with complementary virtues and the surpassing virtue of ingenuousness. An account is given of the connection between intellectual honesty and an influential physical model of integrity. (shrink)

Social robots have the potential to support autistic school children with their wellbeing. This research reveals how a co-design approach with autistic children and their teachers was undertaken. Focus groups with autistic children and teachers collaboratively identified user requirements for the social robot and robot behaviours within the school ecosystem in order to improve student wellbeing. The results reveal the importance of including autistic children in the co-design process to ensure their voices are heard and also that the role of (...) the robot is appropriate and targeted to the users’ needs and requirements. Autistic children and their teachers report multiple potential benefits for social robots supporting emotional wellbeing in the school. Autistic children were supportive of the introduction of a social robot in their school, mostly expressing positive attitudes towards the robot. The research is significant in revealing how a user-centred co-design approach involving autistic children and social robots may support emotional wellbeing. (shrink)

Spanish translation and introductory study on Louis Pojman’s “Faith without Belief?”. Published in Pojman, Louis. “¿Fe sin creencia?”. Estudios Filosóficos, vol. 70, no. 205 (2021), pp. 465–486. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “La fe experimental de Louis Pojman”. Estudios Filosóficos, vol. 70, no. 205, pp. 461–463 (2021)].

Les principes fondamentaux régissant les rapports entre l’espace, le temps, l’objet et la causalité sont présentés et examinés. Il est découvert, par des expériences de pensée successives, que l’abandon de l’un ou l’autre de ces principes permettrait peut-être de résoudre de façon neuve des difficultés classiques de la philosophie comme la flèche de Zénon, Achille et la tortue ou le bateau de Thésée. Sont révélés à cette occasion plusieurs asymétries importantes existant entre l’espace et le temps, dans leurs rôles respectifs (...) vis-à-vis des objets matériels et de la relation causale. Le rapport entre le temps et la causalité est, enfin, plus particulièrement étudié. (shrink)

There is a large amount of scientific work on emotion in psychology, neuroscience, biology, physiology, and psychiatry, which assumes that it is possible to study emotions and other affective states, objectively. Emotion science of this sort is concerned primarily with 'facts' and not 'values', with 'description' not 'prescription'. The assumption behind this vision of emotion science is that it is possible to distinguish factual from evaluative aspects of affectivity and emotion, and study one without the other. But what really is (...) the basis for distinguishing fact and value in emotion and affectivity? And can the distinction withstand careful scientific and philosophical scrutiny? The essays in this collection all suggest that the problems behind this vision of emotion science may be more complex than is commonly supposed. (shrink)

In a world dominated by things, we must work hard to account for one another's personhood. Drawing a diverse set of thought leaders, Paul Louis Metzger helps us navigate a pluralistic world through a personalist moral framework, addressing issues such as abortion, genetic engineering, immigration, drone warfare, and more.

In "Delusion, Reality, and Intersubjectivity," Thomas Fuchs offers a superb presentation of an enactive/phenomenological approach to schizophrenic delusions—an approach that is clearly superior to the poor-reality-testing formula that has dominated thinking about delusion in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and cognitive-behavioral theory. As he convincingly argues, two key tendencies go a long way toward accounting for the distinctive features of delusion in schizophrenia: 1) withdrawal from practical, sensori-motoric interaction with the physical environment; and 2) failure to experience reality in intersubjective terms—as a realm (...) of "participatory... (shrink)

This paper offers an intellectual portrait of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, by considering his incorporation of perspectives associated with “modernism,” the artistic and intellectual avant-garde of the first half of the twentieth century. These perspectives are largely absent in other alternatives in psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Emphasis is placed on Lacan’s affinities with phenomenology, a tradition he criticized and to which he is often seen as opposed. Two general issues are discussed. The first is Lacan’s unparalleled appreciation of the (...) paradoxical nature of human experience, together with his treatment of paradox as almost a criterion of truth. These points are illustrated by considering Lacan’s conceptions of the self and of erotic desire. The second issue is Lacan’s focus on the “ontological dimension,” on overall styles or modalities of what might be termed “transcendental subjectivity”: namely, what he calls the registers of the “Imaginary,” the “Symbolic,” and the “Real.” By emphasizing the incommensurable yet interdependent nature of these modalities, Lacan offers a synthesis of dynamic/conflictual and formal/ontological dimensions of the human condition. This paper offers an encompassing portrait of Lacan’s major ideas that is at odds with the widespread assumption that Lacan is somehow a deeply anti-humanist thinker who derides the subjective dimension. Lacan’s most distinctive contributions are fundamentally concerned with the nature of human experience. They show strong affinities with hermeneutic forms of phenomenology inspired by Heidegger, a philosopher who focused on ontological modes of Being and considered paradox as a mark of truth. (shrink)

Do the demands of egalitarian justice extend to the international realm? Some believe that a positive answer follows from a simple line of reasoning: where a child happens to be born is a morally arbitrary fact; accordingly, it shouldn’t unduly influence her life prospects, as will inevitably be the case unless economic inequalities between countries are ironed out. I argue that this style of argument overlooks an important problem concerning the extent to which a person can unilaterally impose enforceable obligations (...) on others by choosing to have a child. I maintain that properly egalitarian duties of distributive justice only arise when this problem of unilateral imposition has been solved. I further argue that solving the problem requires robust political institutions that do not exist in the international context—institutions instantiating a version of what John Rawls calls pure procedural justice, to ensure that the aggregate result of individual reproductive choices is acceptable to all. (shrink)

In interactive situations, agents can “learn” something that is not a preexisting truth. They can converge to an arbitrary convention, or tacit agreement. Once established they may even view it as an objective truth. Here we investigate accommodation dynamics for interpersonal comparisons of utility intervals. We show, for a large class of dynamics, convergence to a convention.

-/- Les agents artificiels et les nouvelles technologies de l’information, de par leur capacité à établir de nouvelles dynamiques de transfert d’information, ont des effets perturbateurs sur les écosystèmes épistémiques. Se représenter la responsabilité pour ces chambardements représente un défi considérable : comment ce concept peut-il rendre compte de son objet dans des systèmes complexes dans lesquels il est difficile de rattacher l’action à un agent ou à une agente ? Cet article présente un aperçu du concept d’écosystème épistémique et (...) de la force de changement que représentent les nouvelles technologies pour celui-ci, puis illustre les difficultés rencontrées avec la notion classique de responsabilité dans les écosystèmes épistémiques. -/- Artificial agents and new information technologies, through their capacity to foster new information dynamics, have disruptive effects on epistemic ecosystems. Making sense of responsibility for these changes represent a challenge: the notion of responsibility struggles in complex systems, where actions are often hard to connect to an agent. This paper presents an overview of the concept of epistemic ecosystem and of the potential for disruption in new technologies, and then illustrates the difficulties with the classical notion of responsibility in such cases. (shrink)