A focused exploration of Baudrillard's understanding and use of alterity and “otherness,” a crucial theme that appears and reappears throughout his work as a whole. Alterity is in danger. It is a masterpiece in peril, an object lost or missing from our system, from the system of artificial intelligence and the system of communication in general.—from Radical Alterity Where is the Other today? Can Otherness challenge our arrogant, insular cultural narcissism? From artificial intelligence to the streets (...) of Venice, from early explorers to contemporary photographers, Jean Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume discuss the traces of radical alterity in our world. These provocative seminars, held in 1990 and 1991, follow the multiple, intertwined trajectories first projected in Baudrillard's work and his reading of the “radical exoticism” posited by Victor Segalen—ideas Baudrillard extends into the realms of mass media, pseudonyms, technology, and that illusorily close yet radically foreign “primitive society of the future,” America. In a world where no corner is unexplored, the Other remains a challenge to thought, a crack in the shell of universal understanding, impossible to communicate but potentially the linchpin of communication itself. Together, Baudrillard and Guillaume explore the threatened and fatal figures of radical alterity. This collection is no longer available in French, and this English edition includes an additional essay by Baudrillard, “Because Illusion and Reality Are Not Opposed.”. (shrink)

Alterity is in danger. It is a masterpiece in peril, an object lost or missing from our system, from the system of artificial intelligence and the system of communication in general.--from Radical AlterityWhere is the Other today? Can Otherness challenge our arrogant, insular cultural narcissism? From artificial intelligence to the streets of Venice, from early explorers to contemporary photographers, Jean Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume discuss the traces of radical alterity in our world. These provocative (...) seminars, held in 1990 and 1991, follow the multiple, intertwined trajectories first projected in Baudrillard's work and his reading of the "radical exoticism" posited by Victor Segalen--ideas Baudrillard extends into the realms of mass media, pseudonyms, technology, and that illusorily close yet radically foreign "primitive society of the future," America. In a world where no corner is unexplored, the Other remains a challenge to thought, a crack in the shell of universal understanding, impossible to communicate but potentially the linchpin of communication itself. Together, Baudrillard and Guillaume explore the threatened and fatal figures of radical alterity. This collection is no longer available in French, and this English edition includes an additional essay by Baudrillard, "Because Illusion and Reality Are Not Opposed."Jean Baudrillard will be remembered as one of the most provocative and renowned social theorists of the twentieth century. Economist and professor at the Université de Paris-Dauphine, Marc Guillaume has published several works in French rethinking contemporary socioeconomics and has collaborated with such thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Jacques Attali. (shrink)

What altered states of consciousness—the dissolution of feelings of time and self—can tell us about the mystery of consciousness. During extraordinary moments of consciousness—shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication—our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been ignored by mainstream science, or considered crazy fantasies. Recent research, however, has located the neural underpinnings of these altered states of mind. In this book, neuropsychologist (...) Marc Wittmann shows how experiences that disturb or widen our everyday understanding of the self can help solve the mystery of consciousness. Wittmann explains that the relationship between consciousness of time and consciousness of self is close; in extreme circumstances, the experiences of space and self intensify and weaken together. He considers the emergence of the self in waking life and dreams; how our sense of time is distorted by extreme situations ranging from terror to mystical enlightenment; the experience of the moment; and the loss of time and self in such disorders as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Dostoyevsky reported godly bliss during epileptic seizures; neurologists are now investigating the phenomenon of the epileptic aura. Wittmann describes new studies of psychedelics that show how the brain builds consciousness of self and time, and discusses pilot programs that use hallucinogens to treat severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. If we want to understand our consciousness, our subjectivity, Wittmann argues, we must not be afraid to break new ground. Studying altered states of consciousness leads us directly to the heart of the matter: time and self, the foundations of consciousness. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

This paper explores the historical and palaeographical features linking together three manuscripts of Plato that bear - as previous researchers have shown - marginalia and textual corrections in the hand of the Byzantine humanist George Gemistos Pletho: Marc. Gr. 188 and 189 and Laur. 80, 19. There is, however, one more astonishing peculiarity associating precisely these three manuscripts: at several points there are erasures of passages dealing with ancient theology or with pagan myths and gods.The first part of this (...) study provides a general analysis of the censored passages, showing that they are part of a coherent project aiming at altering Plato's theology: in the manuscripts in his possession Pletho radically altered Plato's text, sometimes improving it, but sometimes censoring or entirely rewriting it; it is this very distinctive text of Plato that circulated in his school. In the second part, Pletho's acts of censorship as a whole are compared with his philosophical ideas as they can be reconstructed from the surviving portions of his Laws , proving that he tried to remove discrepancies between Plato and himself. In the third part of the essay, the ideological reasons for this censorship are investigated, with a special focus on the relations between Pletho's manuscripts and some miscellaneous codices belonging to his students or circulating in the platonic milieu of Mystra.The stemma codicum drawn up by Müller can thus be understood in its deeper cultural meaning, i.e. as an outline enabling us to understand how the philosopher propagated his ideas and to follow where and how they were received. (shrink)

The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life. The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinism in the philosophy of science and its usefulness in (...) understanding ecosystems, whilst the third section deals with its application in disciplines beyond the biological sciences, including evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, Darwinian morality and phylolinguistics. The final section addresses anti-Darwinism, the creationist view and issues around teaching evolution in secondary schools. The reader learns how current experimental biology is opening important perspectives on the sources of variation, and thus of the very power of natural selection. This work examines numerous examples of the extension of the principle of natural selection and provides the opportunity to critically reflect on a rich theory, on the methodological rigour that presides in its extensions and exportations, and on the necessity to measure its advantages and also its limits. Scholars interested in modern Darwinism and scientific research, its concepts, research programs and controversies will find this book an excellent read, and those considering how Darwinism might evolve, how it can apply to the human sciences and other disciplines beyond its origins will find it particularly valuable. Originally produced in French (Les Mondes Darwiniens), the scope and usefulness of the book have led to the production of this English text, to reach a wider audience. This book is a milestone in the impressive penetration by Francophone scholars into the world of Darwinian science, its historiography and philosophy over the last two decades. Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University Until now this useful and comprehensive handbook has only been available to francophones. Thanks to this invaluable new translation, this collection of insightful and original essays can reach the global audience it deserves. Tim Lewens, University of Cambridge. (shrink)

While Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus is quite rightly considered a fully fledged response to May ’68 and as one with the radical politics of the 1970s, their 1980 follow-up, A Thousand Plateaus, has tended to provoke a more perplexed reaction. In this article, I will argue that we can nonetheless extract a definite line of argumentation serving a precise political end if we relate the text back to Foucault's mid-1970s output on power/knowledge. In particular, I will emphasise Deleuze and (...) Guattari's appropriation of the Foucaultian notion of dispositif via their concept of the assemblage, the former being understood as a concrete articulation of lines of power, knowledge and subjectivation, as well as the Foucaultian ‘diagram’, the latter being a more abstract or indeterminate stage of the dispositif whose relative indeterminacy, for Deleuze and Guattari, offers a means of escape. I will show that, making room for the assemblage's opening back onto the relative indeterminacy of its generative stages, the assemblage incorporates into itself a more immanent alternative to the dispositif that is focused on collective desire rather than power, within which resistance becomes a primary and generative dimension rather than a counter-attack. In the first section, I will outline Foucault's approach to power, knowledge and subjectivation, emphasising Deleuze's reading of Foucault though without trying to overdetermine my reading in this way. Next, I will turn to the Foucaultian diagram. In the third section, I will focus on A Thousand Plateaus, demonstrating how the notion of assemblage developed in this text responds to and builds upon Foucault's approach to power/knowledge and subjectivation in order to reconceive resistance. (shrink)

An extraordinary horde of aberrant, deformed, and grotesque beings inhabits the writings collected in the Zhuangzi. Crippled, malformed, hideous, foolish, eccentric, and even outlawed individuals conquer the central place of philosophical narration, traditionally proscribed for them, and create one of the most important and intriguing voices echoing through the text. Yet, for all their undeniably significant presence, scholars of ancient Chinese philosophy have paid surprisingly little attention to the topic of monsters. Structured into three sections and adopting a critical, strictly (...) philosophical standpoint, this paper aims to draw attention to the crucial role played by monsters in the Zhuangzi. The first section underlines the essential characteristics of these monsters and, most particularly, their disruptive dimension together with the challenge they pose to philosophical thinking. The second section offers a detailed review of the recent bibliography on the Zhuangzi with regard to analysis of these aberrant figures. Finally, based on contributions in the work of Jacques Rancière, the third section highlights the political scope embodied by the monstrous beings of the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

"Le national-socialisme est un principe barbare", écrit Martin Heidegger dans ses Cahiers noirs, ajoutant : "C'est ce qui lui est essentiel et sa possible grandeur." Révolutionnaire radical, ayant vu et approuvé le caractère destructeur du nazisme, le recteur de Fribourg a réservé d'autres surprises dans ses journaux philosophiques, dans lesquels il évoque par exemple l'"auto-anéantissement du "juif"". Alors que le philosophe est devenu un objet d'incompréhension et d'horreur, nombre de spécialistes en appellent désormais à l'histoire. C'est cette réhistoricisation que (...) l'auteur a entreprise dans ce livre. Refusant la polémique, l'adoration et la détestation, il s'emploie à comprendre l'homme et le penseur, de l'intérieur et en son temps, par le biais de toutes les sources disponibles : cours, lettres, textes de circonstance, de même que ces Cahiers noirs qui suscitent tant d'émoi. Excédant largement le IIIe Reich, le cheminement de Heidegger fut heurté : il commença par un catholicisme intransigeant, qui laissa la place, après la Première Guerre mondiale, à une volonté farouche de révolution philosophique, terreau dans lequel son nazisme vint jeter de profondes racines qui survécurent à l'effondrement du régime d'Adolf Hitler. De cette biographie se dégage un portrait fait d'ombres et de lumières : grand philosophe, maître, ami ou amant de juifs ou d'étrangers, Heidegger fut aussi un nationaliste antisémite, inquiet de l'"enjuivement" de son peuple et soucieux de son rôle historique prééminent. (shrink)

This thesis studies collider phenomenology of physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It also explores in detail advanced topics related to Higgs boson and supersymmetry - one of the most exciting and well-motivated streams in particle physics. In particular, it finds a very large enhancement of multiple Higgs boson production in vector-boson scattering when Higgs couplings to gauge bosons differ from those predicted by the Standard Model. The thesis demonstrates that due to the loss of (...) unitarity, the very large enhancement for triple Higgs boson production takes place. This is a truly novel finding. The thesis also studies the effects of supersymmetric partners of top and bottom quarks on the Higgs production and decay at the LHC, pointing for the first time to non-universal alterations for two main production processes of the Higgs boson at the LHC-vector boson fusion and gluon-gluon fusion. Continuing the exploration of Higgs boson and supersymmetry at the LHC, the thesis extends existing experimental analysis and shows that for a single decay channel the mass of the top quark superpartner below 175 GeV can be completely excluded, which in turn excludes electroweak baryogenesis in the Minimal Supersymmetric Model. This is a major new finding for the HEP community. This thesis is very clearly written and the introduction and conclusions are accessible to a wide spectrum of readers. (shrink)

During the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1796–1801), several epidemic outbreaks sparked acrimonious aetiological debates: were the fevers spread by soldiers and prisoners of war, or produced by environmental factors? This debate was not only a scientific issue, but also a political one, for causation was linked to accountability. Looking at a series of medical investigations written by French military practitioners, this paper argues that theories of contagion were used by civilians to accuse the army of spreading disease, (...) in what I describe as an “aetiology of blame.” Likewise, military officials attempted to absolve themselves of responsibility for the spread of disease by focusing on unwholesome environments, depicting diseases as unavoidable fatalities. Military doctors thus supported French imperial endeavours by obscuring the army's responsibility for the spread of diseases, putting forward aetiologies of fate and blaming individual behaviour. Even when they did not radically dismiss contagionist perspectives, military practitioners insisted on a wide range of pathogenic causes. Their discourses were in line with medical theories of the time, but they downplayed the responsibility of the army for the spread of diseases, which they depicted as a factor among others. Military doctors were thus not always involved in the direct and deliberate production of ignorance, but they did sustain controversies and uncertainty. (shrink)

This paper explores the biographical and cultural sources that inspired the decision of Janusz Korczak to make his life’s vocation the education of young children from dysfunctional families. This decision emerged out of the radical version of humanism he embraced. His identification of children as the population his humanist ethos must serve, distinguishes it from other versions of humanism. The paper explores the role his sense of self and his identification with Poles, Jews, and humanity play in the composition (...) of this humanism. It identifies the hybridity of his cultural identifications as its heart. It proposes that the tensions between these identifications in general, and his non-Jewish Jewish identification that situated him as being ‘a part of’ and ‘apart from’ Polish society in particular, induced Korczak to create a universal religion of children in which religious, ethnic, or physical distinctions do not generate prejudice, intolerance, and violence. (shrink)

Le développement de l'éthique serait le signe prometteur d'une humanité responsable. L'éthique, nouvelle compagne de route du sujet libéral contemporain, ne semble être, le plus souvent, qu'un alibi pour éviter d'engager une critique qui obligerait à revisiter de fond en comble son anthropologie. L'usage inflationniste, l'indifférenciation et l'instrumentalisation des discours « éthiques » vident l'éthique de son enjeu critique. Derrière l'image séduisante de l'humanisme libéral d'aujourd'hui, ouvert à la différence et à l'altérité, se cache une réalité plus sombre, celle d'un (...) homme soucieux de s'affirmer toujours plus dans des pratiques civilisées mais qui, au-delà des apparences, engagent un processus de déshumanisation. L'éthique dominante de nos jours n'est-elle pas, dans la plupart des cas, un instrument soumis aux ordres d'une libéralisation morale, en réalité, faussement libératrice? L'éthique ne devrait-elle pas plutôt oser le pari d'une imprudence? Si elle est critique et parole, elle doit entraîner conséquemment un soupçon radical mais bienveillant sur nous-mêmes et sur le monde que nous inventons. (shrink)

En el presente texto Richir plantea la posibilidad de ampliar las meditaciones lévinasianas sobre la ética a una interpretación más profunda aún del fenómeno radical de la ipseidad y del fenómeno en cuanto tal. Atraviesa el recorrido, en De otro modo que ser, desde la recurrencia del sí-mismo hasta la sustitución, la ética de la ipseidad lévinasiana, el Decir y su profetismo radical. Richir se pregunta si este profetismo ético y anárquico no encierra una tautología simbólica fundamental, la (...) de la huella de la orden en su respuesta y la de la identidad de lo Infinito con su Idea, y si no podría ir más allá de lo ético. Ello sería posible sólo en términos de un inconsciente fenomenológico a partir de lo sublime en sentido kantiano. Así, Richir expone todo el entramado de la sustitución para, en último término, cuestionar sus propios límites y proponer un ensanchamiento hacia una fenomenología de lo inmemorial, del inconsciente fenomenológico, del apeiron, con ayuda de lo sublime. (shrink)

This book combines physics, history, and philosophy in a radical new approach to introducing the philosophy of physics.

Une première période où les influences mêlées d’Alessandro Padoa et de Bertrand Russell s’exercent en France culmine avec les essais philosophiques de Jean Nicod. Une seconde période voit fleurir les travaux du mathématicien Jacques Herbrand ; avant de périr, il laisse son nom à un théorème fondamental. Suit une période de débats entre philosophes, mathématiciens et physiciens, stimulés en 1935 et 1937 par la tenue à Paris de deux congrès consacrés, totalement ou en partie, à la philosophie des sciences. Paulette (...) Février y esquisse une logique non classique où l’on postule l’existence de couples de propositions non composables pour ériger en principes les relations de Werner Heisenberg. Jean-Louis Destouches développe cette conception jusqu’à décrire comment édifier une théorie unifiante. La structuration des êtres mathématiques est l’objet d’études philosophiques d’Albert Lautman. Le rôle putatif de la notion de groupe en logique est interrogé. La notion de structure mathématique est l’objet de deux contributions : Marc Krasner généralise les conceptions d’Évariste Galois, attribuées à la logique et étendues à des langages infinitaires ; Nicolas Bourbaki, compte tenu de l’évolution des mathématiques, qualifie de structure ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui un modèle. (shrink)

The idea of a philosophical Other as comparativists have often historically used it to signify radical alterity, although sometimes a remedy and correction for the erroneous generalizations which originate from a presupposition of human sameness, merely shifts the center of philosophy's unchallenged assumptions in at least two ways. First, the notion of a philosophical Other avoids an explicit characterization of how one recognizes that one is philosophizing in the sphere of this Other and of what "otherness" is philosophically (...) interesting. Second, the notion of a philosophical Other is unable to capture and describe the dynamic, ever-changing relations that serve to demarcate philosophical traditions or spatio-temporal webs of thinkers in the first place. For the sake of the comparative project of exposing the comparativist's own culturally-embedded assumptions, comparative methodology should allow for the possibility of analyzing more than one place where similarities and differences can present themselves at the same time. In short, comparativists would serve their own interests better if they began to approach their projects in recognition of a complex, limitless, and dynamic array of sameness and difference, instead of with premature assumptions of radical alterity. (shrink)

Funding is an important mechanism for exercising influence over ever more parts of academic systems. In order to do so, funding agencies attempt to export their functional and normative prerequisites for financing to new fields. One essential requirement for fundees is then to construct research processes in the form of a project beforehand, one that is limited in time, scope and content. This article demonstrates how the public funding of doctoral programs expands this model of project research from experienced academics (...) to the socialization process for the new academic generation. This process of “projectification” underlies funding-driven institutional changes in doctoral training. A multi-level comparative study of German policies, funding mechanisms and organizational frameworks for doctoral training demonstrates the emergence of a specific model of predefined PhD projects. The investigation of doctoral training practices reveals that socio-epistemic preconditions regulate whether research fields adopted or rejected this demanding model. This result contradicts widespread claims about a radical change in doctoral training and suggests focusing on the actual practices of field-specific doctoral research. (shrink)

A new comprehensive model of mind and its nearly infinite possibilities • Recasts psychology as a vehicle not for mental health but for higher consciousness • Shows that we have consciousness for a reason; it is humanity’s unique contribution to the cosmos • Integrates the work of Freud, Jung, Gurdjieff, Tony Robbins, Rudolf Steiner, the Dalai Lama as well as ESP, the Kabbalah, tarot, dreams, and kundalini yoga The culmination of 30 years of research, Where Does Mind End? takes you (...) on an inward journey through the psyche­--exploring the highest states of consciousness; the insights and theories of ancient and modern philosophers, psychologists, and mystics; the power of dreams, chi energy, tarot, and kundalini yoga; and proof of telepathy and other facets of parapsychology--to explain the mystery of consciousness and construct a comprehensive model of mind and its nearly infinite possibilities. Starting with the ancients and early philosophers such as Zoroaster, Aristotle, Descartes, and Leibniz, the author examines models of mind that take into account divine and teleological components, the problem and goal of self-understanding, the mind/body conundrum, and holographic paradigms. Seifer then moves to modern times to explain the full range of Freud’s psychoanalytic model of mind, exploring such ideas as the ego, superego, and id; the unconscious; creativity; and self-actualization. Using Freud’s psychoanalytical model as framework, he reveals an overarching theory of mind and consciousness that incorporates such diverse concepts as Jung’s collective psyche; ESP; the Kabbalah; Gurdjieff’s ideas on behaviorism and the will; the philosophies of Wilhelm Reich, P. D. Ouspensky, and Nikola Tesla; the personality redevelopment strategies of Tony Robbins; and the Dalai Lama’s and Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on the highest states of consciousness. Recasting psychology as a vehicle not for mental health but for higher consciousness, he shows that by casting off the mechanical mental operation of day-to-day life, we naturally attain the self-integration to which traditional psychology has long aspired. By entering the true path to fulfillment of the soul’s will, we help the planet by transforming ourselves and raising our energy to a higher realm. (shrink)

Résumé Chez Samuel Beckett, François Morellet et KP Brehmer, l’art de la contrainte impose une trame formelle et logique pour mieux la trahir – l’altérer, la révéler –, renouvelant au passage l’économie de l’œuvre et son statut. Dans une double tradition littéraire et plastique, la mise au dehors du geste créateur et l’apparente désaffection des systèmes choisis produisent autant d’interférences symptomatiques dans l’œuvre et dans son contexte. Cet abandon agit comme le moyen paradoxal d’impliquer l’affect et d’ouvrir l’œuvre à des (...) résonances nouvelles. (shrink)

Aristotle takes up the topic of change (or coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be) in both the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione. He distinguishes between simple coming-to-be (substantial change), as when something comes into existence, and qualified coming-to-be (accidental change), as when an already existing thing alters, or moves, or changes in some other way. But he also maintains a persistence principle: that in every change, whether simple or qualified, there is something that persists throughout the change. I examine the question of (...) whether this principle threatens the viability of the distinction between substantial and accidental change by comparing what Aristotle has to say about it in the Physics with what he says in GC. In the process, I discuss several recent treatments of the topic as well as some conflicting views about the role, if any, of prime matter in Aristotle's account of substantial change. (shrink)

Aristotle's Physics is a study of nature and of natural objects. According to him, these objects—either all of them or at least some of them—are in motion. That is, they are kinoumena, things that are subject to change. The first book of the Physics is largely devoted to this task. The account of substantial change in the Physics is devoid of any commitment to prime matter. Aristotle also takes up the topics of alteration and coming-to-be in De Generatione et Corruptione. (...) He adopts a kind of conservation principle: “the corruption of one thing is the generation of another, and vice versa.” In addition, Aristotle points out that all changes involve both a subject and an attribute of a sort which can be predicated of the subject, and says that either one of these is capable of “change”. (shrink)

Recent experiments in normal subjects using neuroimaging demonstrate that the dorsal cortico-cortical pathway is involved during purely perceptual activities. Pathological cases with right posterior parietal lesions show deficits in visuospatial perception. It is argued that the radical dichotomy between perception and action pathways, as heralded in Milner and Goodale's book should be reexamined. The idea of distributed networks using resources in both visual pathways and recruited as a function of task demands is presented.

This paper examines the “critique of historical existence” as a main theme in Karl Löwith’s philosophical works and discusses its emergence, its exact meaning and its contemporary relevance. First, the study shows that Löwith’s critique of History stems from his preoccupation with the question of nihilism. He first discusses the question of “the world as such” in the 1920’s in the context of his anthropological project, and then again in the 1930’s as part of his interpretation of the work of (...) Nietzsche. Secondly, a distinction is proposed between, on the one hand, Löwith’s investigation into the “theological background of the philosophy of history” and, on the other hand, his radical criticism of history as a “historical world”. Finally, the paper sheds light on the difficulties that challenge the project of overcoming the modern historical paradigm, and goes on to discuss the new relevance that Löwith’s philosophy could have today in order to think anew the relationship between nature and history. (shrink)

The idea of a philosophical Other as comparativists have often historically used it to signify radical alterity, although sometimes a remedy and correction for the erroneous generalizations which originate from a presupposition of human sameness, merely shifts the center of philosophy's unchallenged assumptions in at least two ways. First, the notion of a philosophical Other avoids an explicit characterization of how one recognizes that one is philosophizing in the sphere of this Other and of what "otherness" is philosophically (...) interesting. Second, the notion of a philosophical Other is unable to capture and describe the dynamic, ever-changing relations that serve to demarcate philosophical traditions or spatio-temporal webs of thinkers in the first place. For the sake of the comparative project of exposing the comparativist's own culturally-embedded assumptions, comparative methodology should allow for the possibility of analyzing more than one place where similarities and differences can present themselves at the same time. In short, comparativists would serve their own interests better if they began to approach their projects in recognition of a complex, limitless, and dynamic array of sameness and difference, instead of with premature assumptions of radical alterity. (shrink)

Poet, painter, self-described funny guy, idiot, failure, pickpocket, and anti-artist par excellence, Francis Picabia was a defining figure in the Dada movement; indeed, André Breton called Picabia one of the only "true" Dadas. Yet very little of Picabia's poetry and prose has been translated into English, and his literary experiments have never been the subject of close critical study. _ I Am a Beautiful Monster_ is the first definitive edition in English of Picabia's writings, gathering a sizable array of Picabia's (...) poetry and prose and, most importantly, providing a critical context for it with an extensive introduction and detailed notes by the translator. Picabia's poetry and prose is belligerent, abstract, polemical, radical, and sometimes simply baffling. For too long, Picabia's writings have been presented as raw events, rule-breaking manifestations of inspirational _carpe diem_. This book reveals them to be something entirely different: maddening in their resistance to meaning, full of outrageous posturing, and hiding a frail, confused, and fitful personality behind egoistic bravura. I Am a Beautiful Monster provides the texts of of Picabia's significant publications, all presented complete, many of them accompanied by their original illustrations. (shrink)

Poet, painter, self-described funny guy, idiot, failure, pickpocket, and anti-artist par excellence, Francis Picabia was a defining figure in the Dada movement; indeed, André Breton called Picabia one of the only "true" Dadas. Yet very little of Picabia's poetry and prose has been translated into English, and his literary experiments have never been the subject of close critical study. _ I Am a Beautiful Monster_ is the first definitive edition in English of Picabia's writings, gathering a sizable array of Picabia's (...) poetry and prose and, most importantly, providing a critical context for it with an extensive introduction and detailed notes by the translator. Picabia's poetry and prose is belligerent, abstract, polemical, radical, and sometimes simply baffling. For too long, Picabia's writings have been presented as raw events, rule-breaking manifestations of inspirational _carpe diem_. This book reveals them to be something entirely different: maddening in their resistance to meaning, full of outrageous posturing, and hiding a frail, confused, and fitful personality behind egoistic bravura. I Am a Beautiful Monster provides the texts of of Picabia's significant publications, all presented complete, many of them accompanied by their original illustrations. (shrink)

This research topic will review and further explore the nature of the mutual influence between time and causality, how causal knowledge is constructed in the context of time, and how it in turn shapes and alters our perception of time. We aim to draw together literatures from the perception and cognitive science, and welcome experimental as well as theoretical papers. Contributions investigating the neural bases of binding and causal learning/perception, methodological advances, as well as articles addressing functional implications of causal (...) learning and perception in real time are also welcome. (shrink)

Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technological design decisions in online self-radicalization in its myriad (...) guises, encompassing extreme as well as more mundane forms. We begin by characterizing the phenomenon of technological seduction. Next, we distinguish between top-down seduction and bottom-up seduction. We then situate both forms of technological seduction within the theoretical model of dynamical systems theory. We conclude by articulating strategies for combatting online self-radicalization. (shrink)

Exploration of the political roles firms play in society is a flourishing stream within corporate social responsibility research. However, few empirical studies have examined multiple levels of political CSR at the same time from a critical perspective. We explore both how the motivations of managers and internal organizational practices affect a company’s choice between competing CSR approaches, and how the different CSR programs of corporate and civil society actors compete with each other. We present a qualitative interpretative case study of (...) how a French children’s clothing retailer develops CSR practices in response to accusations of poor working conditions and child labor in its supply chain. The company’s CSR approach consists of superficial practices, such as supplier audits by a cooperative business-organized nongovernmental organization and philanthropic activities, which enable managers to silence more radical alternative models defended by other NGOs, activists, and trade unions. By this approach, the core business model based on exploitative low-cost country sourcing remains intact through self-regulated CSR. Through the case study, we develop a framework of dynamism in competing CSR programs. We discuss the implications of our study for CSR researchers, company managers, and policy makers. (shrink)

L’œuvre de Karl Löwith est connue dans le monde francophone, à travers quelques grands textes, comme celle d’un interprète de Nietzsche (Nietzsche : Philosophie de l’éternel retour du même, 1935), d’un historien de la philosophie allemande du xixe siècle (De Hegel à Nietzsche, 1940), d’un disciple critique de Heidegger (Ma vie en Allemagne avant et après 1933, 1940), enfin d’un intervenant majeur dans le débat contemporain sur la sécularisation (Histoire et Salut, 1949). Ces quelques titres f...

Karl Löwith est l’auteur d’un ouvrage bien connu, Histoire et salut, dont le sous-titre, « Les présupposés théologiques de la philosophie de l’histoire », paraît dire l’essentiel. Pourtant, s’il s’agit bien dans ce livre – et dans les textes qui l’accompagnent dans le tome 2 des Schriften de Löwith – de dégager l’arrière-plan de la « philosophie de l’histoire », qui la fait envisager comme « sécularisation » d’un patrimoine spirituel judéo-chrétien, son enjeu est plus profondément de dépasser...

Guillaume St-Laurent | : Dans ses récentes méditations philosophiques, Claude Romano soutient non seulement que la phénoménologie ne devrait plus être cartésienne, mais qu’elle ne peut plus l’être, car un doute universel serait lui-même foncièrement absurde du point de vue phénoménologique. L’objectif du présent essai est de contester qu’une telle réfutation phénoménologique du cartésianisme soit possible. En ce sens, nous soutiendrons que les arguments anti-sceptiques de Romano s’avèrent insuffisants parce que le doute hyperbolique est une possibilité de pensée qui, (...) bien que spéculative, demeure à la fois intelligible et plus radicale que toute description d’essence ou « réduction eidétique ». | : In his recent philosophical contributions, French phenomenologist Claude Romano maintained not only that phenomenology should not be Cartesian, but that it cannot be Cartesian because the very idea of a universal doubt would be utterly absurd from a phenomenological perspective. Our objective is to show that such a phenomenological refutation of Cartesianism is impossible. After reviewing the two main anti-skeptical arguments propounded by Romano, we will support a simple critical thesis : the hyperbolical doubt is an irreducible possibility of thought which, although “speculative,” remains nevertheless actual and more radical than any phenomenological description. (shrink)

Contemporary design practices, such as participatory design, human-centered design, and codesign, have inherent ethical qualities, which often remain implicit and unexamined. Three design projects in the high-tech industry were studied using three ethical traditions as lenses. Virtue ethics helped to understand cooperation, curiosity, creativity, and empowerment as virtues that people in PD need to cultivate, so that they can engage, for example, in mutual learning and collaborative prototyping. Ethics of alterity helped to understand human-centered design as a fragile encounter (...) between project team members and prospective users, and foregrounds the ethics in these encounters: our tendencies to “grasp the other” and to “program invention.” And pragmatist ethics helped to understand codesign as a process of joint inquiry and imagination, involving the organization of iterative processes of problem setting and solution finding, with moral qualities. When we open the “black boxes” of design practices, we find them filled with ethics. Moreover, it is proposed that design practitioners need to make explicit their practices’ inherent ethical qualities and that they can do that by embracing reflexivity. (shrink)

How can we make rational decisions that involve transformative experiences, that is, experiences that can radically change our core preferences? L. A. Paul (2014) has argued that many decisions involving transformative experiences cannot be rational. However, Paul acknowledges that some traumatic events can be transformative experiences, but are nevertheless not an obstacle to rational decision-making. For instance, being attacked by hungry sharks would be a transformative experience, and yet, deciding not to swim with hungry sharks is rational. Paul has tried (...) to explain why decisions involving ‘sharky’ outcomes are an exception to the rule. However, her putative explanation has been criticized by Campbell and Mosquera (2020). In this paper, I offer a different solution to this problem. Roughly, I argue that transformative experiences give rise a problem for rational decision-making only if the decision can lead to satisfying some of our (new) core preferences, but can also frustrate other (new) core preferences. I also argue that agents can partially project what traumatic transformative experiences are like. (shrink)

L’objectif du présent essai est de soutenir que l’horizon de la philosophie moderne est circonscrit par un dilemme inéluctable, qui gouverne toutes les instances de la raison critique depuis les Méditations métaphysiques de René Descartes. Ce dilemme est le suivant: ou bien nous assumons l’exercice du doute radical de manière à le surmonter dans une ontologie du «sujet transcendantal», et nous sommes alors confrontés à des apories insurmontables, ou bien nous outrepassons la possibilité du doute radical en adoptant (...) pour point de départ notre relation «effective» au monde, et nous sommes alors contraints d’admettre la contingence possible des structures de l’expérience – ce que nous pourrions appeler le «problème de la facticité». En ce sens, nous indiquerons comment ce dilemme détermine le passage de Descartes à Kant, puis de Husserl à Heidegger, c’est-à-dire aussi bien le «tournant critique» que ce qu’il convient d’appeler le «tournant existentiel de la phénoménologie». (shrink)