The essays in Fanon and the Decolonization of Philosophy all trace different aspects of the mutually supporting histories of philosophical thought and colonial politics in order to suggest ways that we might decolonize our thinking. From psychology to education, to economic and legal structures, the contributors interrogate the interrelation of colonization and philosophy in order to articulate a Fanon-inspired vision of social justice. This project is endorsed by his daughter, Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, in the (...) book's preface. (shrink)

The Voices of Liberation series celebrates the lives and writings of African Liberation activists and heroes. By providing access to the thoughts and writings of some of the many men and women who fought for the dismantling of apartheid, this series invites the contemporary reader to engage directly with the rich history of the struggle for democracy, to discover where we come from and to explore how we, too, can choose to shape our destiny.

Fanon and the Decolonization of Philosophy explores the range of ways in which Frantz Fanon's decolonization theory can reveal new answers to perennial philosophical questions and new paths to social justice. The aim is to show not just that Fanon's thought remains philosophically relevant, but that it is relevant to an even wider range of philosophical issues than has previously been realized. The essays in this book are written by both renowned Fanon scholars and new scholars (...) who are emerging as experts in aspects of Fanonian thought as diverse as humanistic psychiatry, the colonial roots of racial violence and marginalization, and decolonizing possibilities in law, academia, and tourism. In addition to examining philosophical concerns that arise from political decolonization movements, many of the essays turn to the discipline of philosophy itself and take up the challenge of suggesting ways that philosophy might liberate itself from colonial—and colonizing—assumptions. -/- This collection will be useful to those interested in political theory, feminist theory, existentialism, phenomenology, Africana studies, and Caribbean philosophy. Its Fanon-inspired vision of social justice is endorsed in the foreword by his daughter, Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, a noted human rights defender in the French-speaking world. -/- Contributions by Anna Carastathis; Nigel C. Gibson; Lewis R. Gordon; Peter Gratton; Ferit Güven; Mireille Fanon Mendès-France; Marilyn Nissim-Sabat; Olúfémi Táíwò; Mohammad H. Tamdgidi; Chloë Taylor and Sokthan Yeng. (shrink)

Our work is aimed at studying the optimization of a complex motor behaviour from a global perspective. First, free climbing as a sport will be briefly introduced while emphasizing in particular its psychomotor aspect called route finding. The basic question raised here is how does the optimization of a sensorimotoricity-environment system take place. The material under study is the free climber's trajectory, viewed as the signature of climbing behaviour (i.e., the spatial dimension). The concepts of learning, optimization, constraint, and degrees (...) of freedom of a system will be discussed using the synergistic approach to the study of movement (Bernstein, 1967; Kelso, 1977). Measures of a trajectory's length and convex hull can be used to define an index whose equation resembles that of an entropy. This index is a measure of the trajectory's overall complexity. Some important concepts related to the thermodynamics of curves will also be discussed. The optimization process will be studied by examining the changes in entropy over time for a set of trajectories generated during the learning of a route (ten successive repetitions of the same climb). It will be shown that the entropy of the trajectories decreases as learning progresses, that each level of expertise has its own characteristic entropy curve, and that for the subjects tested, the mean entropy of skilled climbers is lower than that of average climbers. Basing our analysis on the concepts of degrees of freedom and constraint equations, an attempt is made to relate trajectory entropy to system entropy. Based on the postulate that trajectory entropy is equal to the difference in entropy between the unconstrained and constrained system, a model of motor optimization is proposed. This model is illustrated by an entropy graph reflecting a dynamic release process. In the light of our results, two opposing views will be examined: movement construction vs. movement emergence. (shrink)

RésuméCet article expose les tendances actuelles de ce nouveau domaine de recherche qu’est la « philosophie de la psychiatrie » à travers son évolution dans la dernière décade. La première partie se concentre sur le passage d’une approche strictement conceptuelle des thèses issues du savoir psychiatrique à une approche qui prend en compte également les dimensions sociales, pratiques et cliniques de cette discipline. La seconde partie de l’article montre comment l’exigence d’un engagement mutuel de la philosophie et de la psychiatrie (...) a été diversement perçue selon les pays engagés dans le programme de la philosophie de la psychiatrie. L’article s’intéresse en particulier à la France, où l’enthousiasme pour la « nouvelle philosophie de la psychiatrie » n’a pas eu le même retentissement sur la scène philosophique que dans les pays anglophones. Enfin cette contribution montre comment le domaine de la philosophie de la psychiatrie se présente comme un terrain fécond pour de nouvelles formes d’interaction entre la tradition analytique et la tradition continentale, en particulier à partir de la réflexion sur les thèmes de la normativité, du langage et de l’interprétation. (shrink)

Today, thanks to biomedical technologies advances, some persons with fertility issues can conceive. Transgender persons benefit also from these advances and can not only actualize their self-identified sexual identities but also experience parenthood. Based on clinical multidisciplinary seminars that gathered child psychiatrists and psychoanalysts interested in the fields of assisted reproduction technology and gender dysphoria, philosophers interested in bioethics, biologists interested in ART, and endocrinologists interested in pubertal suppression, we explore how new biotechnical advances, whether in gender transition or procreation, (...) could create new ways to conceive a child possible. After reviewing the various medical/surgical techniques for physical gender transition and the current ART options, we discuss how these new ways for persons to self-actualize and to experience parenthood can not only improve the condition of transgender persons but also introduce some elements of change in the habitual patterns of thinking especially in France. Finally, we discuss the ethical issues that accompany the arrival of these children and provide creative solutions to help society handle, accept, and support the advances made in this area. (shrink)

Analisa-se a constituição da sexualidade da mulher negra na obra cinematográfica Mignonnes, da feminista Maïmouna Doucouré. O contexto cultural do refugiado, a religiosidade muçulmana, o patriarcado poligâmico são analisados em conjunto com a puberdade, a inserção em grupos de pares, a delinquência juvenil, a influência da internet e a hipersexualização do corpo feminino, frequentemente objetificado e assediado. Associa-se a postura provocativa de Mignonnes com o afro-feminismo francês na denúncia da dominação racista, sexista, classista e colonialista.

Si l’histoire des sages-femmes est relativement bien connue pour les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, grâce aux ouvrages de Mireille Laget et Jacques Gélis, en revanche, pour le XIXe siècle, elle reste en grande partie à écrire. La situation parisienne a fait l’objet du livre de Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie sur la Maternité de Port-Royal et aussi de la thèse de IIIe cycle sur les sages-femmes parisiennes de Danielle Tucat, malheureusement non publiée. Pour la France profonde, on dispose d’un article...

The article is a report on the World Social Forum held in Montreal, Canada in August of 2016. It reports on philosophical ideas explored by conference participants such as Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Mireille Fanon-Mendes, Helen Lauer, and Immanuel Wallerstein. It also sums up positions articulated by activists such as Brazilians Chico Whitaker and Pedro Fuentes, and reports on some of the largest activities and highlights of the gathering.

With the flowering of postcolonialism, we return to Frantz Fanon, a leading theorist of the struggle against colonialism. In this thorough reinterpretation of Fanon's texts, Ato Sekyi-Otu ensures that we return to him fully aware of the unsuspected formal complexity and substantive richness of his work. A Caribbean psychiatrist trained in France after World War II and an eloquent observer of the effects of French colonialism on its subjects from Algeria to Indochina, Fanon was a controversial (...) figure--advocating national liberation and resistance to colonial power in his bestsellers, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. But the controversies attending his life--and death, which some ascribed to the CIA--are small in comparison to those surrounding his work. Where admirers and detractors alike have seen his ideas as an incoherent mixture of Existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Sekyi-Otu restores order to Fanon's oeuvre by reading it as one dramatic dialectical narrative. Fanon's Dialectic of Experience invites us to see Fanon as a dramatist enacting a movement of experience--the drama of social agents in the colonial context and its aftermath--in a manner idiosyncratically patterned on the narrative structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. By recognizing the centrality of experience to Fanon's work, Sekyi-Otu allows us to comprehend this much misunderstood figure within the tradition of political philosophy from Aristotle to Arendt. Reviews of this book: "The goal of this often brilliant and always engaging book is to 'read Fanon's texts as though they formed one dramatic dialectical narrative'; the principal subject of this dramatic narrative, according to Sekyi-Otu, is 'political experience'. It is his deployment of a dialectical analysis of Fanon's 'dramatic personae' that permits Sekyi-Otu's fresh and insightful readings to take place." DD--Anthony C. Alessandrini, Minnesota Review "Ato Sekyi-Otu departs from the postmodernist paradigm and ushers in an alternative hermeneutic that primarily considers Fanon's texts as forming 'one dramatic dialectical narrative,' that is a narrative whose complexity is correlative of the intricate configurations of African social experience during the post-independent era...[His] book is an invaluable contribution that offers broader scope for a new appreciation of Fanon's political thinking." DD--Marc Mve Bekale, Revue AFRAM Review [UK] "[I]mportant...The author succeeds in...revealing the complexity and nuanced character of Fanon's thought." DD--Choice "Those who would dismiss or exult Fanon as the high priest of revolutionary violence will be chastened by this patient and completely convincing exposition of his work. Sekyi-Otu produces a reflexive, 'Gramscian' Fanon who, working as a 'detective of the politics of truth,' has produced insights that need to be taken over into the core of democratic political thought." DD--Paul Gilroy, University of London. (shrink)

Un texte n’existe que dans la mesure où il est lu et ses différentes lectures contribuent à en montrer la richesse et l’intérêt. En France on a longtemps lu et on continue encore à lire Fanon, en particulier Les damnés de la terre , à la lumière de la préface que Sartre avait rédigée, à la demande de Fanon lui-même, après une rencontre et d’intenses discussions entre les deux hommes au printemps 1961 à Rome. Le premier chapitre (...) des Damnés de la terre , intitulé “De la violence” avait été publié séparément dans les Temps Modernes , la revue dirigée par Jean-Paul Sartre, comme s’il s’agissait là de l’essentiel de ce livre. Il y a eu depuis beaucoup d’autres lectures de l’œuvre de Fanon, et en particulier de ce livre difficile et complexe. Je voudrais m’attacher, dans les pages qui vont suivre, à la lecture faite par Edward Said des textes de Fanon tout au long de sa carrière, à partir du moment, où, à la suite de la guerre de 1967 entre Israël et les pays arabes, et l’occupation de la Cisjordanie et de Gaza, ainsi que l’annexion de la partie Est de Jérusalem, Said va mêler intimement élaboration théorique et agir politique. Il est d’autant plus intéressant, d’un point de vue français, de porter attention à cette lecture, que Fanon aussi bien que Said, sont largement marginalisés dans le champ intellectuel et universitaire. Ils sont l’un et l’autre le symptôme d’une tache aveugle dans la pensée française dominante, peu encline à analyser le phénomène colonial. Il ne s’agit pas seulement des lacunes de l’histoire coloniale, qui commence tout juste à se développer. Le regard porté par Frantz Fanon sur la colonisation française en Algérie est difficilement supportable dans un pays qui se veut la “patrie des droits de l’Homme” et des valeurs universelles, tout comme la mise en évidence du racisme dans la France des années 1950. Ce qui semble encore davantage difficile à admettre, c’est que la domination coloniale puisse concerner aussi les catégories intellectuelles, les productions de l’imaginaire, et la construction des subjectivités. Lors de la parution, en 1980, de la traduction française d’ Orientalism , la levée de boucliers contre l’ouvrage fut telle qu’il fallut attendre vingt-cinq ans pour une nouvelle édition du livre qui était devenu introuvable. Entre temps Edward Said était mort, et sa notoriété internationale telle qu’il était impossible de continuer à faire comme si cet ouvrage avait cessé d’exister. On peut naïvement s’étonner d’une telle réaction, en face d’un livre dans lequel il est largement question d’écrivains et de savants français, et qui surtout a été écrit en partie dans le sillage intellectuel de Michel Foucault. Said avait cependant déjà pris, à cette époque, des distances avec la théorie foucaldienne, en s’appuyant sur d’autres théoriciens, au premier rang desquels Fanon. L’importance qu’il accordait à Fanon était antérieure. En effet, dans Beginnings , son premier ouvrage important de théorie littéraire, qui précédait Orientalism , Said avait déjà situé Fanon parmi ceux qui, avec Freud, Orwell, Lévi-Strauss et Foucault, avaient contribué à la production d’un “langage mental commun.&rdquo. (shrink)

Nearly forty years after his death, social philosopher Frantz Fanon remains a towering intellectual figure. Born in Guadeloupe and trained as a psychologist in France, Fanon rejected his French citizenship to join the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s. A brilliant scholar who developed the theory that some neuroses are socially generated, Fanon's revolutionary works—The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, and Black Skin, White Masks—spurred an African intellectual awakening. The rebirth of Fanonism today (...) in universities and the English-speaking world is a testament to his relevance. Edited by distinguished African-studies professor Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fanon opens with an authoritative biography which corrects fallacious assertions about Fanon's life, situating him in Marxism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the historical context of postwar decolonization, specifically the Algerian revolution. Section one is highlighted by extended discussions of Marx, Fanon's theories on sophisticated forms of cultural racism, and "true liberation." The next section examines Fanon's humanist philosophy, his philosophical and geographical journeys, and his attitude toward the necessity of revolution. Also included is Homi Bhabha's well-known essay "Remembering Fanon," which contemplates the seeming rejection of Fanon in Britain in the 1970s, in contrast to his major following in America and the influence of Fanon on South African writer Steven Biko. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Edward Said discuss the importance of the 1980s' and 1990s' cultural and literary debates on Fanon. Gates notes that Fanon has been reinstated -not as a global theorist of "third world" revolution, but instead as a critic of English writers and British romanticists. Benita Parry reexamines African nationalism and liberation, and sheds new light on Fanon's questions of identity and agency. This excellent collection reflects the continuing impact of Fanon's thought on African-American and African studies, feminism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Após a conclusão do curso de medicina psiquiátrica em Lyon, em 1951, Fanon foi acolhido no hospital Saint Alban, para um aprofundamento dos estudos psiquiátricos, tendo ali, trabalhado e pesquisado sob a supervisão do psiquiatra espanhol Francesc Tosquelles, onde praticou os fundamentos da psicoterapia institucional, desenvolvida por Tosquelles e seus colaboradores naquele hospital. Mais tarde, na Argélia, Fanon atuou no hospital de Blida-Joinvile e, posteriormente, na Tunísia, introduzindo reformas, à luz da psicoterapia institucional. A concepção de ser humano (...) que cultivava e a compreensão de que a sociedade doente produz pessoas doentes, levaram-no a um profundo conflito, à medida em que foi tomando consciência da violência do colonialismo francês contra o povo argelino, conforme relatou na carta de demissão que enviou ao Ministro Residente, Robert Lacoste, em 1956. Após o pedido de demissão, adentrou o movimento de libertação da Argélia. Escreveu livros e artigos combatendo o colonialismo e difundindo os ideais revolucionários. Van Renssalaer Potter, por longo tempo atuou como biólogo e bioquímico no MacArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, na Universidade de Winsconsin, na cidade de Madison, onde doentes de câncer eram tratados. Na década de 1970, publicou um livro seminal, Bioética, ponte para o futuro. Anos depois, publicou estudos de Bioética Global. Mais tarde, articulou conceitos de Bioética Profunda. Preocupado com a sobrevivência humana neste planeta, atacado pela irresponsabilidade humana, Potter conclamou a humanidade à tomada de consciência e mudança de condutas. Comparando-se os dois autores, observa-se que os escritos de Fanon foram produzidos na década de 1950, sendo que seu último livro, Os Condenados da Terra, foi escrito em 1961. Potter, por sua vez, escreveu os primeiros estudos de bioética na década de 1970, cerca de uma década após o falecimento de Fanon. Respeitados os limites cronológicos, este estudo se pergunta: A dialética da medicina como política e da política como medicina, na práxis de Fanon, teria sintonias bioéticas? Para enfrentar este problema, o trabalho contextualiza a formação de Fanon, identificando os princípios da práxis médico-psiquiátrica dele. Em seguida, demonstra-se as contradições do colonialismo, identificando uma dialética da medicina como política e da política como medicina. Adiante, informa-se a contribuição de Van Rensselaer Potter, na proposição da bioética. Finalmente, argumenta-se a favor das sintonias bioéticas presentes nas passagens selecionadas. O procedimento metodológico é a pesquisa bibliográfica, analítico-dedutiva. Palavras-chave: Colonialismo. Consciência. Medicina. Política. Sintonias bioéticas. (shrink)

This article explains variations in misrecognition of domination among the racialized subaltern. I draw on a comparative analysis of the fields of Islam in France and India, informed by the work of Bourdieu and Fanon. I first argue that Bourdieu’s concept of the religious field provides a crucial reframing of the Islamic field whereby religious judgments represent classification struggles over legitimate Islam. Second, I approach misrecognition in the field by distinguishing the field’s discourse from its doxa. I argue (...) that misrecognition varies according to the degree of subaltern minority integration into educational institutions and proximity of the subaltern to the dominant classes. I bring in the work of Fanon, whose writings on the psychological effects of racial domination are a crucial complement to a Bourdieusian analysis. Together, they provide a more refined understanding of misrecognition in racialized religious fields and, in turn, potential for political resistance. (shrink)

Inspired by Jane Gordon's book, Creolizing Political Theory: Reading Rousseau through Fanon, this article examines the paradoxes of Creolization within the French context. How do post-colonial French identities of Maghrebi, Sub-Saharan African or Caribbean descent Creolize French society? Instead of being an opportunity that must be seized by the Nation, why is creolization perceived as an imminent threat to the Republic? How can one think of Creolizing politics in the former colonial power? How does Creolization compel us to rethink (...) how we live together? And how does it require us to rethink freedom and equality for all? These are the questions at the heart of this article. (shrink)

. Three logical squares of predication or quantification, which one can even extend to logical hexagons, will be presented and analyzed. All three squares are based on ideas of the non-traditional theory of predication developed by Sinowjew and Wessel. The authors also designed a non-traditional theory of quantification. It will be shown that this theory is superfluous, since it is based on an obscure difference between two kinds of quantification and one pays a high price for differentiating in this way: (...) losing the definability between the existence- and all-quantifier. Therefore, a combination of non-traditional predication and classical quantification is preferred here. (shrink)

Nursing migration: global treasure hunt or disaster‐in‐the‐making?International nurse migration — moving from one country to another in the search of employment — is the focus of this article. The majority of member states of the World Health Organization report a shortage, maldistribution and misutilisation of nurses. International recruitment has been seen as a solution. The negative effects of international migration on the ‘supplier’ countries may be recognised today but are not effectively addressed.Nurse migration is motivated by the search for professional (...) development, better quality of life and personal safety. Pay and learning opportunities continue to be the most frequently reported incentives for nurse migration, especially by nurses from less‐developed countries. Career opportunities were considered key incentives for nurses emigrating from high‐income countries. Language was reported to be a significant barrier. The positive global economic/social/professional development resulting from international migration needs to be weighed against a substantial ‘brain and skills drain’ experienced by supplier countries. The vulnerable status of migrant nurses is also of concern in certain cases. The focus on short‐term solutions as opposed to resolving the problem of a worldwide shortage of nurses causes great concern. Recent initiatives attempt to curb or channel international recruitment. The delicate balance between recognising the right of individual nurses to migrate and a collective concern for the health of a nation’s population must be achieved. (shrink)

The implementation of inclusive policies is largely dependent on teachers´ willingness to accommodate students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream classrooms, which is affected by their perceived competence and attitudes. This study investigated attitudes of pre- and in-service teachers toward students with two types of SEN: challenging behavior and learning difficulties. The three components of attitude (affective, cognitive, and behavioral) were assessed using indirect and direct measures. Results revealed that teachers held negative implicit attitudes toward challenging behavior and learning (...) difficulties, however implicit attitudes did not vary as a function of the type of SEN. Ratings of the stereotypical dimensions warmth and competence and overall ratings of scholastic achievement were affected by professional status and type of SEN. Professional status, implicit attitudes and stereotypical knowledge together explained 52 and 43% of the variance in teachers´ ratings of academic proficiency for students with challenging behavior and learning difficulties, respectively. Results are interpreted within the theoretical framework and implications for teacher training are discussed. (shrink)

The focus of this book is on the epistemological and hermeneutic implications of data science and artificial intelligence for democracy and the Rule of Law. How do the normative effects of automated decision systems or the interventions of robotic fellow 'beings' compare to the legal effect of written and unwritten law? To investigate these questions the book brings together two disciplinary perspectives rarely combined within the framework of one volume. One starts from the perspective of 'code and law' and the (...) other develops from the domain of 'law and literature'. Integrating original analyses of relevant novels or films, the authors discuss how computational technologies challenge traditional forms of legal thought and affect the regulation of human behavior. Thus, pertinent questions are raised about the theoretical assumptions underlying both scientific and legal practice. (shrink)

This Article takes the perspective of law and philosophy, integrating insights from computer science. First, I will argue that in the era of big data analytics we need an understanding of privacy that is capable of protecting what is uncountable, incalculable or incomputable about individual persons. To instigate this new dimension of the right to privacy, I expand previous work on the relational nature of privacy, and the productive indeterminacy of human identity it implies, into an ecological understanding of privacy, (...) taking into account the technological environment that mediates the constitution of human identity. Second, I will investigate how machine learning actually works, detecting a series of design choices that inform the accuracy of the outcome, each entailing trade-offs that determine the relevance, validity and reliability of the algorithm’s accuracy for real life problems. I argue that incomputability does not call for a rejection of machine learning per se but calls for a research design that enables those who will be affected by the algorithms to become involved and to learn how machines learn — resulting in a better understanding of their potential and limitations. A better understanding of the limitations that are inherent in machine learning will deflate some of the eschatological expectations, and provide for better decision-making about whether and if so how to implement machine learning in specific domains or contexts. I will highlight how a reliable research design aligns with purpose limitation as core to its methodological integrity. This Article, then, advocates a practice of “agonistic machine learning” that will contribute to responsible decisions about the integration of data-driven applications into our environments while simultaneously bringing them under the Rule of Law. This should also provide the best means to achieve effective protection against overdetermination of individuals by machine inferences. (shrink)

In this contribution we will explore some of the implications of the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) for law and legal philosophy. AmI creates an environment that monitors and anticipates human behaviour with the aim of customised adaptation of the environment to a person’s inferred preferences. Such an environment depends on distributed human and non-human intelligence that raises a host of unsettling questions around causality, subjectivity, agency and (criminal) liability. After discussing the vision of AmI we will present relevant research (...) in the field of philosophy of technology, inspired by the post-phenomenological position taken by Don Ihde and the constructivist realism of Bruno Latour. We will posit the need to conceptualise technological normativity in comparison with legal normativity, claiming that this is necessary to develop democratic accountability for the implications of emerging technologies like AmI. Lastly we will investigate to what extent technological devices and infrastructures can and should be used to achieve compliance with the criminal law, and we will discuss some of the implications of non-human distributed intelligence for criminal liability. (shrink)

Euthanasia remains controversial in Canada and an issue of debate among physicians. Most studies have explored the opinion of health professionals regarding its legalization, but have not investigated their intentions when faced with performing euthanasia. These studies are also considered atheoretical. The purposes of the present study were to fill this gap in the literature by identifying the psychosocial determinants of physicians’ intention to practice euthanasia in palliative care and verifying whether respecting the patient’s autonomy is important for physicians.

Gilles de Corbeil figures as the initiator of the scientific teaching of medicine in Paris at a time when medicina became physica. He studied medicine at the famous school of Salerno, and his teaching was based upon Salernitan theories and practice. He showed himself very concerned with teaching methods and attached great importance to memorizing. This explains why he composed medical poetry so as to provide a mnemonic aid for his students. As a teacher, he took care of his students' (...) reading, offering them advise. He insisted on the importance of a personal relationship between teacher and student, evoking his own relationship with his Salernitan masters, but repeatedly criticized the students of his time. (shrink)

Law, Human Agency and Autonomic Computing interrogates the legal implications of the notion and experience of human agency implied by the emerging paradigm of autonomic computing, and the socio-technical infrastructures it supports. The development of autonomic computing and ambient intelligence âe" self-governing systems âe" challenge traditional philosophical conceptions of human self-constitution and agency, with significant consequences for the theory and practice of constitutional self-government. Ideas of identity, subjectivity, agency, personhood, intentionality, and embodiment are all central to the functioning of modern (...) legal systems. But once artificial entities become more autonomic, and less dependent on deliberate human intervention, criteria like agency, intentionality and self-determination, become too fragile to serve as defining criteria for human subjectivity, personality or identity, and for characterizing the processes through which individual citizens become moral and legal subjects. Are autonomic âe" yet artificial âe" systems shrinking the distance between (acting) subjects and (acted upon) objects? How âe~distinctively humanâe(tm) will agency be in a world of autonomic computing? Or, alternatively, does autonomic computing merely disclose that we were never, in this sense, âe~humanâe(tm) anyway? A dialogue between philosophers of technology and philosophers of law, this book addresses these questions, as it takes up the unprecedented opportunity that autonomic computing and ambient intelligence offer for a reassessment of the most basic concepts of law. (shrink)

Understanding cultural evolution is one of the most challenging and indispensable scientific tasks for the survival of humankind on our planet. This task demands, besides an adoption of theories and models from biological evolution, theories for culture-specific processes as well. Language evolution and language acquisition offer interesting objects of study in this respect. (Published Online November 9 2006).