Les normes religieuses des Mongols s’ancraient dans le culte des ancêtres patrilinéaires, qui accordait une valeur supérieure au masculin, et assignaient aux individus des statuts et des rôles sexués, réservant en particulier aux hommes la sphère socio-politique. Elles ont orienté par la suite les pratiques bouddhiques des Mongols. Le régime révolutionnaire instauré en 1924 sur le modèle soviétique leur a substitué jusqu’à 1990 un nouveau modèle normatif neutralisant les différences sexuées entre citoyens, imposant l’égalité des droits politiques, promouvant l’accès des (...) femmes à l’éducation et à une activité sociale et professionnelle extérieure. L’urbanisation et l’industrialisation ont participé à la mutation du cadre socio-économique et des relations de parenté et affaibli l’emprise de la tradition sur les individus. Pourtant la valence différentielle des sexes n’a pas été aussi profondément remise en question qu’il y paraît, en particulier dans l’action politique, comme en témoigne a posteriori la société postcommuniste où la question de la subordination du féminin dans ce domaine reste d’actualité. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When a Conflict Collapses on a Child: An (Aborted) Medical Evacuation of a Hazara Toddler During the Kabul Airport Blast and the Taliban TakeoverAyesha AhmadI work in the capacity of an academic researching conflict in Afghanistan. My commitment is rooted in the firm terrain of friendships that merged into sisterhood of the Afghan terrain spaning decades of war but which is also the home of poetics and legacies that (...) refuse to be clouded by the traumas of the land.As a medical ethicist situated in global health, I perceive the inadequate focus on recognising the mental health needs born from living in war as a moral injustice and a form of silencing the suffering. This injustice should be held by the geopolitical hands that play the chords of conflict.However, such research is all too often concluded before it can develop as too dangerous, or too risky, or even as unethical because potential participants are perceived (often, unjustifiably so) to be too vulnerable.Another peril of research is the boundary drawn between a particular experience of the research objective and the life experience of the research participant. Connecting as a researcher and in a personal capacity, I fell into a chasm unseen in the context from where I work in London, United Kingdom.I remember the evening before Kabul city fell to the forced control of the Taliban. My friends reminisced during a nightfall reflection on the battles where the city walls had barricaded its inhabitants from centuries of invaders trying to access the valley of a city surrounded by mountains. Kabul city is a haven for war. Its geographic location makes it desirable to conquer, but part of its desirability is because of how the mountains envelop where the languages, ethnicities, religions, and stories of the Silk Road have settled and rested. Once conquered, the city protects you. And Kabulis felt safe. And to that end, on that fateful night, we ended our conversation in the confidence of hope; that Kabul city would not fall, and with the heart of the country still intact, Afghanistan would be saved.The dawn arrived and so did the approach of the Taliban to the city gates. There were frantic and rapid whispers that transformed into screams. And then the moment came, the Taliban were within the city walls.The juxtaposition between the regular London traffic heaving and breathing, and the frantic, panicked sounds of horns and vehicles fleeing in Kabul that I heard through WhatsApp audios in the background to friends narrating their journey home, was as stark as the peace and war they both echoed. [End Page 167]Soon the stories started speaking, pleading, paining, pressuring—stories seeking survival. In the dawn, instead of the sun breaking the sky, I broke the morning to a friend during a telephone conversation who had just awoken and had not yet received the news. I told my friend that the Taliban were in Kabul city. The reaction was grief, just like the grief I had heard in their voice a few months prior when their beloved father had passed away and entered the grave before they had breathed the new dawn. In the dusk, instead of the moon shining upon the city, women, families, and children were sheltering from the darkness of the grave closing amid their breathing bodies.Then, the blast came. In the energy of the quest for safety, people, walking like pilgrims, surrounded Kabul airport, queuing like worshippers. Prayers died. Hell rose. The waiting crowd was fired upon. The air did not offer breath; instead, a final moment of the sound of war that had blighted lives.In the crowd was a family who I dedicate this article to. I write the story of the father, the mother, the daughter, and the son of that day. The family was Hazara, a disputed and discriminated ethnic minority in Afghanistan, of a legacy traced to the invasion of Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire. Theirs is a story of travellers and a soil of stories; a particularly profound story because the parents had specialised in geology and were experts of the stones of their long heritage. Yet, still, they... (shrink)

« Réfléchir aux similarités entre des répertoires très éloignés dans le temps et l’espace permet parfois de repenser à nouveaux frais les oppositions catégorielles qui nous servent à appréhender les genres musicaux. C’est ce qu’avait fait Simha Arom dans un article sur les parentés inattendues entre polyphonies africaines et polyphonies médiévales. En décal(qu)ant ce rapprochement avec la musique techno née à Detroit dans les années 1980-1990, on propose de montrer que l’opposition entre musiques savantes, traditionnelles et populaires, opérante dans le (...) monde occidental depuis le début du xix e siècle, gagne à être enrichie par d’autres grilles d’analyse pour complexifier la cartographie des objets musicaux qui peuplent le monde de la musique aujourd’hui. ». (shrink)

_Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind_ attempts to solve a grave problem about critical self-reflection. Psychological studies indicate not just that we are bad at detecting our own "ego-threatening" thoughts; they also suggest that we are ignorant of even our ordinary thoughts. However, self-reflection presupposes an ability to know one’s own thoughts. So if ignorance is the norm, why attempt self-reflection? While admitting the psychological data, this book argues that we are infallible in a limited range of self-discerning judgments—that in some (...) cases, these judgments are self-fulfilling or self-verifying. Even so, infallibility does not imply indubitability, and the author does not wish to provide a "foundation" for empirical knowledge. The point is rather to explain how self-reflection as a rational activity is possible. The book will be of interest to scholars working on the issue of self-reflection across a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Do you know who you are? If the question seems unclear, it might owe to the notion of ‘knowing-wh’ (knowing-who, knowing-what, knowing-when, etc.). Such knowledge contrasts with ‘knowing-that’, the more familiar topic of epistemologists. But these days, knowing-wh is receiving more attention than ever, and here we will survey three current debates on the nature of knowing-wh. These debates concern, respectively, (1) whether all knowing-wh is reducible to knowing-that (‘generalized intellectualism’), (2) whether all knowing-wh is relativized to a contrast proposition (...) (‘contrastivism about knowing-wh’), and (3) whether the context-sensitivity of knowing-wh is a semantic or purely pragmatic phenomenon (‘contextualism vs. invariantism about knowing-wh’). (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine stakeholder identification and prioritization by managers using the power, legitimacy, and urgency framework of Mitchell et al. (Academy of Management Review 22, 853–886; 1997). We use a multi-method, comparative case study of two large-scale sporting event organizing committees, with a particular focus on interviews with managers at three hierarchical levels. We support the positive relationship between number of stakeholder attributes and perceived stakeholder salience. Managers’ hierarchical level and role have direct and moderating (...) effects on stakeholder identification and perceived salience. We also found that most stakeholders were definitive, dominant, or dormant types – the other five types were rare. Power has the most important effect on salience, followed by urgency and legitimacy. Based on our case study, we offer several ways to advance the theory of stakeholder identification and salience. (shrink)

In “Does Controlled Donation after Circulatory Death Violate the Dead Donor Rule?” the authors maintain that compliance with the dead donor rule (DDR) does not require a valid determination of deat...

Entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A summary of the literature on whether externalism about thought content precludes non-empirical knowledge of one's own thoughts.

Descartes held the view that a subject has infallible beliefs about the contents of her thoughts. Here, I first examine a popular contermporary defense of this claim, given by Burge, and find it lacking. I then offer my own defense appealing to a minimal thesis about the compositionality of thoughts. The argument has the virtue of refraining from claims about whether thoughts are “in the head;” thus, it is congenial to both internalists and externalists. The considerations here also illuminate how (...) a subject may have epistemicially priviledged and a priori beliefs about her own thoughts. (shrink)

It is a consequence of Quine’s confirmation holism that the logical laws are in principle revisable. Some have worried this is at odds with another dictum in Quine, viz., that any translation which construes speakers as systematically illogical is ipso facto inadequate. In this paper, I try to formulate exactly what the problem is here, and offer a solution to it by (1) disambiguating the term ‘logic,’ and (2) appealing to a Quinean understanding of ‘necessity.’ The result is that the (...) different theses in Quine’s philosophy of logic are to be situated within different contexts of inquiry. (shrink)

Over 115 000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants, of whom a small fraction will receive transplants and many others will die while waiting. Existing efforts to expand the number of available organs, including increasing the number of registered donors and procuring organs in uncontrolled environments, are crucial but unlikely to address the shortage in the near future and will not improve donor/recipient compatibility or organ quality. If successful, organ bioengineering can solve the shortage and improve functional outcomes. Studying (...) manufactured organs in animal models has produced valuable data, but is not sufficient to understand viability in humans. Before risking manufactured organ experimentation in living humans, study of bioengineered organs in recently deceased humans would facilitate evaluation of the function of engineered tissues and the complex interactions between the host and the transplanted tissue. Although such studies do not pose risk to human subjects, they pose unique ethical challenges concerning the previous wishes of the deceased, rights of surviving family members, effective operation and fair distribution of medical services, and public transparency. This article investigates the ethical, legal and social considerations in performing engineered organ research on the recently deceased. (shrink)

Here I explore the prospects for fictionalism about the mental, modeled after fictionalism about possible worlds. Mental fictionalism holds that the mental states posited by folk psychology do not exist, yet that some sentences of folk psychological discourse are true. This is accomplished by construing truths of folk psychology as “truths according to the mentalistic fiction.” After formulating the view, I identify five ways that the view appears self-refuting. Moreover, I argue that this cannot be fixed by semantic ascent or (...) by a kind of primitivism. Even so, I also show that the “self-refutation” charges are subtly question-begging. Nevertheless, the reply reveals that a mental fictionalist ought to be a kind of quietist. (shrink)

This paper begins with a problem stemming from Hume regarding credences about credences. Suppose one has a credence of .95 in p, and suppose one assesses the credence to be such. But suppose one’s second-order credence in this assessment is less than 1. Then, by a standard conditionalization rule, one’s credence in p becomes less than .95. Moreover, such “erosion” can iterate by considering one’s, third-, fourth-, fifth-order credences, etc. (In light of this, some have rejected higher-order credences; however, it (...) is argued that Lewis’ “Principal Principle” forbids this.) The paper then offers a partial solution by describing circumstances under which a person has reason to assign credence 1 to a first-order credence. The solution takes the form of a “transparency” view of self-knowledge from Parent (2017, chapter 8). Briefly, it is argued that when one “reflex-like” utters a sentence “The probability of p is n”, then as a matter of psychological law, the utterance is an expression of one’s own judgment. The Principal Principle then necessitates that one’s credence in p is n, assuming one is being rational. Thus, upon perceiving such an utterance, one can thereby have a reason to assign a second-order credence of 1. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s rule-following argument suggests that linguistic understanding does not consist in knowing interpretations, whereas Kripkenstein’s version suggests that meaning cannot be metaphysically fixed by interpretations. In the present paper, rule-following considerations are used to suggest that certain ontological questions cannot be answered by interpretations. Specifically, if the aim is to specify the ontology of a language, an interpretation cannot answer what object an expression of L denotes, if the interpretations are themselves L-expressions. Briefly, that’s because the ontology of such interpretations (...) would naturally be in question as much as the expressions they interpret. So in order to settle the question of ontology, the interpretations themselves would need to be interpreted, and thus a regress. I conclude that knowing the answer to what ontology underlies L cannot be a matter of knowing interpretations. The paper ends with a quietist conclusion; the slogan is that empirical science is ontology enough, or rather, it is about all the ontology one should expect. (shrink)

This paper reports completeness results for dyadic deontic logics in the tradition of Hansson’s systems. There are two ways to understand the core notion of best antecedent-worlds, which underpins such systems. One is in terms of maximality, and the other in terms of optimality. Depending on the choice being made, one gets different evaluation rules for the deontic modalities, but also different versions of the so-called limit assumption. Four of them are disentangled, and compared. The main observation of this paper (...) is that, even in the partial order case, the contrast between maximality and optimality is not as significant as one could expect, because the logic remains the same whatever notion of best is used. This is established by showing that, given analogous properties for the betterness relation, the same system is sound and complete with respect to its intended modelling. The chief result of this paper concerns Åqvist’s system F supplemented with the principle of cautious monotony. It is established that, under the maximality rule, F + is sound and complete with respect to the class of models in which the betterness relation is required be reflexive and smooth . From this, a number of spin-off results are obtained. First and foremost, it is shown that a similar determination result holds for optimality; that is, under the optimality rule, F + is also sound and complete with respect to the class of models in which the betterness relation is reflexive and smooth . Other spin-off results concern classes of models in which further constraints are placed on the betterness relation, like totalness and transitivity. (shrink)

This paper attacks the modal ontological argument, as advocated by Plantinga among others. Whereas other criticisms in the literature reject one of its premises, the present line is that the argument is invalid. This becomes apparent once we run the argument assuming fictionalism about possible worlds. Broadly speaking, the problem is that if one defines “x” as something that exists, it does not follow that there is anything satisfying the definition. Yet unlike non-modal ontological arguments, the modal argument commits this (...) “existential fallacy” not in relation to the definition of ‘God’. Rather, it occurs in relation to the modal facts quantified over within a Kripkean modal logic. In brief, we can describe the modal facts by whichever logic we prefer—yet it does not follow that there are genuine modal facts, as opposed to mere facts-according-to-the-fiction. A broader consequence of the discussion is that the existential fallacy is an issue for many projects in “armchair metaphysics.”. (shrink)

The paper begins with a defence of a new definition of privacy as the absence of undocumented personal knowledge. In the middle section, I criticise alternative accounts of privacy. Finally, I show how my definition can be worked into contemporary American Law.

In this essay I advance major criticisms of recent work on the concept of liberty by, Among others, I berlin, G maccallum, H j mccluskey, S I benn, And f oppenheim. Emerging from these critical analyses is a new definition of 'liberty, In the spirit of negative liberalism', Which differentiates it from the related but distinct goods of human autonomy, Opportunity, Ability, Power, And self-Development.

The aim of this paper is to strengthen the point made by Horty about the relationship between reason holism and moral particularism. In the literature prima facie obligations have been considered as the only source of reason holism. I strengthen Horty’s point in two ways. First, I show that contrary-to-duties provide another independent support for reason holism. Next I outline a formal theory that is able to capture these two sources of holism. While in simple settings the proposed account coincides (...) with Horty’s one, this is not true in more complicated or “realistic” settings in which more than two norms collide. My chosen formalism is so-called input/output logic. A bottom-line example is introduced. It raises the issue of whether the conventional wisdom is right in assuming that normative reasons run parallel to epistemic ones. (shrink)

This paper tackles an open problem posed by Åqvist. It is the problem of whether his dyadic deontic systemsEandFare complete with respect to their intended Hanssonian preference-based semantics. It is known that there are two different ways of interpreting what it means for a world to be best or top-ranked among alternatives. This can be understood as saying that it is optimal among them, or maximal among them. First, it is established that, under either the maximality rule or the optimality (...) rule,Eis sound and complete with respect to the class of all preference models, the class of those in which the betterness relation is reflexive, and the class of those in which it is total. Next, an analogous result is shown to hold forF. That is, it is established that, under either rule,Fis sound and complete with respect to the class of preference models in which the betterness relation is limited, the class of those in which it is limited and reflexive, and the class of those in which it is limited and total. (shrink)

I discuss David Chalmers’ “scrutability thesis,” roughly that a Laplacean intellect could know every truth about the universe from a “compact class” of basic truths. It is argued that despite Chalmers’ remarks to the contrary, the thesis is problematic owing to quantum indeterminacy. Chalmers attempts to “frontload” various principles into the compact class to help out. But though frontloading may succeed in principle, Chalmers does not frontload enough to avoid the problem.

Philosophers and psychologists generally hold that, in light of the empirical data, a subject lacks infallible access to her own mental states. However, while subjects certainly are fallible in some ways, I show that the data fails to discredit that a subject has infallible access to her own occurrent thoughts and judgments. This is argued, first, by revisiting the empirical studies, and carefully scrutinizing what is shown exactly. Second, I argue that if the data were interpreted to rule out all (...) such infallibility, the relevant psychological studies would be self-effacing. For they adopt a methodology where a subject is simply presumed to know her own second-order thoughts and judgments--as if she were infallible about them. After all, what she expresses as her second-order judgment is trusted as accurate without independent evidence — even though such judgments often misrepresent the subject’s first-order states. The upshot is that such studies do not discredit all infallibility hypotheses regarding self-attributions of occurrent states. (shrink)

This exploratory enquiry seeks to examine the largely unexplored potential of semiotics for intercultural training and education. The proposed three-partdiscussion describes the process by which semiotic theoretical principles were selected and progressively refined into an applied model which was then pilotedthrough a 2007 research initiative entitled Tools for Cultural Development. The case study involved six groups of French and Australian trainees from both theacademic and professional sectors, in collaboration with university, government and community partners. The first part of the article (...) summarizes a review of theliterature on approaches to cultural competence training. The study then outlines the transcoding process by which the stated objectives of intercultural educationwere reformulated in semiotic terms, particularly in reference to cultural semiotics on which the theoretical core of the applied model was subsequently based.Relevant principles from other semiotic schools as well as similar theoretical and methodological stances in the social sciences reinforced the established body of theory for the training design. The third part of the study discusses the process by which semiotic principles were further defined as skill-based outcomes and goals for workshop implementation. This pragmatic defining process facilitated development of questionnaires and surveys, thereby allowing participants to evaluate the training experience by examining their perceptions about the workshop outcomes at the beginning and end of the sessions. This article presents the quantitative results of the evaluation and, in discussing the gains and limits of data obtained, provides the context for a follow-up article on the qualitative findingsof the study. (shrink)

This paper examines the logic of conditional obligation, which originates from the works of Hansson, Lewis, and others. Some weakened forms of transitivity of the betterness relation are studied. These are quasi-transitivity, Suzumura consistency, acyclicity and the interval order condition. The first three do not change the logic. The axiomatic system is the same whether or not they are introduced. This holds true under a rule of interpretation in terms of maximality and strong maximality. The interval order condition gives rise (...) to a new axiom. Depending on the rule of interpretation, this one changes. With the rule of maximality, one obtains the principle known as disjunctive rationality. With the rule of strong maximality, one obtains the Spohn axiom (also known as the principle of rational monotony, or Lewis’ axiom CV). A completeness theorem further substantiates these observations. For interval order, this yields the finite model property and decidability of the calculus. (shrink)

This draft now appears (in revised form) as Chapter 6 of _Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind_. See http://philpapers.org/rec/PARSFT-3.

Can God create an unliftable stone? Beall & Cotnoir propose that ‘God can create an unliftable stone’ is a truth-value gap (neither true nor false). However, this yields a revenge paradox on whether God can eschew gaps. Can God avoid gappy ascriptions of power? Either way, God’s power seems to have limits. In response, it may be said that ascribing God the power to avoid gaps is itself gappy—it concerns a power that God neither has nor lacks. Yet this ends (...) up being inconsistent, for it implies that God definitely lacks that power. Following Aquinas, perhaps Beall & Cotnoir could accept this lack and still uphold omnipotence, suggesting that the power to avoid gaps is impossible for God. Yet the Aquinian stratagem is enough to block the original paradox, which saps the motivation to proffer truth-value gaps in addition. I conclude that the gappy solution is either inadequate or insufficiently motivated. (shrink)

Oppenheimer & Zalta have re-formulated their non-modal version of the ontological argument, with the help of PROVER9, an automated reasoning engine. The authors end up rejecting the new argument; however, the theist has a rejoinder worth considering. But after presenting the rejoinder, I highlight that the conceivability of the being does not imply its possibility. One lesson is that even non-modal ontological arguments must engage modal matters concerning God. Another lesson is that if PROVER9 is able to derive a conclusion (...) from fewer premises, the proof is sometimes inferior as an argument. (shrink)

En su curso Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt-Endlichkeit- Einsamkeit (1929/1930) Heidegger elabora una distinción entre órgano y útil, cuyo objetivo es la caracterización del organismo y su posterior comparación con el hombre. El objetivo de este artículo es examinar los límites entre lo orgán..

Externalism holds that the content of our utterances and thoughts are determined partly by the environment. Here, I offer an argument which suggests that externalism is incompatible with a natural view about ontological commitment--namely, the Quinean view that such commitments are fixed by the range of the variables in your theory. The idea in brief is that if Oscar mistakenly believes that water = XYZ, the externalist ontologically commits Oscar to two waterish kinds, whereas the Quinean commits him to one (...) such kind (albeit a metaphysically impossible kind). The penultimate section addresses a variety of objections to the argument. (shrink)

'The kind Lion' denotes a kind. Yet many generics are thought to denote kinds also, like the subject-terms in 'The lion has a mane', 'Dinosaurs are extinct', and 'The potato was cultivated in Ireland by the end of the 17th century.' This view may be adequate for the linguist's overall purposes--however, if we limit our attention to the theory of reference, it seems unworkable. The problem is that what is often predicated of kinds is not what is predicated of the (...) lion, dinosaurs, and the potato. Thus, kinds are sometimes said to be abstract objects, immanent universals, nominal essences, etc. But the lion is a predatory cat--it is not an abstract object, nor an immanent universal, nor a nominal essence. I consider several proposals about resolving the dilemma; however, the conclusion is that none of the proposals are adequate. We are thus hard pressed to make sense of allegedly kind-denoting generics, and the lesson is a "Socratic" one about the depths of our ignorance. (shrink)

If a semantically open language has no constraints on self-reference, one can prove an absurdity. The argument exploits a self-referential function symbol where the expressed function ends up being intensional in virtue of self-reference. The prohibition on intensional functions thus entails that self-reference cannot be unconstrained, even in a language that is free of semantic terms. However, since intensional functions are already excluded in classical logic, there are no drastic revisionary implications here. Still, the argument reveals a new sort of (...) intensional context, one which does not depend on a propositional attitude verb, a modal operator, an idiom like 'so called', etc. Moreover, since classical logicians do not seem aware of the potential danger with self-reference, a word of warning is in order. (shrink)

The 11 original regions for organ allocation in the United States were determined by proximity between hospitals that provided deceased donors and transplant programs. As liver transplants became more successful and demand rose, livers became a scarce resource. A national system has been implemented to prioritize liver allocation according to disease severity, but the system still operates within the original procurement regions, some of which have significantly more deceased donor livers. Although each region prioritizes its sickest patients to be liver (...) transplant recipients, the sickest in less liver-scarce regions get transplants much sooner and are at far lower risk of death than the sickest in more liver-scarce regions. This has resulted in drastic and inequitable regional variation in preventable liver disease related death rate.A new region districting proposal – an eight district model – has been carefully designed to reduce geographic inequities, but is being fought by many transplant centers that face less scarcity under the current model. The arguments put forth against the new proposal, couched in terms of fairness and safety, will be examined to show that the new system is technologically feasible, will save more lives, and will not worsen socioeconomic disparity. While the new model is likely not perfect, it is a necessary step toward fair allocation. (shrink)