The Universe is One places the ancient synthesis of Stoicism, Platonism, Judaism, and Christianity in active dialogue with modern process science in order to conjoin science, philosophy, and theology into the human quest for meaning. Paul A. Olivier proposes a comprehensive theory of knowledge, which he expands into a theory of life, correlating modern process science and the western-Judeo-Christian heritage into a grand theory of the Universe. He brings together the ideas of influential thinkers from the world of (...) science with those from the world of New Testament studies. Olivier clearly explains concepts from diverse fields to construct a satisfying theory of knowledge and life. He accomplishes this through an examination of the dominance of polarity in all aspects of the universe, such as chaos and order, predictability and unpredictability. Through this complex blend of opposites Olivier develops his theory as an interaction of Word and Spirit that provides the Universe with everything necessary to account for its creation and ongoing evolution. The Universe continually creates and sustains itself out of its own internal necessity coupled paradoxically with the fluidity of its own inherent unpredictability. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur held the conference on attention at Rennes, on the 2nd of March 1939, before the Philosophical Circle of the West. At the time, Ricœur, aged 26, was a teacher of philosophy at Lorient, in the south of Brittany. The text published here, which is available in the Paris Archives, is Ricœur’s extended version of this conference. His careful analysis of attention is impressive in its phenomenological emphasis: from the first lines, he draws relations between attention and perception, (...) considering their intentional character, and continues by distinguishing attention from anticipation, preperception and waiting. A particular concern is given to the relation between attention and temporal duration – a question that will be reworked later in his philosophy of the will. After questioning how attention implies the notion of truth (not without reminding the contributions of Descartes, Thomas, Malebranche and Berkeley), he concludes by meditating upon the relation between attention and liberty. (shrink)

A comparison of the literatures on how infants represent generic object classes, gender and race information in faces, and emotional expressions reveals both common and distinctive developments in the three domains. In addition, the review indicates that some very basic questions remain to be answered regarding how infants represent facial displays of emotion, including (a) whether infants form category representations for discrete classes of emotion, (b) when and how such representations come to incorporate affective meaning, (c) the developmental trajectory for (...) representation of emotional expression at different levels of inclusiveness (i.e., from broad to narrow or narrow to broad?), and (d) whether there is superior discrimination ability operating within more frequently experienced emotion categories. (shrink)

A comparison of the literatures on how infants represent generic object classes, gender and race information in faces, and emotional expressions reveals both common and distinctive developments in the three domains. In addition, the review indicates that some very basic questions remain to be answered regarding how infants represent facial displays of emotion, including (a) whether infants form category representations for discrete classes of emotion, (b) when and how such representations come to incorporate affective meaning, (c) the developmental trajectory for (...) representation of emotional expression at different levels of inclusiveness (i.e., from broad to narrow or narrow to broad?), and (d) whether there is superior discrimination ability operating within more frequently experienced emotion categories. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

This paper supports the personal data platform cooperative as a means of bringing about John Rawls’s favoured institutional realisation of a just society, the property-owning democracy. It describes personal data platform cooperatives and applies Rawls’s political philosophy to analyse the institutional forms of a just society in relation to the economic power deriving from aggregating personal data. It argues that a society involving a significant number of personal data platform cooperatives will be more suitable to realising Rawls’s principle of fair (...) equality of opportunity. (shrink)

Les travaux du Comité public de suivi Le comité a été créé le 12 avril 2016. À cette occasion, il a annoncé le dépôt d’un rapport de suivi à l’occasion du premier anniversaire du dépôt du rapport de la Commission Charbonneau. Dans les derniers mois, le comité s’est penché sur les initiatives répondant aux recommandations de la Commission, en étudiant les informations rendues publiques sur ce sujet. Aidé d’une équipe...

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur a tenté une réhabilitation du politique par le souci accordé au droit. Il s'agit pour lui à la fois de faire crédit à la capacité des sujets à viser un bien commun et de tenir compte de la fragilité tant des personnes que des institutions.Ces deux orientations s'entrecroisent dans une pratique du jugement qui interprète le juste dans la singularité des situations, tranche et distribue ce qui revient à chacun et contribue à reconstruire un lien social possible.

This collection of essays offers different ways of seeing twentieth-century art via the medium of aesthetics. Each essay explores a different vision: Pablo Picasso's Mercure , Paul Klee's work from the thirties, Yves Klein's concept of the Void, Ed Ruscha's gunpowder drawings, and Cy Twombly's Bacchus paintings. Having curated exhibitions on the majority of these artists, Olivier Berggruen's acquaintance with their work is profound, and his approach both scholarly and highly intimate. Olivier Berggruen lives in New York (...) and has curated museum exhibitions devoted to Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Yves Klein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Ed Ruscha. (shrink)

This article focuses on the corresponding research findings pertaining to developmental changes throughout infancy to adolescence in processing various bits of face trait information. It examines whether faces are indeed a special class of stimuli. The role of experience in developing species-specific face expertise and standards of attractiveness are discussed. The research on infants' and children's categorization of different face types aids in exploring how the development of face categorization is influenced by experience. The article reviews evidence concerning the development (...) of face identity discrimination and recognition and more specifically the controversy regarding whether such development undergoes a qualitative change during childhood. It deals with infants and children's use of three types of facial information: featural information, configural information, and holistic information. (shrink)

How far can one ascribe a spatial meaning to pain? When I have a pain, for instance, in my leg, how should one understand the “in” in the “pain in my leg”? I argue (contrary to Noordhof) that pain does have a spatial meaning, but (contrary to Tye) that the spatiality of pain is not to be understood in the standard sense of spatial enclosure. Instead, spatiality has a special meaning with regard to pain. By defining pain in phenomenological terms (...) as a disturbed form of bodily perception, I contend that the “in” in “pain in my body” has a dual spatial meaning: firstly, it signifies my internal perceptual relation to a disturbing part of my body; secondly, it denotes the external perceptual relation to my environment that the disturbance forces me to take. Once the spatiality of pain is understood in terms of such a perceptual relation, it is not restricted to localisable hurts, but pertains to all forms of pain, such as affliction and agony. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 25 (4) 2006: pp. 336-349. (shrink)

Les commentateurs s’accordent pour constater une évolution dans la pensée politique de Ricœur conduisant d’un radicalisme à un réformisme. Par-delà ces variations, on se propose plutôt de mettre en évidence la continuité d’un projet. Non seulement la critique du capitalisme se poursuit jusqu’au bout, mais la perspective du socialisme semble très tôt tenue pour improbable. Dans les deux cas, la préoccupation centrale porte sur la nécessité de raviver les traditions et de faire émerger l’élan initial sous la doctrine “ossifiée ” (...) en les situant en tension critique entre elles pour qu’elles se corrigent mutuellement. Le projet politique de Ricœur consiste à établir en vis-à-vis libéralisme et socialisme. (shrink)

This study undertakes a reading of Etienne de La Boétie’s Discours de la servitude volontaire, endeavoring to bring to light the way it convergences with and diverges from the political thought of Paul Ricœur, around the central concept of the will. On the basis of the twin notions of “denaturation” and of “pathology,” a course unfolds which aims at helping establish the people, in comparison with the institution of the State, through a political process revitalised by friendship. But the (...) two thinkers differ when it comes to the resources of the will. This is reflected in the notion of freedom, conceived as absolute in La Boetie, while Ricœur emphasizes its contingency, which leads him to thematize it in terms of capabilities. (shrink)

Auteur d'une oeuvre considérable, Paul Ricoeur reste méconnu en tant que penseur politique. Pour la première fois, cet ouvrage procède au remembrement des fragments dispersés d'un projet qui aura constitué sans aucun doute l'une des préoccupations constantes du philosophe. Il considère les enjeux du pouvoir dans une extension inédite : sa conquête et son exercice, le vivre-ensemble dans la Cité, mais aussi les conditions de l'agir du citoyen, gardien de la démocratie. Le parti pris de penser le politique dans (...) les termes d'un "paradoxe" témoigne d'un refus méthodique du systématisme, qui fait le lit des totalitarismes. En associant deux thèses adverses également fondées, Ricoeur invite à les concilier, non par un savoir, mais dans la pratique. Récusant toute position de surplomb, il réplique au "mal politique" par l'espérance, l'ouverture au possible. Par rapport à l'économie et à la culture, il réaffirme l'autonomie du politique, qu'il articule à une "éthique démocratique", en sorte que le souhaitable oriente le possible. Ricoeur a le souci d'exposer la réflexion à l'événement pour mieux en saisir la portée à l'aune d'une anthropologie philosophique. Dans son sillage, l'auteur confronte cette pensée politique à la situation contemporaine, pour une mutuelle mise à l'épreuve d'où surgit une critique en creux de la raison néolibérale et une contribution potentielle aux débats du moment. Loin cependant de s'y cantonner, la proposition de Ricoeur invite à discerner dans la "dette sans faute", qui résulte pour chacun du fait d'être né, les ressources d'un agir poétique capable de surmonter le désenchantement des modernes. L'imagination, en inversant l'endettement en gratitude, peut raviver le sens du vivre-ensemble dans une "pratique de la fraternité". (shrink)

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present.

This comprehensive anthology offers over 40 readings that are critical to the understanding of anthropological theory and the development of anthropology as an academic discipline. The fourth edition maintains a strong focus on the "four-field" roots of the discipline in North America but has been reorganized with a new section on twenty-first-century theory, including coverage of postcolonial and public anthropology. New key terms and introductions accompany each reading and a revamped glossary makes the book more student-friendly. Used on its own, (...) or together with the overview text A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition, this anthology offers a flexible and unrivaled introduction to anthropological theory that reflects not only the history but also the changing nature of the discipline today. For additional resources, visit the "Teaching Theory" page at www.utpteachingculture.com. (shrink)

These essays examine the ways in which the consideration of ethical questions is shaped by the structures of knowledge and communication at work in clinical ...

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity to visual experience (...) is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

Paradox and origin : on the structure of legal communication -- History, law and hermeneutic self-reference -- Self-mastery and the conversion of force : an ethics of freedom -- The social metaphysics of law : Vico's communicative body and the paradoxical grounding of freedom and authority -- The creative formation and foundation of society's law : on the nature of poetic wisdom -- Between freedom and authority : Vico's history of roman law -- The technique of command : on the (...) problem of freedom in Weber's sociology of law. (shrink)

This paper argues that, given a certain apparently inevitable thesis about content, we could not know our own minds. The thesis is that the content of a thought is determined by its relational properties.

The paper asks under what conditions deductive reasoning transmits justification from its premises to its conclusion. It argues that both standard externalist and standard internalist accounts of this phenomenon fail. The nature of this failure is taken to indicate the way forward: basic forms of deductive reasoning must justify by being instances of 'blind but blameless' reasoning. Finally, the paper explores the suggestion that an inferentialist account of the logical constants can help explain how such reasoning is possible.

This volume presents a series of influential essays by Paul Boghossian on the theory of content and on its relation to the phenomenon of a priori knowledge. The essays are organized under four headings: the nature of content; content and self-knowledge; knowledge, content, and the a priori; and colour concepts.

It is very common these days to come across the claim that the notions of mental content and linguistic meaning are normative notions. In the work of many philosophers, it plays a pivotal role. Saul Kripke made it the centerpiece of his influential discussion of Wittgenstein’s treatment of rulefollowing and private language; he used it to argue that the notions of meaning and content cannot be understood in naturalistic terms. Kripke’s formulations tend to be in terms of the notion of (...) linguistic meaning, but his argumentative strategy makes it clear that he holds both versions of the claim.... (shrink)

According to a very natural picture of rational belief, we aim to believe only what is true. However, as Bernard Williams used to say, the world does not just inscribe itself onto our minds. Rather, we have to try to figure out what is true from the evidence available to us. To do this, we rely on a set of epistemic rules that tell us in some general way what it would be most rational to believe under various epistemic circumstances. (...) We reason about what to believe; and we do so by relying on a set of rules.... (shrink)

14 essays which examine the efforts of Socrates' associates to preserve his speeches for posterity. The papers place particular emphasis on the non-Platonic tradition.

An irrealist conception of a given region of discourse is the view that no real properties answer to the central predicates of the region in question. Any such conception emerges, invariably, as the result of the interaction of two forces. An account of the meaning of the central predicates, along with a conception of the sorts of property the world may contain, conspire to show that, if the predicates of the region are taken to express properties, their extensions would have (...) to be deemed uniformly empty. The question then becomes whether the predicates are best understood as expressing properties, and hence as founded on error, or whether they ought to be understood along non-factualist lines.z Historically, irrealist models were developed primarily in connection with evaluative discourse, although as physicalism has flourished and as reductionist programs have failed, their application has been extended to many other domains. Indeed, it is one of the more influential suggestions in contemporary philosophy of mind that they apply even to ordinary belief/desire psychology. A correct understanding of the semantics and metaphysics of content-based psychology leaves us, so the proponents of the in-. (shrink)

Compatibilism combines an externalist view of mental content with a doctrine of privileged self‐knowledge. The essay presents a reductio of compatibilism by arguing that if compatibilism were true, we would be in a position to know certain facts about the world a priori, facts that no one can reasonably believe are knowable a priori. Whether this should be taken to cast doubt on externalism or privileged self‐knowledge is not discussed. Consideration is given to the ’empty case’—the case in which a (...) thinker expresses what he takes to be a genuine thought concerning a natural kind but where there is in fact no relevant natural kind, so that the putative natural kind term fails to refer. It is argued that, in such a case, on an externalist conception of natural kind terms, the thinker is deluded in taking himself to be expressing a complete thought, and that such delusions are not compatible with privileged self‐knowledge. (shrink)

The dispute between realists about color and anti-realists is actually a dispute about the nature of color properties. The disputants do not disagree over what material objects are like. Rather, they disagree over whether any of the uncontroversial facts about material objects--their powers to cause visual experiences, their dispositions to reflect incident light, their atomic makeup, and so on--amount to their having colors. The disagreement is thus about which properties colors are and, in particular, whether colors are any of the (...) properties in a particular set that is acknowledged on both sides to exhaust the properties of material objects. In a previous paper we discussed at length one attempt to identify colors with particular properties of material objects--namely, with their dispositions to cause visual experiences. Here we shall discuss a different and perhaps more influential version of realism, which says that the colors of material objects are microphysical properties of their surfaces. We shall call this theory physicalism about color (physicalism, for short). In order to evaluate this theory, however, we shall first have to clarify some methodological issues. Our hope is that we can bring some further clarity to the question of color realism, whether or not we succeed in our critique of the physicalists' answer. (shrink)

The paper is a defense of the project of explaining the a priori via the notion of meaning or concept possession. It responds to certain objections that have been made to this project—in particular, that there can be no epistemically analytic sentences that are not also metaphysically analytic, and that the notion of implicit definition cannot explain a priori entitlement. The paper goes on to distinguish between two different ways in which facts about meaning might generate facts about entitlement—inferential and (...) constitutive. It concludes by outlining a theory of the latter. (shrink)

I believe that the notion of epistemic transparency does play an important role in our ordinary conception of mental content and I want to say what that role is. Unfortunately, the task is a large one; here I am able only to begin on its outline. I shall proceed somewhat indirectly, beginning with a discussion of externalist conceptions of mental content. I shall show that such conceptions violate epistemic transparency to an extent that has not been fully appreciated. Subsequently, I (...) shall look at the implications of this violation and at the reconstructive project that a rejection of transparency entails. I am inclined to think it unlikely that we will get a conception of propositional content that underwrites epistemic transparency. But I am concerned that we have not fully appreciated the role that transparency currently plays and the work that would need to be done were we to discard it. (shrink)

The question I want to look at in this paper is this: To what extent does an externalist conception of mental content threaten our ability to know the contents of our thoughts? I shall argue that, in an important sense, externalism is inconsistent with the thesis that we have authoritative first-person knowledge of thought content: in particular, I shall argue, it is inconsistent with the thesis that our thought contents are epistemically transparent to us. I shall further argue that this (...) is true in a sense that falsifies another important and traditionally fundamental view —that we can detect a priori whether our inferences are logically valid or not. I shall leave for another occasion the question whether these results reflect badly on epistemic transparency or on externalism. (shrink)

The widespread effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have negatively impacted upon many athletes’ mental health and increased reports of depression as well as symptoms of anxiety. Disruptions to training and competition schedules can induce athletes’ emotional distress, while concomitant government-imposed restrictions (e.g., social isolation, quarantines) reduce the availability of athletes’ social and emotional support. Written Emotional Disclosure (WED) has been used extensively in a variety of settings with diverse populations as a means to promote emotional processing. The (...) expressive writing protocol has been used to a limited extent in the context of sport and predominantly in support of athletes’ emotional processing during injury rehabilitation. We propose that WED offers an evidence-based treatment that can promote athletes’ mental health and support their return to competition. Research exploring the efficacy of the expressive writing protocol highlights a number of theoretical models underpinning the positive effects of WED; we outline how each of these potential mechanisms can address the multidimensional complexity of the challenging circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., loss of earnings, returning to training and competition). Considerations and strategies for using WED to support athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic are presented. (shrink)

The core idea seems clear enough. To say of something that it is socially constructed is to emphasize its dependence on contingent aspects of our social selves. It is to say: This thing could not have existed had we not built it; and we need not have built it at all, at least not in its present form. Had we been a different kind of society, had we had different needs, values, or interests, we might well have built a different (...) kind of thing, or built this one differently. The inevitable contrast is with a naturally existing object, something that exists independently of us and which we did not have a hand in shaping. (shrink)

In the last several years anthropology has developed a mathematical theory1 which now has foundations almost as broad as the field of anthropology itself.2 This breadth includes works ranging from population genetics and demographic modeling to theories of social organization or even of mythological structures.3 In the present article we present elaborations of aspects of the theory as so far developed4 and discuss the significance of this new work for the possible solution of additional problems of interest. In particular we (...) refer both to the possibility of breaking barriers between fields of anthropology5 and also to the generality of the mathematics as such. (shrink)

In this article, Whitehead's transition from a Philosophy of Evolution to a Philosophy of Organism is studied primarily on the basis of the evidence provided by the first two volumes of The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, especially the second volume that deals with the period 1925–1927 and that is subtitled General Metaphysical Problems of Science.

This is a critical discussion of Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore's "Holism". The paper questions the existence of a slippery slope from some inferential liaisons are constitutive of meaning' to all inferential liaisons are constitutive of meaning'. "Interalia", it defends the existence of an analytic/synthetic distinction.

Samuelson's text was first published in 1948, and it immediately became the authority for the principles of economics courses. The book continues to be the standard-bearer for principles courses, and this revision continues to be a clear, accurate, and interesting introduction to modern economics principles. Bill Nordhaus is now the primary author of this text, and he has revised the book to be as current and relevant as ever.

Bis zum Ende leben. Überleben. Im Anderen. Dies ist das letzte große Thema, welches Ricœur beschäftigt hat. Die in dieser Ausgabe erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung vorgelegten Fragmente aus dem Nachlaß sind weniger eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Tod als mit dem Leben und Überleben. Es ist das große Trauma des 20. Jahrhunderts, jener, die die Vernichtungslager überlebt haben und die Jorge Semprun in seinem Buch "Schreiben oder Leben", mit dem Ricœur sich auseinandersetzt, als Wiedergänger bezeichnet, weder tot noch lebend, jene, die (...) scheinbar ihren eigenen Tod überlebt, sich selbst überlebt haben. Aber es steht auch für ein ganz persönliches Trauma, nämlich den Tod seiner Frau Simone, dessen Etappen Catherine Goldenstein im Nachwort skizziert. Der Gedanke der Trauer oder Trauerarbeit wird inspiriert von dieser Verlusterfahrung, dem Verlust eines geliebten Menschen. Beide Traumata halten einander dabei die Waage. Gegen den anonymen Massentod, dem kein Sinn mehr abzuringen ist, für den es keine wirkliche Trauerarbeit gibt, stellt sich der Verlust eines geliebten, einem nahestehenden Menschen. Das Bindeglied zwischen beiden stellt die Vorstellungs- oder Einbildungskraft dar. Sie ermöglicht eine Antizipation, eine Vergegenwärtigung sowie eine Anstelle-von-Substitution. Es ist die Antizipation des eigenen Todes in der Vergegenwärtigung der anderen Toten, an deren Stelle wir uns projizieren. (shrink)

Reply to Schiffer's comment on Externalism and Inference.