Les mathématiques sont bien plus qu’une science, tant elles ont acquis un statut central et tout à fait particulier. Elles sont à la fois un langage permettant d’articuler la réalité et un outil qui façonne le réel, et jouent à ce titre un rôle clé dans le développement des sciences de la nature, des sciences humaines et sociales, et de l’industrie. Leur position centrale dans les mécanismes de sélection et de reproduction qui caractérisent l’enseignement en France en fait par ailleurs (...) un enjeu social majeur. L’essence des mathématiques, c’est la liberté, disait Georg Cantor. Quelles sont les nouvelles frontières, les nouveaux défis de cette science qui ne s’impose aucune limite? Comment cette science de l’abstraction s’inscrit-elle au cœur de la réalité, au point d’être incontournable? Quel rôle, quelle place, quelle responsabilité s’assignent les mathématiciens? Deux mathématiciens, Pierre Cartier qui fut l’un des piliers du fameux groupe Bourbaki et Cédric Villani, un des représentants les plus brillants de sa génération (médaille Fields en 2010), le mathématicien et historien des sciences Jean Dhombres, et le philosophe des sciences Gerhard Heinzmann nous invitent à débattre avec eux de l’activité mathématique et de ses conséquences sociales, tant dans l’histoire de l’humanité que dans le monde contemporain. (shrink)

This paper presents a historical view of the rise of mathematical universalism in modern times. It argues that 20th century mathematical revolution laid the foundations for a new universalism which extended to physics, economics, informatics, and recently biology. It describes the role played by the organization of mathematical work for closer co-operation among scientists on an international scale throughout the century, and stresses the importance of mathematics in the education process.

In this paper is presented and discussed the notion of true finite by opposition to the notion of theoretical finite. Examples from mathematics and physics are given. Fermat’s infinite descent principle is challenged.

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

This article addresses some critical aspects of the relationship between aesthetic medicine (AM) and ethics and proposes a possible deontological ethical line to pursue based on current practices. The role of AM has always been controversial and suffers from unclear practical and moral boundaries, even within academic settings, since it aims to improve the appearance of individuals, not to cure a disease. Today, it is essential and pertinent to discuss these issues, as AM specialists are dealing with a growing and (...) increasingly demanding patient population that has undergone profound evolution in recent years. Current challenges within the field of AM include a lack of global uniformity concerning the education of AM specialists, an increasing number of physicians practicing AM with diverse training backgrounds, the spread of AM being practiced outside of medical practice or hospital settings, and the influence of social media where the success is modelled and dictated by the identification of a youthful appearance). By the field of action enriched by technologies that aim not only at enhancement per se but also at the preservation and regeneration of tissues, it is necessary to establish an active multidisciplinary discussion on the definition of shared ethical limits. This discussion would allow AM to fully reclaim its identity as a specialty that aims to improve patient well-being whilst maintaining respect for patient aesthetic harmony, the expertise of specialists who practice AM, the essential role of safety, and awareness of the importance of a confidential doctor−patient relationship. (shrink)

The geohistorical disjunctures between Hong Kong—colonial territory, global city, and special administrative region—and China challenge understandings of the relationship. Hong Kong officially maintains certain core values that differ from those of the People’s Republic of China, while unofficial Chinese Communist Party united-front activity in Hong Kong has arguably narrowed the range of the sayable, in Jacques Rancière’s terms, in the public sphere. How does this admixture of core values, at turns antithetical and contested, appear in the space and time of (...) Hong Kong? Interventions in the ideational dynamic between the city and the state—through images, utterances, performances, and alternative artworks—produce space for the appearance of subjects defined by the people. Not a postcolonial culture of disappearance but an ontology of politics where spaces of disagreement make apprehensible that which is politically unsayable. During the decade before the Umbrella Movement, in a fervent aesthetics of politics at the crossroads of hurtling urban transformation and accelerating illiberal governance, alternative art in Hong Kong populated social-movement activity with claims on public space and the possibilities of the people in the sightlines of a democratic future. (shrink)

It is my intention in this brief study to extend the argument that Nestle begins with her seminal article,' Butch-Femme Relationships: Sexual Cour age in the 1950s', and that Henking and Comstock continue by including it in the critical anthology of writings on'being queer' and 'being religious', Querying Religion. I want to do this by making 'an overt claim' that the butch-femme community of the 1950s created its own spirituality—in the content of a corporeal theology between couples and individually, and (...) that these couples/individuals were also part of this larger 'bar community' that created a space for the community to refine this theology in terms of self-defining community. I want to argue that this self-defined community served to function for its members in many of the same ways any religious community functions that is held together by a common faith and/ or theology....I praise those hands, with scars she's proud of, on gender fuck forearms. They steady my pulse, settle down, settle down, curve on my cheek in the dark like a prayer....Her hands say yield and make it sound safe. They enter me like something holy. It takes time to interpret the tongue of her hands, the whispering of 'come here', or the bunch and knot of 'back off', as they churn cement, hoist bricks, sludge mortar into cracks, knife off the excess, until she's built Jericho and I have no trumpet......I am in the sweet, inquisitive poultice of her hands, proudly helpless, wanted, given. She makes loaves and fishes of me.2. (shrink)

Home-based service jobs have developed considerably across Western societies. In fact, chances are high that a working-class woman in France today will, at some point in her life, be a house cleaner, home-based child care provider, or home aide for the elderly. Going against political, scholarly, and everyday discourses that, saturated with the double prejudices of gender and class, treat all these home service occupations, which require little prior training, the same, this article illuminates the variability of the forms of (...) subordination experienced by women practicing these occupations in France. Comparing these jobs with the ensemble of low-skill jobs and with each other exposes what is specific to the particular form of subordination each job type entails, in terms of the extent of job supervision and the nature of the home where it is practiced, the presence or absence of relations with coworkers and/or a “public,” and the nature of this “public.” It mobilizes nationwide statistical data in a new way to shift attention to these numerous ordinary work situations, which are much less studied than those of the domestic workers of the wealthiest cities of the Western world. (shrink)

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

He occasionally made photographs until his death in poverty there in 1884, leaving behind some of the most dazzling photographic images of his era.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Landmark Legal Cases in BioethicsSusan Cartier Poland (bio)Only a few decades old, the interdisciplinary field of bioethics has developed surrounded by centuries of legal tradition and moral philosophy. Bioethics and the law have weaved back and forth over time influencing each field. Sometimes ethics leads the debate on problematical issues; for example, the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at the National Institutes of Health established regulations prior to initiating (...) human gene therapy. At other times, law takes over; Roe v. Wade, for example, has polarized and closed public discussion on abortion. Most frequently, however, scientific developments initiate discussion in both fields, as when the announcement of the birth of Dolly—the first cloned mammal—sparked President Clinton to ask the National Bioethics Advisory Commission for a report on cloning.A back-and-forth pattern also exists within the law itself, this time between legislator and judge. Legislators enact statutes, which apply universally to regulate conduct in society. Judges, on the other hand, interpret statutes and apply them to particular cases to resolve disputes between parties. Case law, as judge-made law is called, that grows in the absence of legislation becomes the common law. Legislatures can change the course of common law development by enacting more law, usually as amendments, but sometimes as repeals. A judge who sees the facts of a case or the law differently may also change the common law. And so the counterpoint between legislator and judge goes.A legal case becomes a landmark in bioethics because of its historical or precedential value to the field. Historical cases reflect judicial reasoning or rationalization that lays the conceptual foundation for a bioethical principle. Perhaps the best known example of this is the focus on the right to self-determination in Schloendorff that led to the development of informed consent. The principle of autonomy in bioethics derives its legal impetus from this line of cases.A case that acquires landmark status because of its precedential value does so for one of two reasons based on legal precedents. First, the case may be one of “first impression.” In the legal sense, that means that the particular case with its [End Page 191] facts or issues is the first one that a particular court has confronted within that court’s jurisdiction or area of decision-making authority. To be a landmark in bioethics, however, the ordinary sense of “first impression” applies. The first time that a particular bioethical topic has appeared in court for legal resolution makes a case one of “first impression” for bioethics. The case of Baby M on surrogacy contracts illustrates this.The second way in which a case can achieve landmark status based on precedents involves legal precedent and the jurisdictional basis of the court system. Under the common law system, a preceding case that involves the same or similar facts or issues as a current case must be followed by lower—i.e., less authoritative—courts in the same jurisdiction. That judicial rule of decision making is called stare decisis. It creates an institution of continuity, yet allows for change due to differences in judicial interpretation of facts and issues, which is called distinguishing the case.All courts under United States jurisdiction must follow the U.S. Supreme Court. By its sheer power of authority, the Court issues opinions that, if they concern bioethical topics, make cases landmarks in bioethics. For example, Roe v. Wade made abortion legal and set off the debate between maternal and fetal rights. Casey later refined, or to some redefined with a discussion of stare decisis, the bioethical underpinnings of Roe by framing the debate as one between maternal rights and state interests.In law, precedents concern only appellate cases. Trial courts, like that in McFall v. Shimp, handle questions of both fact and law. Appellate courts, like that in Brotherton, hear appeals from the lower trial courts and address legal issues only. Trial judges apply the law to facts, and appellate judges reason about the trial judge’s legal interpretation.Appellate court decisions are the ones most frequently published, either in print or electronically online, for citation. Consequently they are the easiest to locate and retrieve. “Reporters” as... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 12.3 (2002) 305-323 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note 41 Bioethics and Cloning, Part I Susan Cartier Poland and Laura Jane Bishop This is Part One of a two part Scope Note on Bioethics and Cloning. Part Two will be published in the December 2002 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal and as a separate reprint. Contents For Parts 1 And (...) 2 Part 1Part 2I.History of the ScienceI.Ethical PerspectivesII.Historical CommentaryII.Religious PerspectivesIII.Animal WelfareIII.Fiction and FilmIV.Laws and Legal Literature"Clone" is a collective noun (I, Stewart 1997, p. 771). A collective noun names a group and is composed of individual members, such as "herd" or "flock." Derived from the Greek kl¯on for twig or slip, "clone" was first used in biology to describe the aggregate of asexually produced progeny of an individual, either naturally occurring or man-made; the definition later expanded to mean a group of genetically identical members who originate from a single ancestor. Thus, a clone is a group that results from the process of asexual reproduction.In nature, cloning occurs either by parthenogenesis (reproduction without fertilization) or by fission (embryo splitting). In a pioneering experiment in 1952, Robert Briggs and Thomas J. King (I, 1952), cancer researchers at the Institute for Cancer Research (today part of the Fox Chase Cancer Center) in Philadelphia, demonstrated on frogs another method of cloning by transplanting nuclei into enucleated cells, a technique called "nuclear transplantation," which John B. Gurdon and colleagues (I, 1958, 1975) used to create clones of frogs.Then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, two back-to-back frauds in cloning occurred. First, the cloning of a human described by American science journalist David Rorvik in the 1978 book In His Image was called a hoax by a court in [End Page 305] 1982. Second, the cloning of three mice, announced by German wunderkind Karl Illmensee to scientific circles in 1979 (and to the public in 1981), could not be proven to be true, according to convincing evidence by McGrath and Solter (I) published in 1984.With their pronouncement that mammalian cloning was impossible, McGrath and Solter essentially stopped cloning research and funding for such biological research. So by the mid-1980s, instead of further investigating cloning, developmental biologists studied embryology related to in vitro fertilization, while molecular biologists studied recombinant DNA under the newly relaxed NIH guidelines. These two strands of scientific investigation came together in the work of Ian Wilmut, who created in vitro embryos using nuclear transplantation to reproduce genetically engineered cattle. Wilmut was seeking a way to increase the successful birth rate when, in the 1990s, he produced identical twin sheep, Megan and Morag, cloned from an embryonic cell, followed by another sheep, Dolly, cloned from an adult cell. The birth of a mammal from an embryo whose genetic material came from an adult cell firmly re-established the possibility of cloning from adults. Prior to Dolly's birth, scientists believed that adult cells lost the ability to dedifferentiate—i.e., to become unspecialized—and so could not direct the development of an embryo through to birth.The 1997 announcement of Dolly's birth initiated the present widespread discussion of cloning. Because of its potentially vast applications across human health, medicine, agriculture, and business/economics, cloning raises a host of issues including those concerning: genetics and genetic engineering, patenting, animal rights and/or animal welfare (especially for transgenic, research, or cloned animals), organ transplantation, reproduction, eugenics, pharmacology (drug production using transgenic animals), research practices, informed consent, stem cell research, women's rights, children's rights, parental rights and responsibilities, and theology and philosophy. It fosters questions about the meaning and purpose of life, the limits of human powers to intervene in research and therapy, and what it means to be human or animal. In addition, environmentalists and organic farmers raise concerns about the effect of novel animals and plants on the environment, while nutritionists and the lay public wonder... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 15.2 (2005) 211-218 [Access article in PDF] Bioethics, Biolaw, and Western Legal Heritage Susan Cartier Poland Bioethics and biolaw are two philosophical approaches that address social tension and conflict caused by emerging bioscientific and biomedical research and application. Both reflect their respective, yet different, heritages in Western law. Bioethics can be defined as "the research and practice, generally interdisciplinary in nature, which aims (...) to clarify or resolve ethical questions raised by the advances and application of biomedical and biological sciences" (II, Miller 2000, p. 246). Biolaw, on the other hand, is a legal philosophical concept that can be defined as "the taking of agreed upon principles and practices of bioethics into law with the sanctions that law engenders" (p. 246). Some see biolaw as hierarchical, either evolving from or devolving into bioethics (p. 245), while others think of bioethics and biolaw as a continuum or gradation (p. 246). Whichever view one takes, bioethics and biolaw are, at the least, intertwined (II, Loureiro 2000, p. 71).Although bioethics came out of the U.S. in the 1970s, the field is now considered Anglo-American (II, Kemp 2000a, p. 67). Biolaw emerged in the 1990s from the French biodroit and has become associated with continental Europe (p. 68). These distinctions, however, are based on geopolitical entities. Another way to distinguish bioethics from biolaw is to look at their legal heritage and understand the differences between the common law and the civil law.Bioethics and biolaw share a Western legal heritage, specifically roots in Roman law. When the Roman empire in the West fell to Germanic tribes in 476 A.D., the Romans had developed a sophisticated system of law that included flexible standards and abstract, rather than concrete, modes of thought. In 528, Justinian, emperor of the surviving Roman empire in the East at Constantinople, ordered a compilation and consolidation of Roman law. Despite the rise of seventh century Islam, the split of the Christian church into eastern and western branches in 1054, and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Roman law survived through the courts of canon law and was revived later in the twelfth century at the University of Bologna in Italy. By 1500, what would later become France and Germany had [End Page 211] "received" or recognized Roman law, albeit in varying degrees. Not a single event, the Reception, or "direct acceptance of Roman law as a principal source of law," is the definitive turning point in Western legal history that eventually produced the common law and civil law strands (I, Von Mehren 1957, p. 10).England, however, did not participate in the Reception, although its influence was felt at Oxford University, where Vacarious taught its precepts in 1151, and in the courts of canon law (I, Von Mehren 1957, p. 10). William the Conqueror already essentially had established the common law tradition when he merged Anglo-Saxon law with Norman law and created a centralized system of justice administration for the single fiefdom known as England.Aside from historical development, the common law and the civil law differ from other legal families in terms of their modes of thought, institutions, sources, and ideology (I, Zweigert and Kotz 1977, p. 62). In the common law, Roman legal concepts were shaped by Christian ethics through the canon law courts. In the civil law, Roman law became the basis for a legal science centered in the universities and interpreted by various schools, such as the commentators, the glossators, and the humanists. The civil law uses a central text as the starting point for legal reasoning and analysis. The common law develops over time through case law, that is, by judges applying principles from preceding cases to resolve the issue at hand. One writer describes the common law as "anything that is not prohibited is permitted" and the civil law as "anything that is not permitted is prohibited" (I, Karambelas 2005, p. 28).The common law and the civil law are only two of the three traditions in Western law. The third is socialist law. All three are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics Commissions: Town Meetings with a “Blue, Blue Ribbon”Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Town meetings are characteristic of New England. In theory, a quorum of registered voters in a small municipality meets annually to decide local public policy. In fact, special interests and the town bureaucracy control the meeting.Like a town meeting, a commission (or committee or council) comes into being, whether on an ad hoc or permanent basis, to (...) direct a government function. Bioethics commissions specialize in one area: the intersection of public policy with developments, either real or anticipated, in the basic and applied sciences.That specialization of commissions carries over into the selection of the members. More often than not commission members are appointed on the basis of expertise in a specific area. Although some commissions are still made up entirely of one kind of expert, usually medical, the majority of these government bodies seek breadth between the fields of law, religion, ethics, and science (including medicine and the social sciences).In the words of Mrs. Rigenbach, the law clerk to Chief Judge Carl B. Rubin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, selection of persons “knowledgeable in the field” constitutes a “blue, blue ribbon” jury. In contrast, a “blue ribbon” jury is composed of those persons having “the greatest amount of formal education” (In re Richardson-Merrill, Inc. (Bendectin litigation), 624 Federal Supplement 1212 at 1217 (1985)). The problem with persons knowledgeable in the field is that their minds may have already been made up. For a jury, this is a disaster; for a bioethics commission, this directs and shapes the research, investigation, and discussion, or, in short, it makes for more efficient decision making.For this Scope Note, the definition of commission begins with the Bioethicsline description of its index term “advisory committees” as committees or commissions set up to advise government bodies on public policy. Furthermore, a commission [End Page 91] (or committee) receives government funding and support in exchange for its expertise in research, investigation, reporting, and recommendations.Six functions served by bioethics commissions have been clearly and succinctly described by LeRoy Walters (Commissions and Bioethics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (4): 363–68, August 1989). The functions are: (1) to legitimize action; (2) to delay action or resolution; (3) to identify duplication; (4) to be representative; (5) to do research and find facts; and (6) to provide education and support (pp. 364–65). Since 1989, however, another government function has moved to the forefront. Instead of remaining within the legislative arena, government commissions serve the judiciary as well, in cases involving complex and technical questions. The now defunct Law Reform Commission of Canada recognized this use when it included in its annual reports a section on its “Influence on Law Reform through Judicial Decisions.”In mid-1997, the United States Supreme Court in its consolidated cases on assisted suicide used extensively the writings from a state commission, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, to support its rationale. Not only did the Court make use of the Task Force’s work, but in so doing the Court extended the efforts of the commission beyond its jurisdiction of New York into another jurisdiction on the opposite coast, Washington state. Furthermore, although the commission was chartered by one state, through the federal court system, its influence became national.Outside the U.S., the United Nations recently adopted its first bioethics text on the ethics of genetic research, and Canada is reworking its human research guidelines into a single set of guidelines that will apply to research in both the natural sciences and the social sciences.This Scope Note attempts to compile for the researcher and the reference librarian those commissions, existing and defunct, that have addressed bioethics issues. Only one other such attempt is known to the author, an Office of Technology Assessment [OTA] Background Paper, Biomedical Ethics in U.S. Public Policy (1993). Due to space limitations, not all publications could be listed; the selections included represent the range of topics from a particular group or the more frequently cited sources. Future updates of this compilation are planned, so please notify the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.3 (2000) 265-281 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note 39 Genes, Patents, and Bioethics-Will History Repeat Itself? Susan Cartier Poland Gene patenting--the very notion sounds absurd! How can anyone claim to have invented the genes with which one is born? To make matters worse, genetic makeup precedes birth, meaning the existence of the invention predates the existence of the inventor. So, do we (...) really own our genes, or do they belong to our parents, or our governments, or a Supreme Being? Ownership is only one bioethical issue involved in gene patenting. But before looking at the issues, some essential and basic terms must be understood, namely genes and patents. Genes In his book On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, the biologist Charles Darwin proposed a theory called "natural selection," whereby living things changed over time or evolved through generations due to competition and variation. By experimenting with the garden pea in the 1860s, Gregor Mendel, a monk and accomplished horticulturalist, provided the mechanism of inheritance supporting the natural selection theory of his contemporary Darwin. That mechanism is the gene, or, as Mendel described it, a discrete "factor." The gene has also been defined as "the fundamental unit of heredity" (United States 1987, p. 157). Each individual has two copies of a gene, one from each parent, but that individual passes down to offspring only one of the two copies. Because of Mendel, the gene has become a scientific concept and the basis of a new scientific field: genetics.David C. Page (2000) of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explained today's terms for genetics structures using an analogy taken from the home. In his view, the cell is a kitchen, the genome is a shelf in the kitchen, the chromosome is a cookbook on the shelf, the gene is a recipe in the cookbook, and a base-pair (either adenine with thymine or guanine with cytosine) is a single letter in the recipe. A protein, the [End Page 265] working molecule blueprinted by a gene, is a dish ready to eat, and an ingredient in the dish is an amino acid, which is a building block of the protein as specified by a string of base-pairs.Colin Tudge (1993), a British science journalist, would disagree with Page's description of the gene as a recipe. A recipe is like a blueprint: both are directions that precede the work. But a gene is not passive according to Tudge; it actively administers the cell's work, and it also responds to cellular events (Aldridge 1996).The current focus of scientific research and funding is on the gene and the completion of the sequencing of all the genes that comprise the human genome, portrayed in the press as a race between the U.S. government's Human Genome Project and the private corporation Celera Genomics. The real action, however, is at the protein level. The gene only holds the information to produce a protein; it is the three-dimensional shaped protein that does the work. In order to produce energy, eliminate waste, and perform other functions specific to a cell or tissue, proteins must bind, thus creating "biological pathways." Proteins bind (or not) and detach as a function of their shapes, which are determined by their precise chemical composition as spelled out in their genetic code. IBM will spend the next five years making one computer, Blue Gene, that will then take an entire year to come up with the chemical map for only one protein (Gillis 2000). It is estimated that there are about 40,000 proteins in the human body.Despite these overwhelming numbers, modern biology has been able to achieve significant results within the Human Genome Project's 15-year time frame, from 1990 to 2005. The genetic map was completed in 1993; the physical map was completed in 1995; and the genetic sequence is expected to be completed in 2002, with 97 to 99 percent completed as of 26 June 2000. This... (shrink)

We should approach this topic with great fear and respect. It is not a merely “academic” issue. Human rights are trampled upon in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South of our planet. Granting the part of human greed and sheer evil in this universal transgression, could it not also be that Human Rights are not observed because in their present form they do not represent a universal symbol powerful enough to elicit understanding and (...) agreement? (shrink)

Chemical structures are among the trademarks of our profession, as surely chemical as flasks, beakers and distillation columns. When someone sees one of us busily scribbling formulas or structures, he or she has no trouble identifying a chemist. Yet these familiar objects, which accompany our work from start to end, from the initial doodlings (Fig. I) to the final polished artwork in a publication (Fig. II), are deceptively simple. They raise interesting and difficult questions about representation. It is the intent (...) of this article to reflect upon molecular graphics. (shrink)

Ethics and Decision Making in Counseling and Psychotherapy has a distinct and timely focus on counseling as a profession. Chapters address the mental health professions, values in counseling, decision making, ethical principles, ethical standards, technology, ethical climate, and office/administrative practices. The early chapters present a foundation for ethical practice of the profession and provides solid building blocks to the more advanced perspectives in later chapters. Chapters on specialty practice are lively and contemporary overviews of these practice areas in counseling that (...) reflect more recent trends to increased differentiation of these areas of practice. Each specialty has its own chapter to allow for an extended discussion of the unique aspects of the field that provide clarity to understanding the particular ethical issues and standards that apply in each specialty. The specialty areas recognized by CACREP are included: mental health counseling; school counseling; couple, marital, and family counseling; rehabilitation counseling; addictions counseling; career counseling; and group counseling. This book is broad in its coverage of the most practiced specialties in mental health practice, and provides an efficient and effective overview of the broad scope of particular areas addressed in counseling. (shrink)

I investigate the consequences of Nietzsche's perspectivism for notions of truth and objectivity, and show how the metaphor of visual perspective motivates an epistemology that avoids self-referential difficulties. Perspectivism's claim that every view is only one view, applied to itself, is often supposed to preclude the perspectivist's ability to offer reasons for her epistemology. Nietzsche's arguments for perspectivism depend on “internal reasons”, which have force not only in their own perspective, but also within the standards of alternative perspectives. Internal reasons (...) allow a perspectivist argument against dogmatism without presupposing aperspectival criteria for theory choice. Nietzsche also offers “internal” conceptions of truth and objectivity which reduce them to a matter of meeting our epistemic standards. This view has pluralistic implications, which conflict with common sense, but it is nevertheless consistent and plausible. Nietzsche's position is similar to Putnam's recent internalism, and this is due to their common Kantian heritage. (shrink)

Is the essay literature or philosophy? A form of art or a form of knowledge? The contemporary essay is torn between its belletrist ancestry and its claim to philosophical legitimacy. The Spanish philosopher Eduardo Nicol captured the genre's uncertain status when he dubbed it “almost literature and almost philosophy” (Nicol 1961:207). The problem is hardly a new one. It goes back to what Plato called the “ancient quarrel” between poetry and philosophy, and more recently to the German Romantic theorist, Friedrich (...) Schlegel, who called for a mode of criticism which would be at once philosophical and poetic. But today, when the status of critical discourse is up for grabs, reflecting the crisis of knowledge in the universities, the question of the essay takes on a new urgency. Now the predominant form of writing in the human sciences, it cannot avoid the challenge to define itself according to the prevailing standards of scientific knowledge and method. (shrink)

It is tempting to think that all of normativity, such as our reasons for action, what we ought to do, and the attitudes that it is fitting for us to have, derives from what is valuable. But value-first approaches to normativity have fallen out of favour as the virtues of reasons- and fittingness-first approaches to normativity have become clear. On these views, value is not explanatorily prior to reasons and fit; rather the value of things is understood in terms of (...) the pro-attitudes it is fitting to have, or that we have reasons to have, towards these things. The value-first accounts of reasons and fit that have been proposed have been direct accounts of reasons and fit. On these views, the fittingness of an attitude is explained in terms of the value of having it or the value of the object of that attitude. This chapter details and surveys these problems, explaining which are yet to be overcome, and explaining which problems direct value-first accounts can overcome. This chapter then explores the prospects of an indirect value-first account of reasons and fit. It argues that it avoids the problems that direct value-first accounts face and may be as explanatorily powerful as fittingness- and reasons-first accounts of value and normativity more generally. (shrink)

Self-deception raises complex questions about the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. In this book, Alfred Mele addresses four of the most critical of these questions: What is it to deceive oneself? How do we deceive ourselves? Why do we deceive ourselves? Is self-deception really possible? -/- Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research on everyday reasoning and biases, Mele takes issue with commonplace attempts to equate the processes of self-deception with those of stereotypical interpersonal deception. Such attempts, (...) he demonstrates, are fundamentally misguided, particularly in the assumption that self-deception is intentional. In their place, Mele proposes a compelling, empirically informed account of the motivational causes of biased beliefs. At the heart of this theory is an appreciation of how emotion and motivation may, without our knowing it, bias our assessment of evidence for beliefs. Highlighting motivation and emotion, Mele develops a pair of approaches for explaining the two forms of self-deception: the "straight" form, in which we believe what we want to be true, and the "twisted" form, in which we believe what we wish to be false. -/- Underlying Mele's work is an abiding interest in understanding and explaining the behavior of real human beings. The result is a comprehensive, elegant, empirically grounded theory of everyday self-deception that should engage philosophers and social scientists alike. (shrink)

This book consists of conversations with five founding scholars - Karen Barad, Astrid Schrader, Magdalena Gorska, Ericka Johnson and Elizabeth De Freitas - regarding their research practices inspired by agential realism. They are conversations focusing on how they think and analyze empirical material through agential realism in combination with other thinkers (e.g. Deleuze, Derrida, Butler, Haraway, Châtelet and Suchman). The conversations offer entry points to agential realism and the conduct of research practices and open up spaces for learning about research (...) processes, agential realism and agential realist concepts for students and scholars of qualitative research. (shrink)

Shaḥrūr, Muḥammad; Islamic philosophy; Qurʼan; hermeneutics; criticism, interpretation, etc.

Like Caesar's Gaul, my essay is divided into three parts, according to the subjects mentioned in the subtitle. The “crisis consciousness” of the main title forms less a subdivision of the essay than a leitmotif accompanying all the parts as well as the whole.

Over the past three centuries in the West, there has been a sort of oscillation between two antagonistic visions of the world. One sees the world as being fundamentally inert, in such a manner that all hopes, dreams and technological delights are permitted. The other thinks of the world as inhabited by a spirit who consecrates all its parts by recording them in a great whole. We can think of the pantheism that sets itself in opposition to Newton's materialism or, (...) more exactly, to the materialist interpretation given to Newton in the 18th century. In the 17th century the opposite had occurred. The magic universe of the Renaissance had given place to the triumphs of the Cartesian mechanism. As for protestantism, which is said to have been one of the most powerful factors of disenchantment after the 17th century, how was one not to see it prolonged, by reaction, into a philosophy for which nature is the tangible presence of God? When Calvin wrote that nothing happens in nature that is not a direct effect of the divine will, we already see appear in the background the mystic ecstasies that Rousseau experienced in nature. For if no single leaf flutters and no breeze blows without divine intervention, then receiving the slightest sensation would mean, according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, entering into direct contact with God. (shrink)

The paper presents and discusses the so-called Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem (WKR problem) that arises for the fitting-attitudes analysis of value. This format of analysis is exemplified for example by Scanlon's buck-passing account, on which an object's value consists in the existence of reasons to favour the object- to respond to it in a positive way. The WKR problem can be put as follows: It appears that in some situations we might well have reasons to have pro-attitudes toward objects (...) that are not valuable. Or vice versa: we might have reasons not to have pro-attitudes toward some valuable objects. The paper goes through several attempts to solve (or dissolve) the WKR problem and argues that none of them is fully satisfactory. (shrink)

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

Philosophers and others have often debated whether we have freewill: i.e. whether (in a sense I shall try to elucidate) our power to choose between X and Y is radically undetermined, so that if we choose X we yet might have chosen Y, and vice versa. My concern is not with that question but with a hypothetical one which arises from it: if we had such freewill, what implications, if any, would, that fact have for the sciences. My argument concentrates (...) on the social sciences, since the phenomena with which they deal inevitably involves human choice. (shrink)