Several authors have recently suggested that moral factors and norms `encroach' on the epistemic, and because of salient parallels to pragmatic encroachment views in epistemology, these suggestions have been dubbed `moral encroachment views'. This paper distinguishes between variants of the moral encroachment thesis, pointing out how they address different problems, are motivated by different considerations, and are not all subject to the same objections. It also explores how the family of moral encroachment views compare to classical pragmatic encroachment accounts.

L’objectif de cet article est de montrer les difficultés du travail interdisciplinaire sur la question du risque dans l’acceptabilité éthique et sociale de l’amélioration humaine par le développement des nanotechnologies. Ces difficultés émergent du contexte du débat entre le transhumanisme, dont les principaux protagonistes proviennent des sciences de la nature, et l’humanisme, dont les principaux défenseurs proviennent du milieu des sciences humaines et sociales. Notre objectif est de montrer que les positions des transhumanistes et des humanistes diffèrent essentiellement sur plusieurs (...) aspects de la question : l’identification des risques et des impacts, l’évaluation qui fonde l’acceptabilité ou non des risques et des impacts, et la foi en la capacité de la science de surmonter les risques identifiés pour l’être humain. Rendre ces divergences explicites constitue un premier pas nécessaire en vue de pouvoir y intervenir de façon interdisciplinaire. (shrink)

I was first taken to Mr Gurdjieff's flat at a time very different from the present. Paris during the war, under German occupation, was in the grip of the ...

A dual-language edition presenting Descartes's original Latin text of his greatest work, with a facing-page authoritative English translation.

Hydrogen is troublesome in any periodic table classification. This being so it may as well be placed in a position that confers desirable attributes to the arrangement of the elements, while notionally recognising its lineage to the group 1 alkali metals and the group 17 halogens. Since the noble gases bridge the halogens and the alkali metals, and hydrogen encompasses the transition from the alkali metals to the halogens, there is more to the idea of hydrogen over helium. (Meyer 1870, (...) p. 357) (Proust 1927, p. 559). (shrink)

I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than ...

The Meditations, one of the key texts of Western philosophy, is the most widely studied of all Descartes' writings. This authoritative translation by John Cottingham, taken from the much acclaimed three-volume Cambridge edition of the Philosophical Writings of Descartes, is based upon the best available texts and presents Descartes' central metaphysical writings in clear, readable modern English. As well as the complete text of the Meditations, the reader will find a thematic abridgement of the Objections and Replies (which were originally (...) published with the Meditations) containing Descartes' replies to his critics. These extracts, specially selected for the present volume, indicate the main philosophical difficulties which occurred to Descartes' contemporaries and show how Descartes developed and clarified his arguments in response. This edition contains a new comprehensive introduction to Descartes' philosophy by John Cottingham and the classic introductory essay on the Meditations by Bernard Williams. (shrink)

I argue that inferences from highly probabilifying racial generalizations are not solely objectionable because acting on such inferences would be problematic, or they violate a moral norm, but because they violate a distinctively epistemic norm. They involve accepting a proposition when, given the costs of a mistake, one is not adequately justified in doing so. First I sketch an account of the nature of adequate justification—practical adequacy with respect to eliminating the ~p possibilities from one’s epistemic statespace. Second, I argue (...) that inferences based on demographic generalizations tend to disproportionately expose group members to the risks associated with mistakenly assuming stereotypical propositions, and so magnify the wrong involved in relying on such inferences without adequate justification. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

Desde o ano de 1643, Descartes (1596-1650) e a princesa Elizabeth (1618-1680) já trocavam cartas a respeito da geometria, da metafísica e até da física cartesiana. Todavia, no ano de 1645, por conta de um grave estado melancólico da princesa, houve uma intensa correspondência entre ambos. À princípio, o debate se mantinha em torno das condições especificas da princesa. O tema central girava em torno de questões fisiológicas e morais (ou psicofisiológicas). À medida, porém, em que a troca de correspondência (...) se intensificava, o debate ia tornando-se cada vez mais teórico, passando pela discussão da Vida Beata, de Sêneca, até forçar Descartes a apresentar os primeiros esboços de sua própria concepção moral. Dessa troca de correspondência, escolhemos duas cartas de setembro de 1645: uma do filósofo a Elizabeth (carta CDIII) e outra da princesa a Descartes carta (CDVI). (shrink)

Cet article propose une lecture parallèle du premier essai de Friedrich Nietzsche, La naissance de la tragédie (1872), et du premier roman de Jean-Paul Sartre, La nausée (1938). L’auteure propose de dégager les sources nietzschéennes de la pensée sartrienne en montrant que La nausée est un roman nietzschéen. Dans son roman, qui relate les étapes de l’expérience existentielle que traverse le narrateur, Antoine Roquentin, Sartre a mis en situation un processus de prise de conscience de la vérité que Nietzsche a (...) décrit au début des années 1870. En effet, l’auteure du présent article montre que le parcours sartrien de la conscience nihiliste, tel qu’il est illustré dans La nausée , recoupe les étapes du processus de prise de conscience de la vérité que Nietzsche a décrit au début des années 1870. Sartre et Nietzsche s’entendent quant aux formes que prennent la vérité et la découverte de celle-ci. Afin de dégager le nietzschéisme de Sartre, l’auteure décrit d’abord les étapes du processus qui est décrit par Nietzsche en 1872, pour ensuite souligner que ce processus sous-tend le déroulement du roman de Sartre, ainsi qu’en témoignent les étapes de la transformation existentielle de Roquetin. En montrant que le Sartre de La nausée est un nietzschéen conséquent, cette étude dégage un terrain d’entente entre Sartre et Nietzsche quant à la détermination de la vérité et à la création. Cet article espère ainsi contribuer à l’étude de la complexe réception de la pensée nietzschéenne au 20e siècle. (shrink)

In Descartes's Meditations, one of the key texts of Western philosophy, the thinker rejects all his former beliefs in the quest for new certainties. Discovering his own existence as a thinking entity in the very exercise of doubt, he goes on to prove the existence of God, who guarantees his clear and distinct ideas as a means of access to the truth. He develops new conceptions of body and mind, capable of serving as foundations for the new science of nature. (...) Subsequent philosophy has grappled with Descartes's legacy, questioning many of its conclusions and even his basic approach, but his arguments set the agenda for many of the greatest philosophical thinkers, and their fascination endures.This new translation includes the Third and Fourth Objections and Replies in full, and a selection from the rest of Descartes's exchanges with contemporaries that helped to shape and expound his philosophy. (shrink)

When mental health professionals or social workers are confronted with a suicidal individual, one approach is to use all means to delay the act of suicide until the desire for death subsides. Encouraging someone to delay suicide while bypassing the individual’s practical reasons for suicide can lead to irrational postponement, which equates to procrastinating suicide. Causing someone to procrastinate in this manner poses a risk of disrespecting the person as a rational agent. However, is it even possible to irrationally delay (...) one’s own act of suicide? Additionally, isn’t it beneficial to do so? The aim of the manuscript is to explore the possibility and value of using procrastination in managing suicidal individuals. First, I will argue that procrastination of a suicide intent is possible, which makes inducing this state of mind in people morally problematic. Second, I will argue that there is no intrinsic value in procrastination, although it does have instrumental value. Procrastination holds instrumental value for individuals who delay an irrational act of suicide. Furthermore, procrastination is valuable for clinical psychology, not by making people irrationally delay suicide but for assessing suicide risk. (shrink)

Quel autre genie que celui de Descartes, pere de toute notre metaphysique moderne, pouvait concevoir le fondement reel de toute la science humaine sur le fait primitif de conscience ou de l'existence du moi pensant, comme sur sa base unique, la seule vraie et solide; quel autre pouvait reconnaitre le caractere de l'evidence, ce criterium de toute certitude, dans un petit nombre d'idees premieres, elementaires et simples, donnees a l'ame humaine comme une lumiere qui l'eclaire d'abord sur elle-meme, avant de (...) lui reveler les autres existences? Maine de Biran, Nouvelles considerations sur les rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme, oeuvres, t. IX, Vrin, 1990, p. 108. (shrink)

Theory of Literature was originally published in 1949. It is not a textbook introducing the young to the elements of literary appreciation nor a survey of the techniques employed in scholarly research. The authors have sought to unite "poetics" (or literary theory) and "criticism" (evaluation of literature) with "scholarship" ("research") and "literary history" (the "dynamics"of literature, in contrast to the "statics" of theory and criticism).

Some, but not all, of the mistakes a person makes when acting in apparently necessary self-defense are reasonable: we take them not to violate the rights of the apparent aggressor. I argue that this is explained by duties grounded in agents' entitlements to a fair distribution of the risk of suffering unjust harm. I suggest that the content of these duties is filled in by a social signaling norm, and offer some moral constraints on the form such a norm can (...) take. (shrink)

Law-enforcement agencies are increasingly able to leverage crime statistics to make risk predictions for particular individuals, employing a form of inference that some condemn as violating the right to be “treated as an individual.” I suggest that the right encodes agents’ entitlement to a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of the rule of law. Rather than precluding statistical prediction, it requires that citizens be able to anticipate which variables will be used as predictors and act intentionally to avoid (...) them. Furthermore, it condemns reliance on various indexes of distributive injustice, or unchosen properties, as evidence of law-breaking. (shrink)

A Egmond, le 16 avril 1648, un peu moins de deux ans avant sa mort, Descartes s'entretient avec un étudiant hollandais en théologie, Frans Burman. Le jeune homme de vingt ans présente au philosophe de courts extraits de ses principales oeuvres publiées (Méditations métaphysiques, Principes de la philosophie, Discours de la méthode) que l'auteur en personne se charge d'expliquer, répondant aussi aux objections de son interlocuteur. Ce texte possède donc un statut décisif dans le corpus cartésien car il s'agit d'un (...) commentaire des points les plus délicats de la philosophie de Descartes par lui-même. Ce faisant, il ne se contente pas de répéter ce qu'il a déjà écrit sur le doute, la connaissance sensible, l'existence de Dieu, le mouvement de la matière ou encore la santé du corps, il ne cesse au contraire d'approfondir, de nuancer, voire de transformer les thèses sur lesquelles il est interrogé. Ce texte interdit ainsi de faire de la pensée de Descartes une "doctrine" stable et immuable. Il donne plutôt à voir de manière éclatante une pensée en marche, celle d'un philosophe majeur et reconnu qui accepte pourtant de remettre sur la table de travail les points essentiels d'une oeuvre déjà constituée en fonction des questions précises qui lui sont posées. Bien plus qu'un simple résumé de sa philosophie, cet Entretien montre l'inlassable exigence de l'effort de la pensée cartésienne à la conquête de sa propre clarté. (shrink)

These two 1985 volumes provide a translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. They are intended to replace the only reasonably comprehensive selection of his works in English, by Haldane and Ross, first published in 1911. All the works included in that edition are translated here, together with a number of additional texts crucial for an understanding of Cartesian philosophy, including important material from Descartes' scientific writings. The result should meet the (...) widespread demand for an accurate and authoritative edition of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

Between the years 1643 and 1649, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes exchanged fifty-eight letters—thirty-two from Descartes and twenty-six from Elisabeth. Their correspondence contains the only known extant philosophical writings by Elisabeth, revealing her mastery of metaphysics, analytic geometry, and moral philosophy, as well as her keen interest in natural philosophy. The letters are essential reading for anyone interested in Descartes’s philosophy, in particular his account of the human being as a union of mind and body, as well as (...) his ethics. They also provide a unique insight into the character of their authors and the way ideas develop through intellectual collaboration. Philosophers have long been familiar with Descartes’s side of the correspondence. Now Elisabeth’s letters—never before available in translation in their entirety—emerge this volume, adding much-needed context and depth both to Descartes’s ideas and the legacy of the princess. Lisa Shapiro’s annotated edition—which also includes Elisabeth’s correspondence with the Quakers William Penn and Robert Barclay—will be heralded by students of philosophy, feminist theorists, and historians of the early modern period. (shrink)

The coming of bioethics -- The coming of bioethicists -- "Choices on our conscience": the inauguration of the Kennedy Institute of Education -- "Hello, Dolly": bioethics in the media -- Celebrating bioethics and bioethicists -- Thinking socially and culturally in bioethics -- Reminiscences of observing participants -- Bioethics circles the globe -- Bioethics in France -- The development of bioethics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan -- The coming of the culture wars to American bioethics.

This is the first book in which contemporary scientists and mystics share with us-in their own words-their views on space, time, matter, energy, life, consciousness, creation and on our place in the scheme of things. The book is also the story of an American philosopher who-with these dialogues-ventures into ground-breaking territory, and of her search in America, Europe, India and Nepal for people whose work is at the center of our understanding of reality.

As the eleventh volume in the New Directions in Cognitive Science series (formerly the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science series), this work promises superb scholarship and interdisciplinary appeal. It addresses three areas of current and varied interest: common sense, reasoning, and rationality. While common sense and rationality often have been viewed as two distinct features in a unified cognitive map, this volume offers novel, even paradoxical, views of the relationship. Comprised of outstanding essays from distinguished philosophers, it considers what constitutes (...) human rationality, behavior, and intelligence covering diverse areas of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and computer science. Indeed, it is at the forefront of cognitive research and promises to be of unprecedented influence across numerous disciplines. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article questionne la relation de pensée entre Martin Heidegger et Ernst Jünger. Pour comprendre les motifs philosophiques qui la sous-tendent, nous situons Jünger dans la reconstruction heideggérienne de la métaphysique. On s’aperçoit alors que Heidegger mesure la pensée de Jünger en fonction de la place de Nietzsche dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Parce que Jünger appartient au paradigme nietzschéen, Heidegger le juge digne d’être lu, et critiqué, car Jünger n’a pas accompli le projet que Nietzsche a rendu possible (...) en signant l’achèvement de la métaphysique. C’est ce projet que Heidegger a adapté, en menant la pensée philosophique par-delà la métaphysique et en espérant un renouveau civilisationnel de l’Allemagne. Nietzsche se présente comme le pôle central de la relation entre Heidegger et Jünger: à travers sa lecture critique de Jünger, Heidegger mène un dialogue ininterrompu avec Nietzsche.ABSTRACT: This article investigates Martin Heidegger’s intellectual relation to Ernst Jünger. In order to show that Heidegger’s appraisal of Jünger is directly related to his understanding of Nietzsche’s pre-eminent standing in the history of Western philosophy, I situate Jünger in the Heideggerian reconstruction of the history of metaphysics. It is because Jünger belongs to the Nietzschean paradigm that Heidegger believes he is worth reading-but also worth criticizing Indeed, Jünger did not overtake the philosophical project that Nietzsche made possible by accomplishing the end of metaphysics. This is the very project adopted by Heidegger, first by thinking beyond metaphysics, and second by hoping Germany would turn towards a spiritual renewal of its civilization. Thus, since Nietzsche is the central figure who stands between Heidegger and Jünger, this article wishes to show that through his critical reading of Jünger, Heidegger in fact fosters a fundamental and uninterrupted dialogue with Nietzsche. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article questionne la relation de pensée entre Martin Heidegger et Ernst Jünger. Pour comprendre les motifs philosophiques qui la sous-tendent, nous situons Jünger dans la reconstruction heideggérienne de la métaphysique. On s’aperçoit alors que Heidegger mesure la pensée de Jünger en fonction de la place de Nietzsche dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Parce que Jünger appartient au paradigme nietzschéen, Heidegger le juge digne d’être lu, et critiqué, car Jünger n’a pas accompli le projet que Nietzsche a rendu possible (...) en signant l’achèvement de la métaphysique. C’est ce projet que Heidegger a adapté, en menant la pensée philosophique par-delà la métaphysique et en espérant un renouveau civilisationnel de l’Allemagne. Nietzsche se présente comme le pôle central de la relation entre Heidegger et Jünger: à travers sa lecture critique de Jünger, Heidegger mène un dialogue ininterrompu avec Nietzsche.ABSTRACT: This article investigates Martin Heidegger’s intellectual relation to Ernst Jünger. In order to show that Heidegger’s appraisal of Jünger is directly related to his understanding of Nietzsche’s pre-eminent standing in the history of Western philosophy, I situate Jünger in the Heideggerian reconstruction of the history of metaphysics. It is because Jünger belongs to the Nietzschean paradigm that Heidegger believes he is worth reading-but also worth criticizing Indeed, Jünger did not overtake the philosophical project that Nietzsche made possible by accomplishing the end of metaphysics. This is the very project adopted by Heidegger, first by thinking beyond metaphysics, and second by hoping Germany would turn towards a spiritual renewal of its civilization. Thus, since Nietzsche is the central figure who stands between Heidegger and Jünger, this article wishes to show that through his critical reading of Jünger, Heidegger in fact fosters a fundamental and uninterrupted dialogue with Nietzsche. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article questionne la relation de pensée entre Martin Heidegger et Ernst Jünger. Pour comprendre les motifs philosophiques qui la sous-tendent, nous situons Jünger dans la reconstruction heideggérienne de la métaphysique. On s’aperçoit alors que Heidegger mesure la pensée de Jünger en fonction de la place de Nietzsche dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Parce que Jünger appartient au paradigme nietzschéen, Heidegger le juge digne d’être lu, et critiqué, car Jünger n’a pas accompli le projet que Nietzsche a rendu possible (...) en signant l’achèvement de la métaphysique. C’est ce projet que Heidegger a adapté, en menant la pensée philosophique par-delà la métaphysique et en espérant un renouveau civilisationnel de l’Allemagne. Nietzsche se présente comme le pôle central de la relation entre Heidegger et Jünger: à travers sa lecture critique de Jünger, Heidegger mène un dialogue ininterrompu avec Nietzsche.ABSTRACT: This article investigates Martin Heidegger’s intellectual relation to Ernst Jünger. In order to show that Heidegger’s appraisal of Jünger is directly related to his understanding of Nietzsche’s pre-eminent standing in the history of Western philosophy, I situate Jünger in the Heideggerian reconstruction of the history of metaphysics. It is because Jünger belongs to the Nietzschean paradigm that Heidegger believes he is worth reading-but also worth criticizing Indeed, Jünger did not overtake the philosophical project that Nietzsche made possible by accomplishing the end of metaphysics. This is the very project adopted by Heidegger, first by thinking beyond metaphysics, and second by hoping Germany would turn towards a spiritual renewal of its civilization. Thus, since Nietzsche is the central figure who stands between Heidegger and Jünger, this article wishes to show that through his critical reading of Jünger, Heidegger in fact fosters a fundamental and uninterrupted dialogue with Nietzsche. (shrink)