This collection of new essays addresses emotion in relation to the arts. The essays consider such topics as the paradox of fiction, emotion in the pure and abstract arts, and the rationality and ethics of emotional responses to art.

Gregory Lavers gives us a timeline of Waismann’s career, an overview of Waismann’s most significant publications in this later period and a detailed walkthrough from the first to the last paper of Waismann’s series on analyticity, “Analytic - Synthetic”. Lavers closes his paper with comparisons of Waismann and Quine as well as Waismann and Carnap. Both Waismann and Quine argue that the concept of analyticity is vague and both reject reductionism. However, behind these superficial similarities we find fundamentally different epistemologies. (...) According to Lavers, the web of inferential relations, spanning from every experience to any item of scientific knowledge, that supports the outlook suggested by Quine, is rejected as manifestly wrong by Waismann. Conversely, Lavers shows that despite superficial contrasts between Waismann and Carnap—Waismann being interested in the subtleties of natural language, Carnap in replacing these through explication—the two do not really oppose each other’s’ views on analyticity and necessary truth. (shrink)

Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ is generally seen as overturning Carnap’s epistemological picture of mathematics and the sciences. However, I wish to stress how this paper grew out of arguments not having anything to do with large-scale epistemological concerns, but ones originally presented against quantified modal logic. Quine thought he could demonstrate the impossibility of adding anything like ordinary quantification to modal logic, but Barcan Marcus did exactly this. In fact, as I will argue, ‘Two Dogmas ...’ can be seen (...) as growing out of a 1947 paper of Quine’s where Barcan Marcus is the explicit target. Later, in certain exchanges with Quine, Barcan Marcus puts forward and defends a consistent and interesting position on matters of ontology and the philosophy of language. This chapter will examine Barcan Marcus’s role in both the debate over analyticity and the debate on (meta-)ontology. (shrink)

In 2020, it is clear that racism must be a moral priority for white American Catholics, as for all white Americans. To face racism maturely, our consciences need more robust formation than we received as children preparing for First Reconciliation—or as adolescents at Confirmation, when we were instructed that we must be prepared to act boldly to defend our commitment to Christ. One way to build a racially-mature conscience is to seek feedback from anti-racism accountability partners, as the author did. (...) Another is to explore the distinction in Catholic moral theology between invincible and vincible ignorance—what we can know and what we cannot—in order to discern whether an action or inaction is moral. Much of what liberal whites claim we can’t know without input from Blacks is readily available if we have ears to hear. (shrink)

For many people "animal rights" suggests campaigns against factory farms, vivisection or other aspects of our woeful treatment of animals. Zoopolis moves beyond this familiar terrain, focusing not on what we must stop doing to animals, but on how we can establish positive and just relationships with different types of animals.

Communication is an integral part of nursing practice—with patients and their relatives, other nurses and members of the healthcare team, and ancillary staff. Through interaction with the ‘other’, language and silence creates and recreates social realities. Acceptance, rejection or modification of social realities depends on what is expressed and by whom. Narratives that are offered can tell of some experiences and not others. Some nurses choose to be silent while others are silenced. In nursing situations recognising and allowing silence to (...) speak is a challenging but uniquely personal experience that embraces reflection in and on experiences, practice and self as a person and a professional. If enabled and truly heard, silence can speak more loudly than the hubbub of daily practice, allowing us to collectively question and challenge inherent assumptions and biases as professionals, and as a profession. Through a microcosm of Newly Graduated Nurses' lived experiences of nursing situations and expressions of silence individuals' discomfort and private efforts to ascribe meaning to experiences are reflected on. Returning to silence is to return to a constant process of professional transformation that can enable ways of knowing and being that can reform our profession from within and enable us to cast off shackles that bind us to a shameful cultural underbelly. (shrink)

Research ethics education has taken many forms since federal funding agencies issued regulatory guidance directing those supported by these agencies to complete required training. In the absence of a standard training approach among institutions such as universities, the design and content of courses, workshops, and seminars varies widely. Here we describe a southwestern United States research university program that employed six teaching strategies to assist students in deep learning of ethical principles and behavior. Our purpose was to determine how these (...) strategies impact understanding and empowerment among an interdisciplinary group of graduate students. Results suggested that deep learning design can result in learning that requires students not only to remember and understand key ethics concepts but also to analyze and apply them in a broader ethical domain. Key findings inform design and delivery of future research ethics courses for instructional designers and instructors in higher education. (shrink)

This paper will deal with three questions regarding Carnap's transition from the position he held at the time of writing Syntax to the doctrines he held during his semantic phase: (1) What was Carnap's attitude towards truth at the time of writing Syntax? (2) What was Carnap's position regarding questions of reference and ontology at the time of writing Syntax? (3) Was Carnap's acceptance of Tarski's analysis of truth and reference detrimental to his philosophical project? Section 1 of this paper (...) will deal with the first of these questions. Special attention will be paid to identifying what it was that prevented Carnap from defining a truth predicate for descriptive languages in Syntax. Section 2 of this paper will deal with the question of Carnap's attitude towards reference and ontology in Syntax. It will be shown that the attempt in Syntax to address ontological questions is seriously defective. Section 3 of this paper addresses the last of the questions posed above. It is argued that in the light of what is established in Sections 1 and 2, Carnap could not have retained the position of Syntax with respect to truth and reference. (shrink)

From 1953 to 1959 Gödel worked on a response to Carnap’s philosophy of mathematics. The drafts display Gödel’s familiarity with Carnap’s position from The Logical Syntax of Language, but they received a dismissive reaction on their eventual, posthumous, publication. Gödel’s two principal points, however, will here be defended. Gödel, though, had wished simply to append a few paragraphs to show that the same arguments apply to Carnap’s later views. Carnap’s position, however, had changed significantly in the intervening years, and to (...) a significant extent, this mature position realizes much of what Gödel himself wanted out of a philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

setting, are warranted. This article details a descriptive study in which patients were interviewed, during hospital stays, about their beliefs and understanding of advanced directions, as well as the processes used in completing them. The study was undertaken in a community hospital located in a rural area in the Midwest. Findings show that many patients were able to clearly articulate what an AD means in terms of making their choices known. However, misconceptions were found in patients' understanding of ADs and (...) only 46% reported discussing their ADs with a physician. Strategies for effective implementation of education programs related to ADs are detailed here. © 1999 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.... (shrink)

This paper puts forward and defends an account of mathematical truth, and in particular an account of the truth of mathematical axioms. The proposal attempts to be completely nonrevisionist. In this connection, it seeks to satisfy simultaneously both horns of Benacerrafs work on informal rigour. Kreisel defends the view that axioms are arrived at by a rigorous examination of our informal notions, as opposed to being stipulated or arrived at by trial and error. This view is then supplemented by a (...) Fregean account of the objectivity and our knowledge of abstract objects. It is then argued that the resulting view faces no insurmountable metaphysical or epistemic obstacles. (shrink)

Carnap's position on mathematical truth in The Logical Syntax of Language has been attacked from two sides: Kreisel argues that it is formalistic but should not be, and Friedman argues that it is not formalistic but needs to be. In this paper I argue that the Carnap of Syntax does not eliminate our ordinary notion of mathematical truth in favour of a formal analogue; so Carnap's notion of mathematical truth is not formalistic. I further argue that there is no conflict (...) between Carnap's use of informal notions and his principle of tolerance; so Carnap's definition of mathematical truth need not be formalistic. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

1 Where to begin? 'Life and times' Roland Barthes is generally acknowledged, even by those not conversant with his books, as one of the leading figures of ...

Sue Campbell reinstates the personal as an important dimension in analytic philosophy of mind. She argues that the category of feelings has a unique role in psychological explanation: the expression of feelings is the attempt to communicate personal significance. To develop a model for affective meaning, the author moves attention away from the classic emotions to feelings that are more personal, inchoate, and idiosyncratic.

The large cardinal axioms of the title assert, respectively, the existence of a nontrivial elementary embedding j:Vλ→Vλ, the existence of such a j which is moreover , and the existence of such a j which extends to an elementary j:Vλ+1→Vλ+1. It is known that these axioms are preserved in passing from a ground model to a small forcing extension. In this paper the reverse directions of these preservations are proved. Also the following is shown : if V is a model (...) of ZFC and V[G] is a -generic forcing extension of V, then in V[G], V is definable using the parameter Vδ+1, where. (shrink)

Tracing the impact of the 'memory wars' on science and culture, Relational Remembering offers a vigorous philosophical challenge to the contemporary skepticism about memory that is their legacy. Campbell's work provides a close conceptual analysis of the strategies used to challenge women's memories, particularly those meant to provoke a general social alarm about suggestibility. Sue Campbell argues that we cannot come to an adequate understanding of the nature and value of memory through a distorted view of rememberers. The harmful stereotypes (...) of women's passivity and instability that have repopulated discussions of abuse have led many theorists to regard the social dimensions of remembering only negatively, as a threat or contaminant to memory integrity. Such models of memory cannot help us grasp the nature of harms linked to oppression, as these models imply that changed group understandings of the past are incompatible with the integrity of personal memory. Campbell uses the false memory debates to defend a feminist reconceptualization of personal memory as relational, social, and subject to politics. Memory is analyzed as a complex of cognitive abilities and social/narrative activities where one's success or failure as a rememberer is both affected by one's social location and has profound ramifications for one's cultural status as a moral agent. (shrink)

Many theorists of the ‘political turn’ in animal rights theory emphasize the need for animals’ interests to be considered in political decision-making processes, but deny that this requires self-representation and participation by animals themselves. I argue that participation by domesticated animals in co-authoring our shared world is indeed required, and explore two ways to proceed: 1) by enabling animal voice within the existing geography of human-animal roles and relationships; and 2) by freeing animals into a revitalized public commons where citizens (...) encounter one another in spontaneous, unpredictable encounters in spaces that they can re-shape together. (shrink)

This paper argues that Carnap both did not view and should not have viewed Frege's project in the foundations of mathematics as misguided metaphysics. The reason for this is that Frege's project was to give an explication of number in a very Carnapian sense — something that was not lost on Carnap. Furthermore, Frege gives pragmatic justification for the basic features of his system, especially where there are ontological considerations. It will be argued that even on the question of the (...) independent existence of abstract objects, Frege and Carnap held remarkably similar views. I close with a discussion of why, despite all this, Frege would not accept the principle of tolerance. (shrink)

The rank-into-rank and stronger large cardinal axioms assert the existence of certain elementary embeddings. By the preservation of the large cardinal properties of the embeddings under certain operations, strong implications between various of these axioms are derived.

This study links corporate reputation, as measured byFortune magazine's Most Admired list, with firm financial performance. Seven measures of financial risk and return were collected for a sample of 149 firms from two time periods, 1981 and 1986. The mean score of four attributes from the 1993Fortune Most Admired list for the sample was then analyzed with the financial data through regression analysis. Two financial variables, Standard Deviation of the Market Return of the Firm and Return on Sales, explained between (...) 0.12 and 0.14 of subsequent reputation. The implication for management is that they can affect a firm's subsequent reputation by lowering financial risk and controlling costs. (shrink)

Moffat, Sue Review of: Celebrating with children: Volume 1 resources, volume 2 readings, by Robert Borg, Gerard Kelly, Brian Lucas,, pp.302 + 188, $29.95, $24.95.

This book walks us through the process of how artworks eventually get their meaning, showing us how curated exhibitions invite audience members to weave an exhibition's narrative threads, which gives artworks their contents and discursive sense. -/- Arguing that exhibitions avail artworks as candidates for reception, whose meaning, value, and relevance reflect audience responses, it challenges the existing view that exhibitions present “already-validated” candidates for appreciation. Instead, this book stresses the collaborative nature of curatorial practices, debunking the twin myths of (...) autonomous artists and sovereign artistic directors and treating presentation and reception as separate processes. Employing set theory to distinguish curated exhibitions from uncurated exhibitions, installation art and collections, it demonstrates how exhibitions grant spectators access to concepts that aid their capacity to grasp artifacts as artworks. -/- To inform and illuminate current debates in curatorial practice, Spaid draws on a range of case studies from Impressionism, Dada and Surrealism to more contemporary exhibitions such as Maurizio Cattelan “All” (2011) and “Damien Hirst” (2012). In articulating the process that cycles through exploration, interpretation, presentation and reception, curating bears resemblance to artistic direction more generally. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relation between Carnap and Quine’s views on analyticity on the one hand, and their views on philosophical analysis or explication on the other. I argue that the stance each takes on what constitutes a successful explication largely dictates the view they take on analyticity. I show that although acknowledged by neither party (in fact Quine frequently expressed his agreement with Carnap on this subject) their views on explication are substantially different. I argue that this difference not (...) only explains their differences on the question of analyticity, but points to a Quinean way to answer a challenge that Quine posed to Carnap. The answer to this challenge leads to a Quinean view of analyticity such that arithmetical truths are analytic, according to Quine’s own remarks, and set theory is at least defensibly analytic. (shrink)

Extrait de R. Sue, Temps et ordre social. Sociologie des temps sociaux, Paris, PUF, 1994, p. 28-32. Nous remercions Roger Sue de nous avoir autorisé à reproduire ici ce texte. Il faut renoncer à faire une sociologie du temps en général. Renoncement difficile pour le sociologue toujours enclin à penser la société sous forme d'unité. Unité qui produirait son propre temps, un temps unique, le temps de la société. Cette illusion de l'unité est extrêmement forte lorsqu'il s'agit du temps, en (...) raison de la (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This article argues that rapid eye movement (REM) dreaming is elaborative encoding for episodic memories. Elaborative encoding in REM can, at least partially, be understood through ancient art of memory (AAOM) principles: visualization, bizarre association, organization, narration, embodiment, and location. These principles render recent memories more distinctive through novel and meaningful association with emotionally salient, remote memories. The AAOM optimizes memory performance, suggesting that its principles may predict aspects of how episodic memory is configured in the brain. Integration and segregation (...) are fundamental organizing principles in the cerebral cortex. Episodic memory networks interconnect profusely within the cortex, creating omnidirectional “landmark” junctions. Memories may be integrated at junctions but segregated along connecting network paths that meet at junctions. Episodic junctions may be instantiated during non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep after hippocampal associational function during REM dreams. Hippocampal association involves relating, binding, and integrating episodic memories into a mnemonic compositional whole. This often bizarre, composite image has not been present to the senses; it is not “real” because it hyperassociates several memories. During REM sleep, on the phenomenological level, this composite image is experienced as a dream scene. A dream scene may be instantiated as omnidirectional neocortical junction and retained by the hippocampus as an index. On episodic memory retrieval, an external stimulus (or an internal representation) is matched by the hippocampus against its indices. One or more indices then reference the relevant neocortical junctions from which episodic memories can be retrieved. Episodic junctions reach a processing (rather than conscious) level during normal wake to enable retrieval. If this hypothesis is correct, the stuff of dreams is the stuff of memory. (shrink)

Sociology has long recognized the centrality of the body in the reciprocal construction of individuals and society, and recent research has explored the influence of a variety of social institutions on the body. Significant research has established the influence of social class, child-rearing practices, and variable language forms in families and children. Less well understood is the influence of children's social class status on their gestures, comportment, and other bodily techniques. In this essay Sue Ellen Henry brings these two areas (...) of study together to explore how working-class children's bodies are shaped by the child-rearing practices associated with their social class status, and the potential effects these bodily techniques have on their experience in schools. (shrink)

The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and foods into Europe has generated considerable controversy. Despite a risk assessment system that is intended to beprecautionary in nature, the decisions thathave been taken have not gathered publicconfidence. Key attributes of a precautionaryappraisal system include humility,completeness, assessing benefits andjustifications, making comparisons, allowingfor public participation, transparency,diversity, and the ``mapping'' of alternativeviews rather than the prescription of singlesolutions. A comparison of the European GMregulatory system with a different (moreprecautionary) approach using a ``multi-criteriamapping'' technique reveals (...) a number ofproblems. These include the narrow framing ofthe established risk assessment system (therebyexcluding many issues of public concern), alack of public involvement in the process, anda failure to include appropriate comparisons ora diversity of options. Recent changes to theEuropean regulatory system only go part of theway to addressing these issues. Furthercontroversy may therefore be expected. However,practical ways of undertaking a morebroad-based precautionary approach are nowavailable (including the multi-criteria mappingmethod). These new approaches to technologyassessment offer a means for decision making toearn greater public confidence in this complexand difficult area. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to investigate the masculinity politics of the ex-gay movement, a loose-knit network of religious, scientific, and political organizations that advocates change for homosexuals. Guided by Risman's gender structure theory, the authors analyze the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of gender in ex-gay discourses. The authors employ critical discourse analysis of representative ex-gay texts to deconstruct the movement's gender ideology and to discuss the social implications of its masculinity politics. They argue that gender is one (...) of the ex-gay movement's most potent social movement resources, enabling it to consolidate power by enlisting new populations and to globalize by adapting to cultural contexts beyond the United States. The authors conclude that the ex-gay movement is an antigay countermovement and an antifeminist Christian Right men's movement. (shrink)

Essays by the late feminist philosopher Sue Campbell explore the entanglement of epistemic and ethical values in our attempts to be faithful to our pasts. Her relational conception of memory is used to confront the challenges of sharing memory and reconstituting selves even in contexts fractured by moral and political differences.

Carnap’s ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’ (Carnap (1950a), ESO hereafter) is certainly a classic of twentieth century analytic philosophy. For decades now, most undergraduates are expected to read it at some point in their studies. Lately, it is being seen as the inspiration for a host of positions in the field of metaontology. Despite the widespread agreement on the importance of the paper, there is a lack of agreement on what Carnap attempts to do in the paper. My main aim in (...) this chapter is to defend an interpretation of ESO by displaying its relation to Carnap’s earlier works. My secondary goal will be to draw a lesson from this discussion for Carnap’s later work on unobservable entities in science. (shrink)

This paper aims to interrogate the potential and challenges in interdisciplinary working across disciplinary boundaries by examining a longitudinal partnership designed to research student experiences of digital technologies in undergraduate medicine established by the two authors. The paper is situated in current methodological trends including the changing value of replicability and evidence based methods and increases in qualitative and mixed methods studies in Medical Education, whilst education research has seen growing encouragement for randomised controlled trials and large-scale quantitative studies. A (...) critical analysis of the partnership interactions is framed by Holland’s positional and imagined identities, negotiated across ‘figured’ worlds and the concept of epistemic games that guide knowledge construction. We consider social, political and cultural challenges and how ‘in between’ sites of knowledge were established where the academic identity of each was shaped by engaging with the other and new theoretical, methodological and ethical understandings were co-constructed. The paper concludes that despite the on-going challenges, ‘bottom up’ partnerships can contribute to a growth in interdisciplinarity which might itself be understood as a boundary object. Interdisciplinarity necessitates improvisation and boundary crossing and can therefore always be considered a matter of negotiation, creativity and collaboration. (shrink)

When we consider the issue of linguistic justice, we must define what we mean by language. Standardisation of languages is closely associated with the development of the nation state, and the de Saussurian conception of language as system is in concert with nationalism and its divisions. In the early twenty-first century, however, this view of the world as a mosaic of stable national monolingualisms is outdated. In a globalising world, much of the political, social and economic structure that is developing (...) is transnational and patterns of contact, both real and virtual, have become extraordinarily complex. In the resulting communities of communication of this superdiverse world, much language practice is more function driven than in the recent past. New practices mean that we cannot consider questions of linguistic justice in this new world order using the linguistic toolkit of the old. The flows, exchanges and networks of globalisation present us with a new paradigm and we need to recalibrate concepts. (shrink)

Abstract At the time of The Logical Syntax of Language (Syntax), Quine was, in his own words, a disciple of Carnap’s who read this work page by page as it issued from Ina Carnap’s typewriter. The present paper will show that there were serious problems with how Syntax dealt with ontological claims. These problems were especially pronounced when Carnap attempted to deal with higher order quantification. Carnap, at the time, viewed all talk of reference as being part of the misleading (...) material mode of speech, and as such dismissed, rather than addressed, ontological problems. Central to the analysis in the present paper is the concept of an explication, which was seen by both Carnap and Quine as being of great philosophical importance. It will be shown that the concept of explication played a significant role in how each formulated their mature position on ontology. Both these final positions on ontology can also be seen as a evolving in reaction to Carnap’s flawed handling of ontological matters at the time of Syntax. Carnap, influenced by Tarski’s work on semantics, comes to believe that the concept of reference can be given an acceptable explication, and that by doing so we can see reference to abstract objects as unobjectionable. As a result, Carnap develops a position very different from the one presented in Syntax. Quine strongly rejected the instrumentalism of Syntax, and sought to give an explication of ontological questions that was language independent. This paper closes with a discussion of each’s understanding of the other’s position. (shrink)

"A collection of essays in feminist philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 93-101 [Access article in PDF] A Political LifeArendtian Aesthetics and Open Systems Sue Spaid Since the 1990s, artists have broken ground by producing works that are "open systems." That is, they are incomplete, participatory, and elastic. In this paper, I will argue that open systems exemplify Hannah Arendt's conception of vita activa, in contrast to art's traditional role as inspiring vita contemplativa. Since (...) they do not explicitly affirm or refute political policies, such works are generally not considered "political" art. However, they accommodate Arendt's notion of the political life, since they incorporate process, durability, pluralities of spectators, and unpredictability. Furthermore, because they do not resemble what ordinarily passes for art, reflective judgment is required to engage them, and to determine whether they are art.Echoing Diotima's interest in immortality, Arendt links beauty to durability. Open systems are particularly durable because we remember them as a public experiences that include participants and spectators. Such performative and pleasurable worldly actions entail aesthetic engagements that are very much in line with Arendt's description of the political life. Critical Engagement In the sphere of fabrication itself, there is only one kind of object to which the unending chain of means and ends does not apply, and this [End Page 93] is the work of art, the most useless and, at the same time, the most durable thing human hands can produce... It is the reification that occurs in writing something down, painting an image, composing a piece of music, etc. which actually makes the thought a reality; and in order to produce these thought things, which we usually call art works, the same workmanship is required that through the primordial instrument of human hands builds the other, less durable and more useful things of the human artifice. (Arendt 2000, 177-78) In a 1964 interview with Gunter Gaus, Hannah Arendt described herself as a political theorist, who though trained as a philosopher had "said good-bye to philosophy once and for all." In identifying the tension between philosophy and politics, she differentiated man as a thinking being from man as an acting being, and she identified with the latter. She found that, because philosophers cannot be neutral or objective with regards to politics, they share a certain enmity toward politics, and she sought to avoid that response. Not surprisingly, she named Kant as an exception, because he understood this enmity to lie in the nature of the subject itself. In The Critique of Judgement, experience precedes reflective judgement, thus affirming a place for each subject's particular experiences. Kant, too, was a man of action.Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste, which is a normative but non-prescriptive process, makes room for Arendt's notions of worldliness and unpredictability. Critics have decried Arendt's political theory for its anti-rationalism, political existentialism and "aestheticization of politics," yet much can be learned from her clear commitment to equality, and the way she trusted and perhaps even idealized humanity (Curtis 1999, 18). She wrote, "Only action and speech relate specifically to this fact that to live always means to live among men, among those who are my equals. Hence, when I insert myself into the world, it is a world where others are already present" (Arendt 2000, 179). Given her interest in freedom, active engagement, critical thinking, and anti-instrumentalism, it is perhaps not surprising that Arendt found inspiration in Kant's conception of aesthetic judgment as requiring only communicative sociability, the object's purposeless purposiveness, and the spectator's free play of imagination and understanding.I am interested here in Arendt's aesthetics of the political life in relation to recent art that unwittingly fosters an engaged and open conception of the political. The works in question are not necessarily conscious of their political capacity. Rather, their presence assumes that spectators are [End Page 94] equals, and facilitates an active life, what Arendt described as the vita activa, as opposed to the vita contemplativa, the contemplative life. An active life, which requires a public space, entails active... (shrink)

Plusieurs commentateurs – incluant certains théoriciens des droits des animaux – ont soutenu que les animaux non humains ne peuvent pas être considérés comme des membres du dèmos parce qu’il leur manque les capacités critiques d’autonomie et d’agentivité morale qui seraient essentielles à la citoyenneté. Nous soutenons que cette inquiétude est fondée sur des idées erronées à propos de la citoyenneté, d’une part, et à propos des animaux, d’autre part. La citoyenneté requiert la maîtrise de soi et la sensibilité aux (...) normes partagées, mais ces capacités ne devraient pas être comprises en un sens indûment intellectualisé ou idéalisé. Des études récentes sur l’agentivité morale montrent que les relations civilisées entre les citoyens sont largement fondées, non pas dans la réflexion rationnelle et l’assentiment à des propositions morales, mais dans des comportements intuitifs, irréfléchis et habituels qui s’enracinent dans une gamme d’émotions prosociales (l’empathie, l’amour) et de dispositions prosociales (coopération, altruisme, réciprocité, résolution de conflits). Cinquante ans de recherches éthologiques ont démontré que plusieurs animaux sociaux – particulièrement les animaux domestiques – partagent le type de dispositions et de capacités rendant possible le civisme quotidien. Une fois que nous élargissons notre conception de la citoyenneté pour inclure une compréhension plus riche des bases des relations civiques, il devient évident que les animaux domestiques et les humains peuvent être les co-créateurs d’un monde moral et politique commun. Nous n’avons rien à craindre, et beaucoup à gagner, à les accueillir comme membres du dèmos. (shrink)

If both waking and dreaming consciousness are functional, their de-differentiation would be doubly detrimental. Differentiation between waking and dreaming is achieved through neuromodulation. During dreaming, without external sensory data and with mesolimbic dopaminergic input, hyper-cholinergic input almost totally suppresses the aminergic system. During waking, with sensory gates open, aminergic modulation inhibits cholinergic and mesocortical dopaminergic suppresses mesolimbic. These neuromodulatory systems are reciprocally interactive and self-organizing. As a consequence of neuromodulatory reciprocity, phenomenologically, the self and the world that appear during dreaming (...) differ from those that emerge during waking. As a result of self-organizing, the self and the world in both states are integrated.Some loss of self-organization would precipitate a degree of de-differentiation between waking and dreaming, resulting in a hybrid state which would be expressed heterogeneously, both neurobiologically and phenomenologically. As a consequence of progressive de-differentiation, certain identifiable psychiatric disorders may emerge. Ultimately, schizophrenia, a disorganized-fragmented self, may result. (shrink)