A decomposition model of Net Final Values (NFV), named Systemic Value Added (SVA), is proposed for decision-making purposes, based on a systemic approach introduced in Magni [Magni, C. A. (2003), Bulletin of Economic Research 55(2), 149–176; Magni, C. A. (2004) Economic Modelling 21, 595–617]. The model translates the notion of excess profit giving formal expression to a counterfactual alternative available to the decision maker. Relations with other decomposition models are studied, among which Stewart’s [Stewart, G.B. (1991), The Quest for Value: (...) The EVA™ Management Guide, Harper Collins, Publishers Inc]. The index here introduced differs from Stewart’s Economic Value Added (EVA) in that it rests on a different interpretation of the notion of excess profit and is formally connected with the EVA model by means of a shadow project. The SVA is formally and conceptually threefold, in that it is economic, financial, accounting-flavoured. Some results are offered, providing sufficient and necessary conditions for decomposing NFV. Relations between a project’s SVA and its shadow project’s EVA are shown, all results of Pressacco and Stucchi [Pressacco, F. and Stucchi, P. (1997), Rivista di Matematica per le Scienze Economiche e Sociali 20, 165–185] are proved by making use of the systemic approach and the shadow counterparts of those results are also shown. (shrink)

A decomposition model of Net Final Values (NFV), named Systemic Value Added (SVA), is proposed for decision-making purposes, based on a systemic approach introduced in Magni [Magni, C. A. (2003), Bulletin of Economic Research 55(2), 149–176; Magni, C. A. (2004) Economic Modelling 21, 595–617]. The model translates the notion of excess profit giving formal expression to a counterfactual alternative available to the decision maker. Relations with other decomposition models are studied, among which Stewart’s [Stewart, G.B. (1991), The Quest for Value: (...) The EVA™ Management Guide, Harper Collins, Publishers Inc]. The index here introduced differs from Stewart’s Economic Value Added (EVA) in that it rests on a different interpretation of the notion of excess profit and is formally connected with the EVA model by means of a shadow project. The SVA is formally and conceptually threefold, in that it is economic, financial, accounting-flavoured. Some results are offered, providing sufficient and necessary conditions for decomposing NFV. Relations between a project’s SVA and its shadow project’s EVA are shown, all results of Pressacco and Stucchi [Pressacco, F. and Stucchi, P. (1997), Rivista di Matematica per le Scienze Economiche e Sociali 20, 165–185] are proved by making use of the systemic approach and the shadow counterparts of those results are also shown. (shrink)

The cinematic Other is interpreted as an unconscious personality, a denied part of the protagonist that appears in his life as a shadowy menace who won't go away. Overall the book aims to show how movies envision the unconscious Other we all too often project on other people.

The cinematic Other is interpreted as an unconscious personality, a denied part of the protagonist that appears in his life as a shadowy menace who won't go away. Overall the book aims to show how movies envision the unconscious Other we all too often project on other people.

A sequel to Shapin’s earlier work, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation again solves the problem of induction by observing that researchers are decent. Shapin dismisses most of the literature on both the philosophy of science and (more so) on the sociology of science as ideologically biased and as irrelevant. Approaches to the book as light reading and as serious scholarly reading are considered before a critical summary is offered as a conclusion.

A sequel to Shapin’s earlier work, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation again solves the problem of induction by observing that researchers are decent. Shapin dismisses most of the literature on both the philosophy of science and (more so) on the sociology of science as ideologically biased and as irrelevant. Approaches to the book as light reading and as serious scholarly reading are considered before a critical summary is offered as a conclusion.

This paper presents the case of the post-crisis discursive defence of shadow banking in the Netherlands to argue, first, that there is a need to dust off older elite theories and adapt them to post-democratic conditions where there are no widely shared ‘political formulas’ to secure mass support for elite projects. Second, that temporality should be taken more seriously; it is when stories fail that elite storytelling can be observed in practice. As new ‘political formulas’ are minted and become (...) established, elites can again hope to withdraw from the political scene and leave policy-making to the self-evidence of output legitimacy and/or the perpetuum mobile of There-Is-No-Alternative. This suggests that elite theory should replace an epochal reading of post-democracy with a more conjunctural one. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

Final Circular for the multimedia exhibition, "'Shadow-lands': The Suffering Image" (April 18-May 18, 2012), in association with the PhD project, "Visual Agency in Art & Architecture," Deakin University, 2011-2014.

Tschumi believes that the quality of architecture depends on the theoretical factor it contains. Such a view led to the creation of architecture that would achieve visibility and comprehensibility only after its interpretation. On his way to creating such an architecture he took on a purely philosophical reflection on the basic building block of architecture, which is space. In 1975, he wrote an essay entitled Questions of Space, in which he included several dozen questions about the nature of space. The (...) questions he formulated could be regarded as analogous to the situation in the philosophy of the time, in which the interest in questioning the most obvious forms of understanding the world and intellectual categories increased. The research on space is an area common to many fields of natural sciences, humanities and artistic creation, but it also deals with other problems, such as issues of experience. The concept of space-time continuum proposed by Hermann Minkowski drew attention to the identity of time and space with the events taking place. Probably regardless of the postulates of physicists commenting on Einstein’s discoveries, also in philosophy it increased the importance of the concept of the event which became dominant in Heidegger’s latest work Contributions of Philosophy. Of the event. Furthermore, Tschumi’s reflections on space entered into relation with the problem of experience, which aroused the interest of a group of French philosophers trying to assimilate Georges Bataille’s concept of “inner experience”. Both Tschumi and Derrida referred to Bataille because his views could be used not only to modify the concept of the subject, but also to change the understanding of what constitutes the area of architecture. The discussion on experience has led to the recognition that the subject is not sovereign, but actually a form of what is on their outside. Such insights make it possible to treat the area of the Parc de La Villette as existing mainly when it is organised by its users. The decisive features of the Park are its assumptions, according to which it is a variety of active void that leads to agreeing new social relations with it. The park does not force to participate in already existing moral or political communities, but tries to move into an unknown future in which the scope of free functioning of individuals will be increased. Doubts about the principles of functioning of the individual self and its discovery as a whole composed of non-coherent parts, as well as its dependence on its own depth full of disordered forces, influenced the understanding of architecture as a set of contradictions whose source is a fundamental void anticipating the empty phenomenal space. The use of this phenomenal void in architecture, as well as the rejection of the whole and unity, had a specific political purpose and drew its inspiration from political analyses. In the Parc de La Villette, metaphysics and politics were brought closer together because the philosophy of void was used to create new conditions for community action. It can be argued that the source of this philosophy was the perception of errors in existing societies dependent on the shortcomings of traditional metaphysics. Spacing (espacement) was one of the key terms in Derrida’s philosophy, which was also combined with the concepts of différance and chôra. The study of the nature of space, especially its transition from the level of pure possibility to the level of sensual phenomenon, also contributes to understanding how well designed space can have an impact on its audience. This explanation is based on Tschumi’s assumption that the space of the Parc de La Villette contradicts the integrating approaches and instead exposes contradictions, but it does so in a way that combines incompatible properties into a single piece of architecture. The specificity of such integration is similar to the invention of a musical phrase, which is an ideological message: moral and political. Such a thesis may raise doubts, however, if both the clearly adopted assumptions and those deduced from the work allow for their ↪Quart Nr 2(52)/2019 logically ordered presentation then to a limited extent it may be assumed that the work has achieved a connection between a specific philosophy of space and its practical application. Derrida combined the problem of spatiality with the problem of transcendental imagination in Kant’s philosophy, who in the first version of Critique of Pure Reason assumed that pure imagination precedes the appearance of time and space, even in their transcendental forms. The imagination in such a situation can be described as a factor activating time and space, which indicates what function is played by movement in this activity. This leads us to recognize that the ultra originary source of pure forms of sensual intuition is movement, which in early Greek philosophy was identified with void and its lack of resistance to phenomena occurring in it. Derrida’s philosophy in search of a certain super-transcendental source of time and space pointed to différance which, like void or the chôra, does not have material features or even any other form of being. Différance is the primary cause of the disruption of motionlessness and the introduction of activity into motionless time and space, thus its activity can be described as spacing (espacement). Derrida’s discoveries in this respect are not entirely original, because Hegel already pointed out when examining the present that it is primarily a differential relation (differente Beziehung), which, being seemingly neutral, influences the present with supernatural force and makes it unidentifiable with itself. Differente Beziehung must similarly influence the originary space, negating its initial character by multiplying its divisions and expanding its boundaries. Différance acts by revealing contradictions wherever there is apparent undifferentiation. Tschumi, composing the Parc de La Villette as a variety of void and a set of incompatible layers, followed the rules of différance or the chôra: he made void visible together with its saturation with contradictions. If space can be considered to be the result of the activity of difference, such activity has a certain regularity, which influences the behaviour of its observers. Differences or contradictions fall into a certain rhythm, which can be considered a manifestation of transcendent order. The problem is that what can be considered the source of such order, namely the logos or God, is partly disorder and error. According to descriptions contained in Timaeus, the world is a combination of forces that drive to order with forces of erroneous necessity that resounds in every order and forces it to return to disorder. Derrida denied the possibility of understanding différance as a theological value, even if it were a negative or apophatic theology, but no categorical denial could be perfect. The assumption that différance or the chôra are not endowed with any substance properties cannot deny their activity, and thus a certain force. Already since Democritus, philosophy has multiplied the names of such a force and the contradictory variety of its manifestations, never forgetting also the necessity for reason to withdraw from the possibility of giving its correct characteristics. Such a withdrawal may be interpreted as an expression of respect and, in certain situations, as a cult of the force that precedes reasonableness. The Parc de La Villette, which is an artistic divagation about the contradictions and forces behind them, can be considered as a place of their sublimation, and therefore as a variation of the temple of what differs from order and disorder. (shrink)

In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Bernard Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Jacques Derrida, prove that (...) terms such as disruption, dissociation, disfunction, disjunctions and dispersion not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette, 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Park de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Peter Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus a thesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the stratus of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. (shrink)

Most contemporary metaphysicians are sceptical about the reality of familiar objects such as dogs and trees, people and desks, cells and stars. They prefer an ontology of the spatially tiny or temporally tiny. Tiny microparticles 'dog-wise arranged' explain the appearance, they say, that there are dogs; microparticles obeying microphysics collectively cause anything that a baseball appears to cause; temporal stages collectively sustain the illusion of enduring objects that persist across changes. Crawford L. Elder argues that all such attempts to 'explain (...) away' familiar objects project downwards, onto the tiny entities, structures and features of familiar objects themselves. He contends that sceptical metaphysicians are thus employing shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist. He argues that the shadows are indeed really there, because their sources - familiar objects - are mind-independently real. (shrink)

Hegel frequently claimed that the heart of his entire system was a book widely regarded as among the most difficult in the history of philosophy, The Science of Logic. This is the book that presents his metaphysics, an enterprise that he insists can only be properly understood as a “logic,” or a “science of pure thinking.” Since he also wrote that the proper object of any such logic is pure thinking itself, it has always been unclear in just what sense (...) such a science could be a “metaphysics.” -/- Robert B. Pippin offers here a bold, original interpretation of Hegel’s claim that only now, after Kant’s critical breakthrough in philosophy, can we understand how logic can be a metaphysics. Pippin addresses Hegel’s deep, constant reliance on Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics, the difference between Hegel’s project and modern rationalist metaphysics, and the links between the “logic as metaphysics” claim and modern developments in the philosophy of logic. Pippin goes on to explore many other facets of Hegel’s thought, including the significance for a philosophical logic of the self-conscious character of thought, the dynamism of reason in Kant and Hegel, life as a logical category, and what Hegel might mean by the unity of the idea of the true and the idea of the good in the “Absolute Idea.” The culmination of Pippin’s work on Hegel and German idealism, no Hegel scholar or historian of philosophy will want to miss this book. (shrink)

In Nietzsche and the Shadow of God, his study of Nietzsche’s integral philosophical corpus, Franck revisits the fundamental concepts of Nietzsche’s thought, from the death of God and the will to power, to the body as the seat of thinking and valuing, and finally to his conception of a post-Christian justice. The work engages Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s destruction of the Platonic-Christian worldview, showing how Heidegger’s hermeneutic overlooked Nietzsche’s powerful confrontation with revelation and justice by working through the Christian (...) body, as set forth in the Epistles of Saint Paul and reread both by Martin Luther and by German Idealism. Franck shows systematically how Nietzsche “transvalued” the metaphysical tenets of the Christian body of believers. In so doing, he provides an unparalleled demonstration of the coherence of Nietzsche’s project and the ways in which the revaluation of values, amor fati, and the trials of eternal recurrence reshape the living self toward a creative existence beyond original sin—indeed, beyond an ethics of “good” versus “evil.” Bergo and Farah’s clear translation introduces this work to an English-speaking audience for the first time. (shrink)

Summary In his Theoremata de lumine, et umbre (1521), Francesco Maurolyco (1494–1575) discussed, inter alia, the problem of the pinhole camera. Maurolyco outlined a framework based on Euclidean geometry in which he applied the rectilinear propagation of light to the casting of shadow on a screen behind a pinhole. We limit our discussion to the problem of how the image behind an aperture is formed, and follow the way Maurolyco combined theory with instrument to solve the problem of the (...) projection of light through small apertures. We show that Maurolyco not only reformed the classical sources which, he thought, were no longer the authoritative code of textual knowledge, but also established with the dioptra a novel linkage of method, theory, and instrument. He thereby demonstrated the importance of optics to the science of astronomy. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas’ aesthetics has been critically discussed much less than other components of his philosophy. In one way, this is not surprising, given Levinas’ wider post-war project. Nevertheless, in the late 1940s, the very time his influential later philosophy was taking shape, Levinas published a series of papers on literary criticism, and on the nature of art. istents and Existence, the text where Levinas first announces his project of “leaving the climate” of Heidegger’s thought, contains in its heart (...) a remarkable discussion of modernist painting. 2 Levinas’ aesthetics, moreover, represents a provocative standpoint within modern aesthetic theory in its own right. As such, it stands as a partial corrective to the comparative and surely surprising – dearth of phenomenological analyses of art, which at the same time contrasts markedly with Heidegger’s renowned position in “The Origin of the Work of Art.” From a critical perspective, however, an examination of Levinas’ aesthetics is interesting in another, and perhaps deeper way. As critics have intimated, 3 Levinas’ aesthetics arguably marks what could be called a “supplement” within his texts. As is well known, Levinas’ post-war works defend his own post-Husserlian version of what Kant called “the primacy of practical reason” which he calls – in a more classical vein – “ethics as first philosophy.” 4 In this light, Levinas’ texts feature an axiological devaluation of aesthetics in comparison with the ethical encounter with the Other. What this paper will argue – in line with but beyond Derrida’s masterful “Violence and Metaphysics” 5 – is that aesthetic experience as analysed by Levinas has an uncanny structural proximity to his analyses of “ethics.” And recognition of this primacy might well cause us to reconsider Levinas’ classically “Greek” as much as Judaic devaluation of aesthetics as one dimension of human experience. Part I takes a poem as the basis to construct Levinas’ account of the aesthetical or art-quality of artworks. Part II examines what Levinas takes his analysis of the work of art to point towards in terms of a more general [de]ontology, wherein the reality given in phenomenological perception is doubled by its own “shadow.” Part III questions not Levinas’ aesthetics but how it signifies in terms of his avowed project of elevating ethics as “first philosophy.” –. (shrink)

The Löwenheim-Skolem theorem was published in Skolem's long paper of 1920, with the first section dedicated to the theorem. The second section of the paper contains a proof-theoretical analysis of derivations in lattice theory. The main result, otherwise believed to have been established in the late 1980s, was a polynomial-time decision algorithm for these derivations. Skolem did not develop any notation for the representation of derivations, which makes the proofs of his results hard to follow. Such a formal notation is (...) given here by which these proofs become transparent. A third section of Skolem's paper gives an analysis for derivations in plane projective geometry. To clear a gap in Skolem's result, a new conservativity property is shown for projective geometry, to the effect that a proper use of the axiom that gives the uniqueness of connecting lines and intersection points requires a conclusion with proper cases (logically, a disjunction in a positive part) to be proved. The forgotten parts of Skolem's first paper on the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem are the perhaps earliest combinatorial analyses of formal mathematical proofs, and at least the earliest analyses with profound results. (shrink)

This note announces the launch of a research project at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel with the generous support of the Carlsberg Foundation and guidance from Prof. dr. Frederik Dhondt. The project explores the early steps of one of the most dynamic and debated branches of international law, namely the law of the sea. It focuses on the interactions between the principle of the freedom of the sea, maritime neutrality and small powers’ diplomacy in the long eighteenth century. Analysing (...) the rich archival material conserved in the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs – series Mémoires et documents, Correspondance politique – as well as the Danish National Archives, or Rigsarkivet, the project aims at the construction of a rich narrative of multiple uses of the law of the sea as an argumentative political-legal framework to express state and private interest. By a close reading of largely unexplored sources, the project contributes to the broader turn to state practice in the history of international law, a booming field of interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Michael Rosen’s The Shadow of God illustrates a distinctive way of understanding the relationship between ideas and history, while posing several connected questions. Among these are how the human condition of alienation may be overcome in a way that is ethically and intellectually defensible; how the search for reconciliation may generate, paradoxically, further alienation, and inspire terrible inhumanity; and whether a meaningful and good human life can be lived without the assurance of future justice—or, indeed, future existence. Rosen evokes (...) the emotional pull of the quest for reconciliation, and reveals the argumentative richness it has generated; yet reflection on human evil and suffering should chasten our aspirations to attain historical reconciliation or rational understanding. We may have good reason to turn away from both the project of theodicy, and the tendency to identify human value in something detached from living individuals, in favor of a reaffirmation of the value of the personal. Rosen’s own work illustrates how a reaffirmation of the personal, and respect for the freedom of others, may be practiced in and through the history of ideas. (shrink)

L’article s’intéresse aux hommes et aux femmes passés dans l’histoire à l’ombre de la figure « hermaphrodite ». Pour ce faire, il s’intéresse à eux dans le cadre familial, en cessant de les réduire à leurs particularités corporelles et génitales pour les replacer dans une perspective sociale. L’état hermaphrodite permet en effet d’interroger doublement la famille : d’une part parce qu’il brouille le jeu des projections identitaires habituellement à l’œuvre entre parents et enfants et entre membres de la fratrie, de (...) l’autre parce qu’il pose le problème majeur de l’infécondité et du mariage aussi bien pour celui ou celle qui en est victime que pour la cellule familiale dans son ensemble. L’extrême diversité des relations et des affects intrafamiliaux rencontrés rappelle que si l’hermaphrodisme a été puissamment structuré au xixe siècle en catégorie médicale, il ne peut être opérant en catégorie sociale. (shrink)

Poreskoro, with three cat and four dog heads and a snake with a forked tongue as his tail, is responsible for epidemics of contagious diseases in Romany folklore. The Pishachas of Vedic mythology lurk in charnel houses and graveyards, waiting for humans to infect with madness. In Christian demonology, Pythius is known as the ruler of the eighth circle of the Inferno, bestowing heinous and unspeakable tortures on those who have committed fraud. Demons are the stuff of legends, and they (...) are everywhere in mythology and theology. These are just three of the more than thirty I counted that start with the letter P.How lucky we are for the advent of science. A rational tonic, it scatters our demons, demystifying the world for us—or so, at least, we think. As Canales brilliantly shows in this book, our assumption has been far off the mark. In physics, computer science, genetics, neuroscience, and economics, not to mention in the very foundations of rationality itself, an underworld of imaginary creatures has sustained and continues to inhabit modern science. Scientific demons appear in many guises: as atomic and subatomic particle manipulators, as feedback and parallel-processing experts, as messengers who can travel faster than the speed of light, as computer-code spies, gene and bit selectors in evolution and in informatics, as triggers of cascades from the nano level to the level of full-blown ecological and astrophysical theaters. By inventing them, we have learned that causality does not always hold at the level of atoms, that the speed of message transmission is limited, that living systems spend energy, that perpetual-motion machines are impossible, and that there are corners of the universe we have not imagined.We have all heard of Laplace's Demon, and Maxwell's, but who knew that, borrowing from physics, the historian Henry Adams considered the action of demons in geopolitics or that the economist Paul Samuelson analyzed their role in producing more efficient markets? Who knew that the generation that gave us the Internet and artificial intelligence were tasked by their teachers in graduate school to insert as many demons as possible into their programs? Who among us has heard of Darwin's Demon, or Maxwell-Szilárd-Brillouin's, or Monod's, or Loschmidt's? Who is aware of Norbert Weiner's use of demons in conceptualizing cybernetics, or of the great scholar of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem's comparison between Israel's superfast computers and the Golem?As Canales shows convincingly, it has been difficult for both historians and scientists to countenance demons in science, and so they have been written out, in many ways and many instances, of the histories of which they are part and parcel. Thomas Kuhn and even the more radical philosopher Paul Feyerabend both failed to acknowledge in their social critiques of science the extent to which an imaginary underworld of beings has been constitutive of the modern scientific imagination. Ironically, it was the man who provided a hard-and-fast criterion by which to distinguish scientific and nonscientific pursuits, Karl Popper, who ultimately saw the light. Revisiting his classic book The Logic of Scientific Discovery from 1934, he clarified in Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery in 1982 the extent to which every historical era has been characterized by a particular demon. We moderns believe that science is about facts and numbers, but we are mistaken. As Canales beautifully summarizes the stakes of her project, “What first sets science on its path of discovery—then as now—is the continued use of the imagination.”Tracking the fate of demons in modern thought from Descartes to Lord Kelvin to H. G. Wells to David Bohm, and from Conrad Hal Waddington to Henry Compton to Stephen Hawking and Steven Pinker, Bedeviled assumes that the demons of the church or of paganism and the demons of science differ and resemble each other in ways that can be usefully elaborated. What is more crucial, however, is how such demons become real, how they morph from fears to hopes, and from thought experiments into real experiments, and ultimately to things in this world like computer programs, transistors, and nanorobots. From weather systems to messenger RNAs to black holes, demons emerge everywhere. The hard question is: How does the imagination actually drive discovery and understanding? How does it change our world?Perhaps it has been a sidetrack to consider whether we have or have never been modern. Clearly, what reason will not allow, it perennially recruits for a shadowland that helps us to better see our world. Rather than aiming to exorcise science, one day, of all of its methodological and epistemological ghosts, perhaps we might make peace with the notion that every culture struggles with distinguishing truth from falsehood in its own unique way. Such struggles are sensitive to their times and are accomplished through leaps of imagination. But fear not: the debunking of “Western rationality” casts no wet blanket on the project of Enlightenment. If anything, as Canales writes, “an account of science that considers how scientists themselves do science only risks adding new insights into our repertoire of knowledge.” Perhaps, therefore, there is solace to be gained from the dictum, Always choose the Devil you know. Ultimately, there may be no other way forward. (shrink)

In this article, I foreground the role of relationality in Husserl’s later reflections on ethics and self-constitution, with a particular interest in Husserl’s account of sacrifice. I exposit how Husserl’s account of self-constitution and the conflict of absolute values between competing vocations offers a solution to Brentano’s rendering of the obligation to “choose the best among the ends attainable.” I explore the numerous instances in which Husserl uses the parent-child relation to illustrate the absolute value of our relation to an (...) individual and how this absolute value triumphs over other seemingly rational maxims. Although problematic in several ways, Husserl’s account of motherhood grounds his notion of self-constitution in particular relations with others, rather than in a general category of nation or humanity. I conclude by considering how his emphasis on phenomenological constitution and his approach to value and sacrifice may inform future projects in phenomenological relational ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I foreground the role of relationality in Husserl’s later reflections on ethics and self-constitution, with a particular interest in Husserl’s account of sacrifice. I exposit how Husserl’s account of self-constitution and the conflict of absolute values between competing vocations offers a solution to Brentano’s rendering of the obligation to “choose the best among the ends attainable.” I explore the numerous instances in which Husserl uses the parent-child relation to illustrate the absolute value of our relation to an (...) individual and how this absolute value triumphs over other seemingly rational maxims. Although problematic in several ways, Husserl’s account of motherhood grounds his notion of self-constitution in particular relations with others, rather than in a general category of nation or humanity. I conclude by considering how his emphasis on phenomenological constitution and his approach to value and sacrifice may inform future projects in phenomenological relational ethics. (shrink)

This paper discusses the uses of technology in teaching philosophy courses. Where technology is currently utilized, it can be intrinsicallyappropriate or instrumentally inappropriate as a methodology for producing greater student interest, engagement, and positive outcomes. The paper introduces an easily implemented assignment where students produce videos on DVDs in partial fulfillment of requirements for philosophy courses. I argue that, used in philosophy courses, this assignment allows students to be creative, fosters peer dialogue about philosophy, creates excitement in these courses, and (...) decreases the intergenerational distance between paper-bound and lecture courses with the burgeoning world of media-driven technologies. After experimenting with this assignment strategy for several years, I have concluded that the DVD project assignment is an innovative, effective, and simple technological tool for teaching philosophy. (shrink)

A primary contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental impacts of livestock production. We will find that the mass consumption of animals is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat, or sick and is a leading cause behind the depletion and pollution of waterways, the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of species, and the warming of the planet. Recognizing these harms, this essay will consider various solutions being proposed to (...) “shrink” livestock’s long shadow, including proposed “technical” or “market” solutions, a transition to “new agrarian” methods, and a vegetarian or vegan diet. Though important and morally relevant qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial methods, this essay will conclude that, given the present and projected size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products one consumes. (shrink)

The quantum transition probability assignment is an equiareal transformation from the annulus of symplectic spinorial amplitudes to the disk of complex state vectors, which makes it equivalent to the equiareal projection of Archimedes. The latter corresponds to a symplectic synchronization method, which applies to the quantum phase space in view of Weyl’s quantization approach involving an Abelian group of unitary ray rotations. We show that Archimedes’ method of synchronization, in terms of a measure-preserving transformation to an equiareal disk, imposes the (...) integrality of the quantum of action, and requires the extension of the classical moment map from the real line to the circle. Additionally, the same synchronization method is encoded in the structure of the Heisenberg group, viewed as a principal bundle with a connection, whose curvature and anholonomy is expressed in terms of area bounding loops in relation to the underlying Abelian shadow on a symplectic plane. In this manner, we show that the geometric phase pertains to the minimal synchronized area \ of the 2-d symplectic Abelian shadow of the symplectic ball, modulo \. The integrality condition naturally leads to the consideration of modular commutative observables pertaining to the role of the discrete Heisenberg group. We prove that the structural transition from non-commutativity to modular commutativity in accordance to Weyl’s group-theoretic commutation relations takes place via universal factorization through the discrete Heisenberg group. In this way, we derive a homology-theoretic formulation of the synchronization method in terms of the area-bounding cells of the modular lattice \ in relation to any Abelian symplectic shadow. Thus, we finally obtain the physical interpretation of the analytic representation of quantum states as theta functions corresponding to the sections of a complex line bundle with an integral symplectic structure. (shrink)

This research aspires to represent the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the novels; The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto, Butterfly Season by Natasha Ahmed, and Stained by Abda Khan. The researchers aim to depict the destabilization of gender-based stereotyped identity from the Pakistani perspective. The selected method of study is Feminist Analysis by Tyson, which examines literature as a medium to represent feminist issues, whereas; the theoretical angle of “Matrix of Domination” from Collins’ Feminist/Gender theory (...) is used as a principle to analyze and depict the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the selected novels. This study aims to establish the notion of gender as a social construct that could be subverted through literary discourses that have the potential to challenge the power-based gender roles within a patriarchal society. In this regard, different critical works of prominent theorists and writers have been discussed briefly in the literature review to project the significance of the works by contemporary Pakistani women writers as a medium to subvert identities formed by their society. Gender is also a means of power through which the dominant seeks to control the subordinate. The objective of this research is to suggest that gender is socially constructed, therefore, it can be deconstructed through literature. The selected novels exemplify the current gender inclinations of today’s Pakistan with the pen of female writers. Stereotyped gender identity is a socially constructed vice that divides humans into segments, hence it is required of the contemporary discourses to decenter such power discourses that perpetuate hegemonic boundaries and restrict the women into social shackles of imposed identities. (shrink)

How does a person become Hitler's enemy number one? Not through espionage or violence, it turns out, but by striking fearlessly at the intellectual and spiritual roots of National Socialism. Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic thinker and teacher who devoted the full force of his intellect to breaking the deadly spell of Nazism that ensnared so many of his beloved countrymen. His story might well have been lost to us were it not for this memoir he penned in (...) the last decades of his life at the request of his wife, Alice von Hildebrand. In My Battle Against Hitler, covering the years from 1921 to 1938, von Hildebrand tells of the scorn and ridicule he endured for sounding the alarm when many still viewed Hitler as a positive and inevitable force. He expresses the sorrow of having to leave behind his home, friends, and family in Germany to conduct his fight against the Nazis from Austria. He recounts how he defiantly challenged Nazism in the public square, prompting the German ambassador in Vienna to describe him to Hitler as 'the architect of the intellectual resistance in Austria.' And in the midst of all the danger he faced, he conveys his unwavering trust in God, even during his harrowing escape from Vienna and his desperate flight across Europe, with the Nazis always just one step behind. Dietrich von Hildebrand belongs to the very earliest anti-Nazi resistance. His public statements led the Nazis to blacklist him already in 1921, long before the horrors of the Third Reich and more than twenty-three years before the famous assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. His battle would culminate in the countless articles he published in Vienna, a selection of which are featured in this volume. 'It is an immense privilege,' writes editor John Henry Crosby, founder of the Hildebrand Project, 'to present to the world the shining witness of one man who risked everything to follow his conscience and stand in defiance of tyranny'. (shrink)

Catherine Rowett presents an in depth study of Plato's Meno, Republic and Theaetetus and offers both a coherent argument that the project in which Plato was engaging has been widely misunderstood and misrepresented, and detailed new readings of particular thorny issues in the interpretation of these classic texts.

Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most importantly, his view that science is primarily an (...) individual commitment to a set of epistemic norms and values. Considerations of external moral or social values are not, on this view, intrinsic to scientific practice, though they have a broader pragmatic significance. What Bridgman takes as the proper relation between science and society is shown through analysis of his many writings on the topic and consideration of his rarely remarked upon involvement in the most problematic example of "Big Science" of his day: the atomic bomb. A reevaluation of Bridgman's views provides a unique characterization of what is at stake in the values in science debate: the normative autonomy of science. (shrink)

I examine the division of labor between the Metaphysical Deduction (MD) and the Transcendental Deduction (TD). Against a common reading, I argue that the MD is insufficient to prove the a priori origin of the categories. For both Kant and his main opponent, namely Hume, the question of whether the categories have an a priori origin in the pure understanding is inseparable from the question of whether they have objective validity. Since the MD does not establish the objective validity of (...) the categories, it cannot establish their a priori origin either. The MD is nevertheless an indispensable part of Kant's project because it lays the argumentative groundwork for the proof structure of the TD and because it provides the systematic plan for the future metaphysics of experience. (shrink)

This article commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of The Sociological Imagination by recalling, renewing and updating C. Wright Mills’ pledge to expand a politically aware, self-reflective and publicly accessible intellectual culture between aestheticism and scientism. We begin by sketching how Mills’ ‘bifocal’ vision of the translation between the close-up perspective on personal milieus and the longer view of social structures contrasts with recent calls for a public sociology which would sustain its professional legitimacy while reviving its critical conscience. To illustrate this (...) point, we argue that his project can be reframed in a way that ‘provincializes’ the universalizing claims and scientific aspirations of much of North American sociology by exposing its imperial unconscious in pre- and post-war movements toward the professionalization and scientization of knowledge. Here our focus turns to the prospects for a ‘sociology of empire’ to trace imperial forms which are symptomatically manifested both in the discipline’s assumptions about historical progress and in Mills’ critique of these assumptions. Finally, with an example from the history of British colonialism in Egypt, we show how, despite its blindspots, Mills’ vision of the sociological imagination implicitly projects an alternative ‘sociological map’ with distinct vantage points that can account for the changing cultural tasks of our time, especially concerning how collectives of human and non-human agents are unequally mediated within networks of power. We conclude by revisiting Mills’ distinctive approach to ‘the craft of sociology’, considered more as a prayer than a profession, and undertaken more as a personal and political calling than as career. (shrink)

Social sciences in Latin America experienced, during the 1960s, a great number of debates concerning the very foundations of different academic fields. In the case of Argentina, research programs such as Proyecto Marginalidad constituted fundamental elements of those controversies, which were characteristic of disciplinary developments within the social sciences, particularly sociology. Mainly influenced by the critical context that had been deepened by Project Camelot, Argentinian social scientists engaged in debates about the theories that should be chosen in order to (...) account for ‘national reality’, the origins of funding for scientific research, or the applied dimension of science. In this sense, the practices of philanthropic organizations like the Ford Foundation stimulated considerably the ideological passions of that period; those practices also contributed to fragmentation in various academic groups. In this way, the problem of American imperialism, and its consequent economic and cultural dependencies, were present in the controversies of academic fields whose historic evolutions cannot be fully understood without considering their strong links with national and international politics. (shrink)

Writing in the Business Day on 2 October 2007, economics journalist Hilary Joffe notes that “it was not long ago that there was a famine of infrastructure investment [in South Africa]; now there’s a feast, with each new week bringing reports of new projects and new, much higher estimates of the totals to be spent in years to come.” Joffe expresses enthusiasm about this, for reasons with which we agree: The infrastructure feast has already helped to raise SA’s investment ratio (...) to nearly 21% of gross domestic product, from a low of below 15% just five years ago. We are already seeing the beginnings of a shift from consumptiondriven to investment-driven growth that the economy needs if it is to grow on a sustainable basis. And of course much of that infrastructure is already urgently needed; and the need will grow as economic growth takes place. However, she is immediately led to ask two pressing questions. First, “even if these are all good and necessary projects, can SA’s economy afford them … all at the same time?” And second, “is anyone counting the total cost to the economy and puzzling out which projects should take priority, and whether some should wait (or be dropped altogether)?”. (shrink)

History and memory rank as central themes in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. As one of the last philosophers of the 19th century, Nietzsche naturally belongs to the so-called ‘historical century’. The contentious exchange with the past and with antiquity – as much as the mechanisms, the dangers, and the lessons of memory and tradition – are continually examined and stand in close relationship with Nietzsche’s vision of life and his project of human development. As Jacob Burckhardt once wrote (...) of the cultural critique to his Basel colleague: "Fundamentally, you are always teaching history". Following Burckhardt’s judgment, the contributors focus on the analysis of core questions in the philosophies of history and memory, and their respective convergence in the thought of Nietzsche. The epistemological relevance of these central concepts will be thematized alongside those concerning tradition, and education. The discussion of these rich themes unifies a broad spectrum of questions, ranging from cultural memory to contemporary philosophy of mind. The contributions are revised versions of selected papers presented at the 2018 conference of the annual meeting of the Nietzsche Society in Naumburg. (shrink)

The article proposes to consider Hegel's “Science of Logic” as a project, where the most important thing is not to describe the “laws of thinking”, but rather to propose a more precise definition of the theoretical level at which thinking itself becomes the subject of its own description. Thus, on the one hand, Hegel reveals the paradox that lies at the basis of the logic as a philosophical discipline, and on the other, seeks to show the possibility of the (...) existence of the logic in the extreme conditions of this paradox. Within the framework of this approach, logic is inseparable from the theory of knowledge — it is assumed that the configuration or “form” of thinking cannot be “neutral” with respect to its content. Therefore, according to Hegel, in reality there is not the logic of isolated operations occurring in the mind, but the logic of “the object itself”, which shows and directly embodies itself in these operations. At this level, there is no gap between the thinking consciousness and objects of the external world separated from it. We are talking about a special — “pre-ontological” — dimension, where the subject's sensory experience is not yet launched and distinguished, and a subject of the thinking process and thinking itself form a single whole. Such a dimension is developed in the historical experience of philosophical thought, starting from Antiquity, and is captured by Hegel under the name of “Ultimate knowledge”. The article raises the question of why this dimension repeatedly eludes us, acquiring a “semi-mystical” status in the minds of Hegel's interpreters, and yet how it is still possible to infiltrate into it. (shrink)

The dominant image of judicial authority is emotional detachment; however, judicial work involves emotion. This presents a challenge for researchers to investigate emotions where they are disavowed. Two projects, one in Australia and another in Sweden, use multiple sociological research methods to study judicial experience, expression, and management of emotion. In both projects, observational research examines judicial officers’ display of emotion in court, while interviews investigate judicial emotional experiences. Surveys in Australia identify emotions judicial officers generally find important in their (...) work; in Sweden, shadowing allows researchers to investigate individual judicial emotion experiences and expression. Evaluating the different methods used demonstrates the limitations and effectiveness of particular research designs, the value of multiple methods and the challenges for researching emotion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s ShadowWalter L. ReedPostmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow, by Brian D. Ingraffia; xvi & 284 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, $59.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.At the beginning of John Updike’s new novel In the Beauty of the Lilies, a Presbyterian minister, trained by the Princeton Fundamentalists in the early years of the 20th century, is reading a book (...) by the popular agnostic Robert Ingersoll when he suddenly loses his faith. Brian Ingraffia’s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology puts secular clerics at the end of the century, secure in their atheism or agnosticism, in danger of the opposite fate. Postmodern theorists are at risk here of losing their doubt. At least they are in danger of losing their confidence that Christianity need not be taken seriously since Nietzsche announced its demise and Heidegger and Derrida elaborated its obituary.Ingraffia is straightforward about his intentions. “In this study I seek to analyze critically the antipathy exhibited in postmodern theory toward theology,” he begins. “Whereas modernism tried to elevate man into God’s place, postmodern theory seeks to destroy or deconstruct the very place and attributes of God” (p. 1). Ingraffia focuses on Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, arguably the three most rigorous and original philosophers of what has come to be known more loosely as postmodern theory. He analyzes the development of each writer’s critique of Western metaphysics in its own right, but he also attends to the genealogy of subversive genealogies among them—in Heidegger’s critique of the residual metaphysics of Nietzsche, for example, [End Page 184] and Derrida’s attempt to deconstruct, at times by appealing to concepts from Nietzsche, the residual ontotheology of Heidegger. “By deconstructing the metaphysics of presence, these thinkers all claim to have deconstructed ontotheology, [that is,] both Greek metaphysics and Christian theology,” Ingraffia concludes. But as he has argued in different specific contexts throughout his persuasive book, “the logos of biblical theology is radically different from the logos of Greek philosophy and modern rationalism,” these being the real sources or substance of the ontotheology that postmoderism is so dead set against (p. 237). In planting a headstone over Christian theology, in other words, postmodern theory has got the wrong grave.The genuine “biblical theology” Ingraffia counterposes to the misrepresentations of Christianity by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida is found first and foremost in the New Testament letters of Paul. It is one of the striking features of the book that it brings a powerful voice from the first century into conversation and controversy with these powerful voices from the modern era. “The inventor of Christianity,” as Nietzsche labeled Paul in one of his many bitter aphorisms, is the central spokesman for the Christian understanding of truth that postmodernism has, deliberately as well as misadvertently, according to Ingraffia, misconstrued. Thus Paul’s doctrine of “the redemptive-eschatological separation between the present world and the world to come” (pp. 62 ff.), especially in the Letter to the Philippians, is set against Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence; Paul’s discrimination of “flesh and spirit,” with a salutary attention to the koiné Greek meanings of these terms and their cognates in the Letter to the Romans, is opposed to Heidegger’s doctrine of the authentic self. And in the most original of Ingraffia’s Pauline probes, Paul’s distinction between the “letter” (gramma) foolishly grasped and the “Scripture” (graphe) spiritually apprehended in the Second Letter to the Corinthians is counterposed to Derrida’s grammatology, where arche-writing effectively levels all hierarchies and distinctions.The strength of Ingraffia’s argument lies in his clear and, on one level, sympathetic exposition of the different but related projects of these three thinkers. This is not the kind of defensive dismissal of “secular humanism” or “godless philosophy” that evangelical Christianity has sometimes made from behind the barricades of its antimodernist revolt. With lucid expositions of crucial turns of their arguments and judicious appeals to current scholarship on each figure, Ingraffia shows how Nietzsche and Heidegger, “theology students turned philosopher” (p. 47), derive important concepts by borrowing from Christian theology on the one hand... (shrink)

This paper describes an exploratory comparative study of knowledge workers and their challenges in high tech global project teams. More specifically we focus on the tension between perceived collocation and actual geographical distributed project work as a function of: (1) the demand to distribute and shift attention in multi-teaming, (2) virtuality i.e. number of virtual teams participants engage in, (3) the continuous adjustment and re-adjustment to new places they perform their activity, and (4) the collaboration technologies they use. (...) We present the methodology for data collection that included semi-structured interviews, surveys, and on site shadowing of the project participants, and discuss the findings from the data analysis. The study is based on the bricks-bits-interaction framework. It is at the intersection of the design of physical spaces, i.e., bricks; rich digital information and collaboration technology (ICT) content, mobile devices and network infrastructures, i.e., bits, and emergent work practices, process, and new ways people behave in communicative events using the affordances of ICT augmented physical, virtual spaces and digital content, i.e., interaction. (shrink)

The idea of a unity of intellectual history (Geistesgeschichte) is a genuinely philosophical thought. In the shadow of Hegel, it is about the legitimation of historiographical work in a universal perspective thought centered in Europe. The legitimation strategies are complex and amount to the formation of a canon of philosophy. This project is associated with the name of the philosopher and historian of philosophy Wilhelm Dilthey. Dilthey saw it as his task to secure the unity of intellectual history. (...) To this end, he introduced a pluralism of methods – logic, psychology, anthropology, philosophy of history, hermeneutics, literary research and others – into the study of intellectual history. I am speaking here of the Dilthey project, whose actuality, chances and risks are discussed in the article. (shrink)

Praise for Volume 1: "... a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces.... all the Peirce most people will ever need." —Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books Volume 2 of this convenient two-volume chronological reader’s edition provides the first comprehensive anthology of the brilliant American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce’s mature philosophy. A central focus of Volume 2 is Peirce’s evolving theory of signs and its appplication to his pragmatism.

The Bentham Project is delighted to announce a call for papers for “Bentham and Australia: Convicts, Utility, and Empire”, a conference to be held at University College London on 11-12 April 2019 to mark the forthcoming publication of Writings on Australia, a volume of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. The conference will explore themes such as the influence and impact of Bentham’s ideas on the theory and practice of punishment in convict Australia, on advocates and opponents of co...

Volume 8 of this landmark edition follows Peirce from May 1890 through July 1892—a period of turmoil as his career unraveled at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The loss of his principal source of income meant the beginning of permanent penury and a lifelong struggle to find gainful employment. His key achievement during these years is his celebrated Monist metaphysical project, which consists of five classic articles on evolutionary cosmology. Also included are reviews and essays from The Nation (...) in which Peirce critiques Paul Carus, William James, Auguste Comte, Cesare Lombroso, and Karl Pearson, and takes part in a famous dispute between Francis E. Abbot and Josiah Royce. Peirce's short philosophical essays, studies in non-Euclidean geometry and number theory, and his only known experiment in prose fiction complete his production during these years. Peirce's 1883-1909 contributions to the Century Dictionary form the content of volume 7 which is forthcoming. (shrink)

Praise for Volume 1: "... a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces.... all the Peirce most people will ever need." —Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books Volume 2 of this convenient two-volume chronological reader’s edition provides the first comprehensive anthology of the brilliant American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce’s mature philosophy. A central focus of Volume 2 is Peirce’s evolving theory of signs and its appplication to his pragmatism.

Shadow pictures radically changed the modern understanding of pictorial concepts. Tim Otto Roth’s broadly based cultural history traces the consequences of this revolution of methods of vision and image production in the sciences and the arts. By means of abundant image and text sources he develops a picture theory based on physics and projective geometry. This definitive book comprising 500 pages provides a generally understandable and vivid insight in the history of shadowgraphs from the 19th century until the present (...) age. A crucial role play scientific processes as the X-ray technique, but also the artistic examination of space and body. (shrink)