"The thesis is radical," writes Marshall Sahlins of this landmark text in anthropology and political science. "We conventionally define the state as the regulation of violence; it may be the origin of it. Clastres's thesis is that economic expropriation and political coercion are inconsistent with the character of tribal society - which is to say, with the greater part of human history."Can there be a society that is not divided into oppressors and oppressed, or that refuses coercive state apparatuses? In (...) this beautifully written book, Pierre Clastres offers examples of South American Indian groups that, although without hierarchical leadership, were both affluent and complex. In so doing he refutes the usual negative definition of tribal society and poses its order as a radical critique of our own Western state of power.Born in 1934, Pierre Clastres was educated at the Sorbonne; throughout the 1960s he lived with Indian groups in Paraguay and Venezuela. From 1971 until his death in 1979 he was Director of Studies at the fifth section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris and held the Chair of Religion and Societies of the South American Indians there.Robert Hurley is the translator of the History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault and cotranslator of Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. (shrink)

"The thesis is radical," writes Marshall Sahlins of this landmark text in anthropology and political science. "We conventionally define the state as the regulation of violence; it may be the origin of it. Clastres's thesis is that economic expropriation and political coercion are inconsistent with the character of tribal society - which is to say, with the greater part of human history."Can there be a society that is not divided into oppressors and oppressed, or that refuses coercive state apparatuses? In (...) this beautifully written book, Pierre Clastres offers examples of South American Indian groups that, although without hierarchical leadership, were both affluent and complex. In so doing he refutes the usual negative definition of tribal society and poses its order as a radical critique of our own Western state of power.Born in 1934, Pierre Clastres was educated at the Sorbonne; throughout the 1960s he lived with Indian groups in Paraguay and Venezuela. From 1971 until his death in 1979 he was Director of Studies at the fifth section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris and held the Chair of Religion and Societies of the South American Indians there.Robert Hurley is the translator of the History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault and cotranslator of Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. (shrink)

Theory of Religion brings to philosophy what Bataille's earlier book, The Accursed Share, brought to anthropology and history; namely, an analysis based on notions of excess and expenditure. Bataille brilliantly defines religion as so many different attempts to respond to the universe's relentless generosity. Framed within his original theory of generalized economics and based on his masterly reading of archaic religious activity, Theory of Religion constitutes, along with The Accursed Share, the most important articulation of Bataille's work.Georges Bataille, founder of (...) the French review Critique, wrote fiction and essays on a wide range of topics. His books in English translation include Story of the Eye, Blue of Noon, Literature and Evil, Manet and Erotism.Robert Hurley is the translator of The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault and cotranslator of Anti Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Distributed for Zone Books. (shrink)

There is an impressive literature on organizational capacities that enable specific types of performance, but no work has been done on whether such capabilities extend to an organizational capacity for trustworthiness (CFT). This paper introduces the notion of a capacity for trustworthiness (CFT) defined as the collective capability of the organization to produce positive signals of trustworthiness to stakeholders. The antecedents to the CFT are bundles of organization routines that enable the firm to manifest trustworthiness and balance attending to both (...) financial and relational goals. The consequences of a high CFT are outcomes and behaviors that are congruent with pivotal stakeholder expectations and are, therefore, trust inducing. A process model is offered that outlines how an organization’s routines and CFT change in response to feedback and pressure and increase or decrease stakeholders’ trust. Implications for the management of stakeholder relations, trust repair, and the management of organizational systems are reviewed. (shrink)

As mental health nursing roles expand, is education expanding mental health nurses? an emotionally intelligent view towards preparation for psychological therapies and relatedness Mental health nurses (MHN) in the UK currently occupy a challenging position. This positioning is one that offers a view of expanding roles and responsibilities in both mental health act legislation and the delivery of psychological therapies, while simultaneously generic pre‐registration training is being considered. Clearly, the view from this position, although not without challenge and internal discipline (...) dispute, can also offer growing professional prestige, influence and respect from other health disciplines, as well as the wider public. Conversely, if the training, education and strategic enactment for new MHN roles is formulated and delivered from predominantly non‐MHN axiomatic and epistemological stances, MHN identity can be seriously and potentially permanently diminished. This paper offers the construct of emotional intelligence as a framework to respond to these future challenges through making individual MHN enablement a primacy. This enablement of MHNs through enhanced emotional intelligence competencies is argued as requiring priority over the standard approach of enhancing strategies alone. (shrink)

Biblical critics have traditionally objected to political interpretations of the NT. Bucking this trend, the author uses ideological criticism to interpret NT narratives from a political perspective. More specifically, he interprets the Christian story as a counter-story to the dominant narrative of imperial Rome, juxtaposing Christ and emperor, the institutionalized practices of ekklēsia and empire. This comparison is based on an original analysis of the relationships between narrative, religion and politics. As a first step, the author considers the use of (...) the narrative genre by political or religious actors to convince an audience of the viability of their vision for the future. (shrink)

Most Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. The Accursed Share provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher. Here he uses his unique economic theory as the basis for an incisive inquiry into the very nature of civilization. Unlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy. The result is a brilliant blend of ethics, aesthetics, and (...) cultural anthropology that challenges both mainstream economics and ethnology. (shrink)

The three volumes of The Accursed Share address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end of utility can only be uselessness. The first volume of The Accursed Share, the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that "it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems." This Zone edition includes in (...) a single volume a reconstruction, based on the versions published in Bataille's posthumous collected works, of his intended continuation of The Accursed Share.In the second and third volumes, The History of Eroticism and Sovereignty, Bataille explores the same paradox of utility, respectively from an anthropological and an ethical perspective. He first analyzes the fears and fascination, the prohibitions and the transgressions attached to the realm of eroticism as so many expressions of the "uselessness" of erotic life. It is just this expenditure of excess energy that demarcates the realm of human autonomy, of independence relative to.useful" ends. The study of eroticism therefore leads naturally to the examination of human sovereignty, in which Bataille defines the sovereign individual as one who consumes and does not labor, creating a life beyond the realm of utility.Georges Bataille, a philosopher and novelist sui generis, died in 1962. (shrink)

Robert Hurley | : Éphésiens 2 décrit l’offre de salut aux nations comme ayant été rendue possible « par le sang de Christ » et « par la croix du Christ ». La recherche actuelle tient pour acquis que le salut des nations dépend d’une troisième condition, à savoir leur incorporation dans la cité d’Israël. Une étude des lecteurs implicites et de l’auteur implicite de la lettre mène à une conclusion différente. Ce que Dieu accomplit dans le Christ (...) a été ordonné avant la fondation du monde et a préséance sur toute revendication juive au privilège découlant des « alliances de la promesse ». Dans le Christ, Dieu abolit la Loi et fonde une nouvelle communauté de justice et de vérité. Les saints d’Éphèse y rejoignent les saints d’ailleurs dans le monde pour s’opposer à l’esprit à l’oeuvre dans l’Empire romain et aux fils de la désobéissance qui sont ses fidèles soutiens et alliés. | : Ephesians 2 describes the offer of salvation to the nations as having been made possible “by the blood of Christ” and “through the cross of Christ”. In current research, a third condition for the salvation of the nations is believed to be present. Researchers have taken for granted that pagans must first be incorporated into the commonwealth of Israel before they can be saved. A study of the implied readers and implied author of the letter points to other conclusions. What God is doing in Christ was ordained before the foundations of the world and thus supersedes any Jewish claims of privilege flowing from the historical “covenants of promise”. In Christ, God abolishes the Law and founds a new commonwealth of justice and truth, in which the saints at Ephesus join the saints everywhere in their opposition to the spirit at work in the Roman Empire and its supporters. (shrink)

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Robert Myers’ interpretation of Davidson’s practical philosophy gets Davidson right in many fundamental respects. He rightly argues that Davidson avoids inconsistencies among internalism, ethical objectivity, and the belief-desire theory by modifying central elements of the Humean belief-desire theory, and that Davidson’s alternative legitimizes the extension of his interpretation and triangulation arguments into the practical sphere. But at a crucial fork in the interpretive road Myers loses his way. Davidson follows Anscombe down a different path, one that takes individual desires (...) to be constituted in part by evaluative judgements. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉL'interprétation de la philosophie pratique de Donald Davidson proposée par Robert Myers représente correctement maints aspects fondamentaux de sa pensée. Myers soutient à juste titre que Davidson évite les incohérences entre la position internaliste, l'objectivité éthique et le modèle croyance-désir en modifiant des éléments centraux de ce modèle, et que l'alternative proposée par Davidson rend légitime l'extension des arguments de l'interprétation et de la triangulation dans la sphère pratique. Cependant, Myers s’égare à une bifurcation cruciale de la route interprétative. (...) Davidson suit G.E.M. Anscombe sur une voie différente, une voie qui considère les désirs individuels comme constitués en partie par des jugements évaluatifs. (shrink)

Action is a means of acquiring perceptual information about the environment. Turning around, for example, alters your spatial relations to surrounding objects and, hence, which of their properties you visually perceive. Moving your hand over an object’s surface enables you to feel its shape, temperature, and texture. Sniffing and walking around a room enables you to track down the source of an unpleasant smell. Active or passive movements of the body can also generate useful sources of perceptual information (Gibson 1966, (...) 1979). The pattern of optic flow in the retinal image produced by forward locomotion, for example, contains information about the direction in which you are heading, while motion parallax is a “cue” used by the visual system to estimate the relative distances of objects in your field of view. In these uncontroversial ways and others, perception is instrumentally dependent on action. According to an explanatory framework that Susan Hurley (1998) dubs the “Input-Output Picture”, the dependence of perception on action is purely instrumental: "Movement can alter sensory inputs and so result in different perceptions… changes in output are merely a means to changes in input, on which perception depends directly" (1998: 342). -/- The action-based theories of perception, reviewed in this entry, challenge the Input-Output Picture. They maintain that perception can also depend in a noninstrumental or constitutive way on action (or, more generally, on capacities for object-directed motor control). This position has taken many different forms in the history of philosophy and psychology. Most action-based theories of perception in the last 300 years, however, have looked to action in order to explain how vision, in particular, acquires either all or some of its spatial representational content. Accordingly, these are the theories on which we shall focus here. -/- We begin in Section 1 by discussing George Berkeley’s Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), the historical locus classicus of action-based theories of perception, and one of the most influential texts on vision ever written. Berkeley argues that the basic or “proper” deliverance of vision is not an arrangement of voluminous objects in three-dimensional space, but rather a two-dimensional manifold of light and color. We then turn to a discussion of Lotze, Helmholtz, and the local sign doctrine. The “local signs” were felt cues for the mind to know what sort of spatial content to imbue visual experience with. For Lotze, these cues were “inflowing” kinaesthetic feelings that result from actually moving the eyes, while, for Helmholtz, they were “outflowing” motor commands sent to move the eyes. -/- In Section 2, we discuss sensorimotor contingency theories, which became prominent in the 20thcentury. These views maintain that an ability to predict the sensory consequences of self-initiated actions is necessary for perception. Among the motivations for this family of theories is the problem of visual direction constancy—why do objects appear to be stationary even though the locations on the retina to which they reflect light change with every eye movement?—as well as experiments on adaptation to optical rearrangement devices (ORDs) and sensory substitution. -/- Section 3 examines two other important 20th century theories. According to what we shall call the motor component theory, efference copies generated in the oculomotor system and/or proprioceptive feedback from eye-movements are used together with incoming sensory inputs to determine the spatial attributes of perceived objects. Efferent readiness theories, by contrast, look to the particular ways in which perceptual states prepare the observer to move and act in relation to the environment. The modest readiness theory, as we shall call it, claims that the way an object’s spatial attributes are represented in visual experience can be modulated by one or another form of covert action planning. The bold readiness theory argues for the stronger claim that perception just is covert readiness for action. -/- In Section 4, we move to the disposition theory, most influentially articulated by Gareth Evans (1982, 1985), but more recently defended by Rick Grush (2000, 2007). Evans’ theory is, at its core, very similar to the bold efferent readiness theory. There are some notable differences, though. Evans’ account is more finely articulated in some philosophical respects. It also does not posit a reduction of perception to behavioral dispositions, but rather posits that certain complicated relations between perceptual input and behavioral provide spatial content. Grush proposes a very specific theory that is like Evans’ in that it does not posit a reduction, but unlike Evans’ view, does not put behavioral dispositions and sensory input on an undifferentiated footing. (shrink)

According to proponents of the sensorimotor contingency theory of perception (Hurley & Noë 2003, Noë 2004, O’Regan 2011), active control of camera movement is necessary for the emergence of distal attribution in tactile-visual sensory substitution (TVSS) because it enables the subject to acquire knowledge of the way stimulation in the substituting modality varies as a function of self-initiated, bodily action. This chapter, by contrast, approaches distal attribution as a solution to a causal inference problem faced by the subject’s perceptual (...) systems. Given all of the available endogenous and exogenous evidence available to those systems, what is the most probable source of stimulation in the substituting modality? From this perspective, active control over the camera’s movements matters for rather different reasons. Most importantly, it generates proprioceptive and efference-copy based information about the camera’s body-relative position necessary to make use of the spatial cues present in the stimulation that the subject receives for purposes of egocentric object localization. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉEn réponse à Paul Hurley, je soutiens que l'argument de la triangulation de Donald Davidson ne peut s'appliquer aux croyances normatives que si ces croyances correspondent à des propriétés à la fois normatives et causales. L'argument engage donc Davidson à une forme de naturalisme non-réductif et étonnamment non-révisionniste. En réponse à Kirk Ludwig, je soutiens que Davidson avait de bonnes raisons d'abandonner les théories humiennes des pro-attitudes, parce qu'il avait de bonnes raisons d'accepter la forme de naturalisme non-réductive et (...) non-révisionniste qui émerge une fois que l'argument de la triangulation est appliqué aux croyances normatives. (shrink)

This article challenges the general thesis that an unconditional basic income, set at the highest sustainable level, is required for maximizing the income-leisure opportunities of the least advantaged, when income varies according to the responsible factor of labor input. In a linear optimal taxation model (of a type suggested by Vandenbroucke 2001) in which opportunities depend only on individual productivity, adding the instrument of a uniform wage subsidy generates an array of undominated policies besides the basic income maximizing policy, including (...) a “zero basic income” policy which equalizes the post-tax wage rate. The choice among such undominated policies may be guided by distinct normative criteria which supplement the maximin objective in various ways. It is shown that most of these criteria will be compatible with, or actually select, the zero basic income policy and reject the basic income maximizing one. In view of the model's limited realism, the force of this main conclusion is discussed both in relation to Van Parijs' argument for basic income in Real Freedom for All (1995) and to some key empirical conditions in the real world. Footnotes1 I am grateful for useful comments on various stages of this paper by Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, Mathias Hild, Dirk Van de gaer, Frank Vandenbroucke, Alex Voorhoeve, Roland van der Veen, Andrew Williams, Chris Woodard and an anonymous referee. Above all I thank Loek Groot for his contribution. The research has also been supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Social and Political Theory Program of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. (shrink)

Confessions of the Flesh was first published in France in 2018 as Les Aveux de la Chair. It is the fourth volume of The History of Sexuality, the collection of works by Michel Foucault...

Tens of thousands of students have learned to be more discerning at constructing and evaluating arguments with the help of Patrick J. Hurley. Hurley’s lucid, friendly, yet thorough presentation has made A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC the most widely used logic text in North America. In addition, the book’s accompanying technological resources, such as CengageNOW and Learning Logic, include interactive exercises as well as video and audio clips to reinforce what you read in the book and hear in (...) class. In short, you’ll have all the assistance you need to become a more logical thinker and communicator. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Nozick analyzes fundamental issues, such as the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundations of ethics, and the meaning of life.

Recently research on imitation and its role in social cognition has been flourishing across various disciplines. After briefly reviewing these developments under the headings of behavior, subpersonal mechanisms, and functions of imitation, I advance the _shared circuits_.

This provocative study revives a classical idea about rationality by developing analogies between the structure of personality and the structure of society in the context of contemporary work in the philosophy of mind, ehtics, decision theory, and social choice theory.

INTRODUCTION: REASON AND THE PASSIONS i. Philosophy? This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. ...

This important book charts the development of philosophical thinking about history over the past 250 years, combining extracts from key texts with new explanatory and critical discussion. The book is designed to make the work of thinkers such as Hume, Herder, Hegel, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault accessible to students with no prior knowledge of Western philosophy. An introductory section is followed by nine further chapters exploring contrasting schools of thought. The volume reveals the origins of contemporary trends in the (...) discipline and relates wider philosophical reflections to the study of history itself. It also points to connections between philosophy of history and literary and cultural theory which have developed in recent decades. (shrink)

I distinguish two different senses in which philosophers speak of moral verdicts, senses that in turn invite two different senses of moral overridingness. Although one of these senses, that upon which moral verdicts are taken to reflect decisive reasons from a distinctively moral standpoint, currently dominates the moral overridingness debate, my focus is the other sense, upon which moral verdicts are taken to reflect decisive reasons that are distinctively moral. I demonstrate that the recent tendency to emphasize the now dominant (...) sense to the exclusion of the alternative, couple with the failure to disambiguate the two senses, has fundamentally skewed central debates in moral theory. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

it has recently been discovered that propranolol — a beta-blocker traditionally used to treat cardiac arrhythmias and hypertension — might disrupt the formation of the emotionally disturbing memories that typically occur in the wake of traumatic events and consequently prevent the onset of trauma-induced psychological injuries such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. One context in which the use of propranolol is generating interest in both the popufor and scientific press is sexual violence. Nevertheless, feminists have so far not weighed in on (...) propranolol. I suggest that the time is ripe for a careful feminist analysis of the moral and political implications of propranolol use in the context of sexual violence. In this paper, I map the feminist issues potentially raised by providing propranolol to victims of sexual assault, focusing in particufor on the compatibility of propranolol use and avaüability with an understanding of the social and systematic dimensions of rape s harms. I do not deliver a final verdict on propranolol; in fact, I show that we do not yet have enough information about propranolol's effects to do so. Rather, 1 provide a feminist framework for evaluating the possibilities and penis opened up by therapeutic memory manipuktion in the context of sexual violence against women. (shrink)

Hurley’s is a difficult book to work through—partly because of its length and the complexity of its arguments, but also because each of the ten essays of which it is composed has a rather different starting point and focus, and because few of her arguments achieve real closure. Essay 2 discusses competing interpretations of Kant, essay 4 articulates nonconceptual forms of self-consciousness, essay 5 offers fresh interpretations of commissurotomy patients’ behavior, essay 6 develops an objection to Wittgenstein on rule (...) following, essay 8 attacks an alleged assumption of externalism, and chapter 10 explores the possibility of combining a “motor theory” and a “control theory” of perception. This is a very rich brew, and at least half the challenge this book presents consists in discerning its central argument and conclusion with enough precision to bring criticism to bear. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1995, given by Susan Hurley (1954-2007), an American philosopher.