After decades of single issue movements and identity politics on the U.S. left, the series of large demonstrations beginning in 1999 in Seattle have led many to wonder if activist politics can now come together around a common theme of global justice. This book pursues the prospects for progressive political movements in the 21st century with case studies of ten representative movements, including the anti-globalization forces, environmental interest groups, and new takes on the peace movement.

Despite the presumed frequency of conflicts of interest in scientific peer review, there is a paucity of data in the literature reporting on the frequency and type of conflicts that occur, particularly with regard to the peer review of basic science applications. To address this gap, the American Institute of Biological Sciences conducted a retrospective analysis of conflict of interest data from the peer review of 282 biomedical research applications via several onsite review panels. The overall conflicted-ness of these (...) panels was significantly lower than that reported for regulatory review. In addition, the majority of identified conflicts were institutional or collaborative in nature. No direct financial conflicts were identified, although this is likely due to the relatively basic science nature of the research. It was also found that 65 % of identified conflicts were manually detected by AIBS staff searching reviewer CVs and application documents, with the remaining 35 % resulting from self-reporting. The lack of self-reporting may be in part attributed to a lack of perceived risk of the conflict. This result indicates that many potential conflicts go unreported in peer review, underscoring the importance of improving detection methods and standardizing the reporting of reviewer and applicant conflict of interest information. (shrink)

Pretende-se nesse trabalho analisar a crítica do filósofo judeu-alemão Hans Jonas à ideia de progresso e sua perspectiva prática, a ideia de desenvolvimento. Tal perspectiva, segundo o autor, surge de uma mudança no status do saber na era moderna, o que significa reconhecer que a ciência moderna será colocada a serviço dessa ideia. O avanço da problemática ambiental, contudo, exige uma reavaliação ética de tal cenário, fazendo com que a simples utopia do desenvolvimento seja substituída por medidas de prevenção, antecipação (...) dos efeitos negativos e até mesmo por freios voluntários. A política, assim, deve reorientar a ciência em nome de um novo papel: não apenas analisar o fato ocorrido, mas prevê-lo e, quiçá, contribuir para evita-lo. (shrink)

There appears to be a wide measure of agreement, both amongst biologists and others, that Darwin's theory of evolution marks a major breakthrough in the science of biology; Darwin has even been called ‘Biology's Newton’, the highest term of praise that could be bestowed on a scientist. A. G. N. Flew, considering the matter from a philosophical point of view, says: ‘Yet one of the most important of all scientific theories is that developed by Darwin in his Origin of Species (...) . Covering the entire range of biological phenomena its scope is enormous. While if any scientific theory is interesting philosophically this one is.’ In spite of the testimony of both biologists and philosophers of science to the importance of the theory, it does not appear to play anything like the same role in biology as does Newton's theory in physics. For modern physics would be. (shrink)

A law, say, prohibits homosexual conduct or punishes the prostitute for plying her trade. According to some it is a bad law, according to others a necessary one. Those who argue that it is a bad law do so on a variety of grounds—that it is sheer folly to try to change human nature by law, that such legislation can only be effective at the price of the right to privacy, that the punishment of acts arising from compelling desires is (...) cruel and excessive, that the law has no business meddling in what people do to others with their consent. Those who argue that it is a necessary law do so on one ground, that the act in question is immoral, and that what is wrong must be punished, lest the law itself fall into disrepute by failing to carry out a consistent campaign against wrong-doing. (shrink)

In this paper I want to examine the notion of desert, which seems to have been neglected by contemporary philosophers. Apartfrom its interest in its own right, it is important to be clear about the meaning of the word if there is to be any understanding of the idea of punishment. And that we are confused over the whole issue of punishment is obvious both from the remarks of professional philosophers and from the comments of the ‘man in the street’. (...) Because of this confusion, the discussion of any actual punishment seems to take place between two parties who never get to grips with the arguments of the other, as in the whole debate over the death penalty. To one set of people, it is obvious that the retention of hanging depends to a large extent on the question of its effectiveness in deterring murderers; to another it is equally obvious that the murderer ‘deserves’ to hang, and that there is no more to be said about the matter. Capital punishment is not a good starting-point for a discussion of punishment in general, for death is clearly unique among penalties; in addition, the topic gives rise inevitably to much sentimentality and resulting muddle-headedness. (shrink)

In this paper we conduct an analysis of the critical narratives of Stardew Valley and compare them to other relevant videogames in order to develop new possibilities for an ecological critique of capitalist extractive econo­mies. Critical narratives of this game are aimed primarily at the alienating conditions of labour and deeply devastating modes of production under capitalism that impact and severely damage the environment. Analysing these narratives, we superimpose the immediate messages of the game with the procedural rhetoric and material (...) conditions of their existence. Over the course of our analysis, we highlight a material-narrative disso­nance which, in the case of Stardew Valley, fails to function as a commu­nicative strategy of the game and remains its mere external contradiction. Although the game’s critical narrative may seem overly utopian and its political imaginary a bit underdeveloped, the game elaborates on concrete ways to tackle the alienation of labour and resolve the ecological crisis. In addition to this, the paper covers the history of the interplay between the video game industry and the field of global ecological crisis research. We compare the attempts to raise awareness of the videogames’ own material­ity that preceded Stardew Valley. We conclude that Stardew Valley utilises the language of sustainable co-existence and wasteless local production, expanding this logic both to the sphere of labour and the spectrum of en­vironmental problems. In the case of ecological critique, some gameplay decisions in Stardew Valley enable us to come up with new strategies aimed at creating critical narratives about the environment in videogames. Thus supplementing Stardew Valley’s findings with critical tropes derived from other games (mainly, Rain World), we were able to gather a set of theoretical instruments that could facilitate the creation of games about ecosystems. Following Donna Haraway’s emphasis on the crucial role of narrative fram­ing (“it matters which stories tell stories”), we highlight new opportunities for the entire medium of videogames. (shrink)

In their rare comments on Existentialism, contemporary British philosophers, with a few notable exceptions, frequently ridicule the use of “nothing” by such writers as Sartre and Heidegger. And when it is discovered that these writers maintain that the contemplation of nothingness gives rise to anguish, this ridicule is expressed even more strongly. What may be taken as a typical example of this tendency are Professor Ayer's remarks in his Horizon articles on Sartre. A characteristic quotation runs as follows: “In particular, (...) Sartre's reasoning on the subject of le néant seems to me exactly on a par with that of the King in Alice through the Looking-Glass … The point is that words like ‘nothing” and ‘nobody” are not used as the names of something insubstantial and mysterious; they are not used to name anything at all”;. (shrink)

In their rare comments on Existentialism, contemporary British philosophers, with a few notable exceptions, frequently ridicule the use of “nothing” by such writers as Sartre and Heidegger. And when it is discovered that these writers maintain that the contemplation of nothingness gives rise to anguish, this ridicule is expressed even more strongly. What may be taken as a typical example of this tendency are Professor Ayer's remarks in his Horizon articles on Sartre. A characteristic quotation runs as follows: “In particular, (...) Sartre's reasoning on the subject of le néant seems to me exactly on a par with that of the King in Alice through the Looking-Glass … The point is that words like ‘nothing” and ‘nobody” are not used as the names of something insubstantial and mysterious; they are not used to name anything at all”;. (shrink)

Utilitarianism has been attacked many times and from many points of view. Among other objections has been the charge that it cannot account for the moral phenomena connected with justice; we are interested, it is said, not only in producing as much good as possible, but also in distributing it in a certain way. The Utilitarian usually replies that these phenomena either can be deduced from Utilitarianism or are illusory, but a natural reluctance to go against the data of our (...) moral experience usually inclines him to the first alternative. One of the most interesting of the Utilitarians from this point of view is Sidgwick, because he makes Utilitarianism his philosophical basis, but at the same time he has a set of maxims 2 part of whose purpose is to cover the common-sense views on justice. In this article I shall consider the relations between these maxims and Utilitarianism, and shall try to show by means of an example that some of them do go beyond Utilitarianism, and that in so far, at any rate, as these maxims do represent the common-sense view, it and Utilitarianism are not in all cases strictly reconcilable. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo do presente artigo é contrapor à acusação de tecnofóbico, erroneamente dirigida a Hans Jonas, a sua proposta de uma ethical turn da tecnologia, cujas bases estariam na capacidade ética de impor contenções ao avanço utópico do progresso técnico, algo que leva a ética da responsabilidade ao polêmico conceito de “heurística do temor”. Para tanto, parte-se de um exame sobre o projeto jonasiano de uma filosofia da tecnologia, cuja terceira perspectiva seria valorativa, sendo esta a que ele melhor (...) desenvolveu. A partir daí, analisa-se qual seria o valor da tecnologia, com base no ponto de vista da vida para então se examinar, estrategicamente, a posição de Gerard Lebrun, para quem Jonas estaria entre os filósofos tecnofóbicos. O intuito, nesse caso, é demonstrar a incoerência de tal interpretação, precisamente porque o pensador francês, com grande atuação no Brasil, confunde a proposta da reorientação ética com a imposição de um poder exterior, de cunho paralisante.: The purpose of this article is to counter against the accusation of technophobic, wrongly directed to Hans Jonas, his proposal for an ethical turn of technology, whose bases would be on the ethical capacity to impose restraint on the utopian advance of technical progress, something that leads to the ethics of responsibility to the controversial concept of “heuristic of fear”. To do so, we started from an examination of the Jonasian project of a philosophy of technology, whose third perspective would be valuable, which is the one he developed best. From there, we will analyze what would be the value of technology from the point of view of life and then strategically analyze the position of Gerard Lebrun for whom Jonas should be placed among technophobic philosophers. Our aim, in this case, is to demonstrate the inconsistency of such an interpretation, precisely because the French thinker with an important presence in Brazil, confuses the proposal of ethical reorientation with the imposition of an external power, of a paralyzing type. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é pesquisar, no subterrâneo do pensamento de Martim Lutero, indícios de uma Denkweise, um modo de pensar que lhe seria peculiar. A hipótese é que há uma consistência filosófica nesse pensamento, mas que suas características o distinguem das razões filosóficas tradicionais da escolástica tardia. Os anos de imersão na Bíblia deram a Lutero não só uma interpretação da justiça da fé que foi revolucionária em sua época, mas também um modo de pensar que revela características do (...) que atualmente se vem redescobrindo como “pensamento semítico”. Esses elementos, em tensão criativa com a razão grega e subordinados à estrutura paradoxal do pensamento cristão, conferem um estatuto filosófico característico ao pensamento de Lutero. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:95. HUME AND NONLOGI CAL NECESSITY Flew substantially agrees with our main themes in Causal Powers, though he thinks our discussion should begin closer to the work of Hume himself. What to reply? Needless to say, we find no fault in his agreement with us and are happy for his support. The answer to the second part of his response is far more complicated and requires a bit of (...) background from Causal Powers. While contemporary Humeans differ in important details, they share certain commitments which constitute what we call the Humean tradition. This tradition and contemporary refinements of it are the targets of our criticisms and provide the crucial foil for presenting our own positive theory of natural necessity. Two important strands of the tradition, as we characterized it, are the In-principle (No-contradiction) argument and the argument against the possibility of a priori knowledge of matters of fact. (i) Since nature may change its course, 'C and not E' is not self-inconsistent. To the Humean the phrase "change in the course of nature" seems intuitively clear; to us it seems utterly opaque and itself in great need of analysis. We show that there are two possible interpretations of the phrase, one of which is selfinconsistent while the other, though coherent, does not establish the Humean conclusion that there is no necessary connection between matters of fact, (ii) The Humean assumes that 'p is contingent' and 'p is a posteriori. ' and 'p is necessary' and 'p is a priori, ' are materially equivalent, and then argues easily that since all causal propositions are a posteriori none of them can be a priori and so necessary. We offer numerous arguments to break up the assumed equivalencies and thus defeat the conclusion 96. of the Humean argument. We show that while all scientific propositions are indeed known a posteriori it does not follow that there are no justifiable propositions about natural kinds. Philosophers in other traditions have made a similar point in showing that "metaphysical necessity" does not entail "epistemic necessity." Indeed, in contrast to many contemporary Humeans, we are complete fallibilists and even reject the notion that there is a self-contained given which is incorrigible. In portraying various strands of "the Humean tradition" in Causal Powers, we were, of course, imputing these views to Hume himself. How could it be otherwise? In referring to the Humean tradition instead of to Hume we meant only to indicate (as do contemporary Humeans) that we were concerned only with what we take to be still very much alive in Hume's work. Hence it is puzzling to read Flew' s remark that we relate our own contributions to Hume "only most distantly." That we and contemporary Humeans are always correct in what we ascribe to Hume and in what we take to be still philosophically alive in his work may be open to question, but since Flew does not challenge any specific ascription there is no alleged misinterpretation to defend ourselves against. Flew suggests that we should show Hume to be wrong at the outset — convict him, so to speak, on the grounds of the inconsistencies in his own texts. He refers to the famous definition of 'cause' in the Inquiry, where Hume gives a factual rendition of 'cause' and then innocently equates it with a counterfactual counterpart. C. J. Ducasse, for many years an ardent critic of Hume texts, made this point nicely in 1924 in his splendid book Causation and the Types of Necessity. After quoting Hume's definition in the Inquiry Ducasse remarked: This statement, incidentally, is immediately followed by: "Or in other words where, if the first object had not been, the second never had 97. existed." But this, far from being only a different way of saying precisely the same thing, is on the contrary a precise way of saying a very different thing. For Hume very definitely maintains elsewhere that there is never any "if-ness" objectively observable at all, but only a "that-ness" constantly repeated in experience. So that only the first statement is consistent with his empiricism, and even in that first statement the words "are followed" should in strictness be replaced by... (shrink)

O ceticismo é por vezes descartado como uma doutrina absurda e merecedora do seu lugar distante na antiguidade. Nada poderia ser menos correto. O ceticismo continua extremamente relevante para o pensamento filosófico e científico de hoje, servindo como um lembrete de que a sabedoria não é barata nem segura. Nesse texto, o meu objetivo principal é reproduzir o raciocínio das discussões clássicas sobre o ceticismo, mas de uma maneira coloquial e contemporânea. Após seguir as linhas de pensamento de Sexto Empírico, (...) René Descartes, e David Hume, eu vou extrair e identificar claramente as teses centrais que marcam as suas ideias. A minha intenção, porém, não é a de sugerir que as suas teses são auto-evidentes, ou incontestáveis, ou até hoje ainda incontestadas. Muito pelo contrário. A minha intenção é produzir um aperitivo ao debate e um convite a discussão. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche and Rée: A Star FriendshipDaw-Nay N. R. Evans Jr.Robin Small. Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 247. Cloth, $45.00.Nietzsche attracts a wide range of scholarly enthusiasts. There are those who take Nietzsche seriously as a philosopher and study his works for their own sake, while others seek to mine his works for philosophical gold to determine what he might have (...) to offer their particular area of specialization (and sometimes these objectives overlap). On the other hand, there are those who seek to sensationalize Nietzsche by making him out to be a caricature or buffoon of sorts—far less deserving of the kind of seriousness we reserve for other figures such as Descartes or Kant. Instead, Nietzsche's philosophical legacy is colored by his ill health, alleged homosexuality, or "madness." Some recent biographies have only perpetuated the caricature. Fortunately, Small's book is not one of them.Small aims to explain the philosophical relationship between Nietzsche and Rée. Nietzsche's background is well known, while Rée's life has received only slight attention from scholars. Although he did not self-identify as Jewish, Rée was born into a wealthy Jewish family, which afforded him the luxury of attending several different German universities. After studying law, psychology, and physiology, he finally settled on philosophy. By the time Rée met Nietzsche, he had already defended a dissertation on Aristotle's ethics and published his first book, Psychological Observations, in 1875.Throughout the book, Small subtly fuses the personal with the philosophical without weakening the philosophical substance of Nietzsche's or Rée's ideas. In explaining Rée's influence on Nietzsche during the seven years of their friendship, Small accomplishes several objectives.First and foremost, Small illuminates the development of Nietzsche's thought from 1875 until 1882. It was during these years that Nietzsche published Human, All Too Human (1878; the first supplement to the book was published in 1879 and the second in 1880), Daybreak (1881), and The Gay Science (1882). More importantly, Small demonstrates the nexus between these works and Rée's Psychological Observations (1875) and The Origin of Moral Sensations.During the winter of 1876–77, Nietzsche and Rée lived together. At this time Nietzsche began writing Human, All Too Human, while Rée wrote The Origin of Moral Sensations. Nietzsche turned to Rée's Psychological Observations for headings for his own Human, All Too Human. Thus, "'On Religious Things' became 'The Religious Life,' while 'On Woman, Love and Marriage' became 'Woman and Child'" (28). As Nietzsche continued work on Human, All Too Human, Rée's The Origin of Moral Sensations was published and Nietzsche drew inspiration from this book as well. In section 40 of The Wanderer and His Shadow (the second supplement to Human, All Too Human), Nietzsche provides an abbreviated version of the core argument of that work, namely that the move away from utility and towards socially accepted norms as the determining factor in behavior is what led to morality. For these reasons, it is no surprise that Nietzsche referred to the "Rée-ness" of his work, and dubbed books like Human, All Too Human as "Réealism" (x, 33, 65). [End Page 672]Second, Small makes clear the shared philosophical sympathies that made their relationship possible. Their mutual admiration for Schopenhauer, denial of free will, skepticism about morality and metaphysics, and adherence to philosophical naturalism created a friendship that nurtured their philosophical development generally and their philosophical projects more specifically.Third, Small sheds light on how Nietzsche integrated Rée's aphoristic style into his own philosophical writings. This is helpful because it contextualizes Nietzsche's writing style during the time when his strict preoccupation with philological matters had ended and he began exhibiting contempt for morality and extolling the virtues of scientific knowledge.Fourth, Small discusses Nietzsche's break with Rée, the central tension of which he locates in Nietzsche's willingness to move beyond Rée's merely descriptive approach to moral phenomena towards a life-affirming philosophy. To be sure, Nietzsche envisioned Human, All Too... (shrink)

Nesse artigo eu proponho, partindo da distinção entre conceitos semânticos e conceitos ontológicos, a separação entre descrição semântica e postulação de entidades. A postulação de uma entidade implica o fornecimento de um critério de identificação, isto é, a verdade de uma asserção de identidade entre dois dispositivos de designação. Isso parece indicar que a existência da entidade seria garantida pela simples existência de um critério de identificação. Porém, esta é uma condição de significatividade para um termo referencial: que ele codifique (...) ou esteja associado a uma descrição identificadora. Tal descrição identificadora não pode, de modo algum, ser confundida com uma condição de existência para a entidade em questão. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that efforts to devise a unified theory of psychological knowledge are problematic, and that the cultivation of multiple theoretical lenses contributes to a more useful and self-aware psychology. Various forms of unificationism, and the rationales behind such efforts, are discussed. Two drawbacks of unified theories are then explored, along with the virtues of multiplicity. First, the assertion of a single perspective on psychological reality unduly limits the possibilities for usefully conceptualizing and engaging with the (...) world; it can also hamper critical reflection on the sociocultural embedded-ness of psychologists' theories and practices. Second, the type of unified theory likely to achieve hegemony will not be congenial to sociocultural theories and methods. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch out the way our bodies are engaged while commuting in order to elucidate several key aspects of the bodily experience of “in-between-ness.” I discover that within the rhythm and movement of the in-between, our bodies can open to a specific kind of conceptual creativity—an insight that I unfold in reference to the unanticipated innovation and transformation that accompanies other bodily experiences of in-between-ness more generally. This sketch, however, also demands that I reflect on (...) phenomenological methodology, and our ontological presuppositions about the “things” that we intend to “go back to.” I conclude by suggesting that while Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic ontology helps us explain the findings of my phenomenological sketch of commuting, Merleau-Ponty’s embodied phenomenology can help to flesh out Deleuze and Guattari’s suggestion that all the work happens in “the logic of the AND”. While the method I call on in this paper is decidedly phenomenological, the conclusions I reach invite me to explore further the promise of a more “rhizomatic phenomenological” practice. (shrink)