The struggle to “adapt” to the presence of the corpse serves as the central turning point for this investigation into the theatrical encounters with the corpse in the early modern anatomy theatre. Beginning with novelist W.G. Sebald’s claim, in The Rings of Saturn, that the art of anatomy was a way of “making the reprobate body invisible,” Alvarez queries how the corpse as the central “gure of this theatrical space challenges conventional modes of theatrical looking and how the particular viewing (...) procedures invited by the anatomy theatre, as a theatrical space, effectively make the body “unseen.” Using Restoration diarist Samuel Pepys’ documented encounter with a corpse and the early phenomenologist Aurel Kolnai’s writings On Disgust, Alvarez attempts to account for the “perceptual and interpretive black hole” that the corpse presents in this schema. The corpse’s “radical actuality” and, paradoxically, its “surplus of life” act as a cipher that cuts through the virtual space constructed by the anatomical demonstration, undermining the gravitas of the scientific gaze that has acquired its weight in contradistinction to the theatricality of the event. But the corpse’s “radical actuality” and its “surplus of life” introduces a danse macabre of theatrical looking that moves between absorption and repulsion, reversing the otherwise consumptive gaze of the onlooker. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It is well known that the medieval scholastics did not begin their philosophy systematically with an explicit theory of knowledge. Unfortunately many people have concluded from that fact that the very idea of an epistemology, and especially the idea of a critique of knowledge, was completely foreign to them. Within recent years authors such as Professor Van Steenberghen and Father Copleston have done a great deal to spread a correct understanding of St. Thomas’s views on this matter. Much evidence might (...) be adduced from the principal work of John Duns Scotus to show that he also took steps to justify man’s spontaneous conviction that some natural knowledge of truth with certainty can be attained. In this article we will consider some of these elements of Scotus’s philosophy as they are found in the volumes that have so far appeared in the critical edition of his works. (shrink)

The past fifty years have been a time of immense change in Ireland, as the country has moved from a traditional to a modern society. The introduction of electricity, the 'quiet revolution', was accompanied by changes in attitudes to Church, sex, relationships, property, emigration - to life in general. In that short time people have absorbed massive change, often enthusiastically, though perhaps with the occasional pang of regret for the 'old ways'. Here we see the faces, the landscapes and the (...) life of that recently disappeared Ireland - Jack Lynch, JFK, Grace Kelly, Dev, de Gaulle, the Troubles, folk traditions - alongside the new faces and the new styles of our modern society. (shrink)

When the richest 85 individuals in the world own as much as the poorest 3 billion people, one must ask about equity and social justice. Yet, the problem is not just individual, but also systemic. Just as nations have developed poverty lines to identify people who need help, so too, as this book argues, we need a measure of relative wealth that can guide policy makers, governments, development specialists, and economists. Approaching the question through theological, ethical, and economic analysis, the (...) book probes the dynamics of wealth creation, the effectiveness of national and international policies, and the underlying questions of poverty, wealth, and widening economic disparities. [Subject: Religious Studies, Ethics, Social Justice, Economic Policy]. (shrink)

Although his subject matter is far from abstract and his arguments comparatively free from obscurity, Bernard Mandeville has generally been acknowledged a difficult philosopher. It is not hard to see why. First, Mandeville deliberately sets out to generate paradoxes. Secondly, he is not a systematic writer. His views are expounded and developed in a number of works of which The Fable of the Bees is only the best known. Thirdly, and most important, he is not solely a philosopher, but also (...) a satirist. His satire is intertwined with his purely philosophical theories and his style is often highly ironic. Any interpretation of Mandeville must consider his philosophical and his satirical intentions. (shrink)

Marie-Aure´lie Bruno,1 Jan L Bernheim,2 Didier Ledoux,1 Fre´de´ric Pellas.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 81-85 [Access article in PDF] "What's in the Box Then, Mum?"—Death, Disability, and Dogma Sheila Colman OVERHEARD IN AN EXCHANGE between a bereaved woman and her son outside the church just prior to a funeral service: "What's in the box, then?" "Daddy." The son is in his late 30s and has a learning disability. His mother had prepared him as well as (...) she could; his father had been ill for some time and was not expected to recover. Death, and the rituals surrounding it, had been explained and it was not the first family funeral he had attended.Trying to field such childlike questions is typical of living with a person with a learning disability; trying to find the right words is difficult enough without the added pressure of personal emotional distress.The generally accepted norm in life is that a child is parented within the home until adulthood and then independence is attained. Roles may well be reversed in later life in that the "child" may find responsibilities in caring for, and making decisions for, elderly parents. Few people can stop parenting when their offspring are fledged—even though it is at arms length and any advice may be ignored. Life with a child with a learning disability is unbalanced in this respect; as carers we do not lead lives considered to be normal because our children continue to be childlike for the rest of their, and our, lives. Some of us know that our sons and daughters do not have "apparently limitless potential... to develop skills and autonomy if only they are given the right help" (but try, as a parent or carer, saying that to a professional working in the field of learning disability!) and know that the best we can hope for is mature, rather than immature, dependence.No one tells parents of a learning disabled child—or any other, for that matter—what their responsibilities to that child are. Food, warmth, love, support, and so on are givens, but it takes a conscious effort to move a child toward adulthood when it involves changes in life, for example, moving away from the family home. The debate rages; is it letting go or getting rid of?We all delight in the pleasures our children experience in childhood; we know the magic has gone from the family Christmas once realisation dawns on the youngest child. If you consider that your son or daughter has been dealt a very poor hand in life, the temptation to prolong and promote that innocence is very tempting. It is much easier to prevaricate than to admit that life has its unpleasant sides; that failure and disappointment exist: my son was a great fan of Thomas the Tank engine videos until he was in his early teens, long after it was age appropriate. I passed them onto a younger child, having told him the videos were lost. The fall-out was spectacular [End Page 81] (but fortunately short lived!) and he eventually became very interested in Formula 1 motor racing. I had to push him to grow up.For all of us, the transition from childhood to adulthood is a process, not an event. Although I agree with the professionals that the child with a learning disability should be part of any discussions concerning his or her future, if that child does not have the intellectual capacity to make informed choices, someone else has to do it. That someone else is usually a parent, but is it a parent who is prepared to let go to help that person become an adult with his or her own life away from the family home, or is it a parent who has protected and coddled the child by promising they will never have to go?Lest you think I am a particularly hard, confrontational, and unfeeling mother, I would point out that I have almost 50 years of experience of living with learning disability in the immediate family; my son is 20 but my brother... (shrink)

Dispossession describes the condition of those who have lost land, citizenship, property, and a broader belonging to the world. This thought-provoking book seeks to elaborate our understanding of dispossession outside of the conventional logic of possession, a hallmark of capitalism, liberalism, and humanism. Can dispossession simultaneously characterize political responses and opposition to the disenfranchisement associated with unjust dispossession of land, economic and political power, and basic conditions for living? In the context of neoliberal expropriation of labor and livelihood, dispossession opens (...) up a performative condition of being both affected by injustice and prompted to act. From the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa to the anti-neoliberal gatherings at Puerta del Sol, Syntagma and Zucchotti Park, an alternative political and affective economy of bodies in public is being formed. Bodies on the street are precarious - exposed to police force, they are also standing for, and opposing, their dispossession. These bodies insist upon their collective standing, organize themselves without and against hierarchy, and refuse to become disposable: they demand regard. This book interrogates the agonistic and open-ended corporeality and conviviality of the crowd as it assembles in cities to protest political and economic dispossession through a performative dispossession of the sovereign subject and its propriety. (shrink)

Microbes can influence host physiology and behavior in many ways. Here we review evidence suggesting that some microbes can contribute to host stress (and other microbes can contribute to increased resilience to stress). We explain how certain microbes, which we call “stress microbes,” can potentially benefit evolutionarily from inducing stress in a host, gaining access to host resources that can help fuel rapid microbial replication by increasing glucose levels in the blood, increasing intestinal permeability, and suppressing the immune system. Other (...) microbes, which we term “resilience microbes,” can potentially benefit from making hosts more resilient to stress. We hypothesize that “stress microbes” use a fast life history strategy involving greater host exploitation while “resilience microbes” use a slow life history strategy characterized by more aligned evolutionary interests with the host. In this paper, we review the evidence that microbes affect host stress and explain the evolutionary pressures that could lead microbes to manipulate host stress, discuss the physiological mechanisms that are known to be involved in both stress and microbial activity, and provide some testable predictions that follow from this hypothesis. (shrink)

Rational choice theory enjoys unprecedented popularity and influence in the behavioral and social sciences, but it generates intractable problems when applied to socially interactive decisions. In individual decisions, instrumental rationality is defined in terms of expected utility maximization. This becomes problematic in interactive decisions, when individuals have only partial control over the outcomes, because expected utility maximization is undefined in the absence of assumptions about how the other participants will behave. Game theory therefore incorporates not only rationality but also common (...) knowledge assumptions, enabling players to anticipate their co-players' strategies. Under these assumptions, disparate anomalies emerge. Instrumental rationality, conventionally interpreted, fails to explain intuitively obvious features of human interaction, yields predictions starkly at variance with experimental findings, and breaks down completely in certain cases. In particular, focal point selection in pure coordination games is inexplicable, though it is easily achieved in practice; the intuitively compelling payoff-dominance principle lacks rational justification; rationality in social dilemmas is self-defeating; a key solution concept for cooperative coalition games is frequently inapplicable; and rational choice in certain sequential games generates contradictions. In experiments, human players behave more cooperatively and receive higher payoffs than strict rationality would permit. Orthodox conceptions of rationality are evidently internally deficient and inadequate for explaining human interaction. Psychological game theory, based on nonstandard assumptions, is required to solve these problems, and some suggestions along these lines have already been put forward. Key Words: backward induction; Centipede game; common knowledge; cooperation; epistemic reasoning; game theory; payoff dominance; pure coordination game; rational choice theory; social dilemma. (shrink)

Orienting biases for speech may provide a foundation for language development. Although human infants show a bias for listening to speech from birth, the relation of a speech bias to later language development has not been established. Here, we examine whether infants' attention to speech directly predicts expressive vocabulary. Infants listened to speech or non-speech in a preferential listening procedure. Results show that infants' attention to speech at 12 months significantly predicted expressive vocabulary at 18 months, while indices of general (...) development did not. No predictive relationships were found for infants' attention to non-speech, or overall attention to sounds, suggesting that the relationship between speech and expressive vocabulary was not a function of infants' general attentiveness. Potentially ancient evolutionary perceptual capacities such as biases for conspecific vocalizations may provide a foundation for proficiency in formal systems such language, much like the approximate number sense may provide a foundation for formal mathematics. (shrink)

Research on ethical formation in engineering has largely focused on assessing students’ abilities to recognize ethical issues and reason through ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we depict a conceptual framework for understanding how students develop into ethical engineers that involves dimensions beyond ethical awareness and judgment. In particular, we explore the role of ethical motivation in engineering students’ ethical formation. Ethical motivation is the process of deciding to act upon an ethical decision based on one’s valuing of ethics, as well (...) as one’s ability to prioritize moral concerns and professional values over personal interests. To prepare students to prioritize ethical and professional obligations, ethical training needs to help students become aware of and prepared to act upon both personal and professional values. This paper demonstrates how ethical motivation can be operationalized and assessed in engineering ethics curriculum by sharing findings from assessments implemented during an interdisciplinary engineering ethics course across two semesters. Findings from this study will provide insights into how students internalize professional values into their views of engineers’ roles and ultimately into their future practice as engineers. The approach used in this study can guide instructors interested in assessing ethical motivation and related constructs in their curriculums. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Duijf claims to have proved that team reasoning can be viewed as a payoff transformation. His formalization mimics team reasoning but ignores its essential agency switch. The possibility of such a payoff transformation was never in doubt, does not imply that team reasoning can be viewed as a payoff transformation, and makes no sense in a game in which payoffs represent players’ utilities. A theorem is proved here that a simpler and more intuitive (...) payoff transformation can mimic any theory that predicts what strategies players will choose in a well-defined game. (shrink)

Purpose - The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of transformational leadership and transactional contingent reward as complementary, but distinct, forms of leadership on facets of organizational identification via the perception of innovation and goal organizational values. Design/methodology/approach – Three studies were carried out implementing either a measurement of mediation or experimental-causal-chain design to test for the hypothesized effects. Findings - The measurement of mediation study showed that transformational leadership had a positive direct and indirect effect, via (...) innovation value orientation, on cognitive identification, whereas transactional contingent reward was more strongly related to affective, rather than cognitive, identification, and goal orientation was a mediator of their link. The findings of the two experimental-causal-chain studies further supported the hypothesized effects. Transformational leadership was found to lead subordinates to perceive the culture as more innovative compared to transactional contingent reward, whereas transactional contingent reward led employees to perceive the culture as more goal, than innovation, oriented. Finally, innovation, compared to goal, value orientation increased cognitive identification, while goal orientation facilitated affective, rather than cognitive, identification. Implications - The practical implications involve the development of strategies organizations can apply, such as leadership training programs, to strengthen their ties with their employees, which, in turn, may have a positive impact on in-role, as well as extra-role, behaviors. Originality/Value – The originality of this research concerns the identification of distinct mechanisms explaining the effect of transformational leadership and transactional contingent reward on cognitive and affective identification applying an organizational culture perspective and a combination of measurement and causal mediation designs. (shrink)

The problem of values has given rise to a bewildering variety of theories. Louis Lavelle set himself the task of expounding and systematizing these diverse doctrines, of making “une sorte de tableau de toutes les directions dans lesquelles s’est engagée la reflection humaine au cours de son histoire, lorsqu’il s’est agi de definir pour elle la valeur absolue et les valeurs particulières”. He tried to bring order into the work of ages, situating it in a vaster order according to his (...) own views of man’s privileged place in the universe. Of course the study of values made by this great psychologist–metaphysician was far more than a lifeless gathering together of dry concepts: it involved a representation, from a new angle, of his entire philosophy of being. “Le problème essentiel de la métaphysique, le seul dont la solution puisse éclairer notre vie et guider notre conduite, c’est le problème du rapport entre l’être et la valeur”. M. Wesley Piersol now presents a fine compendium of Lavelle’s thought on value. He divides his study into four parts, aiming at thus keeping close to the line of development of the philosopher’s views. In the first part is found Lavelle’s analysis of the faculties of the moi, sentiment, will, preference, judgment of value. From this analysis is derived his understanding of the characters of value. Next comes a section on the incarnation of value by liberty in time: thus a psychology of value develops into a metaphysics of value. Finally, there is a section on the relation between axiology and ontology. The book is well planned and the matter clearly presented but, as anybody who is acquainted with Lavell’s writings must know, clarity and charm in presentation do not eliminate difficulty. (shrink)

Modal logics support philosophy, providing means to organise information, and to think and act in response to abstract concepts and to real conditions. In its organisation, the modal is generative of the ethics of any given system. Feminist new materialist practices require us to consider ethics when generated by technological rather than theological modalities.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 147-162.

Disorders of consciousness (DOC) raise profound scientific, clinical, ethical, and philosophical issues. Growing knowledge on fundamental principles of brain organization in healthy individuals offers new opportunities for a better understanding of residual brain function in DOCs. We here discuss new perspectives derived from a recently proposed scheme of brain organization underlying consciousness in healthy individuals. In this scheme, thalamo-cortical networks can be divided into two, often antagonistic, global systems: (i) a system of externally oriented, sensory-motor networks (the ‘‘extrinsic’’ system); and (...) (ii) a system of inward-oriented networks (the ‘‘intrinsic’’ or default system). According to this framework, four distinct mental states would be possible that could be relevant for understanding DOCs. In normal healthy volunteers and locked-in syndrome patients, a state of high functionality of both the extrinsic and intrinsic or default systems is expected — associated with full awareness of environment and self. In this case, mental imagery tasks combined with fMRI can be used to detect covert awareness in patients that are unable to communicate. According to the framework, two complementary states of system imbalance are also possible, in which one system is in a hyperfunctional state, while the other is hypoactive. Extrinsic system hyperfunction is expected to lead to a state of total sensory-motor ‘‘absorption’’ or ‘‘lost self.’’ In contrast, intrinsic or default system hyperfunction is expected to lead to a state of complete detachment from the external world. A state where both extrinsic and intrinsic systems are hypofunctional is predicted to lead to markedly impaired consciousness as seen in DOCs. Finally, we review the potential use of ultra-slow fluctuations in BOLD signal as a tool for assessing the functional integrity of extrinsic and intrinsic systems during ‘‘resting state’’ fMRI acquisitions.. (shrink)

This article applies a critical femininities perspective to the concept of women’s leadership, interrogating the market-oriented instrumentalization of femininity. The author presents empirical research consisting of in-depth interviews conducted with young women leaders in European student organizations. These participants juggle complicity and subversion as they negotiate the divergent expectations of femininity and leadership through interpersonal interactions and sociocultural positionalities. In these narratives the themes of social responsibility, difference, femininity, culture and embodiment are interlaced. The analysis of findings complicates monolithic interpretations (...) of femininity by evidencing intra-categorical fracturing, multiplicity in locations and manifestations of femininities, conflicting attachments and affective relations to femininity, and broader geopolitical contextualization. This theoretically and practically challenges tropes of hegemonic femininity, and presents opportunities for resistance. On this basis the author argues for countering the feminist trouble of engaging with non-transgressive femininity from within strongly normative spaces in the development of critical femininity studies. (shrink)

Smartphone use changes the landscape of social interactions, including introducing new social dilemmas to daily life. The challenge of putting down one's smartphone is an example of a classic coordination problem from game theory: the stag hunt game. In a stag hunt game, there are two possible coordination points, one that involves big payoffs for both partners (e.g., working together to hunt large game like stag) and one that involves smaller payoffs for both partners (e.g., individually hunting small game like (...) rabbits) but is safer because it does not require that your partner choose that option as well. This is similar to the challenges of putting down smartphones to have a face‐to‐face interaction: you and your interaction partner might both prefer the higher payoff option of having a face‐to‐face interaction, but neither of you wants to put down your phone and risk not having anything to do in the meantime. It is also discussed how new technological innovations are changing the payoffs of face‐to‐face conversation versus side‐by‐side smartphone scrolling. Insights that come from applying game theory to this “social media dilemma” are discussed here and potential solutions that come out of a game theoretic analysis are offered. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/9esL578zM‐E. (shrink)

Payoff dominance, a criterion for choosing between equilibrium points in games, is intuitively compelling, especially in matching games and other games of common interests, but it has not been justified from standard game-theoretic rationality assumptions. A psychological explanation of it is offered in terms of a form of reasoning that we call the Stackelberg heuristic in which players assume that their strategic thinking will be anticipated by their co-player(s). Two-person games are called Stackelberg-soluble if the players' strategies that maximize against (...) their co-players' best replies intersect in a Nash equilibrium. Proofs are given that every game of common interests is Stackelberg-soluble, that a Stackelberg solution is always a payoff-dominant outcome, and that in every game with multiple Nash equilibria a Stackelberg solution is a payoff-dominant equilibrium point. It is argued that the Stackelberg heuristic may be justified by evidentialist reasoning. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze published two radical books on film: Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Engaging with a wide range of film styles, histories and theories, Deleuze's writings treat film as a new form of philosophy. This ciné-philosophy offers a startling new way of understanding the complexities of the moving image, its technical concerns and constraints as well as its psychological and political outcomes. Deleuze and Cinema presents a step-by-step guide to the key concepts behind Deleuze's revolutionary theory (...) of the cinema. Exploring ideas through key directors and genres, Deleuze's method is illustrated with examples drawn from American, British, continental European, Russian and Asian cinema. Deleuze and Cinema provides the first introductory guide to Deleuze's radical methodology for screen analysis. It will be invaluable for students and teachers of film theory, film history and film forms. (shrink)

Trolley problems have been used in the development of moral theory and the psychological study of moral judgments and behavior. Most of this research has focused on people from the West, with implicit assumptions that moral intuitions should generalize and that moral psychology is universal. However, cultural differences may be associated with differences in moral judgments and behavior. We operationalized a trolley problem in the laboratory, with economic incentives and real-life consequences, and compared British and Chinese samples on moral behavior (...) and judgment. We found that Chinese participants were less willing to sacrifice one person to save five others, and less likely to consider such an action to be right. In a second study using three scenarios, including the standard scenario where lives are threatened by an on-coming train, fewer Chinese than British participants were willing to take action and sacrifice one to save five, and this cultural difference was more pronounced when the consequences were less severe than death. (shrink)

Drawing on a range of philosophical, anthropological and political theories, Athena Athanasiou offers a new way of thinking about agonistic performativity with its critical connections to national and gender politics and alongside the political intricacies of affectivity, courage and justice. Through an ethnographic account of the urban feminist and antinationalist movement Women in Black of Belgrade during the Yugoslav wars, she shows that we might understand their dissident politics of mourning as a means to refigure political life beyond sovereign (...) accounts of subjectivity and agency. (shrink)

In the introductory remarks to his inaugural lecture Professor Isaiah Berlin laments that so little attention is payed by professional philosophers to studies “about the ends of life”. Studies such as those to which the Chichele Chair of Social and Political Theory is dedicated “spring from and thrive on discord”. He observes.