Allen Brent; Transcendental Arguments for the Forms of Knowledge, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 265–274, https://do.

Allen Brent; Multicultural Education and Relativism: a reply to Phillips-Bell, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 125–13.

Using clear language and numerous examples, each chapter of this guide analyses an individual plateau from Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, interpreting the work for students and scholars.

The debate between faith and reason has been a dominant feature of Western thought for more than two millennia. This book takes up the problem of the relation between philosophy and theology and proposes that this relation can be reconceived if both philosophy and theology are seen as different ways of organising affects. Brent Adkins and Paul R. Hinlicky break new ground in this timely debate in two ways. Firstly, they lay bare the contemporary dependence on Kant and (...) propose that our Kantian inheritance leaves us with an insuperable dualism. Secondly, the authors argue that the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze provides a way of resolving the debate between faith and reason that does justice to philosophy and theology by reconceiving of both as assemblages. Deleuze's philosophy differentiates domains of thought in terms of what they create. This seems like a particularly fruitful way to pursue the problem of the relations among philosophy and theology because it allows their distinction without at the same time placing them in opposition to one another. (shrink)

Introduction -- Spinoza : a user's guide -- The curious incident of the rude driver in the SUV -- What's love got to do with it? -- On not being oneself or the shmoopy effect -- The big picture -- What is mind? : no matter : what is matter? : never mind -- True freedom -- Bodies in motion -- The body politic -- Religion -- The environment -- Conclusion: How to be a Spinozist in three easy steps.

In his well-known essay “Who Thinksly?” Hegel argues that abstraction is in fact the sign of nonphilosophical thought.1 Despite the common misconception, only philosophical thought is truly concrete. In fact, thought itself, according to Hegel, is the movement from the abstract to the concrete. For philosophers this is an intuitively appealing idea insofar as it rescues philosophy from a charge leveled against it since Thales, namely, that philosophy is more concerned about abstract ideas than concrete reality. Within this context it (...) is difficult to know what to do with Deleuze’s championing of concepts such as “abstract machine” and his criticisms of some ideas as “not abstract enough.” The crucial... (shrink)

Brent Adkins traces the history of ethics and morality by examining six thinkers: Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche and Levinas. The book is divided into 3 sections - Ethics, Morality and Beyond. Two thinkers are paired in each section to show you how the important questions of moral philosophy have been answered so that you might better answer them for yourself. You'll learn what the philosophers actually said about how to live the best kind of life and, more (...) importantly, why. (shrink)

In the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant explicitly states that his motivation for writing this work is to make room for faith or the practical employment of reason . How does Kant accomplish this? The topics of God and the immortality of the soul do not arise until the conclusion of the antinomies. How does Kant get from the desire to make room for faith to its fulfilment in the latter parts of the (...) first Critique? A common response to this question is a discussion of the constitutive and regulative employment of the ideas of reason. It is this distinction that sustains Kant's attempt at reconciling empirical knowledge and moral discourse. The constitutive and regulative analysis, however, has its roots deep within the initial stages of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is, in fact, the mathematical/dynamical distinction, which Kant introduces early in the analytic, that makes possible the constitutive/regulative distinction. Not only has the mathematical/ dynamical distinction itself been disregarded, but the relation between the mathematical/dynamical and the constitutive/ regulative has been almost universally ignored by commentators. If a commentator does mention the mathematical/dynamical distinction, it is usually in a dismissive tone. Walsh, for example, calls the distinction ‘hard to interpret’ and ignores it for the rest of his commentary. (shrink)

While any number of topics would serve to compare and contrast Deleuze and Badiou, this article will focus on the event. Focusing on the event serves several purposes. First, it provides a vantage point from which to elucidate a number of key topics in both philosophers. Second, while Badiou’s most recent work is already organized around his conception of the event, Deleuze’s discussion of the event is more diffuse. Thus, a discussion of the event in Deleuze will serve as heuristic (...) to relate several of Deleuze’s (Deleuze and Guattari’s) texts. Finally, focusing on a single issue will clarify what is at stake in each conception of the event. (shrink)

Despite what its title might suggest, Death and Desire is a meditation on life. Using the texts of Hegel, Heidegger, and Deleuze, the author argues that philosophy has been dominated by a form of thought that focuses exclusively on death. The importance of Death and Desire lies in its refusal of the morbidity of much contemporary philosophy. Its uniqueness lies in placing Hegel, Heidegger, and Deleuze in conversation. Its usefulness lies in the clarity with which it articulates and compares these (...) very diverse thinkers. (shrink)

It is now commonplace to refer to the contemporary era as the Information Age. So common, in fact, that some take this as an indication that the Information Age is over.1 Putting aside rumors of the Information Age's untimely demise, I take up in this essay the scope and nature of information in its relation to thought. To be precise, I argue that information constitutes the contemporary image of thought. I'm taking "image of thought" here in its Deleuzian sense to (...) mean that information is no longer merely a metaphor for thinking about or describing thought; rather, information is, at bottom, the sole content of thought, and thinking is nothing other than the processing of information. We can see this tendency most... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the Deleuze–Badiou debate most criticisms of Badiou focus on how Badiou gets Deleuze wrong. What this defensive posture does not exploit, though, is the way in which Deleuze and Guattari can be seen to have anticipated and criticized Badiou's work. I argue that in A Thousand Plateaus, particularly “On Several Regimes of Signs,” Badiou's theory of the subject can be read as an attempt to extract a passional, postsignifying regime out of its mixture with a despotic, signifying regime. (...) It is here that we can locate all of Badiou's concerns about subject formation in fidelity to an event. (shrink)

“Transcendental empiricism” is a handy catchphrase for describing the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. It has the advantage of being paradoxical and also placing him in relation to Kant. As handy as it is, it is not without its difficulties. Chief among these difficulties is the precise nature of the “transcendental.” No doubt Deleuze chooses “transcendental empiricism” with Kant in mind, but there is also an important Sartrean element to his choice. In what follows I would like to take up the (...) question of the transcendental in Deleuze, especially as it relates to Sartre’s “transcendental field.” Within this context I argue that despite all of the precautions taken, the transcendental remains ineluctably haunted by a... (shrink)

Tragedy is a founding theme in disability studies. Critical disability studies have, since their inception, argued that understandings of disability as tragedy obscure the political dimensions of disability and are a barrier facing disabled persons in society. In this paper, we propose an affirmative understanding of tragedy, employing the philosophical works of Nietzsche, Spinoza and Hasana Sharp. Tragedy is not, we argue, something to be opposed by disability politics; we can affirm life within it. To make our case, we look (...) to an ongoing ethnography of two Canadian children’s rehabilitation clinics. Looking to the clinical experience of Canadian boys and young men diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and those of their families, we show how this affirmative understanding of tragedy allows us to pursue the themes of disability politics within tragedy. Contrary to an optimism that would eschew tragedy at all costs or a pessimistic approach that declines to act in the face of tragic circumstance, we argue that a revised understanding of tragedy allows us to situate the occasionally-tragic clinical experience of disability in a philosophy of life. Both disability and tragedy point us to the shared entanglements that make life what it is. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also (...) be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons. (shrink)

In this book, Newell makes the case for unified theories by setting forth a candidate.

Obtaining informed consent from patients prior to a medical or surgical procedure is a fundamental part of safe and ethical clinical practice. Currently, it is routine for a significant part of the consent process to be delegated to members of the clinical team not performing the procedure (eg, junior doctors). However, it is common for consent-taking delegates to lack sufficient time and clinical knowledge to adequately promote patient autonomy and informed decision-making. Such problems might be addressed in a number of (...) ways. One possible solution to this clinical dilemma is through the use of conversational artificial intelligence using large language models (LLMs). There is considerable interest in the potential benefits of such models in medicine. For delegated procedural consent, LLM could improve patients’ access to the relevant procedural information and therefore enhance informed decision-making.In this paper, we first outline a hypothetical example of delegation of consent to LLMs prior to surgery. We then discuss existing clinical guidelines for consent delegation and some of the ways in which current practice may fail to meet the ethical purposes of informed consent. We outline and discuss the ethical implications of delegating consent to LLMs in medicine concluding that at least in certain clinical situations, the benefits of LLMs potentially far outweigh those of current practices. (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light not only on (...) Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

Epitomised by tedium and existential vacuity, ennui insidiously permeates the psyche of healthcare professionals, often eluding detection. Its etiological roots extend beyond its salient exploration in French literature, harking back to the early Christian treatises on acedia or spiritual desuetude.1 Throughout the centuries, ennui has undergone a substantive evolution, mirroring the vicissitudes in cultural cognition and existential sentiment. Spanning from the discourse in medieval monasticism to cogitations during the Renaissance and Enlightenment epochs, ennui has metamorphosed into a pivotal motif across (...) the literary, philosophical and theological spectra.2 This intricate concept, embodying a profound and variegated historical lineage, has been meticulously dissected and recontextualised by a cadre of preeminent thinkers and literary connoisseurs. In the contemporary medical ethics landscape, ennui emerges from labyrinthine historical antecedents, manifesting as profound existential drift among healthcare professionals. This state, marked by discord between self and purposive existence, leads to disengagement and disillusionment, challenging practitioners’ resilience and ethical decision-making capacities. Ennui ignites introspection but insidiously undermines their engagement and fervour, casting a shadow over professional zeal and mental fortitude. In their reflections, existential philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus, diverging from Pascal’s theological exegesis, explored quintessential human experience and essence leitmotifs. Their analyses of despair and the absurd show parallels with ethical dilemmas and complexities in medical practice. …. (shrink)