Tomasello et al. argue that the “small difference that made a big difference” in the evolution of the human mind was the disposition to share intentions. Chimpanzees are said to understand certain mental states (like intentions), but not share them. We argue that an alternative model is better supported by the data: the capacity to represent mental states (and other unobservable phenomena) is a human specialization that co-evolved with natural language.

In his mature philosophical writings, Karl Jaspers juxtaposes his own theory of reason with what he considers irrational and dogmatising tendencies in the works of Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth. On Jaspers's view, both Bultmann and Barth construct theologies that serve as a priori frameworks through which to understand all the contingencies of existence. In opposition to such dogmatisms, Jaspers advances a hermeneutics that forbids, in advance, any permanent conclusions by proposing that we understand religious, artistic, and other (...) approaches to transcendence as ciphers. Such ciphers, Jaspers holds, offer no fixed and final interpretation of transcendence but offer a way to remain non-dogmatically open to a wide range of possible understandings of it. As opening up a non-dogmatic form of communication, cipher-reading is guided by reason's will to openness and communication. However, as I ultimately point out, Jaspers's own effort to develop a non-dogmatic hermeneutics is beset by some of the very difficulties he identifies in the theologies of Barth and Bultmann. (shrink)

In this paper on Karl Barth's conception of truth I shall try to state his position regarding the nature of truth and the criterion of truth, and secondly I shall draw from his position some propositions which I believe exhibit a pattern in his theology which brings it into close relationship to a philosophical tradition.

. Commanding Grace: Karl Barth's Theological Ethics Daniel L. Migliore Interest in Barth's theology continues to grow. Its consistently high quality, ...

In _The Preparation of the Novel_, a collection of lectures delivered at a defining moment in Roland Barthes's career (and completed just weeks before his death), the critic spoke of his struggle to discover a different way of writing and a new approach to life. _The Neutral_ preceded this work, containing Barthes's challenge to the classic oppositions of Western thought and his effort to establish new pathways of meaning. _How to Live Together_ predates both of these achievements, a series of (...) lectures exploring solitude and the degree of contact necessary for individuals to exist and create at their own pace. A distinct project that sets the tone for his subsequent lectures, _How to Live Together_ is a key introduction to Barthes's pedagogical methods and critical worldview. In this work, Barthes focuses on the concept of "idiorrhythmy," a productive form of living together in which one recognizes and respects the individual rhythms of the other. He explores this phenomenon through five texts that represent different living spaces and their associated ways of life: Émile Zola's _Pot-Bouille_, set in a Parisian apartment building; Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain_, which takes place in a sanatorium; André Gide's _La Séquestrée de Poitiers_, based on the true story of a woman confined to her bedroom; Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, about a castaway on a remote island; and Pallidius's _Lausiac History_, detailing the ascetic lives of the desert fathers. As with his previous lecture books, _How to Live Together_ exemplifies Barthes's singular approach to teaching, in which he invites his audience to investigate with him--or for him--and wholly incorporates his listeners into his discoveries. Rich with playful observations and suggestive prose, _How to Live Together_ orients English-speaking readers to the full power of Barthes's intellectual adventures. (shrink)

Friedrich Schleiermacher is often considered the Father of Modern Theology, known for his attempt to reconcile traditional Christian doctrines with philosophical criticisms and scientific discoveries. Despite the influence of his work on significant figures like Karl Barth, he has been largely ignored by contemporary theologians. Focussing on Schleiermacher's doctrine of sin, this book demonstrates how Schleiermacher has not only been misinterpreted, but also underestimated, and deserves a critical re-examination. The book approaches Schleiermacher on sin with respect to three themes: (...) one, its power to transcend an intractable metaethical dilemma at the heart of modern debates over sin; two, its intended compatibility with natural science; and three, to re-evaluating its place, and so Schleiermacher's place, in the history of theology. It solves and dissolves problems arising simultaneously from natural science, confessional theology, ethics, and metaphysics in a single, integrated account using Schleiermacher's understudied thought from his dogmatics The Christian Faith. In contrast to the account sometimes given of modern theology as marked by a break with "Greek metaphysics," Schleiermacher's account is shown to stand in stark contrast by retrieving, not excising, ancient thought in service of an account of sin adequate to natural science. This is a vital rediscovery of a foundational voice in theology. As such, it will greatly appeal to scholars of Modern Theology, theological ethics, and the history of Modern Christianity. (shrink)

This article argues that killing animals for food represents an extreme case within Christian moral thinking comparable to Karl Barth's Grenzfall argument against such violent acts as suicide, abortion, killing in self‐defense, capital punishment, and war. This position is in contrast to the view of many environmental philosophers who hold human hunting to be comparable to animal predation. It also disputes the language of substitutionary sacrifice prevalent in some Christian discussions of meat eating.

Do secular sciences provide theology with a neutral description of reality, as raw material for theology to reflect upon? Or, on the other side, can theology be considered a full‐blown social theory? What would a ‘supernatural sociology’ imply and look like? This essay addresses these questions following the insights of John Milbank. This British theologian has challenged mainline modern assumptions with his ‘radical orthodoxy’ project, stirring a fruitful debate not exempt from polemical exchanges. This essay offers a presentation of Milbank's (...) position, followed by a detailed and critical analysis of his views. The author then offers a theological framework within which to reconceive Milbank's proposal, extending some of his own claims regarding Karl Barth, Henri de Lubac, and Clodovis Boff. Finally this essay explores the possibilities, the scope, and some examples of what a ‘supernatural sociology’ might look like. (shrink)

Against the background of intellectual and political debates in France during the 1950s and 1960s, Daniel Just examines literary narratives and works of literary criticism arguing that these texts are more politically engaged than they may initially appear. As writings by Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, and Marguerite Duras show, seemingly disengaged literary principles - such as blankness, minimalism, silence, and indeterminateness - can be deployed to a number of potent political and ethical ends. At the time the (...) main focus of this activism was the escalation of violence in colonial Algeria. The poetics formulated by these writers suggests that blankness, weakness, and withdrawal from action are not symptoms of impotence and political escapism in the face of historical events, but deliberate literary strategies aimed to neutralize the drive to dominate others that characterized the colonial project. (shrink)

Daniel Ciunajcis Marcin Moskalewicz Time-Space of History. Transcendental Conditions of Practicing History as PoliticsThe article deals with the issue of time-space in modern historiography, and the main thesis is that time-space is a transcendental condition of the possibility of the practice of history and that modern victory of time over space has various negative implications that are underscored and analyzed. In the first part of the article, the authors present classical asymmetric concepts – Greeks vs. Barbarians and Christians vs. (...) Pagans – as analyzed by Reinhardt Koselleck. In the second part of the article, the advent of a new Christian temporality is being examined via Karl Barth’s interpretation (as presented in his Dogmatics in Outline) of Pontius Pilate’s last judgment over Jesus Christ. In this context three aspects of temporality are being discerned: the horizon of expectation represented by Jesus Christ, the space of experience represented by the Jewish community and eternity represented by Pontius Pilate. Pilate is recognized as taking the place of God in the political order: himself an embodiment of state, a symbol of its transcendence, and a transcendental condition of possibility of modern political life. In the third part the authors defend the thesis that thinking is an embodied phenomenon. While applying and criticizing Hannah Arendt, they indicate that thinking should be taken as an original source of human temporality and as a condition of possibility of organizing external space. The authors emphasize Arendt’s conception of a metaphor as a bridge between the sensible and the supersensible, with due attention to both differences and similarities between thinking and acting. Next, the authors analyze some consequences of their thesis for storytelling and political history being organized today mostly according to mere chronological paradigm. In the fourth part of the article, the authors pay attention to spatial organization of politics, arguing against Karl Schlögel, who claims that in late modern times national historiography was responsible for the dominance of the spatial paradigm. The argument defended is that even in the case of seemingly spatial organization of politics and history – as for example in a map – the temporal order is playing a predominant, even if hidden, role, and that space is being analyzed and valued according to temporal criteria. The predominantly temporal dynamics of modernization and modern supremacy of the future – as presented in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe Lexicon by Bielefeld School – is interpreted as a sign of loss and a symptom of narrowing our image of history. Keywords: time-space in modern historiography, transcendental condition of possibility of the practice of history, Reinhardt Koselleck, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

The article compares Roland Barthes’s and Juri Lotman’s notions of ‘second-order semiological systems’ [systemes semiologique seconds] and ‘secondary modelling systems’ [вторичные моделирующие системы]. It investigates the shared presuppositions of the two theories and their important divergences from each other, explaining them in terms of the opposite strategic roles that the notions of ‘ideology’ and ‘culture’ play in the work of Barthes and Lotman, respectively. The immersion of secondary modelling systems in culture as a “system of systems” characterized by internal heterogeneity, (...) allows Lotman to evidence their positive creative potential: the result of the tensions arising from cultural systemic plurality and heterogeneity may coincide with the emergence of new, unpredictable meanings in translation. The context of Barthes’s second-order semiological systems is instead provided by highly homogeneous ideological frames that appropriate the signs of the first-order system and make them into forms for significations which confirm, reproduce and transmit previously existing information generated by hegemonic social and cultural discourses. The article shows how these differences resurface and, partially, fade away in the theories of the text that Barthes and Lotman elaborated in the 1970s. The discussion is concluded by some remarks on the possible topicality of Barthes’s and Lotman’s approaches for contemporary semiotics and the humanities in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.2 (2006) 105-117 [Access article in PDF] Art and Failure Daniel A. Siedell Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition, by Klaus Ottmann. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications, 2004, 181 pp., $18.50 paperback. Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde, by Branden Joseph. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, 450 pp., $34.95 hardcover. The most optimistic (...) ethics have all begun by emphasizing the element of failure involved in the condition of man; without failure, no ethics. Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity1Failure is an inescapable part of the human condition. It is also an inescapable part of extraordinary human achievement. In fact, it is because failure is woven so deeply into their fabric that makes certain endeavors, like the arts, philosophy, science, and even sports, so extraordinary, so compelling, and ultimately so meaningful. There is therefore a close—but often underexamined—connection between extraordinary achievement and failure in the history of the arts and culture in the West. Two very different books, one a work of philosophy and the other a work of art history, converge on the presence of failure in extraordinary human achievement. New York-based art critic and independent curator Klaus Ottmann offers a philosophical study of genius from a postmodern perspective entitled The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition. Art historian Branden Joseph, who is assistant professor at the University of California-Irvine, offers a revisionist interpretation of Robert Rauschenberg's aesthetic project in Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde. The Genius Decision offers an illuminating philosophical framework within which to read Random Order.Ottmann begins his study with the following question: "How does one account for those extraordinary and exceptional works of art and literature that set one artist apart from the others; works that most artists, however skilled, would never be able to produce; that exert great influence on others" (13). Ottmann answers this question by interpreting the work of Franz Kafka, [End Page 105] Spinoza, Søren Kierkegaard, Friederich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger through a postmodernist lens provided in part by Jean-François Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, and other theorists. For example, he reads Kafka through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; Spinoza's Ethics through Deleuze; Kierkegaard through Adorno; Nietzsche through Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Heidegger; and Wittgenstein through P. M. S. Hacker. Foundational for Ottmann's thesis is theorist Julia Kristeva's concept of the Abject and its relationship to Jouissance—meaning "enjoyment," often connoting a sensual, even sexual pleasure—which has entered philosophical discourse via literary theorist Roland Barthes and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. For Kristeva, the Abject is the pressing of the "Unrepresentable" that requires a "sacrifice" of Jouissance; that is, a leap toward or a response to the inability to represent or give adequate form to this primordial ground of pure experiential bliss. For Ottmann, extraordinary achievement in art and philosophy consists of intentional and absolute leaps into certain failure in giving representation to what cannot be represented—despite its impossibility. This is what Ottmann calls the "Genius Decision." In contrast to passive explanations of extraordinary achievement, such as "accidental genius" and "physical genius," in which the individual can claim fortuitous circumstances or innate talent, the Genius Decision involves intentionality; it is a "decision" of some kind. But what kind of decision is it? Ottmann argues that it is an "active-passive" one. He then analyzes each of these influential thinkers as offering unique manifestations of the Genius Decision in their attempt to represent the Unrepresentable.Key to the Abject-Jouissance relationship is Ottmann's understanding of postmodernism. Rather than viewing it as a historical movement, Ottmann, following Jean-François Lyotard, regards it as a "condition," that is, as a nascent state within modernism. Ottmann characterizes the modern as recognizing and dwelling in the Abject, while the postmodern leaves the ambiguity of the Abject behind for the "certainty of failure" (49). The Genius Decision, then, comes out of a postmodern awareness of the impossibility of its... (shrink)

This article by Daniele Carluccio is studying the conjunction between cultism and transhumanism with three movements : a brief history of cultism, the analysis of the movie Ghost in the Shell (2017) and its reception, and a comment about a specific scene emphasizing a culto-transhumanist imaginary. Using some theoretical concepts, such as the cult movie of Umberto Eco or the moment of truth of Roland Barthes, Daniele Carluccio examines the theme of transhumanism and the definition of a movie as an (...) object of cultism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading Karl Barth, Interrupting Moral Technique, Transforming Biomedical Ethics by Ashley John MoyseJoshua DanielReading Karl Barth, Interrupting Moral Technique, Transforming Biomedical Ethics Ashley John Moyse NEW YORK: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2015. 263 PP. $100.00Reading Karl Barth, Interrupting Moral Technique, Transforming Biomedical Ethics by Ashley John Moyse is a work in fundamental theological bioethics. Rather than an applied approach that attends to particular dilemmas or issues—which falls (...) prey to the "moral technique" that is Moyse's main target—the author articulates an embodied ethical practice of postures, grounded in Karl Barth's theology, which promotes conversation over solitary reflection and plurality by way of particularity. Beyond usual complaints about contemporary biomedicine and bioethics, Moyse's subtle point is that standard bioethics, trapped in the totalizing grammar of common morality theory, functions as a technique, a tool to produce decisions more efficiently from the abstracted, disengaged stance of an impersonal agent. Hence, bioethics itself mimics the very technologies that provoke bioethical perplexities in the first place. What's needed, according to Moyse, is less a new theory than a new catechesis that can interrupt and transform standard bioethics at the level of embodied practice. [End Page 221]After an introduction that outlines the book's argument and perspective, the first chapter gives an account of bioethics' grounding in common morality theory (specifically, Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, and Bernard Gert). Ultimately, common morality is judged to be sinful, presuming that the proffered moral mastery of bioethics can secure the human good. Over the next three chapters, Moyse articulates, on the basis of Karl Barth and ancillary others, three postures of human flourishing involving dispossessing ourselves of moral mastery, each aligned with a theological virtue. First is the posture of openness or embodied solidarity, understood as a combination of the availability of our full attention to the other, with the fidelity to remain so available. Theologically, this aligns with love as self-surrender to the other and relates to Barth's account of humanity as cohumanity, existing essentially in encounter and community. Second is the posture of agency, understood as the freedom to act recognizant of the particular and provisional character of our decisions. This aligns with hope and is grounded in Barth's account of God's command as permission discerned through conscience and with others. Third is the posture of respect, which is a coalescence of openness and agency in view of our temporal finitude, consisting of reverence for the life we're given and resolve to live it in the face of illness and death. This aligns with faith and relates to Barth's account of God's command to live as the freedom to will to live within limitations. Moyse concludes with an illustration of how these postures might be exercised not as an application to a particular dilemma or issue but as a catechetical re-envisioning of our common moral space.Moyse makes a convincing case that Barth is a profitable theological resource for transforming bioethics, particularly in terms of shifting ethical attention from principles and rules to actual persons. While the exposition of Barth is excessive, much of it simply shoring up the book's theological credentials, what Moyse builds from it is salient. Still, he might have theorized the concept of posture more. The term is provocative in its corporeally concrete implications but vague as an ethical category. Moyse differentiates postures from Aristotelian habits yet doesn't clarify how postures differ from virtues. That Moyse aligns his postures with theological virtues only sharpens the problem. Relatedly, this reviewer wishes Moyse had engaged Edmund Pellegrino's medical ethical work: their shared discontent with principles-based bioethics but divergent intuitions of what bioethics should be (Pellegrino favoring a more philosophical, virtue-ethical, and humanistic perspective) would have helped define Moyse's contribution more sharply. Ultimately, these dissatisfactions are testimonies to this reviewer's appreciation for the substance of Moyse's own ethical voice and desire to hear it more clearly. [End Page 222]Joshua DanielUniversity of ChicagoCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

I argue that not only do Nietzsche and Camus share a sense of the world as fundamentally “strange,” but that each adopts an authorial position as stranger to the reader as well. The various strategies of concealment, evasion, and silence they employ to assure their authorial strangeness are in the service of what Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault would later call “the death of the author,” the disappearance of the author as authority over his or her own text. I argue (...) further, however, that within this largely shared commitment, Nietzsche and Camus finally have quite different conceptions of the goals of their respective authorships and different manners of pursuing their deaths as authors. These contrasts leave us, finally, with distinct constructions of the author as stranger. (shrink)

Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. This (...) way of speaking about God, adapted by Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, opens up new ways to think about the relation between God and finite minds. (shrink)

This essay explores the relationship between nature and grace and the theological impact of this relationship on feminist anthropological debates. Engaging this debate through an examination and critique of Serene Jones’ ‘eschatological essentialism’, this essay suggests that Jones mistakenly characterizes constructivism, and thus turns too quickly to an essentialist paradigm without considering its risks. Using Judith Butler and Karl Barth, this essay proposes an account of identity that the author calls a ‘Christological constructivism’. Suggesting that the person and work (...) of Christ instantiates a grace that disrupts nature, Daniels argues for an account of identity as ‘more-than’, suggesting that this anthropology engenders healing for women, and men, within communities religious and otherwise. (shrink)

In 2017, Barth and Barber released the third edition of their textbook “Hospitality Law: Managing Legal Issues in the Hospitality Industry.” This review focuses on the scope and depth of the legal areas it covers. It examines whether the book strikes the right balance between practicality, feasibility, and conventions within the hotel industry. The authors aim to provide guidance to hospitality students and hospitality managers in developing legal literacy for their professional lives. The review finds that Barth and (...) Barber have successfully compiled a comprehensive and relevant compilation of legal issues within the hospitality industry. They support and illustrate their explanations with authentic case law and relevant examples, demonstrating the practicality of the work. While there may be some criticism regarding the depth of legal argumentation, it should be pointed out that this criticism should be viewed in light of the book's intended purpose. The primary goal was not to create an exhaustive analysis of the multi-faceted nuances in legal discourse within hospitality law. Instead, it aimed to sensitise and assist hospitality students and professional hospitality managers in the United States with their everyday decision-making processes. We suggest that the textbook could further benefit from integrating recent insights from applied (legal) linguistics and legal semiotics. It is concluded that the book remains a valuable resource for teaching hospitality law to non-legal professionals but also for researchers interested in the intersection of language and law in the hospitality industry. (shrink)

Este texto se propõe perspectivar a agência humana no entorno do ato de grafar, ou seja, trata das relações e suas tensões entre as percepções do real e de sua inscrição no tempo-espaço, com ênfase à escrita. Dimensiona essa questão circunscrevendo certa noção de um corpo em jogo no mundo, no qual nota e anota o que percebe, via uma Poética da Notação Esquizográfica. Passa, por conseguinte, a perspectivar tal noção de corpo a partir da ideia de um indivíduo que, (...) em Deleuze, é colocada em questão nos termos de um eu passível, ou um ante-eu, como condição para determinações diferenciais dos e nos encontros: sob esse ante-eu, todavia, se impõe um Eu pessoal. Um corpo é, então, considerado como composto por singularidades em movimentos contínuos, variações nas quais irrompem individuações – individualidades dotadas de forças pré-individuais inerentes aos corpos. O problema é colocado a partir da ideia, presente em Barthes, de que uma logosfera nos envolve, e que precisamos, portanto, sacudi-la, pois se trata de um dado do nosso sujeito centrado: pôr em jogo, assim, o que, em nossa individualidade, constitui o Eu pessoal, que condiciona os movimentos da representação, via recognição. Com efeito, é um jogo com a linguagem, tomando-a, com Deleuze e Guattari, como incorpóreos que se expressam dos corpos. Trata-se de ponderar que o mundo, após pensado, só pode ser perspectivado nesses termos, com o pensamento e a linguagem. Destarte, o jogo que propomos – e seus efeitos sobre a educação –é condicionado, com Baudrillard, por uma impostura radical, que passa a lidar com o real, via certa Poética da Notação Esquizográfica. Palavras-chave: Poética. Jogo. Corpo. Pensamento. Linguagem. (shrink)

Au Roland Barthes critique, celui des analyses litteraires des Essais critiques, du Sur Racine ou des constructions theoriques nourries par la linguistique et le structuralisme comme le Degre zero de l ecriture, S/Z, le Systeme de la mode; au Roland Barthes ecrivain, sachant meler, avec une originalite inimitable, fiction et reflexions analytiques dans le Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes ou les Fragments d un discours amoureux, il faudrait ajouter un Roland Barthes, moins connu et moins analyse, celui de l - (...) amateur - d art. Il n aura pas fallu attendre son dernier livre, La Chambre claire, pour savoir que Roland Barthes aimait les uvres d art visuel et qu il pratiquait lui-meme, avec grand plaisir et serieux, la peinture. Des ses premiers textes rassembles dans les Essais critiques, il associe a des etudes sur Tacite, Chateaubriand, Baudelaire ou Robbe-Grillet, un essai sur Pieter Saenredam avec lequel il ouvre un recueil pourtant consacre a la litterature. Tout au long de son uvre, que cela soit sous la forme de preface de catalogues consacres a des artistes contemporains (Bernard Requichot, Daniel Boudinet, Cy Twombly), d articles sur des artistes classiques (Arcimboldo, Artemisia Gentileschi) ou de reflexions plus generales sur l art (le kitsch, le cinema, l abstraction, la musique), Roland Barthes a accorde une attention toute particuliere aux images. Elles etaient, a ses yeux, bien plus qu un passe-temps, un delassement intellectuel qui l eloignait de son veritable travail critique. L image, et l imaginaire qui lui est lie, possede une vertu que le texte ne semble pas pouvoir revendiquer: meler le langage expressif au discours critique, faire emerger la - substance sous le concept - et pousser la question de la signification jusqu a sa limite la plus extreme. Sans s embarrasser des regles methodiques dictees par l histoire de l art, en se voulant - sauvage et sans culture - devant ces uvres d art qui venaient a lui comme par - inadvertance -, qui l incitaient a l - aventure -, Roland Barthes a elabore une - esthetique - qui demeure une des plus singulieres et utiles contributions a l etude des images. Le - troisieme sens - et son correlat, la - signifiance - (cet - au-dela - du sens), l - imaginaire de l image - ou bien encore le celebre couple Punctum/ Studium avec lequel il precise la dimension subjective de tout commerce avec les uvres sont autant de propositions methodiques que l auteur reconsidere attentivement afin de tirer toute la force heuristique de cette - lecon de l image - a laquelle nous convie Roland Barthes. La - lecon de l art - que Barthes retient de son commerce constant avec les uvres d artistes contemporains (Cy Twombly, Daniel Boudinet, Bernard Requichot) ou anciens (Saenredam, Arcimboldo) a permis de developper une reflexion singuliere sur le fonctionnement des images. - En elaborant des notions comme la - signifiance -, le - troisieme sens - ou le fameux - punctum - afin de traduire les effets que les images provoquaient sur lui, Barthes a compose une veritable esthetique qu il est temps de lire avec autant de serieux que de plaisir.". (shrink)

I. THE TASK OF DOGMATICS As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self- examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of ...

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force of (...) requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)

“X-Firsters” hold that there is some normative feature that is fundamental to all others (and, often, that there’s some normative feature that is the “mark of the normative”: all other normative properties have it, and are normative in virtue of having it). This view is taken as a starting point in the debate about which X is “on first.” Little has been said about whether or why we should be X-Firsters, or what we should think about normativity if we aren’t (...) X-Firsters. Hence the chapter’s two main goals. First, to provide a simple argument that one shouldn’t be an X-Firster about the normative domain, which starts with the observation that analogous views have dubious merits in analogous domains. Second, to offer an alternative view—taking normativity to be a determinable explained in terms of its determinates—that offers an interesting way to think about the structure and unity of normativity. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits (...) of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

Motion—and, in particular, local motion or change in location—plays a central role in Kenelm Digby’s natural philosophy and in his arguments for the immateriality of the soul. Despite this, Digby’s account of what motion consists in has yet to receive much scholarly attention. In this paper, I advance a novel interpretation of Digby on motion. According to it, Digby holds that for a body to move is for it to divide from and unify with other bodies. This is a view (...) of motion—as change in relations of parthood—that Alison Peterman attributes to Digby’s contemporary and acquaintance, Margaret Cavendish. Having shown that Digby’s presentation of the view predates Cavendish’s by more than a decade, I make a case that Digby’s work influenced Cavendish’s on this topic. In developing and defending my reading, I consider to what extent the Digbean account of motion and the arguments for it accord with the ideals of the mechanical philosophy emerging in the early modern period. (shrink)

Abstract This paper offers an appraisal of Phillip Pettit's approach to the problem how a merely finite set of examples can serve to represent a determinate rule, given that indefinitely many rules can be extrapolated from any such set. I argue that Pettit's so-called ethnocentric theory of rule-following fails to deliver the solution to this problem he sets out to provide. More constructively, I consider what further provisions are needed in order to advance Pettit's general approach to the problem. I (...) conclude that what is needed is an account that, whilst it affirms the view that agents' responses are constitutively involved in the exemplification of rules, does not allow such responses the pride of place they have in Pettit's theory. (shrink)

This book is a study of the role of intellect in human action as described by Thomas Aquinas. One of its primary aims is to compare the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas with the lines of interpretation offered in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. The book seeks to clarify the problems involved in the appropriation of Aristotle's theory by a Christian theologian, including such topics as the practical syllogism and the problems of akrasia. Westberg argues that Aquinas was much closer to Aristotle (...) than is often recognized, and he puts forward important new interpretations of the relation of intellect and will in the stages of intention, deliberation, decision, and execution. In the concluding section of the book, he shows how this new interpretation yields fruitful insights on a range of theological topics, including sin, law, love, and the moral virtues. (shrink)

The problem known as Buridan’s Ass says that a hungry donkey equipoised between two identical bales of hay will starve to death. Indecision kills the ass. Some philosophers worry about human analogs. Computer scientists since the 1960s have known about the computer versions of such cases. From what Leslie Lamport calls ‘Buridan’s Principle’—a discrete decision based on a continuous range of input-values cannot be made in a bounded time—it follows that the possibilities for human analogs of Buridan’s Ass are far (...) more wide-ranging and securely provable than has been acknowledged in philosophy. We are never necessarily decisive. This is mathematically provable. I explore four consequences: first, increased interest of the literature’s solutions to Buridan’s Ass; second, a new asymmetry between responsibility for omissions and responsibility for actions; third, clarification of the standard account of akrasia; and, fourth, clarification of the role of credences in normative decision-theory. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

This essay considers the critical response to Hegel's view of Socrates we find in Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony. I argue that this dispute turns on the question whether or not the examination of particular thinkers enters into Socrates’ most basic aims and interests. I go on to show how Kierkegaard's account, which relies on an affirmative answer to this question, enables him to provide a cogent defence of Socrates' philosophical practice against Hegel's criticisms.

Abstract: According to a rationalist theory of introspection, rational agents have a capacity to believe they are in conscious states when they are in them, much as they have the capacity, for example, to avoid obvious contradictions in their beliefs. For the agent to know or believe by introspection, on this view, is for them to exercise that capacity. According to an acquaintance theory of introspection, by contrast, whenever an agent is in a conscious state, the agent is aware of (...) or is acquainted with being in the state, where the background notion of acquaintance is understood to be distinct from sense perception, on the one hand, and belief or knowledge, or the other. For the agent to know or believe by introspection, on this view, is for them to take advantage of the epistemic position they occupy in virtue of being acquainted in this way. These theories are not in conflict; it is possible to hold both an acquaintance theory and a rationalist theory. This paper, however, sets out and recommends a different possibility, namely, that of holding a rationalist theory while rejecting any acquaintance theory. (shrink)

One of the most important texts for understanding the early work of Karl Barth.