This book maps out the lexico-conceptual articulation of Greene's narrative dramatization of ethical situations. This main aim issues from three working hypotheses: in the first place, a reduced set of terms such as peace, despair, pity or commitment have a striking lexical recurrence in Greene's texts. They are considered here as keywords that articulate his discourse at a conceptual level. In the second place, those keywords are invested with narrative potential. They have the capacity to generate narrative situations and developments. (...) In the third place, they articulate a particular narrative pattern. Such lexico-conceptual articulation is shaped mainly as ethical conflict dramatized in narrative form. Drawing on contemporary theories of community and ethics developed by Jean-Luc Nancy, Maurice Blanchot, J. Hillis Miller or Derek Attridge, this book sets out to explore a recurrent narrative pattern in Greene's work, emerging from his personal use of the language of ethics and community. (shrink)

A major obstacle to the acceptance of materialist theories of the mind is the problem of sensory consciousness. How could a physical brain produce conscious sensory states that exhibit the rich and luxurious qualities of red velvet, a Mozart concerto or fresh-brewed coffee? A full answer to this question requires two different sorts of theory. The first sort considers what all these conscious sensory states have in common, by virtue of being conscious as opposed to unconscious states. The second sort (...) considers what distinguishes conscious sensory-states from each other, for example, how the qualities in a conscious sensory state of red velvet differ from those of a Mozart concerto. I propose a theory of the first sort, that is, an explanation of the distinction between conscious and unconscious sensory states. ;According to the second sense theory, conscious sensory states are coordinated sensory representations of the present moment produced by a second sense. Three elements are necessary and jointly sufficient for sensory consciousness. Sensory representations must be coordinated toward action in the world. The representations included in the content of a conscious sensory state are those that will aid the creature in assessing current environmental conditions according to the task at hand. Conscious sensory states represent states of affairs as occurring at the present moment. In other words, sensory consciousness is constituted by the coordination of sensory representations into a representation of what is happening 'now.' The mechanism responsible for coordinating sensory representations into conscious sensory states is the second sense. A second sense mechanism explains how some sensory representations become coordinated into a conscious sensory state while others remain unconscious. ;In addition to providing an explanation of sensory consciousness, the second sense theory is nicely suited to a Gibsonian account of subjectivity, whereby information about the subject is specified simultaneously in perception with information about the object. I argue that the subject, at its most bare, is the locus of an egocentric map, the zero point of a coordinate system which specifies objects according to here. (shrink)

PurposeWe explored two complex phenomena associated with effective education. First, teachers’ professional agency, the volitional actions they take in response to perceived opportunities, was examined to consider individual differences in its enactment. Second, “strong” emotions have been proposed as important in teaching and learning, and we wished to clarify which basic emotions might be involved, besides curiosity, which is a known emotional factor in engagement in teaching. We also explored how agency and basic emotions might be related.ApproachThirteen teachers working in (...) Scottish secondary schools were interviewed at the start of the covid pandemic in 2020 to discuss relevant feelings, thoughts and actions arising from unprecedented changes in their lives and professional practices. Thematic analysis was used to identify aspects of agentic behavior and basic emotions expressed.FindingsTeacher agency was expressed through adaptability, collective agency, constrained agency, and non-action. Four basic emotion percepts were identified, which we label as “CARE”, “CURIOSITY”, “COOPERATION”, and “CHALLENGE”.OriginalityWe extend the definition of agency to include volitional non-action as a response to opportunity. In contrast to prior research emphasizing emotions as an outcome of volitional behavior, we explore emotions preceding agency. We develop four theoretical propositions related to teacher emotions. Four emotion percepts substantially influence teachers’ voluntary motivated behavior. The amount and proportion of emotions experienced varies between individual teachers. The four percepts are experienced concurrently or in rapid succession in engaged teaching contexts. Professional experience and specific situational factors also influence teachers’ behavioral choices. For future consideration, we suggest that awareness of emotion percepts may encourage both teachers’ engagement and their professional agency for the benefit of their pedagogical practice and outcomes for their students. (shrink)

Four experiments examined how accurately participants can report the times of their own decisions. Within an auditory reaction time task, participants reported the time at which the tone was presented, they decided on the response, or the response key was pressed. Decision time reports were checked for plausibility against the actual RTs, and we compared the effects of experimental manipulations on these two measures to see whether the reported decision times showed appropriate effects. In addition, we estimated the amount of (...) error associated with individual decision time reports by checking how often participants’ decision time reports were implausibly early or late , and by using several quantitative models. Overall, the results suggest that decision time reports are not very accurate but they may be usable for some purposes. (shrink)

Staff reported paranormal experiences in connection with the outpatient Medical Assistance in Dying room at the hospital. This case study reports on staff experiences and illustrates how the Ethics team’s role expanded to deal with this novel situation by facilitating an interdisciplinary response.

JEAN-PIERRE CLERO, LYNDA LOTTE. — Lacan est mort il y a un peu plus de vingt ans, en 1981 ; il semble que sa présence, pour ne pas dire son règne, n’ait jamais été aussi éclatante. Il faut toutefois se méfier de ce qui paraît évident et peut-être y a-t-il eu de profonds changements au cours de ces deux dernières décennies où son œuvre est apparue..

Éditeur, commentateur, traducteur d’Érasme et de More, C. Miller s’est particulièrement illustré dans ses travaux sur l’Encomium Moriae et dans sa traduction des poèmes de l’humaniste hollandais. Attentif aux “métamorphoses” de la Moria, il a étudié avec une rigueur extrême les diverses éditions de ce texte fameux, en tenant compte notamment du commentaire de Listrius, pour donner en 1979 une excellente traduction de The Praise of Folly et une non moins excellente édition critique de ce texte. Plus récemment, s’attaquant (...) avec Harry Vredeveld aux poèmes d’Érasme—Vredeveld est l’éditeur des Carmina dans l’édition critique d’Amsterdam—il en fournit la première traduction complète en langue anglaise, sans chercher à opposer aux différents mètres latins les équivalents approximatifs d’ une métrique anglaise: mais c’est une prose poétique, d’une parfaite rigueur, brillante—souvent plus brillante que le modèle latin—, attentive aux nuances subtiles de l’affectivité d’Érasme comme à ses variations d’humeur, passant du grave au mélancolique, ou du dévotieux à l’humoristique selon la couleur du temps, le thème choisi, le destinataire, l’étiage psychique du poeta orator. (shrink)

We argue for a naturalistic account for appraising scientific methods that carries non-trivial normative force. We develop our approach by comparison with Laudan’s (American Philosophical Quarterly 24:19–31, 1987, Philosophy of Science 57:20–33, 1990) “normative naturalism” based on correlating means (various scientific methods) with ends (e.g., reliability). We argue that such a meta-methodology based on means–ends correlations is unreliable and cannot achieve its normative goals. We suggest another approach for meta-methodology based on a conglomeration of tools and strategies (from statistical modeling, (...) experimental design, and related fields) that affords forward looking procedures for learning from error and for controlling error. The resulting “error statistical” appraisal is empirical—methods are appraised by examining their capacities to control error. At the same time, this account is normative, in that the strategies that pass muster are claims about how actually to proceed in given contexts to reach reliable inferences from limited data. (shrink)

As an alternative to universalism and particularism, Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics proposes "intermedialities" as a new model of social relations and intercultural dialogue. The concept of "intermedialities" stresses the necessity of situating debates concerning social relations in the divergent contexts of new media and avant-garde artistic practices as well as feminist, political, and philosophical analyses.

During the set-up phase of an international study of genetic influences on outcomes from sepsis, we aimed to characterise potential differences in ethics approval processes and outcomes in participating European countries. Between 2005 and 2007 of the FP6-funded international Genetics Of Sepsis and Septic Shock project, we asked national coordinators to complete a structured survey of research ethic committee approval structures and processes in their countries, and linked these data to outcomes. Survey findings were reconfirmed or modified in 2017. Eighteen (...) countries participated in the study, recruiting 2257 patients from 160 ICUs. National practices differed widely in terms of composition of RECs, procedures and duration of the ethics approval process. Eight countries used a single centralised process for approval, seven required approval by an ethics committee in each participating hospital, and three required both. Outcomes of the application process differed widely between countries because of differences in national legislation, and differed within countries because of interpretation of the ethics of conducting research in patients lacking capacity. The RECs in four countries had no lay representation. The median time from submission to final decision was 1.5 months; in nine approval was received within 1 month; six took over 6 months, and in one 24 months; had all countries been able to match the most efficient approvals processes, an additional 74 months of country or institution-level recruitment would have been available. In three countries, rejection of the application by some local RECs resulted in loss of centres; and one country rejected the application outright. The potential benefits of the single application portal offered by the European Clinical Trials Regulation will not be realised without harmonisation of research ethics committee practices as well as national legislation. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMetaphysics has long been regarded as providing meaning to the world. Subsequent progressive replacement attempts of this narrative by a scientific approach have generally led to a view of life as being void of meaning. However, this has not affected the quest for meaning or for an understanding of this meaning, despite an increasing societal neglect of the importance of its pursuit. This article aims to contribute to a philosophical understanding of the sense of life in the world, drawing on (...) Jean-Luc Nancy's understanding of sense as developed in his Sense of the World. To talk of “sense” rather than of “meaning” is an unconventional choice in the field, yet both differ from one another in that sense refers to an opening as the very possibility of meaningfulness generally. This means that, to understand meaning, we must understand sense. Key to Nancy's conception of sense is the transitivity of the verb being; being traverses itself from being as non-being “to” being as existence. Nancy is concer... (shrink)

Si bien es cierto que la aparición de la representación política se ha ligado con un cauce histórico particularmente fértil para el sobrevenir del liberalismo, no lo es menos que los efectos políticos e históricos que se desprenden de aquella pueden ser calibrados con otras piezas que las liberales. Aunque parezca contradictorio y paradójico apelar a la teoría rousseauniana para reflexionar sobre los dilemas de la representación, consideramos altamente sugestivo que, pese a Rousseau mismo, bajo la forma naturalmente particular del (...) gobierno, en sus páginas también se cuela el fantasma de la representación.  . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Citizenship and Culture in Early Modern EuropePeter N. MillerCharlotte Wells, Law and Citizenship in Early Modern France (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), xviii, 198p.Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1994), xviii, 449p.Steven Shapin, The Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago and London: University of Chicago (...) Press, 1994), xxiv, 483p.Anne Goldgar, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters 1680–1775 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), xv, 395p.Lawrence Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, U.K., 1994), xiii, 217p.Daniel Gordon, Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), viii, 270p.Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), xiii, 338p.E. J. Hundert, The Enlightenment’s “Fable”: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xii, 284p.The pre-modern political world was broken and remade in the two centuries that separate Montaigne from Jefferson. The long agony of the mixed constitution that began in the civil wars which raged in Iberia, France, the Low Countries, and England and seemed settled by the widespread adoption of the maxims of reason of state, revived at the end of the period, with revolution in Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Geneva, and, more famously, [End Page 725] British North America and France. The problem, classically, turned on the location of sovereignty, or supreme authority, in political systems designed to balance and diffuse rather than concentrate power. When budget deficits and fratricidal culture wars raised the cry of “necessity”—with the knowledge, of course, that necessity knew no law—estates and kings across Europe found themselves at daggers drawn. The claim that the ruler, who naturally was wholly committed to the common good, had therefore the ability to take emergency action was used both by those accustomed to rule and those newly attained to it by force. The pursuit of an “interest” that was identified with the nation’s effectively marginalized discussions of right and law while still serving an essentially constitutional, justificatory role in political debate. But if unchecked authority was necessary in order to meet the challenge of a world characterized by change and chance and thus had to reside somewhere, was there anything that made its exercise by one body more appropriate than another? This was the question that lay behind the late eighteenth-century repudiation of the reason of state “solution” to the problem of the mixed constitution. The answer, which clearly underpinned the establishment in fact of what had first been theorized already a century earlier, was that only consent could legitimate the exercise of sovereignty in time of necessity.1Representation, in one form or another, was the acknowledged solution to the problem formulated by Hobbes: “the name of Tyranny, signifieth nothing more, nor less, than the name of Sovereignty, be it in one, or many men, saving that they that use the former word are understood to be angry with them they call Tyrants.” But representation also acknowledged the reality behind the charged category of “citizenship”: most people in most places could not be said to live the life of the active citizen celebrated in Roman republican literature. Hence Hobbes’s attack on recourse to classical exempla in general, and the Libertas of Lucca in particular. The idea of civis as law-abiding subject was as radical a redrawing of the terms of debate as the identification of human nature with unsociability. Insofar as politics, classically, justified itself as the means for individual self-perfection, the practice of the ancient citizen could be conceived of as the practice of that best life speculated upon by philosophers. For the represented citizen, however, politics necessarily occupied a more subsidiary position. What, then, defined the best life to which he could aspire?There is no simple answer to this question, and the early modern ambivalence has persisted into our own time... (shrink)

Botero’s Della Ragion di Stato has a monarchical character that has been overlooked or taken for granted. This is due to the successful reception of the reason of state formula, which justifies any kind of political regime, including principalities, republics, and monarchies, regardless of the author’s preferences. However, there is a clear distinction between monarchy and reason of state that requires further discussion. Botero not only uses Machiavellian language when referring to a political community (as res publica) or the prince (...) (as a metaphor for centralized monarchies), but also reappropriates it. In addition, he goes beyond this to explain a non-legal path to absolute sovereignty, which differs from Jean Bodin’s (1530–96) idea of the king as being above the law and Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679) theory of authorization and the social contract. This paper argues that Botero’s concept of reason of state can be understood as a complex process of reduction to unity, similar to God’s creation and the functioning of the natural world. Despite its contradictions and limitations, it grants the prince an unusual supremacy and control over society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Open Letter to the Enemy:Jean Genet's Holy WarSteven Miller (bio)J.G. seeks, or is searching for, or would like to discover, never to uncover him, the delicious enemy, quite disarmed, whose equilibrium is unstable, profile uncertain, face inadmissible, the enemy broken by a breath of air, the already humiliated slave, ready to throw himself out the window at the least sign, the defeated enemy: blind, deaf, mute. With (...) no arms, no legs, no stomach, no heart, no sex, no head, all told a complete enemy, already bearing all the marks of my bestiality that now need never be used (too lazy anyway). I want the total enemy, with immeasurable and spontaneous hatred for me, but also the subjugated enemy, defeated by me before he even knows me. Not to be reconciled with me, in any case. No friends. Above all, no friends: a declared enemy, but not a tortured one. Clean, faultless. What are his colors? From a green as tender as a cherry to an effervescent violet. His size? Between the two of us, he presents himself to me man to man. No friends. I seek an inadequate enemy, one who comes to capitulate. I will come at him with all that I can muster: whacks, slaps, kicks, I will feed him to starving foxes, make him eat English food, attend the House of Lords, be received at Buckingham Palace, fuck Prince Phillip, and be fucked by him, live for a month in London, dress like me, sleep in place of me, live in place of me: I seek the declared enemy.This brief text was not published until 1991. It was almost published in 1975 in a book of homages to William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, and was to have been preceded with the following explanation of its origins, written by Gysin:In Tangiers in 1970, Jean Genet asked me what ever happened to the English underground newspaper The International Times. When I responded that the editors were having trouble with the law in England because of the newspaper's ads for "special friendships" [amitiés particulières], he exclaimed: "Why friends? Personally, I am looking for a suitable enemy [un ennemi à ma taille]." He then wrote the following text...[qtd. in Genet, ED 9]Hence the anecdotal reason for the form of the personal advertisement. In 1991 the text was published—according to Genet's wishes—as the first page of the posthumous collection of his political writings and interviews, L'ennemi déclaré.1 Such a placement demands more than an anecdotal explanation. What is a personal ad doing as the preface to a collection of political writings? Albert Dichy, the editor of the collection, notes that this text has the status of an exception: "the text that opens the collection does not belong to the group of writings that make up the book as a whole" [ED 331]. Each of the other texts emerges from Genet's involvement in specific political events (the [End Page 85] 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention, the Chatila massacre) or with named political figures and groups (the Palestinians, the Black Panthers, the Baader-Meinhof group, George Jackson, Angela Davis), whereas the form of the ad that he wrote for Gysin seems to number it among his literary works. Nonetheless, this eccentric text remains the first in the collection—"en tête de l'ouvrage," is Dichy's phrase—and gives the book its title. Rather than serving as an introduction to the other texts, this text, by virtue of its exceptional form, is a challenge addressed directly to the public. Dichy himself is the first to accept this challenge. His editorial notice passes quickly from anecdote to interpretation:The fact that Genet wished to see the publication of his political articles preceded by this precise text has an unavoidable impact, not only on the identity of the author, now partially assimilable to a fictional character ("J.G. cherche, ou recherche..."), but also on the way in which we read the different texts in the collection, now that we have been given the general tone and the note of secrecy.[ED 331]These suggestions are apt enough... (shrink)

Derrida has been perennially concerned with hands and touching. This interest finds its most concentrated form in On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy. This text outlines a number of concerns Derrida has in that book which might be extrapolated as exemplary of Derrida's reading strategies in general. It concludes with a consideration of what is revealed about the Derrida-Nancy relationship in this book.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.2 (2001) 179-181 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism. James L. Kastely. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Pp. viii + 293. $30.00. In Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition, James Kastely presents an alternative to the "standard" rhetorical tradition; he calls this alternative skeptical rhetoric, describes its characteristic activity as (...) refutation, and claims for it special relevance in negotiating postmodern challenges to rhetoric, specifically, that it can serve as a "refutation of postmodernism" (23). This alternative tradition inheres in a canon of works somewhat different from the standard canon, and an examination of key works organizes most of the chapters in this book. To establish and articulate this tradition in the classical era, Kastely examines Plato's Gorgias and Meno, Sophocles' Philoctetes, and Euripides' Hecuba; he then moves to the modern era, and to two works that address themes central to ancient rhetorical skepticism: Jane Austen's Persuasion (1818) and Jean-Paul Sartre's What Is Literature? (1949). Finally, Kastely turns to the two prongs of the postmodern reappropriation of traditional rhetoric, the tropological formalism of Paul de Man and the ideological approaches of Marxist critics such as Terry Eagleton, challenging both of them with the comic skepticism of Kenneth Burke.The skeptical tradition begins with Socrates, of course. It takes as its central problem, not the impossibility or contingency of knowledge, but the existence of injustice. In a political community, the unavoidability of doing inadvertent injury both requires rhetoric and at the same time makes it party to continued injustice: "[D]oing injury is an inescapable aspect of a being who is born into a world that is shaped by a language and by conventional practices that embody a particular set of values" (42). It is these prior commitments and conventional practices that, Kastely argues, lead us to cause injury. Thus, the positive task of rhetoric is not to persuade others away from injustice or to promote remedies; it is to keep us constantly open to refutation, to the possibility of seeing an alternative to the inadvertent wrong we commit. The inherency of injustice is what makes rhetoric a philosophical problem, but refutation is what rhetoric can offer to philosophy (a claim that might surprise philosophers). And in his reading of the Meno, Kastely argues explicitly for a rhetorical, rather than philosophical or logical, understanding of refutation.Overall, Kastely offers us a Plato who is not the enemy of rhetoric, but rather "the most sophisticated and profound rhetorical theorist" (30), who dramatizes in dialogue the philosophical dilemma of rhetoric. In [End Page 179] Sophocles and Euripides, he finds dramatists who illustrate practical forms the dilemma can take, specifically the problem of the unavailable audience. In the Philoctetes, the problem is how to regain the trust and confidence of the marginalized and disenfranchised, how to restore the status of rhetorical audience to one who no longer believes that justice is possible. In the Hecuba, the problem is how a disempowered rhetor can speak to the powerful. In both plays, but especially in Hecuba, the proximity of rhetoric to violence is a practical consequence of the unsolved philosophical problem.Kastely admits that the skeptical legacy from classical rhetoric has had little effect since antiquity. His argument that this alternate tradition deserves recognition is made primarily by his chapters on Austen and Sartre. He sees the works he examines here as raising a question central to rhetorical skepticism: "Can there be a way of speaking and writing that can effectively challenge the marginalization and dehumanization of people in a world in which traditional structures of authority that made discourse coherent have vanished or, at least, are seriously and irretrievably eroded?" (139-40). Both question Enlightenment assumptions about universality and at the same time confront the vacuum left by the erosion of local communal and authority structures. Austen's "active exploration" of a "crisis in discursive practice" (141) and Sartre's concern with the "social responsibility of the writer" and the loss of a public... (shrink)

Here we are witness to the great cultural event of the West, the emergence of a Latin philosophical language translated from the Greek. Once again, it would be necessary to make a systematic study of the formation of this technical vocabulary that, thanks to Cicero, Seneca, Tertullian, Victorinus, Calcidius, Augustine, and Boethius, would leave its mark, by way of the Middle Ages, on the birth of modern thought. Can it be hoped that one day, with current technical means, it will (...) be possible to compile a complete lexicon of the correspondences of philosophical terminology in Greek and Latin? Furthermore, lengthy commentaries would be needed, for the most interesting task would be to analyze the shifts in meaning that take place in the movement from one language to another. In the case of the ontological vocabulary the translation of ousia by substantia, for example, is justly famous and has again recently inspired some remarkable studies. This brings us once more to a phenomenon we discretely alluded to earlier with the word philosophia, and which we will encounter throughout the present discussion: the misunderstandings, shifts or losses in meaning, the reinterpretations, sometimes even to the point of misreading, that arise once tradition, translation, and exegesis coexist. So our history of the Hellenistic and Roman thought will consist above all of recognizing and analyzing the evolution of meanings and significance. Pierre Hadot holds the chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought at the Collège de France. He is the author of many books and articles on the history of ancient philosophy and theology. Among his works are Plotin et la simplicité du regard, Porphyre et Vitctorinus, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres, and Exercises spirituels et philosophie antique. Arnold I. Davidson, executive editor of Critical Inquiry, is associate professor of philosophy and a member of the Committees on the Conceptual Foundations of Science and General Studies in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He introduced and edited the “Symposium on Heidegger and Nazism” . He is currently working on the history of horror as it relates to the epistemology of norms and deviations. Paula Wissing, a free-lance translator and editor, has recently translated Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant’s The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks . She also contributed translations of articles by Maurice Blanchot, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Emmanuel Levinas for the “Symposium on Heidegger and Nazism.”. (shrink)

The paper presents a comparison of the theories of truth, and the solutions of the liar paradox, proposed by Thomas Bradwardine , Jean Buridan , and Alfred Tarski.