"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty (...) years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable. (shrink)

IntroductionInformation and communication technologies are becoming an integral part of medical practice, research and administration and their use will grow as telemedicine and electronic medical record use become part of routine practice. Security in maintaining patient data is important and there is a statuary obligation to do so, but few health professionals have been trained on how to achieve this. There is no information on the use of computers and email by doctors and nurses in South Africa in the workplace (...) and at home, and whether their current computer practices meets legal and ethical requirements. The aims of this study were to determine the use of computers by healthcare practitioners in the workplace and home; the use and approach to data storage, encryption and security of patient data and patient email; and the use of informed consent to transmit data by email.MethodsA self-administered questionnaire was administered to 400 health care providers from the state and private health care sectors. The questionnaire covered computer use in the workplace and at home, sharing of computers, data encryption and storage, email use, encryption of emails and storage, and the use of informed consent for email communication.Results193 doctors and 207 nurses in the private and public sectors completed the questionnaire. Forty (10%) of participants do not use a computer. A third of health professionals were the only users of computers at work or at home. One hundred and ninety-eight respondents (55%) did not know if the data on the computers were encrypted, 132 (36.7%) knew that the data were not encrypted and 30 (8.3%) individuals knew that the data on the computers they were using were encrypted. Few doctors, 58 (16%), received emails from patients, with doctors more likely to receive emails from patients than nurses (p = 0.0025). Thirty-one percent of individuals did not respond to the emails. Emails were saved by 40 (69%) recipients but only 5 (12.5%) doctors encrypted the messages, 19 (47.5%) individuals knowingly did not encrypt and 16 (40.0%) did not know if they encrypted the data. While 20% of health professionals have emailed patient data, but only 41.7% gained consent to do so.ConclusionsMost health professionals as sampled in South Africa are not compliant with the National Health Act or the Electronic Communications Transactions Act of South Africa or guidelines from regulatory bodies when managing patient data on computers. Many appear ignorant or lack the ability to comply with simple data security procedures. (shrink)

We analyze the axiomatic strength of the following theorem due to Rival and Sands [28] in the style of reverse mathematics. Every infinite partial order P of finite width contains an infinite chain C such that every element of P is either comparable with no element of C or with infinitely many elements of C. Our main results are the following. The Rival–Sands theorem for infinite partial orders of arbitrary finite width is equivalent to $\mathsf {I}\Sigma ^0_{2} + \mathsf {ADS}$ (...) over $\mathsf {RCA}_0$. For each fixed $k \geq 3$, the Rival–Sands theorem for infinite partial orders of width $\leq \!k$ is equivalent to $\mathsf {ADS}$ over $\mathsf {RCA}_0$. The Rival–Sands theorem for infinite partial orders that are decomposable into the union of two chains is equivalent to $\mathsf {SADS}$ over $\mathsf {RCA}_0$. Here $\mathsf {RCA}_0$ denotes the recursive comprehension axiomatic system, $\mathsf {I}\Sigma ^0_{2}$ denotes the $\Sigma ^0_2$ induction scheme, $\mathsf {ADS}$ denotes the ascending/descending sequence principle, and $\mathsf {SADS}$ denotes the stable ascending/descending sequence principle. To the best of our knowledge, these versions of the Rival–Sands theorem for partial orders are the first examples of theorems from the general mathematics literature whose strength is exactly characterized by $\mathsf {I}\Sigma ^0_{2} + \mathsf {ADS}$, by $\mathsf {ADS}$, and by $\mathsf {SADS}$. Furthermore, we give a new purely combinatorial result by extending the Rival–Sands theorem to infinite partial orders that do not have infinite antichains, and we show that this extension is equivalent to arithmetical comprehension over $\mathsf {RCA}_0$. (shrink)

Just War scholarship has adapted to contemporary crises and situations. But its adaptation has spurned debate and conversation--a method and means of pushing its thinking forward. Now the Just War tradition risks becoming marginalized. This concern may seem out of place as Just War literature is proliferating, yet this literature remains welded to traditional conceptualizations of Just War. Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert argue that the tradition needs to be updated to deal with substate actors within the realm (...) of legitimate authority, private military companies, and the questionable moral difference between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons. Additionally, as recent policy makers and scholars have tried to make the Just War criteria legalistic, they have weakened the tradition's ability to draw from and adjust to its contemporaneous setting. The essays in The Future of Just War seek to reorient the tradition around its core concerns of preventing the unjust use of force by states and limiting the harm inflicted on vulnerable populations such as civilian noncombatants. The pursuit of these challenges involves both a reclaiming of traditional Just War principles from those who would push it toward greater permissiveness with respect to war, as well as the application of Just War principles to emerging issues, such as the growing use of robotics in war or the privatization of force. These essays share a commitment to the idea that the tradition is more about a rigorous application of Just War principles than the satisfaction of a checklist of criteria to be met before waging "just" war in the service of national interest. (shrink)

Il tema sviluppato nel presente intervento è il rapporto tra narrazione e costruzione storica. Si prenderà in esame l’accezione di narrativa correntemente utilizzata nel mondo storiografico facendola dialogare con il paradigma dei _global middle ages_, espressione coniata nel 2018 dalle storiche Catherine Holmes e Naomi Standen. Per meglio mettere in risalto tali dinamiche un caso di studio sarà offerto dalla vicenda di Federico II, con particolare enfasi alla costruzione biografica e dei miti nel rapporto con le culture altre. Il fine (...) sarà di superare le due tradizionali macro interpretazioni dell’idea di Medioevo, analizzate da Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri e David Matthews: Medioevo arretrato regno di oscurità e Medioevo vagheggiato come luce del mattino, all’origine di molte identità politiche contemporanee – non ultima quella dell’Unione Europea. _The topic we intend to develop in this essay is the relationship between narration and historical construction. We will examine the meaning behind the current concept of narrative in historiography, with a dialectical approach towards the paradigm of _global Middle Ages_, an expression firstly used by historians Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen in 2018. To perform an in depth analysis of the abovementioned relationship, we will use as a case study the figure of Frederick II. A significant emphasis will be put on the biographical construction and myths, especially in the relationship with other cultures. The aim of our essay is to provide a framework within it would be easier to overcome the two traditional macro interpretations of Middle Ages, studied by Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri and David Matthews: Middle Ages as a backward reign of darkness and Middle Ages as the morning light, at the origin of many contemporary political identities – not least that of the European Union_. (shrink)

Scientific understanding is a fundamental goal of science. However, there is currently no good way to measure the scientific understanding of agents, whether these be humans or Artificial Intelligence systems. Without a clear benchmark, it is challenging to evaluate and compare different levels of scientific understanding. In this paper, we propose a framework to create a benchmark for scientific understanding, utilizing tools from philosophy of science. We adopt a behavioral conception of understanding, according to which genuine understanding should be recognized (...) as an ability to perform certain tasks. We extend this notion of scientific understanding by considering a set of questions that gauge different levels of scientific understanding, covering information retrieval, the capability to arrange information to produce an explanation, and the ability to infer how things would be different under different circumstances. We suggest building a Scientific Understanding Benchmark (SUB), formed by a set of these tests, allowing for the evaluation and comparison of scientific understanding. Benchmarking plays a crucial role in establishing trust, ensuring quality control, and providing a basis for performance evaluation. By aligning machine and human scientific understanding we can improve their utility, ultimately advancing scientific understanding and helping to discover new insights within machines. (shrink)

Spinoza, le spinozisme et les fondements de la sécularisation est un ouvrage dédié à la mémoire d’Emmanuel Levinas, dont l’auteur a été l’élève durant plusieurs années. Il vise, à travers une analyse d’ordre philosophique, historique, épistémologique et théologique, à mettre au jour les conditions d’émergence interrelatées du spinozisme et de la sécularisation. Pour ce faire, il souligne, entre autres, l’importance des polémiques anti-maimonidiennes, des débats sur les attributs divins, la substance, l’infini, du marranisme et de la Kabbale sur la formation (...) du spinozisme, ainsi que son rapport à la pensée contemporaine. Il mène une recherche interdisciplinaire devant permettre d’éclairer l’origine des difficultés théoriques que ce système philosophique présente. (shrink)

Estimation and evaluation of individualized treatment rules have been studied extensively, but real-world treatment resource constraints have received limited attention in existing methods. We investigate a setting in which treatment is intervened upon based on covariates to optimize the mean counterfactual outcome under treatment cost constraints when the treatment cost is random. In a particularly interesting special case, an instrumental variable corresponding to encouragement to treatment is intervened upon with constraints on the proportion receiving treatment. For such settings, we first (...) develop a method to estimate optimal individualized treatment rules. We further construct an asymptotically efficient plug-in estimator of the corresponding average treatment effect relative to a given reference rule. (shrink)

"In this densely imbricated volume Derrida pursues his devoted, relentless dismantling of the philosophical tradition, the tradition of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger--each dealt with in one or more of the essays. There are essays too on linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, Austin) and on the nature of metaphor ("White Mythology"), the latter with important implications for literary theory. Derrida is fully in control of a dazzling stylistic register in this book--a source of true illumination for those prepared to follow his (...) arduous path. Bass is a superb translator and annotator. His notes on the multilingual allusions and puns are a great service."--Alexander Gelley, Library Journal. (shrink)

AbeBooks.com: The Technological Society.

La question des rapports du spinozisme à l’axiologie a fait l’objet de nombreux débats. Certains commentateurs considèrent Spinoza comme étant profondément immoraliste, alors que pour d’autres, il maintient l'ensemble des valeurs humaines. Spinoza a cherché à dépasser l’utilitarisme propre au conatus de chacun, afin de fonder un altruisme rationnel. Il souligne que le bien auquel l’homme aspire lorsqu’il suit la vertu, il le désirera aussi pour tous les autres hommes. Cependant, les moyens mis en œuvre pour démontrer cette thèse semblent (...) problématiques. Cet article analyse la logique de la coopération interhumaine élaborée par Spinoza, ainsi que son idéal de l’homme libre, montrant, qu'en fait, il n'a pas réussi à surmonter la nature profondément égoïste du conatus. -/- The question of the relationship between Spinozism and axiology has been the subject of much debate. Some commentators consider Spinoza to be profoundly immoralist, while for others he upholds the set of human values. Spinoza sought to go beyond the utilitarianism proper to the conatus of each person, in order to establish a rational altruism. He emphasizes that the good to which man aspires when he follows virtue, he will also desire for all other men. However, the means used to demonstrate this thesis seem problematic. This article analyzes Spinoza's logic of interhuman cooperation, as well as his ideal of the free man, showing that, in fact, he failed to overcome the profoundly egoistic nature of conatus. -/- . (shrink)

Although a great deal has been written on Plato's ethics, his cosmology has not received so much attention in recent times and its importance for his ethical thought has remained underexplored. By offering accounts of Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus and Laws X, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between the cosmic and human sphere. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with structure and intrinsic value, which both urges our respect (...) and calls for our responsible intervention. Humans are thus seen as citizens of a university that can provide a context for their flourishing even in the absence of good political institutions. The book sheds light on many intricate metaphysical issues in late Plato and brings out the close connections between his cosmology and the development of his ethics. (shrink)

The question of Spinozist determinism and necessitarianism have been extensively studied by commentators, while the relationship between the notions of divine will and free will still requires elaborate studies. Our article seeks to contribute to such research, by clarifying the analyses of these questions by authors that Spinoza has confronted: Maimonides, as well as other Jewish philosophers, and Leibniz who criticized Spinozist determinism. We will study the consequences of these analyses on two examples that Spinoza gave to refute free will, (...) namely the dream and the situation of Buridan's ass. -/- Résumé: La question du déterminisme spinoziste et du nécessitarisme a été largement étu-diée par les commentateurs, tandis que la relation entre les notions de volonté divine et de libre arbitre nécessite encore des études plus élaborées. Notre article cherche à contribuer à ces recherches, en clarifiant les analyses de ces questions par des auteurs auxquels Spinoza s’est confronté : Maïmonide, ainsi que d’autres philosophes juifs, et Leibniz qui a lui-même critiqué le déterminisme spinoziste. Nous étudierons les conséquences de ces analyses sur deux exemples que Spinoza a donnés pour réfuter le libre arbitre, à savoir le rêve et la situa-tion de l’âne de Buridan. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to bring to light some of the factors that allowed the emergence of secularization, and to understand to what extent and in what ways these factors contributed to the formation of the main lines of Spinozism. I will first examine the issues of secularization, emphasizing the importance of the transformations in the status of the Hebrew language during the Renaissance. I will then analyze the role that the Tractatus theologico-politicus may have had in European (...) culture. Finally, I will clarify Spinoza’s relationship to deism and atheism, specifying the nature of the controversies related to his religious attitude. (shrink)

In the 1960s a radical concept emerged from the great French thinker Jacques Derrida. Read the book that changed the way we think; read "Writing and Difference," the classic introduction.

Scientific understanding is a fundamental goal of science. However, there is currently no good way to measure the scientific understanding of agents, whether these be humans or Artificial Intelligence systems. Without a clear benchmark, it is challenging to evaluate and compare different levels of scientific understanding. In this paper, we propose a framework to create a benchmark for scientific understanding, utilizing tools from philosophy of science. We adopt a behavioral conception of understanding, according to which genuine understanding should be recognized (...) as an ability to perform certain tasks. We extend this notion of scientific understanding by considering a set of questions that gauge different levels of scientific understanding, covering information retrieval, the capability to arrange information to produce an explanation, and the ability to infer how things would be different under different circumstances. We suggest building a Scientific Understanding Benchmark (SUB), formed by a set of these tests, allowing for the evaluation and comparison of scientific understanding. Benchmarking plays a crucial role in establishing trust, ensuring quality control, and providing a basis for performance evaluation. By aligning machine and human scientific understanding we can improve their utility, ultimately advancing scientific understanding and helping to discover new insights within machines. (shrink)

In this paper I re-examine the status of the mind-body relation in several of Plato’s late dialogues. A range of views has been attributed to Plato here. For example, it has been thought that Plato is a substance dualist, for whom the mind can exist independently of the body; or an attribute dualist, who has left behind the strong dualistic commitments of the Phaedo by allowing that the mind may be the subject of spatial movements. But even in cases where (...) a classification of Plato as a holder of a particular ontology of the mind has been left undefined, it has been a shared assumption that in the late dialogues the mind itself must be immaterial. I take issue with these various views and show that none of them is necessitated by the text. In the first place, I argue there is strong evidence against the view that Plato should, in his late period, be committed not only to substance dualism, but also to attribute dualism. Furthermore, it is possible that Plato may have allowed that the mind itself be a three-dimensional corporeal entity (in a way that sets up a precedent for later Stoic developments). But even if this is not the only possible reading of the text, it is shown how at any rate the mind must be seen in late Plato as the principle of organization of a body and ontologically inseparable from it. Despite prima facie affinities with Aristotle here, we shall see a Plato emerge for whom the mind (without exception) and the body cannot exist without one another – a thesis more radical than that of Aristotle’s. To bring out the provocative nature of this suggestion, I start, in section I, by laying out the state of the question and compare what I shall argue is the late Platonic view with standard interpretations of his previous work, stressing the historical force that I expect this thesis to have. Afterwards, in three respective sections, I proceed to pay heed to relevant passages in the Timaeus, Philebus and Laws in order to establish the main point of this paper. Finally, in section V, I consider the challenge apparently introduced against my thesis by Plato’s occasional talk of immortality and eschatology in those dialogues, and argue instead that many of those passages add further strength to the view defended in this essay. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a Freirean perspective of family literacy education using the example of an Even Start family literacy program in Maine. This program, the Center and Home-based Instructional Program for Parents and Youth (CHIPPY) family literacy project, illuminates Freirean tenets and promotes critical thinking in its work serving at-risk families in the northernmost part of Maine in Fort Kent and surrounding towns that comprise Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) #27. Freire argued that education has (...) the potential to promote transformation and liberation. He also argued that education could only be transformational if it includes components of critical thinking and reflection.A participatory action research (PAR) evaluation of the CHIPPY program was conducted during the 2001-2002 academic year. Interviews, observations and document reviews were conducted for the evaluation. Adults participating in the program completed a participant survey. This paper draws on findings from this evaluation, which found evidence of significant positive impacts and effects of program participation, for child and adult participants alike, in each of the components of family literacy: adult education, parenting education, intergenerational education, and childhood education.The evaluation revealed evidence of more than simply the improvement of basic literacy skills for adult participants in the CHIPPY program. From various evaluation sources, positive impacts were consistently reported tor adult participants, including: increased community involvement (volunteering), further education, and people going on to college, gaining educational and work skills, changed dispositions, participants and graduates appear to be more independent, and participants are reported to be more positive, assertive, and self-sufficient reflecting a Freirean humanizing pedagogy.Through the active promotion of critical thinking and critical reflection, educators in the CHIPPY program facilitated transformational and liberatory outcomes for program participants; “nurturing... self-directedempowered adults [who would] see themselves as proactive... and not as reactive individuals, buffeted by uncontrollable forces of circumstance” (Brookfield, 1987, p. 48). (shrink)

This paper re-evaluates the role that Plato confers to pleasure in the "Philebus." According to leading interpretations, Plato there downplays the role of pleasure, or indeed rejects hedonism altogether. Thus, scholars such as D. Frede have taken the "mixed life" of pleasure and intelligence initially submitted in the "Philebus" to be conceded by Socrates only as a remedial good, second to a life of neutral condition, where one would experience no pleasure and pain. Even more strongly, scholars such as Irwin (...) have seen the "Philebus'" arguments against false pleasures as an actual attack on hedonism, showing -- in Irwin's words -- "why maximization of pleasure cannot be a reasonable policy for the best life." Against these claims, I argue that the mixed life of pleasure and intelligence is presented in the "Philebus" as a first best and not just as a second best for humans, and that, accordingly, Socrates proposes to incorporate -- rather than reject -- pleasure as one of the intrinsically desirable aspects of the happy life. Thus, I offer alternative readings of controversial passages that have given rise to the prevalent interpretation criticized here, and advance positive evidence that at least some pleasures are seen by Plato as inherently good. In addition, I demonstrate that Plato's arguments against false pleasures do not by themselves constitute an attack on hedonism. Rather, they can be seen as a strategy to show the hedonist that, in order to be a maximal, or even a consistent, hedonist, he should go for true, and not fake pleasures, if after all pleasure is the object of his pursuit. But, since this cannot be achieved without intelligence, then the mixed life of pleasure and intelligence is to be accepted even by hedonist themselves. (shrink)

Il est habituel de reprocher à la pensée heideggérienne de ne pas penser le corps et de n’établir de lien conceptuel qu’avec ce qu’elle a voulu dénommer comme Dasein. L’auteur de Sein und Zeit ne fait en effet qu’effleurer le problème du corps mais donne pourtant, déjà, à qui sait voir, de précieuses indications pour la reprise de la dimension corporelle de l’homme au sein d’un déploiement plus originaire n’ayant pour Heidegger jamais encore été pensé. Le texte décisif de Heidegger (...) sur la question est un ouvrage mal connu , les Séminaires de Zollikon, qui clôt le débat de manière décisive en livrant la profondeur de la pensée heideggérienne grâce à la notion de chair et en élevant cette dernière à un niveau de réalité que la phénoménologie n’atteint pas. Avec la théorie de la chair ek-statique, Heidegger plonge la dimension corporelle de l’homme dans l’ouverture à l’être et rejoint aussi bien l’expérience quotidienne de l’advenue de l’objet au simple regard que celle du jaillissement de la réalité aux yeux du poète. Heidegger's philosophy is often criticized for addressing the question of the body by merely establishing a conceptual relation between body and Dasein. The author of Sein und Zeit only mentions the question of the body but gives to those who want to see many indications on its signification – in a way that no one did before for him. The key piece Heidegger wrote on this issue is not well known . This specific work introduces the concept of flesh and rises it to a level of reality that even pheomenology did not reach. With the theory of the ek-static flesh, Heidegger plunges the human body into the opening to the being and joins both the daily experience of the object and the burst of reality to the eyes of the poet. (shrink)

Speech and phenomena.--Form and meaning.--Differance.

A penetrating analysis of our technical civilization and of the effect of an increasingly standardized culture on the future of man.

" "Positions brings together three interviews with Derrida, outlining his central concerns and ideas.

Given that it seems uncontroversial that Socrates displays considerable contempt towards rhetoric in theGorgias,the title of this paper might strike one as an oxymoron. Indeed, a reading of the text has more than once encouraged scholars to posit an Opposition between the elenctic procedures championed by Socrates and the rhetorical procedures of his interlocutors. At least three features have been highlighted that seem to indicate this contrast:1.the Socratic interest in short questions and answers versus his interlocutors’ use of long speeches;2.the (...) Socratic interest in truth regardless of the opinion of the many, the latter seeming an important concern of the rhetorician;3.the supposed Socratic appeal to the intellectual powers of the interlocutor, which is usually contrasted with the appeal to the emotions which is distinctive of rhetoric. (shrink)

Concussions in professional sports have received increased attention, which is partly attributable to evidence that found concussion incidence rates were much higher than previously thought. Further to this, professional hockey players articulated how their concussion symptoms affected their professional careers, interpersonal relationships, and qualities of life. Researchers are beginning to associate multiple/repeated concussions with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a structural brain injury that is characterized by tau protein deposits in distinct areas of the brain. Taken together, concussions impact many people in (...) the sporting community from current and former professional athletes and their families to medical and health professionals and researchers. In light of the growing awareness and sensitivity towards concussions, the purpose of this paper is to provide recommendations that are designed to improve player safety in professional hockey and address the ethical issues surrounding these suggestions. (shrink)

THE TENTH BOOK OF THE LAWS, which contains Plato's last word on cosmology and theology, has often been considered as presenting Plato's views in a more exoteric way in contrast with the more esoteric style of the Timaeus. And there are good reasons to think that this view is correct. Whereas the Timaeus stresses that "to find the maker and father of this All is difficult, and, having found it, it is impossible to communicate it to the crowd", Plato is (...) in Laws 10 intending to establish a "proemium" or rational foundation for his laws against impiety, which are supposed to be known by all. In this proemium Plato tries to argue for three propositions: that the gods exist ; that they take care of human affairs ; that they cannot be bribed by sacrifices or prayers. The underlying assumption is that learning these facts about the gods will also help to prevent impiety which, like any kind of vice, is often due to ignorance. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida is probably the most famous European philosopher alive today. The University of Nebraska Press makes available for the first English translation of his most important work to date, Glas. Its appearance will assist Derrida's readers pro and con in coming to terms with a complex and controversial book. Glas extensively reworks the problems of reading and writing in philosophy and literature; questions the possibility of linear reading and its consequent notions of theme, author, narrative, and discursive demonstration; (...) and ingeniously disrupts the positions of reader and writer in the text. Glas is extraordinary in many ways, most obviously in its typography. Arranged in two columns, with inserted sections within these, the book simultaneously discusses Hegel’s philosophy and Jean Genet’s fiction, and shows how two such seemingly distinct kinds of criticism can reflect and influence one another. The customary segregation of philosophy, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, linguistics, history, and poetics is systematically subverted. In design and content, the books calls into question “types” of literature (history, philosophy, literary criticism), the ownership of ideas and styles, the glorification of literary heroes, and the limits of literary representation. (shrink)