"The time-honored dualism of the mutually exclusive systems of thought, mechanistic biology on the one hand and vitalism on the other, expresses a pair of theoretical approaches which are both inadequate. We shall show how they can be replaced by an abstractly descriptive system of a different type that is far better adapted to the nature of biology"--Preface.

Are living organisms--as Descartes argued--just machines? Or is the nature of life such that it can never be fully explained by mechanistic models? In this thought-provoking and controversial book, eminent geophysicist Walter M. Elsasser argues that the behavior of living organisms cannot be reduced to physico-chemical causality. Suggesting that molecular biology today is at the same point as Newtonian physics on the eve of the quantum revolution, Elsasser lays the foundation for a theoretical biology that points the way toward (...) a natural philosophy of organic life. Explicitly repudiating "vitalism" (the notion that the laws of nature need to be modified when applied to living organisms), Elsasser argues instead that the structural complexity of even a single living cell is "transcomputational"--that is, beyond the power of any imaginable system to compute. Beginning from this insight, Elsasser leads the reader through a step-by-step process that ultimately arrives at the conclusion that living and non-living matter are separated by "a no-man's land of irrationality." Trained in Germany as a physicist, Elsasser first pondered the implications of quantum mechanics for biology as early as 1951. The more closely he studied the inherent complexity of life, the more skeptical he became of the reductionist view of organisms as tiny machines. "An organism," he concluded, "is a source of causal chains which cannot be traced beyond a terminal point because they are lost in the unfathomable complexity of the organism." Like the physicist who works within the bounds of an unfathomable universe, Elsasser argues, the biologist must seek answers within a system that is no less unfathomable. (shrink)

A quarter of a century has elapsed since quantum mechanics was discovered. Perhaps it is not too much to say, in retrospect, that the time was ripe for this particular development. This is attested, not only by the speed with which the edifice of the theory was completed immediately following the basic discoveries of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also by the rapidity, well-nigh unprecedented in the history of science with which the new results were applied to almost every branch of (...) physics and chemistry. A mental readiness on the part of the scientists involved might have had much more to do with this than the facilities of modern communication systems. (shrink)

A systematic effort is here made to express some of the general results of quantum mechanics in a conceptual form closer to ordinary language than is the case with most modern physics. Many of the implications of the theory appear much more clearly thereby, in particular the fact that the laws of quantum mechanics are only statistical propositions about classes, not referring to individual objects. Conversely, the microscopic structure of an object cannot be precisely defined in quantum mechanical terms. To (...) say that an object has a definite microscopic structure is an operationally meaningless statement; it is on the same level as saying in relativity that a selected coordinate system is “at rest.” This raises the need for a “theory of matching”: What is the best statement about the structure of an object, given that the tools of description are only statistical? A technique is known for this: the theory of inductive probabilities. There is no longer one true description but a manifold of statistical descriptions, some of which have a greater likelihood of being satisfactory than others. The main concrete application of this type of conceptual reasoning lies in its power to clean out the speculative underbrush which so far has prevented the transition from theoretical physics to theoretical biology. (shrink)

The book of Bergson underlying the present study appeared in 1896. It is entitled “Matter and Memory” and is a philosophical disquisition into the relation and mutual limitations of organic life and inert matter. Bergson proposes to deal with this very general problem under the special aspect of a theory of the functioning of the human brain and the mechanism of ordinary memory. Such use of the inductive method, which starts from a special problem in order to arrive at results (...) that might be generalized later, might endear him to the exact scientist who has a healthy skepticism toward pure generalities. But let us for a moment remain in the realm of generalities in order to better circumscribe the subject: Few people would agree to an entirely mechanistic interpretation of organic life; hence there should be some point in biology at which the deviations from pure mechanism appear explicitly and in their fulness. For the present we shall adopt an intentionally oversimplified mode of expression. Let us say that mechanistic description is causal and that as our analysis progresses we must eventually arrive at a point where we can no longer trace the causal chains in their entirety. At that point we must replace causal “classical” physics by quantum mechanics and form our pictures of microscopic realities of organic matter in terms of the latter. Some of the pertinent problems have been pointed out by the present writer among others, following earlier suggestions by Niels Bohr. Suffice it here to say that certain processes of the atomic scale going on in a complex system such as the organic tissue essentially escape detailed observation that would allow us to determine the continuity of an entirely causal nexus. It is possible to make such observations, but they result in physical destruction of the very coherence of the organic tissue upon which the biological functioning depends. Bohr describes this condition by the term “generalized complementarity.” We cannot enter into a discussion of these problems here; let us adopt deliberately the oversimplified and somewhat vague expression that at some point indeterminacies become significant in the microscopic processes that take place in the organic body. We shall try to limit ourselves in this paper to the simplistic notion of a multiplicity of indeterminate events inserted into the play of molecular reactions that constitute the functioning of the organism from the viewpoint of the physicist and chemist. (shrink)

Cette étude nous offre une analyse de l’attitude des écrivains français contemporains au point de vue social. L’auteur esquisse à grands traits le développement de cette attitude en commençant par Maurice Barrés et décrit les nombreux essais tentés par des écrivains de valeur qui ont voulu s’inspirer de la pensée bourgeoise et représenter cette classe par le moyen de la littérature. La doctrine politique du radical-socialisme d’Alain y est comparée avec le traditionalisme de Barrés. Les efforts de Charles Péguy (...) et de Julien Benda vers une conception normative de la notion du „clerc“, de „l’être intellectuel“ sont décrits quand à leur essence et à leurs limitatons. Une digression sur quelques aspects de belles-lettres : Roman populaire, Ferdinand Céline, Julien Green, fait suite. L’antagonisme entre le poète et l’écrivain sert de trame à une étude de l’oeuvre de Paul Valéry, dans lequel cet antagonisme apparaît le plus nettement. L’orientation sociale actuelle de l’écrivain français se conçoit le mieux lorsqu’on étudie l’oeuvre d’André Gide ; son attitude significative, à un tournant de l’histoire, puise toute sa valeur dans son influence si considérable sur la jeune génération, dont les représentants les plus avancés ont passé par le surréalisme.The object of the following exposition is to determine the attitude of modern French literature, and to trace the main features of its development since Maurice Barrés. We are given the manifold attempts of important authors to inspire themselves with the ideology of the middle class, and to come out on behalf of this class in their writings. Alain’s political doctrine of Radical Socialism is confronted with the reactionary traditionalism of Barrés. Charles Péguy’s and Julien Benda’s exertions to give a normative setting to their concepts of „clerk“ and „intellectual“ are examined both as regards content and definition. We are then presented with some aspects of present-day Belles Lettres : of the „popular novel“, Ferdinand Céline, Julien Green. The antagonism between poet and author is considered in connection with Paul Valéry’s work which shows this most clearly and fruitfully. The present social standpoint of French litterateurs appears in a concentrated form in the life-work of André Gide. His representative position at a turning-point in development is evidenced by his influence on the younger generation, the most advanced of whom have gone beyond and away from Surrealism. (shrink)

Au cours des dernières décennies, d'importants philosophes tels Walter B. Gallie, Arthur Danto, Louis Mink, Hayden White et Paul Ricoeur ont mis l'accent sur le rôle de la narration en histoire. Le présent texte rappelle les thèses de ces auteurs et porte ensuite une attention particulière aux travaux de David Carr voulant que l'action historique elle-même ait une structure narrative. L'article discute des conséquences de ce « narrativisme » en prenant parti dans un débat alimenté par des interventions comme (...) celles de William Dray et de Noël Carroll. Il soutient qu'une thèse «réaliste» en la matière risque de déboucher sur la réactualisation d'une forme de philosophie spéculative de l'histoire, ce qui ne va pas sans soulever quelques questions à propos de l'analyse politique et de la pratique de l'histoire. (shrink)

This essay explains what Blanchot understands as writing and the space of literature. For Blanchot, writing is the place where the impossible interruption of the destiny of things is put into play, an interruption that world-formation needs but negates and conceals. Writing belongs to an excess outside of language, an otherness of language. The need to write is linked to the point at which nothing can be done with words. Writing is contrasted with dialectical language and the totalizing aim of (...) the Hegelian system. The essay explains the connection between the disaster of writing (after the holocaust), the neuter and fragmentary style of writing and the passivity of writing. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While the concept of “infinite distance” (ID) appears as such only in the work of Maurice Blanchot, in this paper we argue that it could be productively coined in Walter Benjamin’s as well. We argue that (1) the concept of ID is elaborated from a revision, a re-signification, and a radicalization of the modern concept of “aesthetic distance”, and that (2) this modification is fundamentally based on the interpretations that both, Benjamin and Blanchot, make first of early (...) German Romanticism, and second of the work of Franz Kafka. This modification, we contend, (3) contains a shift in the ground of the concept: the concept of ID has no longer as ground the realm of the subjective faculties (i.e., the ‘judgment of taste’), but the realm of art and language. Finally, we show (4) that the concept of ID presupposes the existence of a ‘fragmentary impulse’ within literary works that can be understood as a “limit-experience” for the subjectivity. (shrink)

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue , the first study in any language to provide a complete overview of Buber's thought, remains the definitive guide to the full range of his work and the starting point for all modern Buber scholarship. As well as summarizing Buber's early intellectual development and attitudes - his mysticism, his youthful existentialism, his philosophy of Judaism and religious socialism - it focuses on the two crucial issues of his mature thought: his dialogic or I-Thou philosophy, (...) and his probing of the nature and redemption of evil. As a sensitive, intuitive and perennially fascinating account of one of the twentieth century's great spiritual teachers, and as an influential classic in its own right, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue reveals the implications of Buber's thought for theory of knowledge, education, philosophy, myth, history and Judaic and Christian belief. This fully revised and expanded 4th edition includes a new preface from the author, an expanded bibliography incorporating new Buber scholarship, and two new appendices in the form of essays on Buber's influence on Emmanuel Levinas and Mikhail Bakhtin. (shrink)

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition of (...) Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

This article introduces and defends the “pathological complexity thesis” as a hypothesis about the evolutionary origins of minimal consciousness, or sentience, that connects the study of animal consciousness closely with work in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. I argue that consciousness is an adaptive solution to a design problem that led to the extinction of complex multicellular animal life following the Avalon explosion and that was subsequently solved during the Cambrian explosion. This is the economic trade-off problem of having to (...) deal with a complex body with high degrees of freedom, what I call “pathological complexity.” By modeling the explosion of this computational complexity using the resources of state-based behavioral and life history theory we will be able to provide an evolutionary bottom-up framework to make sense of subjective experience and its function in nature by paying close attention to the ecological lifestyles of different animals. (shrink)

This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.

Ethical care is beginning to be recognised as care that accounts for the views of those at the receiving end of care. However, in the context of palliative and supportive district nursing care, the patients’ and their carers’ views are seldom heard. This qualitative research study explores these views. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 26 patients with palliative and supportive care needs receiving district nursing care, and 13 of their carers. Participants were recruited via community nurses and hospices (...) between September 2010 and October 2011. Post-structural discourse analysis is used to examine how discourses operate on a moral level. One discourse, ‘busyness’, is argued to preclude a moral form of nursing care. The discourse of friendship is presented to contrast this. Discussion explores Gallagher’s ‘slow ethics’ and challenges the currently accepted ways of measuring to improve quality of care concluding that quality cannot be measured. (shrink)

There has been much criticism of the idea that Friston's free-energy principle can unite the life and mind sciences. Here, we argue that perhaps the greatest problem for the totalizing ambitions of its proponents is a failure to recognize the importance of evolutionary dynamics and to provide a convincing adaptive story relating free-energy minimization to organismal fitness.

At the time of his death in May 1961, Maurice Merleau-Ponty held the chair of Philosophy at the College de France. Together with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, he was cofounder of the successful and influential review Les Temps Modernes. However, after Merleau-Ponty's two studies of Marxist theory and practice (Humanisme et Terreur and Les Aventures de la Dialectique), he alienated both orthodox Marxists and "mandarins of the left" such as Sartre and de Beauvoir. Perhaps his most lasting (...) contribution to the interpretation of human existence was his formulation of a positive philosophical approach to psychology the foundations of which were clearly outlined in The Structure of Behavior and later more fully developed in Phenomenology of Perception. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003) 119-134 [Access article in PDF] The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition Maurice Charland Rhetoric is not a discipline. That is to say, as a domain of theoretical and practical knowledge, rhetoric is weakly institutionalized, lacking a centralized arbiter and standardized set of procedures for establishing truth claims. It also lacks the basic characteristics that Michel Foucault defines as disciplinary, for while we can identify (...) "groups of objects, methods, their corpus of properties considered to be true, the interplay of rules and definitions, of techniques and tools," these are neither universally admitted, nor do they "constitute a sort of anonymous system, freely available to whoever wishes, or whoever is able to make use of them, without their being any question of their meaning" (1972, 222). On the contrary, despite the fact that rhetoric is usually figured as offering practical and, indeed, positive knowledge, the meaning of its terms is always being questioned and at stake. While we might, by considering terms loosely, seek to identify rhetoric in terms of objects such as "persuasion," or "discourse," these are not exclusively its province. Furthermore, the ends of rhetoric are themselves unclear. Is rhetoric really the art of discovering the available means of persuasion? Or is it an art of citizenship? Or a method of enquiry? It has at times been defined as each. Consequently, none of these methods can fix its identity. At most, we can say that "rhetoric," as a domain of knowledge, signals a commitment to the idea of agency in discourse.Rhetoric, while not disciplinary, nevertheless "hangs together" as a domain of knowledge even though it does not cohere conceptually. It is, or comes close to being, a "discursive formation." That is to say, we can identify a field that produces statements concerning discourse and its operations, which is characterized by certain regularities that articulate with the term rhetoric itself. The first such regularity is the gesture of negation. Rhetoric refuses philosophy (or acts out having been refused by philosophy). [End Page 119] Rhetoric further is defined against other intellectual genres: rhetoric is not poetics, is not political science, is not ethics, though it may "speak" to them. Ultimately, though, this tells us very little about the nature of rhetoric's difference, for while refusal is effective in positing the existence of a boundary between rhetoric and other domains, the location of that boundary and what it contains remains unspecified. Rhetoric must also be attributed an at least provisional sense. This is accomplished by rhetoric's second gesture, which initially appears more substantial. Rhetoric is framed in terms of the positivity of a foundational "tradition." Indeed, the gesture toward tradition is ubiquitous. Consider, for example, both the title and principles of organization of Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg's (1990) anthology, George Kennedy's (1998) recursion to the idea of "tradition" even as he attempts to present rhetoric as a natural and cross-cultural phenomenon, recent feminist works that explicitly address "the tradition," 1 the routine citation of Classical authorities and examples, the recurrence of "new" rhetorics, including Burke's dramatism, Perelman's theory of argumentation, as well as Barthes' semiotics, which are offered as supplements to tradition's lacks, and, finally, the energy devoted to the study of the history of rhetoric. The rhetorical tradition, as something bequeathed or put in play by ancient teachers, appears to offer rhetoric a substance, a literature, and a set of problems, particularly through variants of two other principles of discursive formation identified by Foucault, commentary and the author-function. Even so, the gesture toward tradition does not imply the existence of a historically rooted and fixed corpus or model: "Tradition" is a vague term, there is no unproblematic canon of texts to be commented upon, and tradition itself, rather than Aristotle, Plato, or Cicero, stands as "author." What we debate is the meaning of the "tradition," the uneasy relationship between Socrates and Sophists, Plato and Aristotle, but as positions rather than personae. Furthermore, in the name of rhetoric, ancient and modern texts are often read against the grain, and what is... (shrink)

This Book Incorporates Prof. Friedman S Lectures And Discussions That Were A Part Of The Inter-Cultural Dialogue At Many Levels. His Major Contribution Is In Developing An Approach That Is Within The Framework Of The Human Image.

This paper constitutes a radical departure from the existing philosophical literature on models, modeling-practices, and model-based science. I argue that the various entities and practices called 'models' and 'modeling-practices' are too diverse, too context-sensitive, and serve too many scientific purposes and roles, as to allow for a general philosophical analysis. From this recognition an alternative view emerges that I shall dub model anarchism.

This paper presents the outlines of a phenomenological theory of foundational or non-inferential knowledge according to which the facts or states of affairs towards which our beliefs are intentionally directed can sometimes serve as reasons or evidence for what we believe. This occurs in acts of fulfillment, in which an object or state of affairs is given as it is thought to be. Hopp further argues that the sorts of empirical facts that can serve as reasons for noninferentially justified beliefs (...) are not confined to facts about one’s own occurrent mental states, but include facts about the physical world as well. In the course of defending the view against objections, Hopp argues that we should be internalists about the reasons in virtue of which what we believe is justified but externalists about the factors in virtue of which our states of believing have the status of being justified. He also argues against the claim that mental states, such as perceptual experiences, constitute our evidence for empirical beliefs. (shrink)

Das Problem der absoluten Reflexion -- Die Wandlungen des Freiheitsbegriffs bei Schelling -- Philosophie als absolutes Wissen -- Ethisches Handeln, heute -- Freiheit und Unfreiheit im Horizont menschlicher Selbsterfahrung -- Philosophische Aspekte der Angst -- Zum Problem des Todes.

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Introduction: the advance of governmentality -- Foucault, power, and governmentality: introduction; what is governmentality?; beyond the microphysics of power?; from theory of the state to genealogy of the state; history of the art of government; pastoral power; raison d'état; liberal governmentality; five propositions on foucault and governmentality -- Governmentality 3.4.7.: introduction; governmentality after Foucault; governmentality and the political sciences; some problems in governmentality -- Foucault effect redux? some notes on international governmentality studies: constellation; a few preliminary observations; problems and debates (...) in international governmentality studies -- Reconnecting governmentality and genealogy: introduction; genealogy and governmentality; pluralizing genealogy; practicing genealogy; lines of descent: the family tree of power?; counter-memory and re-serialization; the retrieval of forgotten struggles and subjugated knowledges -- Conclusion: encountering governmentality: governmentality as a new cartography of power; from mapping to encountering; governmentality and politics. (shrink)