This paper consists in three case studies of modern French philosophers who drew their inspiration from Plato : Emile Chartier, known under his nom de plume Alain, famous as a teacher in the twenties of the last century, and two of his pupils, Simone Petrement and Simone Weil. Great admirer of Plato, Alain taught the survival of his main thoughts through all the philosophical tradition and their agreement with the rationalistic mood of 19th‑20th century philosophy. This implied that (...) these thoughts were stripped of the allegorical or mythological way in which Plato often expresses them. In particular, Plato’s allegory of the cave, one of his core images, turned out in Alain’s interpretation to be a metaphoric description of the difficult ascent of the mind up to scientific or at least rational knowledge. Consequently in this interpretation it was no longer question of any transcendency of the idea of the Good.Petrement and Weil remained faithful to their teacher and therefore to Platonic inspiration. Nevertheless, both of them, although in different ways, have reacted against this exhaustion of transcendence and come into conflict with modern interpretation of Plato. Petrement, even before specialising in the history of Gnosticism, worked out a dualistic system in which truth is absolutely transcendent because, as universal, it is unattainable for any particular mind inasmuch it is a subject’s mind. Truth, therefore, is unattainable throughout this life. On Weil’s part, the interest in Plato took place after a period of left wing militancy, following her discovery of Christianity and some personal experiences of mysticism. Platonism was for her a means of combining her new faith with a properly philosophical, i.e. rationalistic, way of thinking. Of course in this view transcendency was crucial to the idea of Good as much as to that of God. Whether this transcendency is more a matter of faith than of reason is at least uncertain. (shrink)

In Reasonable Democracy, Simone Chambers describes, explains, and defends a discursive politics inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas. In addition to comparing Habermas's ideas with other non-Kantian liberal theories in clear and accessible prose, Chambers develops her own views regarding the role of discourse and its importance within liberal democracies. Beginning with a deceptively simple question—"Why is talking better than fighting?"—Chambers explains how the idea of talking provides a rich and compelling view of morality, rationality, and political stability. (...) She considers talking as a way for people to respect each other as moral agents, as a way to reach reasonable and legitimate solutions to disputes, and as a way to reproduce and strengthen shared understandings. In the course of this argument, she defends modern universalist ethics, communicative rationality, and what she calls a "discursive political culture," a concept that locates the political power of discourse and deliberation not so much in institutions of democratic decision-making as in the type of conversations that go on around these institutions. While discourse and deliberation cannot replace voting, bargaining, or compromise, Chambers argues, it is important to maintain a background moral conversation in which to anchor other activities. As an extended case study, Chambers examines the conversation about language rights that has been taking place for more than twenty years in Quebec. A culture of dialogue, she shows, has proved a positive and powerful force in resolving some of the disagreements between the two linguistic communities there. (shrink)

This is a book that no one with a serious interest in the spiritual life can afford to be without.

_Gravity and Grace_ shows Weil's religious thoughts and ideas, drawn from many sources - Christian, Jewish, Indian, Greek and Hindu - and focusing on suffering and redemption. It brings the reader face to face with the profoundest levels of existence as Weil explores the relationship of the human condition to the realm of the transcendent.

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative democracy (on the decline) that attempt (...) to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSkepticism about citizen competence is a core component of Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels’s call, in Democracy for Realists, for rethinking our model of democracy. In this paper I suggest that the evidence for citizen incompetence is not as clear as we might think; important research shows that we are good group problem solvers even if we are poor solitary truth seekers. I argue that deliberative democracy theory has a better handle on this fundamental fact of human cognition (...) and therefore has a more realistic view of the conditions that might improve citizen competence. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue in favor of necessitarianism, the view that dispositions, when stimulated, necessitate their manifestations. After introducing and clarifying what necessitarianism does and does not amount to, I provide reasons to support the view that dispositions once stimulated necessitate their manifestations according to the stimulating conditions and the relevant properties at stake. In this framework, I will propose a principle of causal relevance and some conditions for the possibility of interference that allow us to avoid the use (...) of ceteris paribus clauses. I then defend necessitarianism from recent attacks raised by, among others, Mumford and Anjum, noting that the antecedent strengthening test is a test for causal relevance that raises no difficulties for necessitarianism. (shrink)

Epigenetic and transcriptional variability contribute to the vast diversity of cellular and organismal phenotypes and are key in human health and disease. In this review, we describe different types, sources, and determinants of epigenetic and transcriptional variability, enabling cells and organisms to adapt and evolve to a changing environment. We highlight the latest research and hypotheses on how chromatin structure and the epigenome influence gene expression variability. Further, we provide an overview of challenges in the analysis of biological variability. An (...) improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying epigenetic and transcriptional variability, at both the intra- and inter-individual level, provides great opportunity for disease prevention, better therapeutic approaches, and personalized medicine. Epigenetic and transcriptional variability mediate phenotypic plasticity, enabling adaptation to changing environments. In this review, we describe the sources of inter- and intra-individual variability and discuss epigenetic regulators of gene expression variability, including DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Understanding these molecular mechanisms will improve therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the asymmetrical mediated communication of the broad democratic public sphere can profitably be understood through the lens of deliberative democracy only if we adopt a system approach to deliberation. A system approach, however, often introduces a division of labor between ordinary citizens and experts. Although this division of labor is unavoidable and I believe compatible with a deliberative principle of legitimacy, it flirts with elitist theories of democracy: epistemic elites come up with the agendas, (...) ideas, and policy positions and democratic publics ratify or repudiate the agendas but do not generate or really engage with them. This I argue would violate an essential defining feature of deliberative democracy, namely that epistemic quality and equal participation are tightly linked. I turn to Habermas and his idea of a feedback loop as a possible solution to this dilemma. (shrink)

The type identity theory, according to which types of mental state are identical to types of physical state, fell out of favour for some years but is now being considered with renewed interest. Many philosophers are critically re-examining the arguments which were marshalled against it, finding in the type identity theory both resources to strengthen a comprehensive, physicalistic metaphysics and a useful tool in understanding the relationship between developments in psychology and new results in neuroscience. This volume brings together leading (...) philosophers of mind, whose essays challenge in new ways the standard objections to type identity theory, such as the multiple realizability objection and the modal argument. Other essays show how cognitive science and neuroscience are lending new support to type identity theory and still others provide, extend and improve traditional arguments concerning the theory's explanatory power. (shrink)

Two views on the nature and location of pain are usually contrasted. According to the first, experientialism, pain is essentially an experience, and its bodily location is illusory. According to the second, perceptualism or representationalism, pain is a perceptual or representational state, and its location is to be traced to the part of the body in which pain is felt. Against this second view, the cases of phantom, referred and chronic pain have been marshalled: all these cases apparently show that (...) one can be in pain while not having anything wrong in her body. Pain bodily location, then, would be illusory. I this paper I shall defend the representational thesis by presenting an argument against experientialism while conceding that the appearance / reality distinction collapses. A crucial role in such identification is played by deictics. In reporting that we feel pain here, the deictic directly refers to the bodily part as coinciding with the part as represented. So, pain location is not illusory. The upshot is that the body location is part and parcel of the representational content of pain states, a representation built up from the body map. (shrink)

Urbanization is the mechanism for the entanglement of things and experiences as commodities, an interminable restlessness of disorientation, a suspended state, where the capacity to maintain a hold on things and attain a sense of emplacement increasingly necessitates enforced resilience, of people embracing rather than warding off their imminent expendability. As such, what are the possibilities for the city to become a space of communing as an intersection of complex ecologies, common sensibilities and new forms of provision and care? This (...) response to Adrian Parr’s reflections on these issues in her article, ‘Urban Debt, Neoliberalism and the Politics of the Commons’, draws upon various African American practices for inhabiting the city as a vehicle of strategic indifference to efforts to render collective life expendable. This indifference has long been deployed to insulate experimental practices of care, economic and social collaboration, and to ‘honour the city differently’. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays bringing together Deleuzian Philosophy and postcolonial theory. Bignall and Patton assemble some of the world's leading figures in these fields to explore rich linkages between two previously unrelated areas of study.

This book complements and balances the attention given by postcolonial theory to the revitalisation and recognition of the agency of colonised peoples. Simone Bignall argues that a non-imperial concept of ethical and political agency and a materialist philosophy of transformation are embedded within a minor tradition of Western philosophy. 'Postcolonial Agency'provides a significantly new understanding of the processes of social transformation faced by many societies as they struggle with the aftermath of empire. It also offers a valuable new way (...) of conceptualising practices of postcolonial sociability. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

The European Union Commission’s whitepaper on Artificial Intelligence proposes shaping the emerging AI market so that it better reflects common European values. It is a master plan that builds upon the EU AI High-Level Expert Group guidelines. This article reviews the masterplan, from a culture cycle perspective, to reflect on its potential clashes with current societal, technical, and methodological constraints. We identify two main obstacles in the implementation of this plan: the lack of a coherent EU vision to drive future (...) decision-making processes at state and local levels and the lack of methods to support a sustainable diffusion of AI in our society. The lack of a coherent vision stems from not considering societal differences across the EU member states. We suggest that these differences may lead to a fractured market and an AI crisis in which different members of the EU will adopt nation-centric strategies to exploit AI, thus preventing the development of a frictionless market as envisaged by the EU. Moreover, the Commission aims at changing the AI development culture proposing a human-centred and safety-first perspective that is not supported by methodological advancements, thus taking the risks of unforeseen social and societal impacts of AI. We discuss potential societal, technical, and methodological gaps that should be filled to avoid the risks of developing AI systems at the expense of society. Our analysis results in the recommendation that the EU regulators and policymakers consider how to complement the EC programme with rules and compensatory mechanisms to avoid market fragmentation due to local and global ambitions. Moreover, regulators should go beyond the human-centred approach establishing a research agenda seeking answers to the technical and methodological open questions regarding the development and assessment of human-AI co-action aiming for a sustainable AI diffusion in the society. (shrink)

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney and more recently by Manfred Kets de Vries; we interpret their insights from a stakeholder theory perspective. Business ethics research seems to have overlooked how “neurotic management styles” could be the antecedents of unethical (...) behavior within organizations. After showing the connection between five managerial neuroses and the corresponding potential ethical failures within organizations that have been already identified within business ethics research, we suggest three organizational strategies to counteract these failures. First, we argue that managers should pay greater attention at the complexity of human motivation, avoiding the simplistic view of compliance‐based approaches. Second, we discuss the importance of developing a conversation around values within organizations, enabling healthy individual growth and limiting the emergence of neurotic processes. Finally, we discuss the role of the business ethicist in facilitating such a process, suggesting a parallel between the role of the business ethicist and that of the psychoanalytic therapist. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over the assumption (...) and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

As the purpose of this book is to open dialogue, we draw no conclusions. Instead, reflecting on the theoretical and practical implications that arise from each chapter, we offer some reflection through an exploration of the ways in which Australia has broadened discussions on P4C. In addition, we situate our discussion in contemporary global issues relevant to education and schooling: gender stereotyping, bias and language; Aboriginal philosophy; environmental education; and sexuality, adolescence and discrimination. As a community of children, adolescents and (...) adults, philosophers and educators, as well as citizens, we have an opportunity to contribute educationally to an inquiring society. (shrink)

Revelatory insights into the early life and thought of the preeminent French feminist philosopher Dating from her years as a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, this is the 1926-27 diary of the teenager who would become the famous French philosopher, author, and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir. Written years before her first meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre, these diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and offer critical insights into her early philosophy and literary works. Presented here for the first (...) time in translation and fully annotated, the diary is completed by essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical and literary significance. The volume represents an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and influence on the world. (shrink)

The problem of free will lies at the heart of modern scientific studies of consciousness. Some authors propose that actions are unconsciously initiated and awareness of intention is referred retrospectively to the action after it has been performed [e.g. Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. M. . On the inference of personal authorship: Enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information. Consciousness & Cognition, 14, 439–458]. This contrasts with the common impression that our intentions cause those actions. By combining a (...) stop signal paradigm and an intentional action paradigm we show that participants sometimes indicate to have intentionally initiated an action while reaction time data strongly suggest that they in fact failed to stop the action. In a second experiment we demonstrate that the number of trials in which participants misattributed their awareness of intention varied with the intentional involvement during action planning. Our data support the retrospective account of intentional action. Furthermore, we introduce an experimental approach that objectifies introspective judgments of awareness of intention. (shrink)

In this paper, I interview Francesca De Vecchi (Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in Vita-Salute San Raffaele University) about her qualitative ontology and its social and normative implications. If at the foundation of our lifeworld there are significantly qualitative experiences, phenomenology can investigate the most important contemporary issues, such as gender disparity, socio-virtuality depersonalizations and political urgencies.

In this article we discuss what are the implications for improving the design of corporate ethics programs, if we focus on the moral motivation accounts offered by main ethical theories. Virtue ethics, deontological ethics and utilitarianism offer different criteria of judgment to face moral dilemmas: Aristotle's virtues of character, Kant's categorical imperative, and Mill's greatest happiness principle are, respectively, their criteria to answer the question "What is the right thing to do?" We look at ethical theories from a different perspective: (...) the question we ask is "Why should I do the right thing?" In other words, we deal with the problem of moral motivation, and we examine the different rationale the main ethical theories provide. We then point out the relation between moral motivation and the concept of rationality in the different approaches - is acting morally seen as an expression of rational behavior? Our analysis of moral motivation provides a useful framework to improve the understanding of the relationships between formal and informal elements of corporate ethics programs, emphasizing the importance of the latter, often overlooked in compliance-focused programs. We conclude by suggesting that the concept of moral imagination can provide a unifying approach to enhance the effectiveness of corporate ethics programs, by providing an intangible asset that supports the implementation of their formal components into management decision making. (shrink)

The authors present an approach to conceptualising and predicting environmental conflicts in which conflicts are analysed as a continuum of disagreement over values and options. They also operationalise this approach using an online values-centred survey tool, the ‘public-to-public decision support system’ (P2P-DSS). The authors put values and conflict in environmental management into perspective. Next, they review how values are defined in scholarship and operationalised for decision support. The relevance of values research to con-flict management is presented. With reference to a (...) real-world aggregate-mining conflict, the authors demonstrate how P2P-DSS can be used to collect data and categorise conflicts to enhance environmental management decision-making. The authors argue that P2P-DSS has potential to support values-sensitive thinking for environmental conflict management. They then set out research priorities to investigate the theoretical and practical implications of this approach. This work contributes to advancing values research in environmental conflict management and expanding values-based decision-making. (shrink)

We argue that to face climate change, all education, from kindergarten to tertiary, needs to be underpinned by environmental education. Moreover, as a site of reframing, education when coupled with philosophy is a possible site of influencing societal reframing in order to re-examine our relations to nature or our natural environment. However, we contend that as philosophy has been largely absent from curricula, it is vital to redress this issue. Further, the environment cannot be viewed simply as subject matter for (...) study but, reconceptualised in the Indigenous sense as Place. Only in this way can we overcome the human-nature divide. We conclude that educators must look for what Plumwood calls ‘experiences that do not fit the dominant story’ to disrupt an important link in the chain of climate change by developing ‘traitorous identities’ able to challenge the dominant culture. (shrink)

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces the widespread (...) suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies. (shrink)

The term “lean in” was popularized by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, via her #1 Best Seller encouraging women to defy their fears and dare to be leaders in their fields. She received criticism because although admitting to external barriers contributing to the gender gap in leadership, the scope of her book focused on the internal shortcomings of women. She asserted that women are hindered by barriers that exist within themselves, and provided practical tips, backed by research, to equip women with (...) strategies to proactively progress in the workplace instead of shying away. Sandberg is not the first to raise concern about gender inequality. Other women in history like Susan B. Anthony and Maggie Lena Walker also challenged lopsided gender roles through their words and actions. Using the critical biography methodology, this paper explores these women’s experiences, philosophies and contributions, reflects on Sandberg’s insight, and develops a framework, based on the theory of planned behavior as well as the ethical principles of utilitarianism and corporate social responsibility, that links internal factors, organizational external factors, and societal external factors to intentions to lean in and leaning in behavior. Thus, via critical biography, this paper examines both internal and external factors, showing how they are linked, and how they may impact leaning in intentions and behavior. The paper also discusses how leaning in may influence both individual and gender mobility for women, and ultimately, increased gender equality. (shrink)

The struggle to become lucid is at the heart of The Myth of Sisyphus. To understand the absurd is to understand that the fit between our conception of the world and the world itself is fraught with uncertainty; lucidity is the elucidation of the absurd. To be lucid is to revolt against the type of certainty that leads to suffering; to revolt against philosophical suicide. Camus teaches us the intellectual humility that stays hands; there is no reasoning that justifies suffering. (...) If it is granted that the ability to recognise and respond to our own and others suffering is an important part of being human, and the task of education is to develop humans, then lucidity, in so far as it holds promise for the development of such an ability, has the potential to contribute positively to education. (shrink)

This essay reviews contemporary theories of public justification. In particular, it argues that conceptions of public justification and public reason have moved significantly beyond Rawls.

In the reported, experiment participants hit a ball to aim at the vertex of a Müller–Lyer configuration. This configuration either remained stable, changed its shaft length or the orientation of the tails during movement execution. A significant illusion bias was observed in all perturbation conditions, but not in the stationary condition. The illusion bias emerged for perturbations shortly after movement onset and for perturbations during execution, the latter of which allowed only a minimum of time for making adjustments . These (...) findings indicate that allocentric information is exploited for online control when people make rapid adjustments in response to a sudden change in the environment and not when people guide their limb movements to interact with a stable environment. (shrink)

Although developmental dyslexia (DD) is frequently associate to a phonological deficit, the underlying neurobiological cause remain undetermined. One prominent hypothesis suggests a specific deficit in magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) pathway. Here we investigated the visual M-D and parvocellular-ventral (P-V) pathway in dyslexic and in chronological age and IQ-matched normally reading children by measuring dynamic (frequency doubling illusion) and static stimuli sensibility, respectively. A specific deficit in M-D task was found. Importantly, the M-D deficit was selectively shown in poor phonological decoders. M-D deficit (...) appears to be frequent because 75% of poor pseudo-word readers were at least 1 SD below the mean of the controls. Finally, a replication study by using a new group of poor phonological decoders and reading level controls suggests a possible role of M-D deficit in DD. These results showed that a M-D deficit might impair the sub-lexical mechanisms that are critical for reading development. The possible link between these findings and the oscillatory “temporal sampling” framework is discussed. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present trust as a meta-emotion, such that it is an emotion that precedes first-order emotions. It examines how trust can be considered a meta-emotion by establishing criteria for identifying trust as a meta-emotion. How trust plays out differently in aesthetic and ordinary contexts can provide another mode for investigating meta-emotions. The article illustrates how it is possible to recognize these meta-emotions in narratives. Finally, it presents one of the aims of trust, sharing knowledge (...) between agents, when someone who provides testimony shares knowledge in an epistemic trust process with others. It shows a relationship construction between subjects and objects thanks to the trust, a meta-emotion that represents emotional ties between subjects to achieve another emotion. (shrink)