The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger and RhetoricPhilippe-Joseph SalazarHeidegger and Rhetoric. Edited by Daniel M. Gross and Ansgar Kemmann. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. 195. $21.95, paperback.I have to confess to double ignorance. I have never paid much attention to/Heidegger and Rhetoric/ (let me use forward slashes to indicate a commonplace) because, in spite of all efforts of reconciliation between France and Germany, my knowledge of German is (...) not so adequate that I would ever contemplate reading Heidegger in his native tongue. As a rule I mistrust translations and rely on derivative knowledge only in cases of extreme urgency. This being said, I must add that such ignorance is somewhat informed by some knowing—where would French philosophy and French philosophy of rhetoric be without the long-standing and continuous dialogue between Heidegger and France, from Levinas’s seminal essay to today’s iterative debate on Heidegger’s so-called introduction of Nazism in philosophy? Be that as it may, I read the edited volume by Gross and Kemmann as a naive reader would, undisturbed by and unaware of intra-ecclesial wrangling. As it happened, as I was reading this book, I had advanced knowledge of a stunning little book byValerie Allen and Ares Axiotis (2007), on Heidegger’s plea for exoneration in July 1945. It was a numinous conjunction.Recalling Arendt’s distinction, in politics of course, among aim, end, and meaning, it is clear that Heidegger and Rhetoric has all three—the gesture [End Page 305] is indeed political, at least within our scholarly community. This book has a meaning—its elucidation imposes on readers to move from chapter to chapter, seriatim. It has an aim, the reality of which only comes to the fore as we close the book. It has an end, which, somehow, allows us to pass judgment with regard to the superior life of the discipline, if there is any.Back to the commonplace, which grounds all three. The difficulty with titles like this is that, more often than not, they promise more than they deliver. One asks oneself: Why not Rhetoric and Heidegger? Which leads to: What “rhetoric”? Aristotle’s? Rhetoric as attributed, by a growing population of ignoramuses, to “rhetoriticians”?The function of a commonplace is to evoke common ground, and in this instance, the common ground has a deep fault line. Indeed, as we read Gross’s erudite introductory essay (chapter 1), it is unclear whether the volume is dedicated to Heidegger’s Summer Seminar of 1924 devoted to Aristotle’s Rhetoric or to rhetoric in/around/about Heidegger. To compound it, we learn, in footnote 1 (41) that in one particular but revealing occurrence, Heideggerian scholars differ about the transcription: although the seminar was on the Rhetoric, does Heidegger refer to Rhetorik or to Logik when he defines “concrete function,” a highly operative definition indeed? Much of the volume hinges on how Heidegger defines the political function of rhetoric. Notwithstanding this casualty of scholarship, and Gross’s thoughtful transcription and explanation of key passages from the seminar, readers will wonder: “Where is the Urtext?” Unless one reads German and has at hand both volume 18 of the Collected Works and the rival transcript (pending, of course, the discovery of yet another transcript), one is reduced to rely on the authors’ word and view (an English translation is in preparation at Indiana University Press). This is the surface of the fault line.Below the surface of the text runs a deeper rift. Nonspecialists are left with the impression that Heidegger’s Summer Seminar of 1924 is a text by Heidegger, when, in fact, if I am not mistaken, Heidegger destroyed his notes and what we are left with are students’ notes cobbled together; they probably turned Heidegger’s lectures into their own commonplaces, which is what students usually do, as we all know. (We may as well have one of the famous imitations of the master with which Heidegger’s brother entertained his drinking friends, perched on a beer barrel like a bibulous orator.)Incidentally, I wish specialists would stop using the acronym SS 1924 to refer to the text. It has a sinister... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nobel Rhetoric; or, Petrarch's PendulumPhilippe-Joseph SalazarVery many authors who have their roots in other countries work in Europe, because it is only here where you can be left alone and write, without being beaten to death. It is dangerous to be an author in big parts of Asia and Africa.1The ceremony of [Petrarch's] coronation was performed on the Capitol, by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of (...) the republic... and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of Rome, he knelt before the throne and received from the senator a laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit."(Gibbon 1952, 2:573)§1.I would like to address a simple question: what is a Nobel laureate's speech?2 With a corollary: how does it provide an opportunity to perform as a public intellectual, a "philosopher" of sorts? And a further corollary: what does it say about intellectual compliance or resistance? There is a play on words in the title of this essay, made to draw attention to the rhetorical construction of a commonplace, mass media-induced belief: that Nobel laureates are, in essence, "noble minds."3 For brevity's sake this essay focuses mainly on the literature prizes and, to a lesser extent, the peace prizes. [End Page 373]§2.At face value, a Nobel Prize is a rhetorical event (from the time the winner is announced to the moment of the Nobel address): over the recent years, rituals attached to the Nordic apotheosis have attracted growing media interest—they belong to "breaking news"—lending laureates a public exposure that, in turn, has led them to perform a public role or to publicly decline this performance, literally to "dispose of " it—"disposure" as the antistrophe of exposure. The public is usually aware of the announcement of the name of the winner, who instantly becomes a global "brand." Publicity and news programs follow suit, and if a recipient's ethical qualities resonate with the ethical preoccupations of the day (gender is one) the better the news value. Arguments are built on the announcement and often recur when, in early December, recipients deliver their Nobel addresses.This rhetorical event may indeed take the shape of a "rhetorical situation" if national pride or state concerns impose an exigency onto laureates—it is interesting to note that the media are complicit in stressing the national value of an award. The exigency resembles the one applied by them to sport performances. However, while the practices of public reward and public performance no longer allow a sportsperson to decline a medal or to express personal views on a podium to the public strains of a national hymn,4 they do still allow Nobel laureates to absent themselves, as André Gide did in 1947 (this strategy gave him the opportunity, in a terse banquet speech read on his behalf, to express his view that Paul Valéry had been overlooked by the Nobel, thus turning the award into a muted invective; see Gide 1947), to say they don't care, that their country of origin did little for them, and even, although rarely, to decline or to express amusement at the award.5 In short, beside "disposure," they can perform "exposure" through acceptance or dismissiveness, thus drawing a merciful line between reward (in sport) and award (the Nobel).A rhetorical situation is indeed created when a Nobel winner is seen as betraying state or nation by accepting the prize. In one reverse case, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was berated for not accepting it (in 1964), in spite of the fact that, at that time, his philosophy and political engagement made clear to the French state and the French public that he abhorred them both. In 2003, South Africans learned at their expense how reward and award are borderline and therefore not on the same side: they failed to thank J. M. Coetzee for his temperance, when, having resettled in Australia at the time of his award, he waited for a while before taking Australian citizenship.6 The Nobel Foundation's rightful insistence on disregarding [End Page 374] nationality does not mean nationality... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PostfacePhilippe-Joseph Salazar, Guest Editor"France: Current Writing in Philosophy and Rhetoric" could be a subtitle for this volume. As guest editor I have chosen the genre of the postface rather than that of the preface. I wanted to let writings speak for themselves, unhindered by the added filter of an introduction. Prefaces are either congratulatory or a contribution in disguise—or, worse, a puerile attempt to overshadow the rest. However, (...) by way of a summation, a few, brief remarks are in order.Some thirty years ago it would have been impossible to seek out and secure authors to write on this subject. Since then a sea change has taken place, attracting into the circles of the "rhetorical turn" many a willing partaker. In this new game, two circles gyrate and now and then rotate in unison or collide.One circle, let us call it belletristic, was set in motion by Marc Fumaroli when he released, in 1980, his epoch-making Âge de l'éloquence. It was as if a new chord had been struck, catching most by surprise, heralding the sudden irruption of new thinking about the mainstay of French culture, the "classical age," that is, the seventeenth century, the sacrosanct age of Racine, Descartes, Louis XIV, and Nicolas Poussin. Fumaroli's work in rhetoric, aesthetics, and social commentary went to the heart of French literature and culture: it offered an hermeneutic opportunity to run against the grain of structuralism and Bourdieusian analyses, while it simultaneously brought to [End Page 424] light "rhetorical" layers, both religious and civil, of French culture that militant secularism and social positivism had long cast aside as pernicious or preposterous. It also served as a powerful antidote to "cultural studies." His influence is deep and wide and long lasting. Nancy Struever, who alongside Fumaroli founded the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, draws on her intimate knowledge of the French school to provide here a profound and critical account of his work in which she underscores how Fumaroli transformed, from the standpoint of the history of rhetoric, the study of Western European culture and social life forms—the award of the Balzan Prize to Fumaroli came on the heels of his Histoire de la rhétorique dans l'Europe moderne. He has, for all intents and purposes, created the French school of rhetoric studies, which has nurtured an ever-growing circle of scholars, now in its second generation, with a relief cohort at the ready (Salazar 2007).The other circle took a while longer to gain balance and establish momentum. It concerns itself with the complex relation between philology and philosophy. Indeed, French classical philology had long been resistant to the presence of philosophy and so too philosophy to philology. This uneasy and reciprocal indifference or even distrust can be traced back to the Discourse on Method, in which Descartes invented French philosophical prose, as Pierre Cahné puts it, a situation later aggravated by the spell German metaphysics cast over French philosophy in the nineteenth century. However, it was the enduring presence of Hegel in the 1930s, together with the material and intellectual rescue French philosophers offered Heidegger after 1945, and a sustained interest in Nietzsche and Husserl, that created the conditions for a new dalliance between philology and philosophy. It has been a multifaceted game: some Hellenists, like Nicole Loraux and Marcel Detienne, chose to develop an anthropological meditation on ancient Greece, bringing forth, in the process, rhetorical categories that before them were mere indicators (mètis, epitaphios). On the periphery stood Émile Benveniste with his philological enquiry into Indo European words as mental structures—his Vocabulaire remains a constant source of inspiration. Latinists had a problem of their own: their commonly shared notion that Latin was not a philosophical language, together with their vociferous prejudice against non-Ciceronian Latin, had consigned medieval and Renaissance thinkers and modes of thinking to the bogs of impure language. However, Latin scholars such as Alain Michel sought to unravel the Roman aesthetics inherent in a rhetorical way of life; this school of new Latinists propelled a remarkable revival of Neo-Latinity, which has [End Page 425] had a long-lasting influence on Renaissance studies... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric on the Bleachers, or, The Rhetorician as MelancholiacPhilippe-Joseph SalazarThose who cannot remember rhetoric are condemned to repeat it.*French philosopher Jacques Bouveresse (2008) asks, in his most recent book, Why is it that we think we need literary works, in addition to science and philosophy, to help solve moral questions? As one reviewer notes, this comes as a surprise from a man “better known as a specialist of (...) Wittgenstein, who has always defended philosophy, often with scathing irony, against brainless realism, and, in any case, defended the prerogatives of a reason reasonably attentive to reality, a defense that led him to dismiss relativism and its mixing up of truth and verifiability with fallacy and verisimilitude” (Maggiori 2008). 1Bouveresse, who holds the chair of the philosophy of language and knowledge at Collège de France, and whose elevation to this hallowed professorship was portrayed as a revenge of sorts against Jacques Derrida, is not unimportant for those in rhetoric studies who have an interest in philosophy as well.2 He is the one who, with indeed scathing irony, unraveled the rhetorical stakes of the unrivaled Sokal truancy against Social Text (Bouveresse 1999), namely, how analogy provides a common ground for the literary and the scientific within public discourse.3Bouveresse (1999, 129) recalls, tongue in cheek, how that famed connoisseur in manipulations, [End Page 356] Alexander Zinoviev, explains, in The Yawning Heights (1979), that sciences produce their own “doubles” for the sake of public argument. The literary use of scientific analogy mimics the way in which ideology has to produce its own “doubles” in order to exist in public consciousness.For Bouveresse, literary intellectuals, and some philosophers, manufacture doubles of science because our life is lived under the shadow of science insofar as it has something to say about everything we do as moral agents or think in terms of practical reason. Analogy rules therefore by a popular demand for science. To question analogy in relation to ethics—belief and opinion, custom and habitus, temperament and character—under the gaze of the massive presence of science in public discourse (from campaign claims of “experience” to policy claims made on the basis of scientific knowledge) is at once to engage with rhetoric.4 It is to ask the question: Why do we feel that, alongside science, philosophy, and works of fiction, we need to listen to that double, “speeches,” to solve ethical problems?However, at this juncture, or crossroad where doubles point in various directions, rhetoricians have a choice among four attitudes, or four paths (to put it in Heideggerian fashion). Faced with the real, moral dangers inherent to analogy, one can (like Bouveresse) be combative and assert reason’s prerogative against the sophistry of doubles; one may defend analogy as morally grounded or even a means to resistance (hence, the moral incentive Bouveresse now attaches to fiction); one may argue for a culture replete with figurations (by and large, a matter of religious belief and faith as truth, which necessitates an analogical reading of this debased reality called “the world”); or one may, having already played on these teams, decide to stay on the bleachers, watch players of this three-cornered game, and fall into melancholy.Thomas Farrell was, I think, a melancholic rhetorician. I do not mean he was not here and there combative, or sanguine, or controversial, merely that from his writings emanates a stubborn melancholy regarding the destiny of rhetoric, or, to recall the epigram placed, ironically, at the top of this essay: “Those who cannot remember rhetoric are condemned to repeat it.” In essence, our public is a-rhetorical; it evolves in a world of instant communication, of short-lived prudence, of ever-disappearing persuasion, while, at the same time, it is made to cling to opinions raised to standards of absolute value and unnegotiable belief. The main reason why rhetoric is no longer a technē lies in this tension. It cannot be a technē because [End Page 357] its rules and artifacts are divorced from culture. It cannot be an epistēmē because its productions are singular constructions.Rhetoricians are not rhetors, and rhetors have long vanished. Indeed, there are eloquent... (shrink)

When, on 4 July 2014, the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, preached in the venerable mosque of Mosul the restoration of the caliphate, his homily ushered in far more than a new phase in jihadist warfare against Western values. His oratory launched on the world scene a new culture that instantly began to shape, solidify, and even sublimate the caliphate as the most arresting rhetorical performance of radical and militant Islam. However, despite this self-proclamation, political commentators (...) failed to accurately size up the emerging culture of the new caliphate, and we find ourselves faced now with an alternative, global culture that draws irresistibly more and more converts and partisans into its orbit. The most perilous form of underestimating adversaries is to reduce their cultural complexity to a few, unreflective clichés, a telling sign of our own cultural illiteracy. (shrink)

The Caliphate of the Islamic State developed a complex system of online argumentation that mediated and spanned the whole spectrum of jihadist literacy, from glossy magazines to short messages on social networks, from combattant letters to multimedia postings, and from chants to battle-field harangues and sermons. The overall effect was “terrifying” in the etymological sense of the word as arguments served to establish a unique intellectual “territory” that redoubled the physical one. It was molded by a sustained rhetoric that incorporated (...) traditional juristic or theological modes of reasoning, and verbal/visual artefacts. It created an argued literacy meant to endure after the loss of territory. This essay details the various argumentative components of this literacy while questioning the knowledge “we” have of it. (shrink)

We know of rhetorical questions. But what is a rhetorical response? In the philosophical tradition one example of response stands out: René Descartes's Responses to Objections leveled at his Metaphysical Meditations. In an open invitation he had requested objections, using a rhetorical formula that was central to the post-Humanist Republic of Letters: entering into a correspondence with peers, across borders, and above the narrow confines of academia stuck in the practice of disputation inherited from Medieval Scholasticism. As he put it (...) in a letter to Father Mersenne, he asked for objections "so that what readers may find difficult be elucidated by my responses" (Lettre à Mersenne of January 21, 1641, in Descartes... (shrink)

Recognition is used here in its military sense of “reconnaissance”: reconnaissance is about territory and how, survey done and maps out on the table, one will proceed methodically, strategically to seize and control. Counterterrorism and surveillance protocols have been feeding on this basic idea without giving it any more thought than the addition of technologies.1 A couple of provisos: I do not use the word “recognition” in its Aristotelian sense of “anagnôrisis”, a dramatic catastrophe, a turning on its head of (...) a plot, when a.. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Unless a democratic citizenry, when it gets shaped at school, is asked to formulate complex answers to simple questions, there is no other avenue for their destiny than ressentiment against “the world,” which expresses itself in either a parading of culture or an inordinate sense of revolt.

Ways of prediction, ways of rhetoric? Let me begin by placing side-by-side two statements that, at face value, have nothing in common. The first comes from a report by a world leader in forecasting, Stratfor: Forecasting world events is a difficult task that takes guts and discipline. Though you can find endless scenarios and speculation almost anywhere, Stratfor gives you forecasts. These are a few of the unlikely predictions we made long before the headlines caught up: 1995—Disparity between net creditor (...) and debtor states in Europe will make it difficult to sustain a unified currency. 2005—The center of gravity will shift from al Qaeda's core group to regional spinoffs and grassroots jihadists. 2008—NATO will... (shrink)

This volume focuses on various questions concerning the interpretation of probability and probabilistic reasoning in biology and physics. It is inspired by the idea that philosophers of biology and philosophers of physics who work on the foundations of their disciplines encounter similar questions and problems concerning the role and application of probability, and that interaction between the two communities will be both interesting and fruitful. In this introduction we present the background to the main questions that the volume focuses on (...) and summarize the highlights of the individual contributions. (shrink)

Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede's cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive (...) MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede's Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed. (shrink)

Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty – often framed as “neurorights” in ethical, legal, and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including neurorights into their constitutional legal frameworks, and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines (...) on this issue. However, in many discussions of neurorights the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work is to provide conceptual, ethical, and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity, and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal, and policy discussions. (shrink)

Die Moralphilosophie des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts hat mit Konsequentialismus, Deontologie, Kontraktualismus und Tugendethik nicht nur höchst einflussreiche Theorieparadigmen produktiv weiterentwickelt, sondern auch eine Reihe wichtiger neuer Probleme aufgeworfen. Der vorliegende Band versammelt zentrale Beiträge der analytischen Moralphilosophie, u. a. von David Gauthier, Shelly Kagan, Frances Kamm, Thomas Nagel, Michael Slote, Christine Swanton und Susan Wolf, die für ein Verständnis gegenwärtiger Diskussionen in der normativen Ethik unabdingbar sind. -/- Inhaltsverzeichnis: Vorwort Einleitung: Analytische Moralphilosophie der Gegenwart -/- 1. Konsequentialismus Shelly Kagan: (...) Ein Plädoyer gegen die Alltagsmoral Peter Railton: Entfremdung, Konsequentialismus und die Anforderungen der Moral -/- 2. Deontologie Thomas Nagel: Ethik William David Ross: Was macht richtige Handlungen richtig? -/- 3. Kontraktualismus David Gauthier: Warum Kontraktualismus? Thomas Scanlon: Die Struktur des Kontraktualismus -/- 4. Tugendethik Christine Swanton: Eine tugendethische Theorie des richtigen Handelns Michael Slote: Akteursbasierte Tugendethik -/- 5. Moralische Aggregation John Taurek: Zählt die Anzahl? Frances M. Kamm: Aggregation und zwei moralphilosophische Methoden -/- 6. Das Prinzip der Doppelwirkung Jonathan Bennett: Vorhergesehene Nebenwirkungen vs. beabsichtigte Folgen Ralph Wedgwood: Zur Verteidigung der Lehre von der Doppelwirkung -/- 7. Moralische Rechte H. L. A. Hart: Gibt es natürliche Rechte? Joseph Raz: Über die Beschaffenheit von Rechten -/- 8. Moralischer Zufall Thomas Nagel: Moralischer Zufall Susan Wolf: Die Moral des moralischen Zufalls. (shrink)

This chapter examines the influence of German idealism on the works of Soren Kierkegaard. It suggests that Kierkegaard's essential concepts and ideas were influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and that his oeuvre can be best understood in the context of classical German philosophy. The chapter also considers Kierkegaard's views about the theology of sin and the problems in his reception of German idealism.

Ce petit livre est concis. Il l’est peut-être trop, mais il demeure clair et stimulant. Il est axé sur des questions de justice sociale que se posent des sociaux-démocrates perplexes. Il se divise en trois parties traitant chacune d’un problème différent. Ce compte rendu les traitera l’un après l’autre, mais ils sont liés dans la pratique. Philippe Van Parijs utilise les notions de maximin, de contrat social passé derrière un voile d’ignorance et de solidarité nationale, et il fonde une (...) partie de son argumentation sur ces notions. Il discute des mérites d’une solidarité élargie à la nation, mais non d’une solidarité qui irait au-delà, bien qu’il tienne compte, à plusieurs moments, du fait que la nation soit de plus en plus tributaire d’une économie mondiale. En introduction, il rend hommage à John Rawls et André Gorz, des maîtres «avec et contre» qui il a écrit ce livre. Il dit aussi vouloir établir des principes cohérents, provisoires sans doute, mais auxquels on puisse adhérer. Il réussit certainement à les tirer au clair et à favoriser leur problématisation. (shrink)

It is impossible not to discuss the question of time, at least for the philosophy of religion. However, to discuss the question of time is equally impossible, as the various perspectives presented in this volume show. Then what is time? Time is not, and yet everything is within time. Time is, but neither substance nor pure form. Being a dimension of all Being, not even God could or would withdraw from time. The authors of the contributions to this volume discuss (...) the unavoidability of time and its paradoxes, not the least with the purpose of giving time, as a recurring topic for the philosophy of religion. Contributors: Joseph Ballan, Jonna Bornemark, Oystein Brekke, Rebecca Comay, Iben Damgaard, Arne Gron, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Marius Timmann Mjaaland, Carsten Pallesen, Ulrik Houlind Rasmussen, Werner Stegmaier, Philipp Stoellger, Claudia Welz. (shrink)

In July 2015, shortly after the murder of an elderly priest in the city of Rouen, the leading French daily Le Monde announced it would no longer publish the names or images of individuals involved in acts of terrorism. The decision, wrote the editors, was intended to limit the "posthumous glorification" of terrorist acts. It was not the first time the notion of conscientious self-censorship in the fight against terrorism had bubbled to the fore. The strategy had been flowing through (...) media circles and policy centers for over a decade. By the time the Islamic State emerged in the summer of 2014, it had become nearly impossible for the average Western consumer to hear or see any actual trace of the... (shrink)

In Words Are Weapons, Philippe-Joseph Salazar has produced a work that's garnered international acclaim. Winning the Prix Bristol des Lumières in 2015 and earning rave reviews, the book is one of the first, perhaps only, robust treatments of ISIS's rhetoric with an eye toward its persuasive efforts. For these reasons, the book is vitally important as we approach turning the corner into a second decade of Western-led terror wars that created the conditions under which ISIS formed. Salazar deserves (...) serious credit for this contribution; it is undoubtedly a text that should appear in every library throughout the world.For these reasons, I struggle with this book. I find several areas in... (shrink)

The present article is published in Proche-Orient Chrétien, N.66, VOL.3-4, JAN. 2017, USJ: Beirut, pp. 425-430. It is a philosophical review of Philippe Capelle-Dumont and Yannick Courtel book “Religion et Liberté” that fetches the records of the First International Symposium of the Francophone Society of Philosophy of Religion about the two concepts Religion and Freedom. On one hand, religion has always been considered as a pole of practices and references contrary to freedom declining a dependence on a "binding doctrine"; (...) on the other hand, religion has undergone several political representations in the many spaces of cultural, social and international life which is urgent to re-examine. The article proposes a synthesis of the conferences of Philippe Capelle-Dumont, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean Greisch, Joseph O’Leary, François Chenet, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Francis Jacques, Pierluigi Valenza, Danielle Cohen-Levinas, Yannick Courtel and Jean Grondin who concludes with the “freedom to philosophize about religion”. (shrink)

Newly edited by Konrad Koerner (University of Ottawa), with an introduction by Clemens Knobloch (Universitat Siegen)The importance of Wegener's Untersuchungen uber die Grundfragen des Sprachlebens can only be compared to that of Karl Buhler's Sprachtheorie. Even now, however, Wegener's work remains virtually unknown to the English speaking world. Wegener's main work was published in 1885. It has its origin in two lectures given in 1883 and 1884 at school teacher meetings held in the Magdeburg area and it still recalls those (...) original occasions and maintains much of the oral style. Part of the volume treats the subject in a systematic and theoretical manner; other sections contain vivid examples and are characterized by a considerable didactic effort. The book is held together by leitmotif-questions, such as 'How do we understand language?' and 'How does language function as a means of everyday communication?'. We witness the experiences of the talented school teacher and the observations of the innovative dialect researcher combined, condensed, and conceptually ordered.In spite of the relatively unsystematic form of presentation, the book remains thoroughly consistent in thought and argument. In the Untersuchungen we have before us the outline of a communicative and functional view of language structure, of the analysis of speech, and of semantics. (shrink)

2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In this book, Philipp von Wussow argues that the philosophical project of Leo Strauss must be located in the intersection of culture, religion, and the political. Based on archival research on the philosophy of Strauss, von Wussow provides in-depth interpretations of key texts and their larger theoretical contexts. Presenting the necessary background in German-Jewish philosophy of the interwar period, von Wussow then offers detailed accounts and comprehensive interpretations of Strauss's early masterwork, Philosophy and Law, his (...) wartime lecture "German Nihilism," the sources and the scope of Strauss's critique of modern "relativism," and a close commentary on the late text "Jerusalem and Athens." With its rare blend of close reading and larger perspectives, this book is valuable for students of political philosophy, continental thought, and twentieth-century Jewish philosophy alike. It is indispensable as a guide to Strauss's philosophical project, as well as to some of the most intricate details of his writings. (shrink)

The seventh edition of this pragmatic guide to determining right and wrong in the workplace is updated with new case studies and ancillary materials to combine stakeholder perspectives with a deep dive on workplace ethics issues. Using a unique stakeholder-based approach, this book takes business ethics out of the theory realm and provides practical ways to analyze any business decision. Including dozens of cases, Joseph Weiss looks beyond the impacts of ethical lapses on share price and profit to focus (...) on relationships between stakeholders, including individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. The new seventh edition includes seven new cases and ten new Point/Counterpoint exercises, which challenge students to argue both sides of a contemporary issue. It incorporates the latest research as well as updated cases dealing with recent scandals at organizations such as Boeing, Facebook, and Uber. Professors will have access to online support, including teaching notes, PowerPoint slides, and sample tests. The book is equipped with a step-by-step guide to implementing stakeholder analysis, tips to help students apply ethical principles in their personal and professional lives, and comprehensive coverage of employee workplace issues. Addressing relevant topics such as risk management, preferential hiring, and sexual harassment in conjunction with the digital divide, bribery, the environment, and more, Business Ethics, seventh edition explores ethical implications in today's increasingly interconnected global business environment. (shrink)

(2013). Life, the Unhistorical, the Suprahistorical: Nietzsche on History. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 64-91. doi: 10.1080/09672559.2012.744532.

Nietzsche was a philosopher who prided himself, in deliberate contradistinction with previous philosophers, on his ‘historical sense’. But this leaves many questions unanswered about the precise role of the historical in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Perhaps most importantly, can the conception of genealogy in Nietzsche’s later philosophy, as a revised historical method, be taken to represent his mature philosophical methodology in general? I argue, firstly, that there is considerable continuity between Nietzsche’s conceptions of history in the early essay ‘On the uses and (...) disadvantages of history for life’ and those of his later philosophy. The former can therefore be used as a resource for understanding the latter. Through a reading of the early history essay I demonstrate that Nietzsche’s conception of the historical here is intimately bound up with the notion of the ‘unhistorical’ and that it is precisely renewed access to the unhistorical which is required in order for history to be conducive to the flourishing of humanity. I go on to contend that this holds for Nietzsche’s later writings as well, and that genealogy, being purely historical, must therefore be seen as one subsidiary part of a broader philosophy in which the unhistorical will play, literally, a vital role. (shrink)

The book combines philosophical exposition and legal analysis, and pays special attention to issues of tort law.