This article argues that Pulcinella, a figure of classical Italian commedia dell’arte, could also be considered as emblematic for the reordering of politics in the early-modern and modern periods. By placing emphasis on the common underlying theatrical aspects of ‘representation’, it effectively connects the absolutist and democratic periods and helps us to understand why actors and acting came to play such a prominent role in contemporary politics, whether as politicians imitating actors, or as actors actually becoming politicians. The article also (...) shows that this sublimation of theatre into politics is not even a contemporary phenomenon but can be traced back to the ancient mime, following the origins of Pulcinella, and the first crisis of democracy, in classical Athens, in the footsteps of Plato. (shrink)

Plato’s work offers insights into the corrosive impact of eros, insights central for contemporary politics. The article combines an in-depth reading of Plato with a case study, arguing for the relevance of communism. This is because love also establishes a relationship of subordination to the object of desire, which can subjugate and entrap the lover in his or her feelings. Such instrumentalization of eros in communism was promoted by adherents being supposed to love the sufferers. The obligation that to understand (...) and help the sufferers one must become a sufferer turned suffering into an autopoietic system. The acceptance of such instrumentalization of love was rendered possible first by a sense of guilt due to the system of passionate interests (Tarde and Latour), connected to the rise of capitalism as a solution for the period of civil wars, and then by the liminal conditions that emerged, especially in eastern Europe, after two world wars; conditions that were purposefully perpetuated through staging a sacrificial system, paralysing social life. The character of such liminal leaders can be analysed through the figure of the trickster, developed by anthropologists, complementing Weber’s notion of charisma. While communism disappeared as a force, contemporary political life is increasingly reduced to a politics of victimhood and suffering, where the search for the good life is replaced by the double negation of eliminating all suffering from the world – an effort that only produces the opposite result, while public reality becomes torn apart by sex scandals, confirming Foucault’s insight about the investment of desire and enslavement to sexuality. (shrink)

The study of eros as passionate devotion leads back to the classical foundations of social and political analysis, in particular Plato’s philosophical anthropology, focusing on imitation and not rationality as the moving force of social life.

This chapter proceeds from the standard picture of the relation between intuitions and experimental philosophy: the alleged evidential role of intuitions about hypothetical cases, and experimental philosophy’s challenge to these judgments, based on their variation with philosophically irrelevant factors. I will survey some of the main defenses of this standard picture against the x-phi challenge, most of which fail. Concerning the most popular defense, the expertise defense, I will draw the bleak conclusion that intuitive expertise of the envisaged kind is (...) largely a myth. Next, I will consider the mischaracterization objection, which has mainly been developed by Deutsch and Cappelen on the basis of textual evidence: that philosophers do not appeal to intuitions as evidence for their case judgments, but instead argue for them. This would render the x-phi challenge mostly irrelevant, due to its focus on intuitions about hypothetical cases. I will then consider a few instructive replies to the mischaracterization objection, which are all unconvincing on further inspection. Finally, I will discuss some potential normative consequences of the mischaracterization objection, and I will argue that it recommends a shift away from the excessive focus on intuitions about cases in metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy, towards more work on the role of argumentation in the method of cases. More speculatively, I claim that philosophers should always argue for their case judgments, even if they have strong intuitions about them, because an argument-based methodology would be more transparent and philosophically fruitful than one that mainly relies on intuition. (shrink)

Aspiration by Agnes Callard locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. The book also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.

Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the particular task of art was mimesis. This kind of view about the relation between art and the world was dominant until the beginning of the 19th century. The theory of genius rethought this relation, and it did not presume that art needs to mirror the world. On the contrary, it expected originality, that is, the creation of a new world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the artworld operates under a wider notion of (...) the ‘work of art’, e.g. Duchamp’s “readymade” and “institutional readymade”, which are linked to outsider art. In both cases, the creation of an object and the creation of an art piece are separate actions performed by different individuals. This paper attempts to tackle these problems and prove that the contemporary art does not relate primarily to the world, but mainly to the artworld. Thus, the path from art to the world goes through the artworld. (shrink)

In order to make an attempt at grouping the various aspects of brain functional imaging (fMRI, MRS, EEG-MEG, ...) within a coherent frame, we implemented a model consisting of a system of differential equations, that includes: (1) sodium membrane transport, (2) Na/K ATPase, (3) neuronal energy metabolism (i.e. glycolysis, buffering effect of phosphocreatine, and mitochondrial respiration), (4) blood-brain barrier exchanges and (5) brain hemodynamics, all the processes which are involved in the activation of brain areas. We assumed that the correlation (...) between brain activation and metabolism could be due to either changes in the concentrations of ATP and ADP following activation of Na/K ATPase that result from the changes in ion concentrations, or the involvement, in different phases of metabolism, of a second messenger such as calcium. In this article, we show how this type of model enables interpretation of MRS and fMRI published data that were obtained during prolonged stimulations. (shrink)

Gliomas can display marked changes in the concentrations of energy metabolism molecules such as creatine (Cr), phosphocreatine (PCr) and lactate, as measured using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Moreover, the BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) contrast enhancement in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be reduced or missing within or near gliomas, while neural activity is not significantly reduced (so-called neurovascular decoupling), so that the location of functionally eloquent areas using fMRI can be erroneous. In this paper, we adapt a previously (...) developed model of the coupling between neural activation, energy metabolism and hemodynamics, by including the venous dilatation Balloon model of Buxton and Frank. We show that decreasing the cerebral blood flow (CBF) baseline value, or the CBF increase fraction, results in a decrease of the BOLD signal and an increase of the lactate peak during a sustained activation. Baseline lactate and PCr levels are not significantly affected by CBF baseline reduction, but are altered even by a moderate decrease of mitochondrial respiration. Decreasing the total Cr and PCr concentration reduces the BOLD signal after the initial overshoot. In conclusion, we suggest that the coupled use of BOLD fMRI and MRS could contribute to a better understanding of the neurovascular and metabolic decoupling in gliomas. (shrink)

Objections to the use of historical case studies for philosophical ends fall into two categories. Methodological objections claim that historical accounts and their uses by philosophers are subject to various biases. We argue that these challenges are not special; they also apply to other epistemic practices. Metaphysical objections, on the other hand, claim that historical case studies are intrinsically unsuited to serve as evidence for philosophical claims, even when carefully constructed and used, and so constitute a distinct class of challenge. (...) We show that attention to what makes for a canonical case can address these problems. A case study is canonical with respect to a particular philosophical aim when the features relevant to that aim provide a reasonably complete causal account of the results of the historical process under investigation. We show how to establish canonicity by evaluating relevant contingencies using two prominent examples from the history of science: Eddington’s confirmation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity using his data from the 1919 eclipse and Watson and Crick’s determination of the structure of DNA. (shrink)

Family relations between Greek eponymous heroes almost certainly reflect political or commonly agreed ethnic relationships between the communities concerned. Pelops and his proverbially numerous descendants are investigated here from this perspective and it is argued that the creation of eponymous Pelopids was primarily due to political motivations. Pelops as one of the most remote ancestors of Sparta was used, already by the 5th century BC, to establish connections on a mythological level with those cities which became the allies of the (...) Lakedaimonians and are commonly known as the members of the Peloponnesian League. It is also suggested that after the battle of Plataea, these poleis erected a victory monument at Olympia on their own, which is commonly referred to as the “Achaean monument”. (shrink)

Sometimes we engage in a pursuit before we can fully access its value. When we embark upon, for example, the project of coming to appreciate classical music, we make a foray into a new domain of value. The chapter introduces a new kind of reason—a proleptic reason—to rationalize such large-scale transformative pursuits. The proleptic reasoner is aware of the defect in her appreciation of some value, and feels the need to improve. It is explained that the work done by proleptic (...) reasons cannot be done by more familiar kinds of reasons. The implications of proleptic rationality for reasons-internalism are considered. Internalists hold that what I have reason to do can be arrived at by a procedurally rational extrapolation from my current desires. However, because the act of learning some new form of valuation cannot be analyzed as satisfying the values one already has, proleptic reasons are not internal. (shrink)

BackgroundInformed consent as stipulated in regulatory human research guidelines requires that a volunteer is well-informed about what will happen to them in a trial. However researchers are faced with a challenge of how to ensure that a volunteer agreeing to take part in a clinical trial is truly informed. We conducted a qualitative study among volunteers taking part in two HIV clinical trials in Uganda to find out how they defined informed consent and their perceptions of the trial procedures, study (...) information and interactions with the research team.MethodsBetween January and December 2012, 23 volunteers who had been in the two trials for over 6 months, consented to be interviewed about their experience in the trial three times over a period of nine months. They also took part in focus group discussions. Themes informed by study research questions and emerging findings were used for content analysis.ResultsVolunteers defined the informed consent process in terms of their individual welfare. Only two of the volunteers reported having referred during the trial to the participant information sheets given at the start of the trial. Volunteers remembered the information they had been given at the start of the trial on procedures that involved drawing blood and urine samples but not information about study design and randomisation. Volunteers said that they had understood the purpose of the trial. They said that signing a consent form showed that they had consented to take part in the trial but they also described it as being done to protect the researcher in case a volunteer later experienced side effects.ConclusionVolunteers pay more attention during the consent process to procedures requiring biological tests than to study design issues. Trust built between volunteers and the research team could enhance the successful conduct of clinical trials by allowing for informal discussions to identify and review volunteers’ perceptions. These results point to the need for researchers to view informed consent as a process rather than an event. (shrink)

Parce qu'il se développe à partir de la réalité factuelle, le droit, comme toutes les disciplines humaines, est confronté au réel et à sa représentation. Il ne peut appréhender le monde sans déjà le rendre présent. Il l'organise et le juge. Il en est une image. Or, cette image, l'apparence, désigne tout à la fois ce qui est visible, donc directement accessible aux sens, mais également ce qui est trompeur. Quelle attitude le droit doit-il alors adopter lorsque apparence et réalité (...) sont dissociées? Peut-il aller au-delà des apparences pour reconstituer une réalité plus complète ou même contraire? Or, le droit, comme l'art mais aussi comme les sciences dures, transforme la réalité car il est affaire de fabrication. Sa normativité lui permet de distribuer la pertinence des faits, en leur attachant mi effet juridique. La théorie de l'apparence constitue alors l'une des principales illustrations du rapport particulier que le droit entretient avec le réel : le droit parvient à ne plus opposer apparence et réalité pour les rendre complémentaires. La situation ostensible étant généralement l'image de la réalité, chacun lui accorde sa confiance. Cette confiance, qui conditionne l'action, ne subsiste que parce qu'il importe peu qu'apparence et réalité soient exceptionnellement dissociées. Foi est due à l'apparence n'est plus un simple dysfonctionnement marginal du rapport qui doit s'établir entre le fait et le droit, mais un principe général, indispensable au bon fonctionnement du système juridique. Le jeu normal de la règle est paralysé ; le fait apparent triomphe de la stricte logique juridique. La confiance s'affirme, aux dépens de la norme mais le droit, conformément à sa fonction première, s'oppose ainsi à la violence et à la suspicion. Il se soucie davantage de ses effets que de ses sources et se révèle alors de plus en plus pragmatique. La norme, définie paradoxalement comme le fait de confiance, n'est plus qu'un médiateur. (shrink)

Agnes Arber's international reputation is due in part to her exceptional ability to interpret the German tradition of scholarship for the English-speaking world. The Mind and the Eye is an erudite book, revealing its author's familiarity with philosophy from Plato and Aristotle through Aquinas to Kant and Hegel; but it is not dull, because the quiet enthusiasm of the author shines through. In this book she turns from the work of a specialist in one science to those wider questions (...) which any scientist must ask at intervals. What, in short, is the relationship between the eye that sees and the mind that weighs and pronounces? An important feature of this Cambridge Science Classics reissue is the introduction provided by Professor P. R. Bell, who as a Cambridge botany student at the time that Agnes Arber was writing The Natural Philosopby of Plant Form, is uniquely able to set The Mind and the Eye in the context of contemporary biological research. (shrink)

In this paper, I take scientific models to be epistemic representations of their target systems. I define an epistemic representation to be a tool for gaining information about its target system and argue that a vehicle’s capacity to provide specific information about its target system—its informativeness—is an essential feature of this kind of representation. I draw an analogy to our ordinary notion of interpretation to show that a user’s aim of faithfully representing the target system is necessary for securing this (...) feature. (shrink)

Scientific research is constrained by limited resources, so it is imperative that it be conducted efficiently. This paper introduces the notion of epistemic expression, a kind of representation that expedites the solution of research problems. Epistemic expressions are representations that (i) contain information in a way that enables more reliable information to place the most stringent constraints on possible solutions and (ii) make new information readily extractible by biasing the search through that space. I illustrate these conditions using historical and (...) contemporary examples of biomolecular structure determination. Then, I argue that the notion of epistemic expression parts ways with pragmatic accounts of scientific representation and an understanding of models as artifacts, neither of which require models to accurately represent. Explicating epistemic expression thus fills a gap in our understanding of scientific practice, extending Morrison and Morgan's (1999) conception of models as investigative instruments. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic representation may involve (...) tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

Socrates says that everyone desires the good. Does he mean that people desire what appears to them to be good? Or does he mean that they desire what really is good? This article argues, with reference passages in the Meno and Gorgias, that these alternatives are less opposed than they seem: each identifies something Socrates takes to be a necessary but insufficient condition on desiring. If what we desire must both be and appear to us to be good, then people (...) desire a subset of the things they take themselves to desire, and a subset of the things that really are good. Pointing this out to people incites them to inquire about the good, since they will be motivated to discover which appearances are mistaken and which goods they have missed out on. This explains why Socrates so frequently asserts that everyone desires the good: it serves his protreptic purposes. (shrink)

The association of celebrity worship with mental health concerns has been extensively studied in the past two decades. However, there is a lack of research on basic demographic characteristics that can potentially alter the link between celebrity admiration and different aspects of mental health. The present study investigates the possible moderating role of gender, age, and opposite/same-gender celebrity selection on the association of celebrity worship with general well-being, self-esteem and perceived daytime sleepiness. A total of 1763 Hungarian adults completed an (...) online survey focusing on attitudes and behaviors relating to celebrities and mental well-being. The moderation analysis showed that the negative association between celebrity worship and self-esteem was slightly stronger for women than for men, and the association between celebrity worship and perceived daytime sleepiness was slightly stronger for younger individuals than for older ones. Although both gender and age were particularly weak moderators, these results draw the attention to some potential individual differences when interpreting links between celebrity worship and different aspects of mental health. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 1 Seiten: 31-63.

A lively debate in the literature on moral progress concerns the role of practical reasoning: Does it enable or subvert moral progress? Rationalists believe that moral reasoning enables moral progress, because it helps enhance objectivity in thinking, overcome unruly sentiments, and open our minds to new possibilities. By contrast, skeptics argue that moral reasoning subverts moral progress. Citing growing empirical research on bias, they show that objectivity is an illusion and that moral reasoning merely rationalizes pre-existing biased moral norms. In (...) this article, I argue that both the rationalists and the skeptics fail to understand fully the role of practical reasoning by focusing exclusively on moral reasoning to the neglect of social reasoning. In the first half of the article, I argue against the skeptics by vindicating moral reasoning. I identify a Democratic Model of moral reasoning which is reliable and effective in overcoming bias. In the second part of the article, I argue against the rationalists. Drawing on a paradigmatic case of moral progress, i.e., the British abolition of the slave trade, I illustrate that moral reasoning, even when sound, is insufficient to motivate progressive action. The explanation for this puzzling phenomenon is not that the moral norm against cruelty is inert, as skeptics might suggest. Rather, it is that the moral norm against cruelty was overridden by the social norm of slavery which was tied to the British joint commitments to freedom and national honour. The debate between rationalists and skeptics centers around the moral rationality of human action, failing to recognize that human action is in fact primarily about social rationality. I defend a joint commitment account of social rationality, and offer a novel Communitarian Model of social reasoning which follows the logic of social rationality to revise social norms. I defend the reliability and efficacy of the Communitarian Model of social reasoning by applying it to the abolitionist social movement to show how Britons gave fellow Britons social reasons grounded in their joint commitments to freedom and national honour to end slavery. (shrink)

The ecological approach to object pretend play, developed from the ecological perspective, suggests an action- and affordance based perspective to account for pretend object play. Theoretical, as well as empirical reasons, support the view that children in pretense incorporate objects into their play in a resourceful and functionally appropriate way based on the perception of affordances. Therefore, in pretense children are not distorting reality but rather, they are perceiving and acting upon action possibilities. In this paper, we argue for the (...) viability of an ecological theoretical framework to pretend object play which has been traditionally understood as a representational and metarepresentational ability. We discuss the origins and basic assumptions of the ecological approach to pretense. We layout details by presenting a qualitative analysis of a pretend play episode and discuss the results of an experimental study inspired by the ecological assumptions. We discuss pretend object play in the context of ecological work on tool use. We address the relationship between the enactive and the ecological approaches to pretend play, pointing out similarities as well as differences. We conclude that ecological and enactive approaches have shown that it is possible to challenge accepted interpretations and seek explanatory frameworks that could move the field in new directions. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay discusses two ways in which an agent can make progress with respect to value: self-cultivation and aspiration. The self-cultivator becomes a more coherent version of the person she was before, acquiring beliefs or desires or habits or skills that serve her antecedent valuational condition. The aspirant, by contrast, acquires new values. The existence of aspiration is under pressure from those who would assimilate it either to self-cultivation, or to a change in value that is done to a person (...) rather than a change that is her own work. I show that those two options cannot be exhaustive by discussing liberal arts education; it is, I argue, paradigmatically aspirational. (shrink)

We investigate the impact of informal arguments on judgments about thought experiment cases in light of Deutsch and Cappelen’s mischaracterization view, which claims that philosophers’ case judgments are primarily based on arguments and not intuitions. If arguments had no influence on case judgments, this would seriously challenge whether they are, or should be, based on arguments at all—and not on other cognitive sources instead, such as intuition. In Experiment 1, we replicated Wysocki’s (Rev Philos Psychol 8(2):477–499, 2017) pioneering study on (...) a Gettier-style case, and we confirmed that the informal arguments used by him had no significant effect. However, we also included an improved argument for ascribing knowledge, which did have a significant effect even in Wysocki’s original design. We therefore followed up with Experiment 2 on three Gettier-style cases, where we used a more natural dialogical format for presenting both case descriptions and informal arguments. Overall, we found a clear impact of prima facie good pro and con arguments on case judgments. The issue of argument impact is thus no obstacle to arguing about thought experiments. (shrink)

Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism offers an innovative general theory of symbolism, derived from Freud's psychoanalytic theory and relocated within mainstream scientific psychology. It is the first systematic investigation of the development of Freud's treatment of symbolism throughout his published works, and discovers in those writings a broad theory which is far superior to the widely accepted, narrow, 'official' view. Agnes Petocz argues that the treatment of symbolism must begin with the identification and clarification of a set of logical constraints (...) and psychological requirements which any general theory of symbolism must respect, and that these requirements have been neglected by existing accounts across a number of disciplines. Her newly proposed 'Freudian broad' theory of symbolism, by contrast, does meet these requirements, but only after it has been rehabilitated within a revised psychoanalytic context, encompassing major changes to our understanding of the concepts of unconscious and repression and the role of language. (shrink)

The impact of incidental emotions on decision making is well established. Incidental emotions can be differentiated on several appraisal dimensions, including certainty-uncertainty. The present research investigates the effect of certainty-uncertainty of incidental emotions on hedonic forecasting. The results of four experimental studies indicate that uncertainty associated incidental emotions, such as fear and hope, compared with certainty emotions, such as anger and happiness, amplify predicted utility. This amplification effect is confirmed for opposite utility types; uncertainty associated emotions, when compared with their (...) certainty counterparts, lead to an overprediction of positive utilities and to an underprediction of negative utilities. In line with the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (Lerner and Keltner, 2000; 2001), this effect is mediated by the prediction task uncertainty, providing evidence for a carryover process of the incidental emotion. The effect of task uncertainty on predicted utility is, in turn, partly mediated by attention to the task, suggesting that an affective adaptation process (AREA model; Wilson & Gilbert, 2008) lies behind the amplification of forecasts. Taken together, these findings extend the impact of certainty-uncertainty to the context of hedonic forecasting and further corroborate the impact of incidental emotions in judgement and decision making. (shrink)