The purpose of this paper is to defend and justify the hypothesis that Perelman’s New Rhetoric can enable the French school of Discourse Analysis to readjust its theoretical positions concerning the ethics of discourse. While it is no longer necessary, in the wake of linguists such as Benveniste and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, to point out the founding role of the inscription of subjectivity in language, it is, paradoxically, still necessary to justify the legitimacy of choosing the axiological dimension of discourse and its (...) ethical issues as a scientific object. Indeed, very few linguists view Perelman’s New Rhetoric as a logic and a “pragmatics” of values; most of them prefer to view it as a technical reservoir of types of arguments (Cf. concerning the critical enumeration and classification of references to the NR, raised in approximately forty linguistic works, Koren 2002: 197–228). So far, the notions of “guarantee” and “commitment” are integrated in pragmatic linguistic theories; but these notions have mostly to do with a “commitment” vis-à-vis a referential truth. Truth is still considered as the ultimate value, as the normative reference to every questioning on discursive rectitude. We are thus left with an epistemological lacuna, namely the integration of the responsibility for value judgments in linguistic theories, that could be partially answered for by the New Rhetoric. An editorial from Le Monde will be analyzed to illustrate this point of view. (shrink)

Les valeurs faisant sens pour le locuteur jouent un rôle central dans la justification des décisions. Le jugement de valeur est cependant suspect d'être prescriptif et inique. Sa réhabilitation est l'objet de cet ouvrage. On y démontre que rhétorique et rationalité axiologique sont indissociables.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has been deployed by online platforms to prevent the upload of allegedly illegal content or to remove unwarranted expressions. These systems are trained to spot objectionable content and to remove it, block it, or filter it out before it is even uploaded. Artificial intelligence filters offer a robust approach to content moderation which is shaping the public sphere. This dramatic shift in norm setting and law enforcement is potentially game-changing for democracy. Artificial intelligence filters carry (...) censorial power, which could bypass traditional checks and balances secured by law. Their opaque and dynamic nature creates barriers to oversight, and conceals critical value choices and tradeoffs. Currently, we lack adequate tools to hold them accountable. This paper seeks to address this gap by introducing an adversarial procedure— – Contesting Algorithms. It proposes to deliberately introduce friction into the dominant removal systems governed by artificial intelligence. Algorithmic content moderation often seeks to optimize a single goal, such as removing copyright-infringing materials or blocking hate speech, while other values in the public interest, such as fair use or free speech, are often neglected. Contesting algorithms introduce an adversarial design which reflects conflicting values, and thereby may offer a check on dominant removal systems. Facilitating an adversarial intervention may promote democratic principles by keeping society in the loop. An adversarial public artificial intelligence system could enhance dynamic transparency, facilitate an alternative public articulation of social values using machine learning systems, and restore societal power to deliberate and determine social tradeoffs. (shrink)

The prevalence of social production and the increase in User Generated Content destabilize some of the fundamental premises of our current copyright law. Copyright law is primarily designed to regulate the relationships of a single owner with other non-owners and is focused on the sovereignty of the author/owner. Social production, by contrast, requires us to articulate a matrix of relationships between the individual, the facilitating platform and the communities and crowds involved in social production. The transition from industrial production to (...) social production transforms the social relations associated with the production of content and therefore requires adjustment of the institutions that design such relations. This Article closely examines the social dimension of content production and analyzes the consequences for the governance of content in the social web. The Article proceeds as follows: Part I describes social production and analyzes the implications for the stakeholders involved. I focus on three key features of social production which affect why we create, how we create, and what assets are generated by the process of creation. Part II explains why social production might be incompatible with the current copyright regime. In particular, I argue that copyright law mainly defines rights against strangers and fails to provide a framework for managing the rights and interests within a gigantic group of collaborators. Furthermore, the exclusivity offered by copyright law may undermine social motivation and collaborative production. Finally, in Part III, I outline some of the challenges for legal policy. (shrink)

Copyright law in recent years has undergone a process of privatization. While weakening the enforceability of conventional legislation (copyright rules), cyberspace facilitates alternative types of regulation such as contracts and technical self-help measures. Regulation by the code is significantly different from traditional types of public ordering (copyright law) and private ordering (contracts). Norms that technically regulate the use of information are not merely self-made they are also self-enforced. Furthermore, the law was recruited to uphold the superiority of such technical self-help (...) measures. The recently adopted U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998 prohibits the development and use of technologies designed to circumvent copyright management systems. The underlying assumption of this legislation is that in Cyberspace, the target of regulation should become the technologies that affect users'' behavior rather than the behaviors themselves. This paper critically examines this regulatory approach and highlights its shortcomings. (shrink)

Faut-il chercher un principe de la morale, quelque chose qui serait là, en nous, pour qu'elle puisse exister? La morale ne nous vient-elle pas aussi de l'extérieur, d'une contrainte sociale? Les protagonistes de la troisième partie de l'Alciphron s'engagent dans un vif débat sur cette question. Toutefois l'attention est détournée du « bien » vers le beau, objet du sens moral. L'exposé de cette thèse, les objections qui lui sont faites, sont le levier qui permet d'envisager la place de l'intérêt, (...) de nos sentiments de crainte et d'espoir, et de l'obéissance à la loi divine. L'enjeu, c'est la possibilité d'une morale autonome. Should one try and find some principle of ethics, i.e. something that would be herein, within us, so that it may be liable to exist? Do not ethics also come from outside, i.e. from a social constraint? The protagonists of Alciphron's third part start an acute debate on the topic. However attention is turned from the « good » towards the beautiful which is the object of the moral sense. This thesis and objections made to it are the lever enabling to grasp the part played by interest, by our feelings both of fear and of hope and by obedience to the divine law. What is at stake is the liability of autonomous ethics. (shrink)

Diderot’s reading of Le Camus’ Médecine de l’Esprit may occupy a prominent position in his research for the Eléments de physiologie, but his thoughts on the matter are not restricted to a criticism of this work, which appeared in 1753. In his edition of the Eléments de physiologie, Jean Mayer showed that Diderot had instigated an ongoing debate with other physicians who were also concerned with the issue of a ‘medicine of the mind’: Bonnet, Marat, Le Cat, not to mention (...) Bordeu and Haller. In view of the poignancy of Le Camus’ questions, however, his Médecine de l’Esprit may be taken as the hidden clue to a series of questions ranging from the perfectibility of the human mind to the curing of insanity, and thus spanning the limits of the human spectrum—from idiot to genius. The open possibility of creating a medicine of the mind is in fact a restatement of the problem of the respective weight of ‘organization’ and education, understood here in the broadest sense. This problem forms an essential part of the Réfutation d’Helvétius. Furthermore, this possibility leads one to inquire into the physician’s ability to intervene in the organization itself. Thus the question of the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’ shifts in some sense, so that it is now located within the problem of organization, which now means more than just the material organ of thought. Ultimately, it is this expression, ‘organization’, which I wish to elucidate further. (shrink)

This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences. Inferentialism advocates that humans' unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human (...) communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other language rationalists: the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought. Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. (shrink)

Le champ de l’histoire naturelle, longtemps descriptif et classificatoire, connaît tout au long du xmf siècle, un ensemble de transformations dues au développement croissant d’un point de vue physiologique sur les êtres vivants. Si, dans un premier temps, les disciplines traditionnelles (botanique, zoologie) voient des aspects particuliers se développer en leur sein (physique végétale, anatomie et physiologie comparées), la question se pose peu à peu de l’émergence d’une sdence du vivant, dépassant le clivage traditionnel des trois règnes, consciente de l’unité (...) que représente le monde vivant par opposition au monde inorganique. L’apparition presque simultanée en Europe du terme biologie (Roze, Treviranus, Lamarck) ou de son substitut zoonomie (E. Darwin) ne constitue cependant qu’une naissance avortée, qui perturbe les classifications antérieures, sans aboutir immédiatement à la reconnaissance de la biologie comme discipline. L’objet de cet article est d’analyser les conditions conceptuelles qui permettent cette naissance, d’examiner les processus de redistribution des savoirs qu’elle entraîne et d’étudier les redéfinitions et les redécoupages qui s’opèrent dans les catégories utilisées dans les institutions académiques, les périodiques ou les dictionnaires. (shrink)

This work defines various stakeholder roles to overcome the barriers to implementing Education 4.0, which were recently identified in the domain literature. The stakeholder roles are evaluated against these barriers, and such evaluation is structured as a multicriteria sorting problem. To this end, an integrated entropy-based CRITIC-CODAS-SORT under a Fermatean fuzzy environment addresses epistemic uncertainties inherent in decision-making. The FF CRITIC assigns the priority weights of the barriers, while the FF CODAS-SORT determines the high-priority stakeholder roles. A case of an (...) HEI evaluating 57 possible roles of 5 stakeholders is demonstrated here. Findings suggest the lack of collaboration, apprehensive stakeholders, cybersecurity threats, health issues, and cost as crucial barriers to the HEI. The sorting process yields 13 high-priority roles, encompassing those within the influence of the government, university management, human resource function, and educators. Various managerial insights are offered as inputs to the design of initiatives in EDUC4 implementation. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic account of human reasoning. Their distinctive hypothesis is that its adaptive rationale – and primary function – is to produce and assess reasons in interpersonal justification and argumentation. In this paper I argue, first, that their characterisation of reasoning as based on metarepresentations threatens to oversophisticate reasoning and faces the problem of vicious regress. Second, I argue that they owe us a coherent account of the cognitive (...) role of reasons in reasoning. (shrink)

Originally published: Berkeley, Calif. : Stone Bridge Press, 1994.

Richard Glauser mène dans cet ouvrage une enquête serrée sur le contexte philosophique dans lequel est née la philosophie de George Berkeley, cherchant contre quels sceptiques lutte précisément le jeune philosophe irlandais, en particulier dans les Principes de la connaissance humaine et les Trois Dialogues entre Hylas et Philonous qui leur font suite. La question se pose à la curiosité de l'historien des idées d'autant plus vivement que Berkeley est un philosophe avant tout argumentatif, qui préfère toujours exposer et démontrer (...) logiquement ses thèses, envisager les objections et les réfuter, ou encore en proposer une analyse serrée sous forme de dialogue. S'agissant des personnes, Berkeley se contente le plus souvent, de formules allusives ; il dit peu envers qui a il des dettes, et qui il attaque. (shrink)

The age of maturity of children to consent for medical research is under debate, as different authorities regard the capacity of young teenagers as either satisfactory or not to grant consent without parental participation in the process. The present paper contrasts the generally accepted guideline for ethics in paediatric research in Canada with what the same children are allowed and expected to be able to do as babysitters. This comparison reveals deep incongruences in the way the maturity of the same (...) children is appreciated for two different tasks. (shrink)

Maternal insightfulness or the capacity to see things from the child’s point of view, is considered to be a crucial construct for therapeutic change. In the present study, we aimed to implement the knowledge gleaned from the studies on attachment theory and maternal insightfulness into clinical practice to create an intervention program for mothers of children-at-risk due to inadequate parental care. We used drama therapy to “practice” maternal insightfulness in more “experiential” ways, because the use of creative expressive means may (...) be accessible and effective for the target population of the study and help improve maternal care. We used a manualized 10-week drama therapy-group intervention, focusing on the core concepts of maternal insightfulness: insightfulness, separateness, complexity, and acceptance. We used various dramatic means to explore and experience these components of maternal insightfulness. Forty mothers of children-at-risk took part in eight groups of parental insightfulness drama therapy. To evaluate the efficacy of the intervention, we used the Insightfulness Assessment interview, which produces 10 scales and a final classification of PI and non-PI. The Child Behavior Check List was used to evaluate a change in children’s behavior problems. The assessment took place at three time points: before the intervention, right after the end of the intervention, and 6 months following the intervention. Results at T2 showed a significant improvement compared to T1 in some of the maternal insightfulness scales, but not in the maternal insightfulness categorical classification. At T3, there was a significant change in the classification of the mothers, from non-insightful to positively insightful. At T3, there was also a significant decline in the children’s externalized and general behavioral problems. The results of this study contribute to an evidence-based practice of using drama therapy in the treatment of mothers and children at risk. (shrink)

Cieľom štúdie je vysvetliť motiváciu a podstatu filozofických koncepcií, podľa ktorých je tvrdenie normatívny fenomén. Začnem tým, že zmapujem kľúčové myšlienky k problematike tvrdenia, a lokalizujem typické normatívne prístupy. Potom rozoberiem, čo vlastne znamená povedať, že tvrdenie je normatívnym fenoménom špecifického druhu, a predložím špekulatívno-hypotetickú rekonštrukciu genézy tvrdiacej jazykovej hry - presnejšie, jej protoformy - ktorá by mala vyzdvihnúť jej charakteristické sociálno-normatívne aspekty. Na tomto základe postavím kritické porovnanie dvoch reprezentatívnych normatívnych prístupov k tvrdeniu: pragmatického inferencializmu Roberta Brandoma a Knowledge (...) Account of Assertion Timothyho Williamsona. Budem argumentovať, že Brandomov prístup adekvátnejšie vystihuje sociálnu povahu tvrdenia, esenciálnu pre túto rečovú hru. (shrink)

This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s argument to the effect that ability to preserve certain eminently plausible transmission and/or closure principles for knowledge serves as a powerful adequacy test on alternative accounts of so-called Wittgensteinian certainties or hinge commitments. I argue that Pritchard fails to establish this claim—the transmission test does not favour his favourite conception over alternative conceptions premised on the idea that hinge commitments are not supportable via evidential-cognitive routes.

Táto kritická štúdia sa zameriava na problematiku spolupráce a pravidiel, diskutovanú Jaroslavom Peregrinom v knihe Človek a pravidla. Okrem extenzívneho exkurzu do osnovy Peregrinových hlavných myšlienok a argumentov budú systematicky analyzované niektoré kľúčové otázky patriace do tejto interdisciplinárnej teoretickej oblasti, pričom sa kriticky posúdia niektoré prvky Peregrinovho špecifického prístupu. Konkrétne, budem argumentovať, že Peregrinom preferovaná koncepcia pravidla - ako propozičného poznania, že niečo by malo nejako byť - nemôže dobre slúžiť jeho zámerom, ak chce udržať jeho evolučný prístup k pravidlám.

This is a book about aesthetics that is both a memoir and design critique. Among questions it addresses are: What inspires an aesthetic adventure? What is the best way to respond to ugliness? Is beauty always "good"? What is the crux of an artist's job? Why is "making nothing" beautiful? And what is a "beautiful human being"? The illustrator is Marco Koren, a young Californian artist with a passion for drawing.

Who doesn't wish they hopped out of bed each feeling energized and ready to tackle whatever challenges lie ahead? In Morning Rituals, author Leslie Koren is here to help, with practices that will have readers kicking their day off right! This tidy volume offers dozens of invigorating, empowering exercises for the body and spirit: Set an intention for the day. Drink a glass of lemon water. Write morning pages. Do a set of push-ups, or a series of energizing yoga (...) poses. Pull a tarot card. Take a moment to be still, over a cup of tea or a book of poetry. Whatever rituals speak to you, do them with intention and do them regularly, and you'll find that your morning sets the tone for a brighter, calmer, more productive day. Each prompt includes straightforward instructions as well as ways to personalize and improvise the idea. This beautifully photographed book will make for a thoughtful, loving gift-perfect for Mom, a recent graduate, or someone in need of a pick-me-up, or as a way to treat yourself. (shrink)

This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential theories of meaning. The book consists of three main sections. The first part contains essays demonstrating how researchers working on inferentialism and collective intentionality can learn from one another. The essays in the second part examine the dimensions along which philosophical and empirical research on human reasoning and collective intentionality can benefit from more cross-pollination. The final part consists of essays that offer a closer examination of themes from inferentialism (...) and collective intentionality that arise in the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Groups, Norms, and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality. (shrink)

In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasoning to practices and skills for making, assessing, and responding to public performances in communicative practices of giving and asking for reasons. Inferentialists have developed the idea mostly on conceptual grounds. Interactionists ask, in a more empirical spirit, why and how such practices and skills might have evolved. Thus they promise complementary “anthropological” insights of foremost interest to inferentialists. But interactionist theories advance a number of controversial claims (...) that deserve careful scrutiny. In this essay I focus on one such claim: namely that confirmation bias can be plausibly explained as a design feature that promotes postulated functions of interactive reasoning. And I argue that each of three extant proposals fails to make the claim good. (shrink)

As part of the preparations to establish a population-based biobank in a large Israeli health organization, we aimed to investigate through focus groups the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of insured Israelis, toward biobanking, and then, after input from focus groups’ participants, to empirically assess the impact of a revised recruitment process on recruitment rates. 1) Six Focus group discussions were conducted with individuals who had routine blood laboratory tests taken in the last 2 years. 2) After addressing the issues raised (...) in the focus groups and revising the recruitment process, individuals undergoing routine blood tests in phlebotomy clinics were invited to participate in the future biobank. Six Focus group discussions were conducted with individuals who had routine blood laboratory tests taken in the last 2 years. After addressing the issues raised in the focus groups and revising the recruitment process, individuals undergoing routine blood tests in phlebotomy clinics were invited to participate in the future biobank. At the outset of the focus groups there was an overall positive response to the prospect of a population-based biobank. Concerns revolved around infringement on privacy, fears of the “big brother”, and anxiety about inequality. Reaction to the language of the informed consent document revolved around concerns over ability to maintain anonymity, to withdraw consent, involvement of commercial entities, and the general tenor of the informed consent, which was perceived as legalistic and unilateral. In general, the longer participants were exposed to discussion about the biobank, the less likely they were to consent to sign in. Overall, only 20% of the 60 participants stated they would agree to sign in by the end of the 2 hour group session. The feedback obtained from the focus groups was used in the second stage of the study. A team of recruiters received extensive training to enable fruitful discussion and a detailed explanation to questions and concerns raised during the recruitment process. During the second stage of the study, after revising the consent form and training recruiters, a 53% consent rate was observed among 10,262 participants, more than 4 fold higher than estimated at the focus group stage. The qualitative focus group research helped identify important perceptions and concerns, which were subsequently addressed in the revised consent form and in the discussion the recruiters had with potential biobank donors. (shrink)

Recent studies based on next‐generation DNA sequencing have revealed that the female inactive X chromosome is replicated in a rapid, unorganized manner, and undergoes increased rates of mutation. These observations link the organization of DNA replication timing to gene regulation on one hand, and to the generation of mutations on the other hand. More generally, the exceptional biology of the inactive X chromosome highlights general principles of genome replication. Cells may control replication timing by a combination of intrinsic replication origin (...) properties, local chromatin states and global levels of replication factors, leading to a functional separation between the activity of genes and their mutation. (shrink)