Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by atypical perception, including processing that is biased toward local details rather than global configurations. This bias may impact on memory. The present study examined the effect of this perception on both implicit and explicit memory in conditions that promote either local or global processing. The first experiment consisted of an object identification priming task using two distinct encoding conditions: one favoring local processing and the other favoring global processing of drawings. The second experiment focused (...) on episodic memory with two different cartoon recognition tasks that favored either local or a global processing. In addition, all the participants underwent a general clinical cognitive assessment aimed at documenting their cognitive profile and enabling correlational analyses with experimental memory tasks. Seventeen participants with ASD and 17 typically developing controls aged from 10 to 16 years participated to the first experiment and 13 ASD matched with 13 TD participants were included for the second experiment. Experiment 1 confirmed the preservation of priming effects in ASD but, unlike the Comparison group, the ASD group did not increase his performance as controls after a globally oriented processing. Experiment 2 revealed that local processing led to difficulties in discriminating lures from targets in a recognition task when both lures and targets shared common details. The correlation analysis revealed that these difficulties were associated with processing speed and inhibition. These preliminary results suggest that natural perceptual processes oriented toward local information in ASD may impact upon their implicit memory by preventing globally oriented processing in time-limited conditions and induce confusion between explicit memories that share common details. (shrink)

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. (...) Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution. (shrink)

The suffering of non-human animals is great and omnipresent. This is because animals are vulnerable to disease, disfigurement, injury, predation, age-related physical decline and death, and—today—it is also because human beings are subjecting animals to unprecedented violence in two different domains. Human activities and their byproducts are devastating wild animal habitats at such a fantastic rate that we are obliged to speak of a “sixth mass extinction”, and, while the crisis is typically measured in terms of the loss of entire (...) species, it plays itself out concretely on the bodies ofindividuals. At the same time, industrialized societies now objectify and “process” animals on a massive scale in a variety of settings, for instance—to mention but the numerically most significant—in CAFOs, industrial slaughterhouses and aquafarms, where each year the whole lifecycles of hundreds of billions of land and sea creatures are controlled without any consideration for their pain or terror except insofar as it threatens the economically efficient growth and harvesting of their edible tissues. How should we best respond to the awfulness, and the enormity, of animal suffering? (shrink)

We add one point to Suddendorf & Corballis's (S&C's) story of mental time travel: For the future success of this hot, new area of research, it is imperative to pay attention to the fundamental distinction between the general brain/mind capacity that makes possible conscious awareness of the past and the future (the ), on the one hand, and specific expressions of this capacity in a large variety of future-related mental activities (the ), on the other.

Narrative philosophy is the Australian philosopher Raimond Gaita’s answer to the question of how to philosophize in a manner that directly informs efforts to answer the classic philosophical question of ‘how best to live’. Gaita claims, provocatively, that getting the world in view in a manner relevant to arriving at an answer involves challenges that, far from being merely theoretical, are such that we can only meet them by working on ourselves or, alternately, by reshaping our sense of what matters. (...) A productive philosophical intervention would thus need to be in the business of directing our attitudes and would have to have the hallmark of literary discourse or “narrative.” This chapter lays out Gaita’s case for thinking that we need narrative philosophy, and it discusses some of Gaita’s efforts to present us with such a philosophy, specifically in relation to ethical thought about human-animal relations. An important virtue of Gaita’s approach is that it equips us to overcome the philosophically influential, but morally questionable, idea of tension between the moral standing of animals and the moral standing of severely cognitively disabled human beings. (shrink)

This brief note aims at contributing to the study of the reception of parabiblical narratives in hadith literature and Islamic historiography. Taking the Testament of Abraham as a case study, it sets out to analyse a particular literary motif shared by this text and an early version of the miʿrāǧ (Ascension) of the Prophet Muhammad. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the Testament of Abraham could have provided a number of elements for the redaction of at least one particular section of (...) the miʿrāǧ. This hypothesis finds support in other cases of textual correspondence between several sections of the Testament of Abraham and other Islamic works such as the Tafsīr of Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150/767), the unedited Kitāb Mubtadaʾ al-dunyā wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of Abū Ḥuḏayfa al-Buḫārī Isḥāq ibn Bišr (d. 206/821) and Ibn ʿAsākir’s Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq (d. 571/1176). The examined material thus throws additional light on the continuity between late antique apocrypha and nascent Arabic literature. (shrink)

"In this volume, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak engages with 16 photographs by photographer Alice Attie as she attempts telepoiesis, a reaching toward the distant other through the empathetic power of the imagination."-- dust jacket.

Focus of this article is Bernard's definitions and ideas surrounding power (potestas). The first section will outline terminology drawing a distinction between Bernard 's use of the terms potestas and auctoritas. Auctoritas is used less frequently by Bernard and is limited to descriptions of eccíesiastical matters; it is not predicated to the functions of a secular ruler whether king or emperor Conversely, potestas has a wide variety of uses and applications including descriptions of the power of God, the secular power (...) and the ecclesiastical power which is defined as potestas ligandi et solvendi. Given its range of meanings and uses, potestas is not a technical term for Bernard. Rather potestas is a biblical term of which the frequency and prevalence in the text of the Vulgate certainly influenced Bernard. Since Bernard uses potestas in both ecclesiastical and secular descriptions, other terms are helpful in drawing distinctions between the two spheres, e.g. ministerium and dominium, which as contrasting terms provide a point of entry into this discussion. (shrink)

This paper argues that independent auditors have lost sight of their obligation to be truly impartial, and have increasingly adopted an attitude of client advocacy. We argue that auditors have a professional obligation to go beyond merely passing judgment on whether client accounting methods are acceptable under GAAP, and to judge whether the principles adopted are the most appropriate under the circumstances. We then review recent evidence which suggests that auditors have abandoned this objective in favor of advocating client-preferred principles. (...) The results of a survey of public accountants employed by small CPA firms indicates that, in a scenario in which an auditor did not feel that the client's accounting treatment was the most appropriate under the circumstances but it was recognized as an acceptable alternative under GAAP, advocacy of the client-preferred approach is considered appropriate and is very likely to occur in practice. In less subtle cases (e.g., when the auditor did not feel that the client's treatment provided the best reflection of the economic substance of the underlying transactions), survey participants as a group were ambivalent regarding the appropriateness of client advocacy, and felt that subordination of judgment was likely to occur in practice. The results also indicate that engagement risk, or the risk that the firm will be harmed by aggressive behavior, affects judgments of both the appropriateness and likelihood of subordination of judgment. These findings suggest that auditors have adopted an ideology of client advocacy, within the constraints of engagement risk. (shrink)

The cartwheel is a striking structure critical for building the centriole, a microtubule-based organelle fundamental for organizing centrosomes, cilia, and flagella. Over the last 50 years, the cartwheel has been described in many systems using electron microscopy, but the molecular nature of its constituent building blocks and their assembly mechanisms have long remained mysterious. Here, we review discoveries that led to the current understanding of cartwheel structure, assembly, and function. We focus on the key role of SAS-6 protein self-organization, both (...) for building the signature ring-like structure with hub and spokes, as well as for their vertical stacking. The resemblance of assembly intermediates in vitro and in vivo leads us to propose a novel registration step in cartwheel biogenesis, whereby stacked SAS-6-containing rings are put in register through interactions with peripheral elements anchored to microtubules. We conclude by evoking some avenues for further uncovering cartwheel and centriole assembly mechanisms. The cartwheel is crucial for centriole assembly. Despite this fundamental role, cartwheel structure and assembly mechanisms remain unclear for a long time. Here we review five decades of research that led to our current understanding of these questions, highlighting the central role of the SAS-6 protein family. (shrink)

We distinguish scanning switches, which only enumerate states, from function switches which transform input states into output states. For the latter we introduce a logical network symbolism. Our history of early computer switching begins with the suggestions of Ramon Lull and Gottfried Leibniz, surveys the evolution of mechanical scanning switches and the first mechanical function switches, and then describes the first electromechanical function switches. The main themes of the present paper are that William S. Jevons built the first substantial function (...) switch (his logical piano), and that his work led to the design by Allan Marquand of the first substantial electromechanical function switch, as well as to Charles S. Peirce's idea for an electrical general-purpose programmable computer. These events all occurred fifty years before the first general-purpose programmable computers were constructed (in the 1940's), but they had no influence. (shrink)

Souvenir du passé, variation sur le présent, imagination de l'avenir : la littérature s'est toujours nourrie de ces ressorts immémoriaux de l'art du récit. Mais qu'en est-il de la littérature contemporaine? Comment agence-t-elle la mémoire et l'espérance, le " déjà plus " et le " pas encore ", le maintenant et l'autrefois? Quels sont les rythmes et les durées, les passés et les futurs qui fondent la singularité de la littérature du présent, de notre présent? Ce cahier de recherche, qui (...) rassemble les interventions de douze jeunes chercheurs, interroge la manière dont les littératures québécoise et française disent notre contemporanéité et son imaginaire du temps. (shrink)

As major clothing suppliers are being forced by competition to cut costs, is this inevitably leading their suppliers to cut corners in working conditions, and what ethical considerations are relevant? The author is completing her MBA at London Business School and has a background in the textile industry.

These notes of G. E. Moore's lectures for the three terms of 1934-1935 were compiled by Alice Ambrose, then Student of Newnham College, and Margaret Macdonald, then Fellow of Girton College. The lectures cover a wealth of interrelated topics, and provide instances of the analyses which made Moore «the father of the analytic school.» Since his analyses of such concepts as material objects, sense data, and truth rest on the ordinary use of expressions for these concepts, «ordinary language» philosophers (...) found in him their champion. Moore examines the views of Broad, Russell, F. P. Ramsey, W. E. Johnson, and John Wisdom. (shrink)

Three speakers engaged with theatre in different ways got inspired by the dialogical structure of Brecht’s Buying Brass and staged a similarly structured conversation. This conversation imitated the way how thespians and intellectual met in Brecht’s original text, but it was thematically focused on the current socio-cultural context. The research question was: How can we today make use of Brecht´s dialectic methodology in order to re-think the institutional situation of theatre as a starting point of social transformation? Which contemporary philosophies (...) can help in this re-thinking? Is theatre interested in them and is there any transformational potential in the opposite direction: from the theatre practice to the philosophical accounts of the contemporary world? The fragment collection under the title Buying Brass, unfinished and unedited by Brecht himself, anyhow belongs among the most extensive and sophisticated of Brecht’s treatises on theatre. It questions theatre in its very being, in its social and cultural function and in its epistemological potential. Staging a conversation of agents with different interests, attitudes, desires and functions in the theatrical apparatus, Brecht succeeds to provide a plastic methodology that tackles theatre dilemmas without reducing them to a one-dimensional view. The very format of a dialogue is congenial with theatrical practice and has a history among philosophers since Plato. Philosopher Denis Diderot as well as theatre practitioners Konstantin Stanislavsky and Richard Boleslavsky have presented their ideas for a rejuvenation of theatre in the format of written dialogues. Contradictions and objections are made manifest and also shown as anchored in a specific working role or institutional function. Moreover, the dialogue format allows and recognizes the imperfections, fallacies and misunderstandings of human conversations, as relevant aspects of contingency. And this contingency is of importance when we consider systemic, institutional or networked social situations. Thus, concerning the different background of the three presenters, we found the dialogue between us a relevant format, because it allows the realism of misunderstanding of each other as well as misrepresenting our selves. The three speakers choose different entries to the dialogue format, depending on their respective professional roles. This momentum of role-taking, reductively labeling oneself and each other as representatives of institutional functions, would also add a non-all dimension to the event of performing our dialogue: what was not said was somehow still inferred by suspicion or imagination. This approach has also an ambition to renew the customary way of paper presentations at research conferences and symposiums. (shrink)

Should philosophers be more polite to one another? The topic of good manners—or, more grandly, civility—has enjoyed a recent renaissance in philosophical circles, but little of the formal discussion has been self-directed: that is, it has not examined the virtues and vices of polite and impolite philosophizing, in particular. This is an oversight; practices of rudeness do rather a lot of work in enacting distinctly philosophical modes of engagement, in ways that both shape and detract from the aims of our (...) discipline. If we fail to recognize practices of rudeness, we become vulnerable to some of... (shrink)

At first glance singularity would seem to be necessarily opposed to the physical sciences, indeed to any kind of science. As the hallowed saying goes: “Science deals only in universals.” According to this view, the aim of any true scientific endeavor must be the discovery of universals or, in other words, the value of such an endeavor is based on its ability to explain phenomena in terms of universals. The status of singularity in science is a direct result of this (...) approach. Singularity is associated with the presence, either in a person or an object, of an unusual or exceptional quality, or of an individual trait. Singularity so conceived must therefore be seen as inherently compromising the aims of any scientific endeavor, since the purpose of that endeavor is universality as defined above. In this sense, the basis of scientific explication is the ability to determine a feature common to a collection of objects, thus allowing them to be explained by deductive reasoning. This common feature can therefore not be individual, if individual is understood as unusual or exceptional. (shrink)

Project MUSE - Journal of the History of Philosophy - Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination Project MUSE Journals Journal of the History of Philosophy Volume 46, Number 2, April 2008 Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination Journal of the History of Philosophy Volume 46, Number 2, April 2008 E-ISSN: 1538-4586 Print ISSN: 0022-5053 DOI: 10.1353/hph.0.0014 Reviewed by Alice SowaalSan Francisco State University Patricia Springborg. Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. (...) Pp. xix + 372. Cloth, $80.00. Scholars have recently begun to expand research in early modern philosophy to include “minor” figures, especially those who contributed to the foundations of the scientific revolution. Simultaneously and separately, other scholars have begun examination of the female figures of the period. Prominent here are Eileen O’Neill’s series of articles, Jacqueline Broad’s Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century , and Sarah Hutton’s Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher . Patricia Springborg, a political scientist, now contributes to this literature with Mary Astell: Theorist of.. (shrink)

In “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) initiate needed discourse on environmental justice and the...

"I am often rude. I often want to be rude. I often enjoy being rude. I even frequently enjoy witnessing the rudeness of others. Indeed, I could write a book devoted entirely to rudeness I have relished." This is, perhaps, the most charming opening to a philosophical study of civility that has been, and maybe ever will be, penned. The rest of us working on the topic should probably abandon our aspirations now. And these lines are not only charming; they (...) are illuminating, revealing something of both the style and substance of The Wrongs of Rudeness. Stylistically, we learn that the work that follows will be both personal and personable, its author a warm and witty companion. Substantively, we learn that this exhortation... (shrink)

“Pick a card, any card. This has to be a completely free choice.” the magician tells you. But is it really? Although we like to think that we are using our free will to make our decisions, research in psychology has shown that many of our behaviours are automatic and unconsciously influenced by external stimuli (Ariely, 2008; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), and that we are often oblivious to the cognitive mechanisms that underpin (...) our decision (Wegner, 2002, 2003). Magicians have exploited this illusory sense of agency for a long time, and have developed a wide range of techniques to influence and control spectators’ choices of such things as card, word, or number (Annemann, 1933; Banachek, 2002a; Jones, 1994; Turner, 2015). These techniques are instances of what is called forcing. -/- Many forces are extremely effective, illustrating various weaknesses in our sense of control over decisions and their outcomes. Researchers have started to investigate them in various ways (Kuhn, Pailh s, & Lan, 2020; Olson, Amlani, Raz, & Rensink, 2015; Pailhes & Kuhn, 2020b, 2020c; Shalom et al., 2013) and are beginning to obtain valuable insights into decision-making processes as well as a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that lead people to experience an illusory sense of free will and of agency. -/- Although magicians have acquired large amounts of knowledge in covertly controlling people’s choices, much of this knowledge is only discussed in the context of individual magic tricks, or in books that are not readily accessible to non-magicans. As we and others have argued elsewhere (Ekroll, Sayim, & Wagemans, 2017; Kuhn, 2019; Kuhn, Amlani, & Rensink, 2008; Kuhn, Caffaratti, Teszka, & Rensink, 2014; Macknik et al., 2008; Olson et al., 2015; Olson, Landry, Appourchaux, & Raz, 2016; Shalom et al., 2013; Thomas, Didierjean, Maquestiaux, & Gygax, 2015), a particularly effective way of making this knowledge more available is via the creation of taxonomies centered around psychological mechanisms (Rensink & Kuhn, 2015). For example, the psychologically based taxonomy of misdirection (Kuhn et al., 2014) helps draw links between misdirection and formal theories of perception and cognition. -/- Our aim here is to apply a similar process to the knowledge magicians have about forcing. The present paper develops a psychologically based taxonomy of forcing techniques with two goals in mind. Firstly, it should help uncover the various psychological mechanisms that underlie forcing techniques. Secondly, it should facilitate knowledge transfer between magicians and psychologists. Among other things, this knowledge will allow researchers to gain new insights into the mechanisms underlying decision-making, and the feeling of free will and of agency over choice. We start by defining the magician’s force and then look at some of the past classifications of forcing. (shrink)

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had an enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy even though only one of his works, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was published in his lifetime. Beyond this publication the impact of his thought was mainly conveyed to a small circle of students through his lectures at Cambridge University. Fortunately, many of his ideas have survived in both the dictations that were subsequently published, and the notes taken by his students, among them Alice Ambrose and the late Margaret Macdonald, (...) from 1932 to 1935. These notes, now edited by Professor Ambrose, are here published, and they shed much light on Wittgenstein's philosophical development. Among the topics considered are the meaning of a word and its relation to common usage, rules of grammar and their relation to fact, the grammar of first person statements, language games, and the nature of philosophy. This volume is indispensable to any serious discussion of Wittgenstein's work. (shrink)

A recent study by P.R. Blum suggests the hypothesis of an ideal line from Scotus to Mastri, passing through Perera, which would tend towards a new concept of metaphysics attainable through the use of abstraction by indifference. This essay intends to test this hypothesis starting from the way in which Perera questions the unity of metaphysical abstraction through a series of innovative interpretations that are widely received in both Catholic and Reformed and Protestant domains. A first interpretation, less radical, advances (...) a model of metaphysical abstraction, taken up by Mastri and Micraelius, which maintains the unity of metaphysics; a second interpretation, more radical, breaks the methodological unity of metaphysics through a clear distinction between ‘real’ abstraction from matter (secundum rem et rationem) and ‘mental’ abstraction by indifference (secundum rationem tantum) and, consequently, between metaphysics and ontology. (shrink)

This article explores how corporate governance processes and structures are being used in large Australian companies to develop, lead and implement corporate responsibility strategies. It presents an empirical analysis of the governance of sustainability in fifty large listed companies based on each company’s disclosures in annual and sustainability reports. We find that significant progress is being made by large listed Australian companies towards integrating sustainability into core business operations. There is evidence of leadership structures being put in place to ensure (...) that board and senior management are involved in sustainability strategy development and are then incentivised to monitor and ensure implementation of that strategy through financial rewards. There is evidence of a willingness to engage and communicate clearly the results of these strategies to interested stakeholders. Overall, there appears to be a developing acceptance amongst large corporations that efforts towards improved corporate sustainability are not only expected but are of value to the business. We suggest that this is evidence of a managerial shift away from an orthodox shareholder primacy understanding of the corporation towards a more enlightened shareholder value approach, often encompassing a stakeholder-orientated view of business strategy. However, strong underlying tensions remain due to the insistent market emphasis on shareholder value. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno has been quoted as responding to the Humanist Union stating ‘I might possibly be willing to join if your club had been called an inhuman union, but I could not join one that calls itself “humanist”’. Adorno’s opposition to forms of humanism (both liberal and Marxist) which posit the existence of our humanity is reflected in readings of The Frankfurt Institute’s history such as that produced by Martin Jay. While this is the case, one of Adorno’s highly admired (...) students, Alfred Schmidt, commemorated his teacher by proclaiming him a ‘philosopher of Real Humanism’. In categorising Adorno’s work as embodying a ‘Real Humanism’, Schmidt points towards an understanding and orientation towards the human (and our understanding of it) which cannot be accurately characterised through the philosophies of Humanism and Anti-Humanism as oppositional viewpoints. Rather, the Real Humanism of Adorno (as well as some of his fellow travellers) understands the human as the negative image of our currently existing society’s inhumanity, and urges us to take an ethical orientation towards the constitution of the human through the abolition of our inhumanity. If we, like Adorno, are to believe in the new categorical imperative that we must make sure ‘that Auschwitz never repeats itself, so that nothing similar ever happen[s] again’, then we must fundamentally orient ourselves towards the goal of ‘real humanism’ – a society free from the domination of ourselves and the other. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Freuds Begriff des unbewussten Agierens spannt Alice Pechriggl ein semantisches Feld auf, in dem das Begriffspaar »Freiheit zu Handeln - Zwang zu Agieren« mit dem überkreuz gelegten Begriffspaar »freies Agieren - Handlungszwang/ Zwangshandlung« verknüpft wird. In sieben Anläufen entwirft sie unterschiedliche Szenarien dieses Spannungsfeldes und betrachtet dabei Denkakte zwischen Agieren und Deliberatio, Psyche und Körper als Handlungsschauplätze sowie Demokratie als die Regierungsform des deliberativen Handelns. Menschliches Handeln wird im breiteren Kontext unbewussten Agierens sowohl aus philosophischer als auch (...) aus gruppen-/psychoanalytischer Perspektive erhellt. (shrink)

The article analyses the process of transformation and reinvention of patriarchal gender order at times of radical changes caused by violent conflict and life in emigration. The case study draws a comparison between younger and older generations of Chechen women in Austria, Poland and Germany and their radically different gender practices. The analysis shows that the turn towards more conservative gender relations, which can be observed among the younger generation, cannot be explained by a reference to the Chechen culture as (...) inherently patriarchal. Nor can it be ascribed solely to the insufficient reception and the lack of recognition experienced by refugees in the receiving countries. Rather, it is an outcome of women’s different conditions of socialization that have affected their hierarchy of values and continue to exert significant influence on their adaptation strategies in exile; most notably, on how the women perceive and make use of the opportunity structures in the receiving contexts. (shrink)

The paper addresses the work of Ukrainian artist Maria Kulikovska, who resorts to military equipment as artistic materials and to destruction as an artistic method. In the first section, I contextualize Kulikovska’s performative sculpture within art history, claiming that it can be regarded as Destruction Art. In the second section, I turn to Catherine Malabou’s concept of “destructive plasticity” as a philosophical tool of an aesthetics of war, which offers a sound theoretical framework to further understand the implications of Kulikovska’s (...) artistic activity. In the third section, I focus on the main material adopted by Kulikovska, ballistic soap, showing how the artist materially deconstructs inherited dichotomies that keep informing our understanding of wars. By considering the artistic practice of a feminist artist (M. Kulikovska) through the lens of feminist scholarship (K. Stiles, C. Malabou, J. Butler), the paper investigates the relations between war and the arts from a situated perspective. (shrink)

Alice Crary is a moral and social philosopher who has written widely on issues in metaethics, moral psychology and normative ethics, philosophy and feminism, critical animal studies, critical disability studies, critical philosophy of race, philosophy and literature, and Critical Theory. She has written on philosophers such as John L. Austin, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Iris Murdoch and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This is the first of two parts of the interview with Crary conducted in a single exchange in the (...) first weeks of January 2022, where she discusses ordinary language philosophy and feminism, Wittgenstein’s conception of mind and its relation to feminist ethics, the link between Wittgenstein and Critical Theory, and her own views about efforts to bring about social and political transformations. The second part on “Wittgenstein and Critical Theory” is published in the regular volume 11 of NWR. (shrink)

At the crux of Descartes's general metaphysics and epistemology are his accounts of substances, attributes and ideas of substances and attributes. In spite of the centrality of these theories, there is wide disagreement among scholars about how to interpret them. I approach these debates by focusing on Descartes's theory of the infinite substance ? God. I argue that God's attributes are neither individual, inseparable properties that inhere in God (contra Kenny, Wilson, Curley, Hoffman) nor deductions from God (contra Lennon), but (...) attributions that can consistently be made to God. On this account, the diversity of God's attributes is due to how meditators refer to the various cognitive routes they take to clear and distinct perceptions of God; what makes a meditator's clear and distinct perception of God more distinct is that it becomes more stable ? the meditator can more easily retain and regain the perception. Other virtues of this interpretation include accounts of the following: the puzzling remarks about essences that Descartes makes to Gassendi; what founds conceptual distinctions in reality; and why the Cartesian meditator ?proves? the existence of God several times in the Meditations. (shrink)