Philosophical arguments regarding academic freedom can sometimes appear removed from the real conflicts playing out in contemporary universities. This paper focusses on a set of issues at the front line of these conflicts, namely, questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. We document the ways in which the work of academics has been affected by political activism around these questions and, drawing on our respective disciplinary expertise as a sociologist and a philosopher, elucidate the costs of curtailing discussion on fundamental (...) demographic and conceptual categories. We discuss some philosophical work that addresses the conceptual distinction between academic freedom and free speech and explore how these notions are intertwined in significant ways in universities. Our discussion elucidates and emphasises the educational costs of curtailing academic freedom. (shrink)

The problem of necessity remains one of the central issues in modern philosophy. The authors of this volume, originally published in 1985, developed a new approach to the problem, which focusses on the logical grammar of necessary propositions. This volume gathers their seminal essays on the problem of necessity, together with new material at the original time publication.

Hamblin distinguished between formal and descriptive dialectic. Formal normative models of deliberation dialogue have been strongly emphasized as argumentation frameworks in computer science. But making such models of deliberation applicable to real natural language examples has reached a point where the descriptive aspect needs more interdisciplinary work. The new formal and computational models of deliberation dialogue that are being built in computer science seem to be closely related to some already existing and very well established computing technologies such as problem (...) solving and decision making, but whether or how dialectical argumentation can be helpful to support these systems remains an open question. The aim of this paper is to examine some real examples of argumentation that seem to hover on the borderlines between deliberation, problem solving and decision making. (shrink)

"A collection of essays on the early modern English writer, proto-feminist, and rhetorician Mary Astell. Includes discussions on human nature, equality, rationality, power, freedom, friendship, marriage, and education"--Provided by publisher.

Contemporary epidemiological methods testing the associations between green space and psychological well-being treat all vegetation cover as equal. However, there is very good reason to expect that variations in ecological "quality" (number of species, integrity of ecological processes) may influence the link between access to green space and benefits to human health and well-being. We test the relationship between green space quality and restorative benefit in an inner city urban population in Bradford, UK. We selected 12 urban parks for study (...) where we carried out botanical and faunal surveys to quantify biodiversity and assessed the site facilities of the green space (cleanliness, provision of amenities). We also conducted 128 surveys with park users to quantify psychological restoration based on four self-reported measure of general restoration, attention-grabbing distractions, being away from everyday life, and site preference. We present three key results. First, there is a positive association between site facilities and biodiversity. Second, restorative benefit is predicted by biodiversity, which explained 43% of the variance in restorative benefit across the parks, with minimal input from other variables. Third, the benefits accrued through access to green space were unrelated to age, gender, and ethnic background. The results add to a small but growing body of evidence that emphasise the role of nature in contributing to the well-being of urban populations and, hence, the need to consider biodiversity in the design of landscapes that enhance multiple ecosystem services. (shrink)

In areas of land conflict, fear and the threat of violence work to reproduce imaginaries of land as a resource that powerful people can grab. An urgent question for agrarian scholars and activists is how people can overcome fear so that alternative imaginaries might flourish. In this article, we argue for attention to the affective dimension of imaginaries; ideas of what land is and should be are co-constituted through the material and social, imbued with powerful emotions that enable imaginaries to (...) be reproduced, to be challenged, and even to be transformed. We draw from long-term research projects in Cambodia—a country known for plantation-fuelled dispossession—where the Prime Minister’s surprise announcement of a land titling campaign in 2012 ruptured the wave of land grabbing, creating openings to imagine different outcomes that are rooted in the potential for legal recognition of smallholder claims. Although the campaign was an uncertain rupture in land imaginaries, these moments matter. Land claimants sought to create affective ties with volunteer land surveyors that embedded hopeful land imaginaries in rural areas and into the national cadastral system. The land title in this context is the material bearer of a land imaginary that centres on rural people’s connection to the land, and also reinforces rural people’s connection to the Cambodian state and the potential to gain the state’s protection. We contribute to an emerging literature that locates the formative effects of hope as an orientation and as a method by exploring the possibilities inherent in rupture. (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)

Logicians have always found inspiration for new research in the ordinary language that is used on a daily basis and acquired naturally in childhood. Whereas the logical issues in the foundations of mathematics motivated the development of mathematical logic with its emphasis on notions of proof, validity, axiomatization, decidability, consistency, and completeness, the logical analysis of natural language motivated the development of philosophical logic with its emphasis on semantic notions of presupposition, entailment, modality, conditionals, and intensionality. The relation between research (...) programs in both mathematical and philosophical logic and natural language syntax and semantics as branches of theoretical linguistics has increased in importance throughout the last fifty years. This chapter reviews the development of one particularly interesting and lively area of interaction between formal logic and linguistics—the semantics of natural language. Research in this emergent field has proved fruitful for the development of empirically, cognitively adequate models of reasoning with partial information, sharing or exchanging information, dynamic interpretation in context, belief revision and other cognitive processes. (shrink)

Building on research demonstrating relationships between well being and perceptions of aspects of life as sacred, this study describes the rationale for and development of a scale measuring perceiving sacredness in life. It then explores associations between perceptions of sacredness in life and these four domains: religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational. Participants responded to a mailing to a national random sample within the United States, completing 16 scales pertaining to the religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational domains. While many variables were (...) correlated with perceiving sacredness in life, there were three overall predictors: intrinsic religiosity, mysticism, and community service attitude. (shrink)

Obesity is the result of people consistently consuming more calories than they expend. A complex interaction of social and environmental conditions affects both energy consumption and physical activity levels. These conditions include, but are not limited to the following factors: the availability of affordable and healthy food; price disparities between healthy and less healthy foods; access to or perceived safety of recreation facilities; and the conduciveness of the physical environment to active modes of transportation, such as walking and biking. As (...) outlined in the “Assessing Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control” paper in this supplement issue, laws and government policies in the United States influence nearly all of these social and environmental factors. (shrink)

Meaning is made out of the world by our actions in certain situations. But there are so many different things we can do, few of which actually create meaning. Not only do we utter linguistic expressions, but we move, gesture, point; we plan our actions to satisfy particular goals, we form beliefs, presumptions and prejudices, as well as ascribe intentions to other actors. In this paper three ways of acting are singled out for their function in making meaning out of (...) the world: demonstrations, indications and experiments. The paper develops some Wittgensteinean themes, such as the priority of demonstration, the nature of pictorial representations and the relation between interpretation and calculation, in the terms and concepts of Situation Theory. It attempts to weave some important elements of Wittgenstein’s thought in with an account of situated meaning and interpretation, without embarking on any archeological adventure. The paper is intended as a contribution to the philosophical foundations of Situation Theory and a critical commentary to some of its published accounts. Although Situation Theory has been developed with a sharp awareness of its antecedents in Bertrand Russell’s work, as well as its immediate heritage of central aspects of David Kaplan’s account of demonstrative reference, to my knowledge its Wittgensteinean roots have not been traced. The account of demonstrations, indications and experiments advocated here shows not only that important philosophical concerns of Situation Theory have their precursors in Wittgenstein’s work, but also that some of his insights could profitably be absorbed into its new foundations for a theory of meaning. (shrink)

The problem of necessity remains one of the central issues in modern philosophy. The authors of this volume, originally published in 1985, developed a new approach to the problem, which focusses on the logical grammar of necessary propositions. This volume gathers their seminal essays on the problem of necessity, together with new material at the original time publication.

Dans cet article, nous développons une réflexion sur le conflit en démocratie en nous appuyant sur une étude du parcours et des travaux de Charles Wright Mills. Comme celle de Pierre Bourdieu qui lui fait écho sur de nombreux points et avec laquelle nous l’entrecroisons, la démarche de Mills fournit les bases d’une réflexion sur les conditions sociales d’une authentique conflictualité démocratique, orientée vers une déconstruction de certaines formes de domination. Tout d’abord, le travail de Mills intègre un questionnement sur (...) l’impact des formes de stratification sociale sur le développement des luttes sociales. Mills contribue ainsi à mettre en relief, dans le contexte américain, une interaction permanente des luttes de classe et des luttes statutaires et une certaine neutralisation des premières par les secondes. La mise en relief par Bourdieu de la prégnance, au sein des divers champs sociaux, des luttes de classement va dans le même sens. Ensuite, un retour sur la notion de « société de masse » chez Mills permet de mettre en relief la façon dont ce dernier voit dans le déclin de l’autonomie des ordres institutionnels un facteur d’étouffement de la conflictualité démocratique. Enfin, nous comparons la façon dont Mills et Bourdieu défendent, chacun à sa manière, une « politique de vérité ». L’analyse de la portée et des limites d’une telle politique nous amène à souligner en quoi l’autonomie des ordres institutionnels ou des champs sociaux est une condition et un enjeu à la fois structurant et foncièrement ambivalent de la conflictualité démocratique. (shrink)

This book provides a fresh and bold look at how archaeologists and heritage managers may enhance their capacity to interpret and understand material culture and heritage values. Drawing on the founding principles of anthropology, Archaeologies of Listening demonstrates the value of cultural apprenticeship, an almost forgotten part of archaeological practice.

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)

Une des grandes figures de la philosophie russe du XXe siècle, qui s'est voulu le Job de la philosophie, en lutte avec la raison et ses évidences, avec les représentations de Dieu et avec Dieu lui-même.

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...

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)

This article focuses on possible convergences between phenomenology and anthropology and underlines their contributions to the analysis of a specific topic. In its reconstructive dimension it departs from Edmund Husserl’s positions in the letter he addressed to Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in 1935, in particular on the relationship between humanity and the surrounding word (Umwelt) and on the opposition between historical societies and primitive ahistorical societies. After having noted some critical points emerging from Husserl’s considerations, this text retraces some of its repercussions (...) on the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jacques Derrida, whose diverging interpretations open up different ways of examining the relationship between the respective phenomenological and anthropological perspectives. Finally, with the aim of rethinking the contributions of these two fields to address the problem of the co-participation and the differentiations between the archaic and the current in descripted social structures by Lévy-Bruhl, this text turns to the specific temporality of totemic presentifications, which should become phenomenologically more detailed. (shrink)

The aim of this talk/paper is to briefly describe the influences on a human being that result in the feelings of helplessness, selfish attachment to objects and/or people, indifference, and a tendency to seek refuge in political, corporate, or religious hierarchies. Man as a social being is today faced with a situation of having to realize his or her personality within a “sick society” that neglects its members and overemphasizes hierarchical structures. The paper also aims at detecting the impact of (...) the media on the production of depressive passivity that prevents empathy and creates a “prison without walls.” A special dimension of the presentation has been to connect Freud’s interpretation of narcissism with the contemporary spread of this phenomenon due to the powerful influence of modern mass media. Narcissism as a phenomenon goes beyond the field of psychology and becomes a kind of behavioural matrix that can have far-reaching effects on all dimensions and forms of organizing social communities. (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)

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)

Although machine intelligence is increasingly employed in healthcare, the realm of decision-making in medical ethics remains largely unexplored from a technical perspective. We propose an approach based on fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), which builds on Beauchamp and Childress’ prima-facie principles. The FCM’s weights are optimized using a genetic algorithm to provide recommendations regarding the initiation, continuation, or withdrawal of medical treatment. The resulting model approximates the answers provided by our team of medical ethicists fairly well and offers a high degree (...) of interpretability. Possible applications of such a system include informal guidance on medical ethics dilemmas as well as educational purposes. (shrink)