The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Networks represents the frontier of research into how and why networks they form, how they influence behavior, how they help govern outcomes in an interactive world, and how they shape collective decision making, opinion formation, and diffusion dynamics. From a methodological perspective, the contributors to this volume devote attention to theory, field experiments, laboratory experiments, and econometrics. Theoretical work in network formation, games played on networks, repeated games, and the interaction between linking and (...) behavior is synthesized. A number of chapters are devoted to studying social process mediated by networks. Topics here include opinion formation, diffusion of information and disease, and learning. There are also chapters devoted to financial contagion and systemic risk, motivated in part by the recent financial crises. Another section discusses communities, with applications including social trust, favor exchange, and social collateral; the importance of communities for migration patterns; and the role that networks and communities play in the labor market. A prominent role of networks, from an economic perspective, is that they mediate trade. Several chapters cover bilateral trade in networks, strategic intermediation, and the role of networks in international trade. Contributions discuss as well the role of networks for organizations. On the one hand, one chapter discusses the role of networks for the performance of organizations, while two other chapters discuss managing networks of consumers and pricing in the presence of network-based spillovers. Finally, the authors discuss the internet as a network with attention to the issue of net neutrality. (shrink)

If political fake news is a serious concern for democratic politics, no less worrisome is scientific news with patently distorted content. Prima facie, scientific misinformation partially escapes the definition of fake news provided by empirical and philosophical analysis, mainly patterned after political disinformation. Most notably, we aim to show that people are often unaware not only of disseminating, but also of producing false or misleading information. However, by leveraging the philosophical and psychological literature, we advance some reasons for keeping scientific (...) misinformation under the same umbrella, broadening the definition of fake news in order to account for it as well. In concluding, we shall advance some ideas on how to reform scientific communication, which may help to address the issue of scientific misinformation. (shrink)

In this 2002 book, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti examines the most intractable problems which toleration encounters and argues that what is really at stake is not religious or moral disagreement but the unequal status of different social groups. Liberal theories of toleration fail to grasp this and consequently come up with normative solutions that are inadequate when confronted with controversial cases. Galeotti proposes, as an alternative, toleration as recognition, which addresses the problem of according equal respect to groups as (...) well as equal liberty to individuals. She offers an interpretation that is both a revision and an expansion of liberal theory, in which toleration constitutes an important component not only of a theory of justice, but also of the politics of identity. Her study will appeal to a wide range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and law. (shrink)

Online controlled experiments, also known as A/B tests, have become ubiquitous. While many practical challenges in running experiments at scale have been thoroughly discussed, the ethical dimension of A/B testing has been neglected. This article fills this gap in the literature by introducing a new, soft ethics and governance framework that explicitly recognizes how the rise of an experimentation culture in industry settings brings not only unprecedented opportunities to businesses but also significant responsibilities. More precisely, the article (a) introduces a (...) set of principles to encourage ethical and responsible experimentation to protect users, customers, and society; (b) argues that ensuring compliance with the proposed principles is a complex challenge unlikely to be addressed by resorting to a one-solution response; (c) discusses the relevance and effectiveness of several mechanisms and policies in educating, governing, and incentivizing companies conducting online controlled experiments; and (d) offers a list of prompting questions specifically designed to help and empower practitioners by stimulating specific ethical deliberations and facilitating coordination among different groups of stakeholders. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

The impact of large digital corporations on our freedom is often lamented but rarely investigated systematically. This paper aims to fill this desideratum by focusing on the power of social media corporations and the freedom of their users. In order to analyze this relationship, I distinguish two forms of freedom and two corresponding forms of power. Social media corporations extend their users’ freedom of choice by providing many new options. This provision, however, comes with the domination by these corporations because (...) it is based on their power of uncontrolled interference. Users could escape this domination through exit. One reason why they do not choose this option is that they would lose the benefits associated with the network effects provided by social media services. A second reason is that the power of social media corporations runs so deep that they are able to manipulate the autonomous decision-making processes of their users. Users are provided with many new avenues for authentic self-presentation on social media. By using them, however, users need to conform to a web interface that is designed by corporations to undermine self-control. Through these two mechanisms, corporations are able to promote an interest in users to present themselves on their platforms. Insofar as this works, they secure the users’ compliance to their domination through subjectivation. This double conjunction of choice and domination, on the one hand, and autonomy and subjectivation, on the other, makes the case that the very power of corporate social media stems from their intrinsic connection to genuine practices of freedom. (shrink)

We aim to devise a Ramsey test analysis of actual causation. Our method is to define a strengthened Ramsey test for causal models. Unlike the accounts of Halpern and Pearl ([2005]) and Halpern ([2015]), the resulting analysis deals satisfactorily with both over- determination and conjunctive scenarios.

The chapters in this book deal with different, though related, topics concerning the tense relationship between democracy and diversity. On the one hand, social diversity represents an opportunity, widening the horizon of social options and perspectives of innovation, but, on the other hand, it creates problems for the social cohesion and peaceful coexistence of many groups, be they majority or minority. The chapters depart from the intrinsic connection between democracy and diversity – and the unavoidable challenges that pluralism poses to (...) decision-making procedures – investigating, from different perspectives, how the normative requirement of fully respecting agents’ reflexive agency impacts the revision of democratic decision-making procedures and the way in which institutions react to citizens’ justice-based claims. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a critical map of toleration as it is displayed in contemporary democracy. It does so by presenting three conceptions of toleration to which current practices of toleration can be traced, and, precisely, these are the standard notion, the political conception based on the neutrality principle, and toleration as recognition. The author argues that the latter is the appropriate conception to address the politically relevant issues of toleration arising in pluralistic democracy, while the first is adequate (...) only for social relations. In order to illustrate this argument, she presents a case of a contested and never solved request for a place of worship by the Muslims of Vercelli which represents an example of a very restricted and minimal interpretation of the standard notion, labeled ‘disrespectful tolerance’. The case is meant to show that unacceptable forms of toleration are still practised, and that the standard notion, here interpreted in the most minimal and negative way, is inappropriate for democratic politics. (shrink)

Sartre’s account of the emotions presupposes a conception of human nature that is never fully articulated. The paper aims to render such conception explicit and to argue that frustration occupies a foundational place in Sartre’s picture of affective existence.

Self-deception, that is the distortion of reality against the available evidence and according to one's wishes, represents a distinctive component in the wide realm of political deception. It has received relatively little attention but is well worth examining for its explanatory and normative dimensions. In this book Anna Elisabetta Galeotti shows how self-deception can explain political occurrences where public deception intertwines with political failure - from bad decisions based on false beliefs, through the self-serving nature of those beliefs, to (...) the deception of the public as a by-product of a leader's self-deception. Her discussion uses close analysis of three well-known case studies: John F. Kennedy and the Cuba Crisis, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and George W. Bush and the weapons of mass destruction. Her book will appeal to a range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and international relations. (shrink)

Human-centered explainable AI (HCXAI) advocates for the integration of social aspects into AI explanations. Central to the HCXAI discourse is the Social Transparency (ST) framework, which aims to make the socio-organizational context of AI systems accessible to their users. In this work, we suggest extending the ST framework to address the risks of social misattributions in Large Language Models (LLMs), particularly in sensitive areas like mental health. In fact LLMs, which are remarkably capable of simulating roles and personas, may lead (...) to mismatches between designers' intentions and users' perceptions of social attributes, risking to promote emotional manipulation and dangerous behaviors, cases of epistemic injustice, and unwarranted trust. To address these issues, we propose enhancing the ST framework with a fifth 'W-question' to clarify the specific social attributions assigned to LLMs by its designers and users. This addition aims to bridge the gap between LLM capabilities and user perceptions, promoting the ethically responsible development and use of LLM-based technology. (shrink)

Als Philosoph steht Schleiermacher noch immer im Schatten seiner Zeitgenossen und auch seiner theologischen Werke. Das Buch will seinen eigenständigen Beitrag zur Klassischen Deutschen Philosophie sichtbar machen. Gefragt wird, worin das philosophische Gravitationszentrum der einschlägigen Texte, Entwürfe und Vorlesungen Schleiermachers besteht, mit welchen theoretischen Mitteln er dabei operiert und welche Stellung er in der philosophischen Bewegung seiner Zeit einnimmt. Als zentral erweist sich der Individualitätsgedanke, der aus einer eigenständigen, kritischen Aneignung Kants und Spinozas resultiert. Mit dieser Konzeption begegnet Schleiermacher Friedrich (...) Schlegel auf Augenhöhe und leistet einen eigenständigen Beitrag zur frühromantischen Philosophie, deren grundlegende Positionen er in seinen philosophischen Vorlesungen in Halle (1804-1806) und Berlin (seit 1808) kritisch durcharbeitet und systematisiert. Dies bringt Schleiermacher, wie schon den frühen Friedrich Schlegel, trotz aller gravierenden Unterschiede vielfach in die Nähe Hegels, so dass sich sein Verhältnis zu den philosophischen Zeitgenossen höchst komplex gestaltet. Schleiermacher erweist sich als eigenständiger Denker auf dem gemeinsamen Boden der Klassischen Deutschen Philosophie. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse actual causation in terms of production. The latter concept is made precise by a strengthened Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals: \ iff, after suspending judgement about A and C, C is believed in the course of assuming A. This test allows us to verify or falsify that an event brings about another event. Complementing the concept of production by a weak condition of difference-making gives rise to a full-fledged analysis of causation.

Der Band bietet einen systematischen Überblick über das Verhältnis von Literatur und Philosophie. Philosophische, literarische und literaturwissenschaftliche Ansätze kommen gleichberechtigt zu Wort. Die Beiträge loten die Bedeutung von Literatur aus und präsentieren gattungstheoretische Überlegungen zu literarischen Formen der Philosophie. Studien über philosophierende Literatur und philosophische Reflexionen über Literatur beschließen den Band.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction:the European Union and the Law of Peoples The Argument of Law of Peoples Standards and Grounds for International Stability Human Rights in Federations The Argument of Law of Peoples for Inter‐people Inequality Distributive Justice in Federations Federal and Global Implications Toleration and Stability Reconsidered Acknowledgments Notes.

A new and comprehensive look at the reasons behind successful or failed nation building Nation Building presents bold new answers to an age-old question. Why is national integration achieved in some diverse countries, while others are destabilized by political inequality between ethnic groups, contentious politics, or even separatism and ethnic war? Traversing centuries and continents from early nineteenth-century Europe and Asia to Africa from the turn of the twenty-first century to today, Andreas Wimmer delves into the slow-moving forces that encourage (...) political alliances to stretch across ethnic divides and build national unity. Using datasets that cover the entire world and three pairs of case studies, Wimmer's theory of nation building focuses on slow-moving, generational processes: the spread of civil society organizations, linguistic assimilation, and the states' capacity to provide public goods. Wimmer contrasts Switzerland and Belgium to demonstrate how the early development of voluntary organizations enhanced nation building; he examines Botswana and Somalia to illustrate how providing public goods can bring diverse political constituencies together; and he shows that the differences between China and Russia indicate how a shared linguistic space may help build political alliances across ethnic boundaries. Wimmer then reveals, based on the statistical analysis of large-scale datasets, that these mechanisms are at work around the world and explain nation building better than competing arguments such as democratic governance or colonial legacies. He also shows that when political alliances crosscut ethnic divides and when most ethnic communities are represented at the highest levels of government, the general populace will identify with the nation and its symbols, further deepening national political integration. Offering a long-term historical perspective and global outlook, Nation Building sheds important new light on the challenges of political integration in diverse countries. (shrink)

A growing number of consumer technology companies are aiming to convince older people that humanoid robots make helpful tools to support aging-in-place. As hybrid devices, socially assistive robots (SARs) are situated between health monitoring tools, familiar digital assistants, security aids, and more advanced AI-powered devices. Consequently, they implicate older people’s privacy in complex ways. Such devices are marketed to perform functions common to smart speakers (e.g., Amazon Echo) and smart home platforms (e.g., Google Home), while other functions are more specific (...) to older people, including health and safety monitoring and serving as companions to mitigate loneliness. Privacy is a key value central to debates about the ethics of using SARs in aged care, yet there has been very little interchange between these debates and the robust theoretical discussion in the legal literature about the future of privacy and AI governance. Drawing on two qualitative studies of older people’s views on consumer SARs, the paper contributes novel findings about older people’s thinking on privacy and data governance at the intersection of their experiences with present day digital technologies and projections for future AI systems, and places their views in dialogue with debates about the future of privacy protection and AI governance. (shrink)

Powers, capacities and dispositions (in what follows I will use these terms synonymously) have become prominent in recent debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science and other areas of philosophy. In this paper I will analyse in some detail a well-known argument from scientific practice to the existence of powers/capacities/dispositions. According to this argument the practice of extrapolating scientific knowledge from one kind of situation to a different kind of situation requires a specific interpretation of laws of nature, namely as attributing (...) dispositions to systems. My main interest will be to discuss what characteristics these dispositions need to have in order to account for the scientific practice in question. I will furthermore assess whether the introduction of dispositions in the context of the extrapolation argument can be described as a ‘revitalization’ or as a ‘return’ to those notions repudiated by early modern philosophers. More particularly I will argue for the following claims: I. In repudiating scholastic terminology, including substantial forms with their causal powers, post-cartesian philosophers focussed on a concept of causation that was much stronger than 21st century conceptions of causation. For this reason alone, whatever ‘causal’ is supposed to mean in today’s causal powers, embracing causal powers is not a simple return to a pre-cartesian notion. II. The dispositions presupposed in scientific practice need not (and should not) be construed in causal terms (whether strong or weak). III. While some early modern philosophers contrasted the characterisation of the natural world in terms of substantial forms (and their causal powers) on the one hand and a mathematical characterization on the other and suggested that these approaches are incompatible, the dispositions postulated by the extrapolation argument to account for scientific practice are themselves characterized in mathematical terms. More precisely: The behaviour the systems are disposed to display is – at least in physics – often characterized in mathematical terms. IV. The dispositions assumed in the law-statements in scientific practice are determinable rather than determinate properties. (shrink)

Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A’s chances of getting the good, we reduce B’s chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Non-competitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to (...) do with non-competitive goods, e.g., being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Non-competitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (shrink)

In this essay, I reconstruct tolerance as a moral virtue, by critically analysing its definition, circumstances, justification and limits. I argues that, despite its paradoxical appearance, tolerance qualifies as a virtue, by means of a restriction of its proper object to differences that are chosen. Since this excludes the most important and divisive differences of contemporary pluralism from the scope of the virtue of tolerance, the moral model of toleration cannot constitute the micro-foundation of the corresponding political practice. However, if (...) the political ideal of toleration must be founded on independent political reasons of justice, the moral model can bridge the gap between private morality and public reason, providing citizens with moral motives to supplement the political obligation to neutrality. (shrink)

We put forth an analysis of causation. The analysis centers on the notion of a causal model that provides only partial information as to which events occur, but complete information about the dependences between the events. The basic idea is this: an event causes another just in case there is a causal model that is uninformative on both events and in which the first event makes a difference as to the occurrence of the other. We show that our analysis captures (...) more causal scenarios than the other counterfactual accounts to date. (shrink)

The well-known formal semantics of conditionals due to Stalnaker Studies in logical theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 1968), Lewis, and Gärdenfors The logic and 1140 epistemology of scientific change, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1978, Knowledge in flux, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1988) all fail to distinguish between trivially and nontrivially true indicative conditionals. This problem has been addressed by Rott :345–370, 1986) in terms of a strengthened Ramsey Test. In this paper, we refine Rott’s strengthened Ramsey Test and the corresponding analysis of explanatory relations. We (...) show that our final analysis captures the presumed asymmetry between explanans and explanandum much better than Rott’s original analysis. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and (...) human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings of education.

We argue that there are three coherent, nontrivial notions of basic-ness: conceptual basic-ness, biological basic-ness, and psychological basic-ness. There is considerable evidence for conceptually basic emotion categories (e.g., “anger,” “fear”). These categories do not designate biologically basic emotions, but some forms of anger, fear, and so on that are biologically basic in a sense we will specify. Finally, two notions of psychological basic-ness are distinguished, and the evidence for them is evaluated. The framework we offer acknowledges the force of some (...) of the objections to basic emotion theory whilst demonstrating that the notion of a basic emotion, once properly reformulated, is still of scientific value. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Nihilism Skepticism Nihilism and Skepticism.

The focus of this paper is the discussion between supporters of the intentional account of SD and supporters of the causal account. Between these two options the author argues that SD is the unintentional outcome of intentional steps taken by the agent. More precisely, she argues that SD is a complex mixture of things that we do and that happen to us; the outcome is however unintended by the subject, though it fulfils some of his practical, though short-term, goals. In (...) her account, SD is produced after a fashion similar to those beneficial social phenomena which serve some collective purpose, are the product of human action, but not of human design, such as money, language and many social conventions; and similarly SD can be accounted by invisible hand explanation. The paper will critically analyze both the intentional and the causal accounts, and then present the invisible hand explanation which avoids the most puzzling aspect of the intentional view, while keeping the distinctiveness of SD in the realm of motivated irrationality. A brief discussion of the issue of responsibility for SD will conclude the paper. (shrink)

This paper offers a theory of spatial indexicals like _here_ and _there_ on which such expressions are variables associated with presuppositional constraints on their values. I show how this view handles both referential and bound uses of these indexicals, and I propose an account of what counts as the location of the context on a given occasion. The latter is seen to explain a wide range of facts about what the spatial indexicals can refer to.

We define a formal semantics of conditionals based on _normatively ideal worlds_. Such worlds are described informally by Armgardt (Gabbay D, Magnani L, Park W, Pietarinen A-V (eds) Natural arguments: a tribute to john woods, College Publications, London, pp 699–708, 2018) to address well-known problems of the counterfactual approach to causation. Drawing on Armgardt’s proposal, we use iterated conditionals in order to analyse causal relations in scenarios of multi-agent interaction. This results in a refined counterfactual approach to causal responsibility in (...) legal contexts, which solves overdetermination problems in an intuitively accessible manner. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the two types of self-deception, usually labeled straight and twisted self-deception. In straight cases the self-deceptive belief coincides with the subject’s desire. In twisted cases, by contrast, the self-deceptive belief opposes the subject’s desire as in the example of Othello’s conviction of Desdemona’s infidelity. Are both these contrasting types of deceptive beliefs cases of SD? The argument of this paper shall answer this question in the positive, yet in different way from the unitary explanation of straight and (...) twisted SD proposed by Alfred Mele. The causal account of SD claims to provide a unitary and simple explanation for both straight and twisted SD, and considers such a unitary explanation as a specific virtue of the causal view. Within the same causal model, the difference between straight and twisted self-deception is explained by a difference in the motivational state that in twisted cases is dominated by emotions. The paper will critically examine this claim, and advance an alternative explanation based on a different view of self-deception where emotions play a role alongside wishes both in straight and in twisted case. (shrink)

El fenómeno originario de la pertenencia explicita uno de los problemas fundamentales de la tradición filosófica continental: la relación cuerpo-mundo. Dicha relación se ha construido tradicionalmente a partir de la propia mismidad del sujeto (Yo) o de su corporalidad, afirmando que es porque tengo un cuerpo que puedo decir que pertenezco a un mundo. Ante esta problemática se alza una fenomenología de la pertenencia propuesta por R. Barbaras, la cual expresa la necesidad de re-pensar la concepción de la subjetividad, así (...) como la necesidad de una inversión en la relación cuerpo-mundo a partir de la pertenencia al mundo del propio sujeto. Ahí es donde aparece el verdadero sentido y alcance ontológico de la experiencia del cuerpo puesto que tener un cuerpo no significa otra cosa más que pertenecer y la aparición sólo podrá darse desde dentro del mundo, a partir de nuestra inscripción en él. Así, la ecología corporal constituirá un ejemplo específico que muestra el alcance de dicha inversión y explicitará el parentesco ontológico entre el cuerpo y el mundo. (shrink)

Epistemische Tugenden sind Eigenschaften des forschenden Subjekts, die in wissenschaftlichen Kulturen als Bedingung fur die Produktion, Vermittlung oder den Erwerb von Wissen angesehen werden. Sie lassen sich nicht auf ein abstraktes Sollen reduzieren, wie es oft von Ethikkommissionen oder politischen Bewegungen an die Wissenschaft herangetragen wird. Die methodische Erzeugung von Wissen ware kaum moglich, wenn es nicht erkenntnisfordernde Tugenden wie Geduld, Aufmerksamkeit, Genauigkeit, Intuition, Wahrhaftigkeit, Neugierde, Strenge oder Zuverlassigkeit gabe, die den an sich prekaren Erkenntnisprozess stabilisieren und in eine bestimmte (...) Richtung lenken. Die Beitrage dieses Sammelbandes befassen sich mit epistemischen Tugenden aus (wissenschafts-)historischer, philosophischer, medien- und literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf dem Verhaltnis von wissenschaftlichen und soziokulturellen beziehungsweise moralischen Normen. Mit Beitragen von: Lorraine Daston, Martin Doll, Andreas Gelhard, Raymond Geuss, Ruben Hackler, Michael Hagner, Jens Kertscher, Markus Krajewski, Marcel Lepper, Martin Mulsow, Oliver Nievergelt, Tanja Paulitz, Robert Proctor, Katja Sabisch, Sandro Zanetti, Cornelia Zumbusch. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the major current topics in the philosophy of perception using olfaction as the paradigm sense. The author reveals how many of the most basic concepts of philosophy of perception are based on peculiarities of visual perception not found in other modalities, and addresses how different the philosophy of perception would be if based on olfaction. The book addresses several aspects of olfaction, including perceptual qualities, percepts, olfaction and cognitive processes, and consciousness. The first part of the book (...) considers perception with respect to its ability to guide behaviors and to make information available to cognitive processes. The author continues by addressing the differences between conscious and non-conscious olfactory perception, and presents an argument for an important role of attention in conscious processes. The book concludes by discussing the function of conscious brain processes and their link to guiding behaviors in complex situations. (shrink)

This article discusses Du Châtelet’s challenging claim that entertaining illusions, especially illusions of being esteemed by posterity, is conducive to happiness. It does so by taking a contextualizing approach, contrasting her views with some Epicurean aspects of the views on illusions and happiness in Bernard de Fontenelle and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. I will argue for three claims: (1) Du Châtelet’s comparison between self-related illusions and illusions in the theater is vulnerable to objections deriving from some distinctions that Fontenelle’s (...) poetics draws between the role of illusions in the theater and the role of illusions in real life. (2) Examining Fontenelle’s analysis of the detrimental effects of self-related illusions indicates several respects in which Du Châtelet has underestimated the ambivalent nature of illusions. (3) Du Châtelet’s view that illusions are akin to sensations that are favorable to us problematically generalizes La Mettrie’s insight that some acts of the imagination have a quasi-perceptual nature. (shrink)