(2001). Whose dirty hands? How to prevent buck‐passing. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 4, Trusting in Reason: Martin Hollis and the Philosophy of Social Action, pp. 106-122. doi: 10.1080/13698230108403367.

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an arpeggio on the piano, or parallel-park, reflecting on your actions leads to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis--that's what is widely believed. But is it true? After exploring some of the contemporary and historical manifestations of the idea, Barbara Gail Montero (...) develops a theory of expertise which emphasizes the role of the conscious mind in expert action. She aims to dispel various myths about experts who proceed without any understanding of what guides their action, and she analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control and explicit monitoring of one's movements impedes well practiced skills. Montero explores a wide range of real-life examples of optimal performance, in sports, the performing arts, healthcare, the military, and other fields, and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to offer a refreshing and persuasive view of expertise, according to which expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective. (shrink)

This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion (...) of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures to make motion intelligible. With Aristotle we finally see the first outline of the fundamental framework with which we conceptualise motion today. (shrink)

Die Ästhetik der Ruinen kennzeichnet eine Lust am Paradoxen. Zwischen Natur und Kultur, Erbauung und Zerstörung, Melancholie und Hoffnung, Vergangenheit und Zukunft erscheinen die Ruinen als Spuren der Zeit im Raum der Gegenwart ihrer ästhetischen Begegnung. Kevin Bücking zeigt, inwiefern die Ästhetik der Ruinen und des Ruinösen in einem besonderen Zusammenspiel aus leiblich-sinnlichen Erfahrungen und begrifflichen Reflexionen besteht. In Auseinandersetzung mit unterschiedlichen ästhetischen Medien wie Malerei, Fotografie, Film, Computerspiel und Virtual Reality wird ersichtlich: Die Faszination an Ruinen und Ruinösem ist (...) als ein atmosphärisches Reflexionsgeschehen zu verstehen. (shrink)

A reconsideration of the first century, before there were chronological centuries, and how it troubles our contemporary boundaries between religion, philosophy, and law.

In a highly original rereading of the writings and seminars of Jacques Lacan, together with works of Freud and others, Cassin shows how psychoanalysis, like the sophists, challenges the very foundations of scientific rationality. In taking seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation, the analyst, like the sophist, allows performance, signifier, and inconsistency to reshape truth.

This book presents the most important problems of reference and considers their solution. It presupposes no technical knowledge, presents analyses from first principles, illustrates every stage with examples, and is written with verve and clarity. This is the ideal introduction to reference for students of linguistics and philosophy of language.

Centring on human perception, attunement to others, and a transcendent conception of the good, Iris Murdoch's intervention in moral philosophy remains an insightful and evocative source for ethical theory. Discerning some pervasive dualisms that hamper its coherence and development, I suggest that her work finds a generative conversation partner in the contemporary metaphysician, William Desmond. Desmond's thought offers promising avenues to overcome these dualisms by repositioning the source and nature of value and by theorising an anti-reductive, relational ontology. Staging a (...) constructive encounter between these two thinkers that preserves Murdoch's distinct prioritisation of attention and individuality within a Desmond-inspired metaphysics, I present a synthetic ethical approach that promotes the ideal of attending to an other—in the givenness of its particularity, manifold surplus, and constitutive relationality—as good in itself. (shrink)

Environmental ethics would greatly benefit from an adequate metaphysical foundation. In an attempt to demonstrate the value of Whitehead’s metaphysical system as such a foundation, I first discuss five central tenets of his thought. I then compare aspects of his philosophy with Peter Singer’s utilitarianism, Tom Regan’s rights theory, Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, and Spinoza's system in order to indicate how aWhiteheadian approach can solve the difficulties of the other views as currently developed, and provide the basis for an environmental (...) ethics which values individual entities in themselves and in their connectedness in a purposive natural order. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, there has been a steady growth of interest in the psychological mechanisms that regulate normal emotional experience. In this same period, cognitive-experimental researchers have sought to delineate the information processing biases that characterize emotional disorders. Exciting potential synergies exist between these two areas of investigation. In this article, we consider ways in which reciprocal benefits could be gained by the constructive transfer of theoretical ideas and methodological approaches between emotion regulation researchers and cognitive-experimental investigators. We also discuss (...) how recent innovations within each field can profitably impact upon progress within the other. It is concluded that the overlap in conceptual constructs, and the convergence of complementary investigative techniques, between these two research domains, provide opportunities for creative synthesis that could significantly enrich understanding of normal and abnormal emotion across future years. (shrink)

Drawing conceptually and directly on music notation, this book investigates landscape architecture's inherent temporality. It argues that the rich history of notating time in music provides a critical model for this under-researched and under-theorised aspect of landscape architecture, while also ennobling sound in the sensory appreciation of landscape. It makes available to a wider landscape architecture and urban design audience the works of three influential composers - Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti and Michael Finnissy - presenting a critical evaluation of their (...) work within music, as well as a means in which it might be used in design research. Each of the musical scores is juxtaposed with design representations by Kevin Appleyard, Bernard Tschumi and William Kent, before the author examines four landscape spaces through the development of new landscape architectural notations. In doing so, this work offers valuable insights into the methods used by landscape architects for the benefit of musicians, and by bringing together musical composition and landscape architecture through notation, it affords a focused and sensitive exploration of temporality and sound in both fields. (shrink)

Explores the benefits and consequences of archaeological theorizing on and interpretation of the social agency of nonhumans as relational beings capable of producing change in the world. Cross-examines traditional understanding of agency and personhood, presenting a globally diverse set of case studies that cover a range of cultural, geographical, and historical contexts"--Provided by publisher.

Philosophers have long distinguished between appearance and reality, and the opposition between a supposedly deceptive surface and a more profound truth is deeply rooted in Western culture. At a time of obsession with self-representation, when politics is enmeshed with spectacle and social and economic forces are intensely aestheticized, philosophy remains moored in traditional dichotomies: being versus appearing, interiority versus exteriority, authenticity versus alienation. Might there be more to appearance than meets the eye? In this strikingly original book, Barbara Carnevali (...) offers a philosophical examination of the roles that appearances play in social life. While Western metaphysics and morals have predominantly disdained appearances and expelled them from their domain, Carnevali invites us to look at society, ancient to contemporary, as an aesthetic phenomenon. The ways in which we appear in public and the impressions we make in terms of images, sounds, smells, and sensations are discerned by other people's senses and assessed according to their taste; this helps shape our ways of being and the world around us. Carnevali shows that an understanding of appearances is necessary to grasp the dynamics of interaction, recognition, and power in which we live-and to avoid being dominated by them. Anchored in philosophy and traversing sociology, art history, literature, and popular culture, Social Appearances develops new theoretical and conceptual tools for today's most urgent critical tasks. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, written in a lively, personal style.

This volume explores the cross-linguistic diversity, and possibly inconsistency, of the span of linguistic means that signal reported speech and thought. The integration of broad linguistic (viewpoint in conversation and narrative) and cognitive (theory of mind and understanding the inner life and thought of others) strategies for handling mixed points of view will be considered.

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life first defines the problem of life phenomenologically, (...) then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought. (shrink)

Barbara Herman argues for a radical shift in the way we perceive Kant's ethics. She convincingly reinterprets the key texts, at once allowing Kant to mean what he says while showing that what Kant says makes good moral sense. She urges us to abandon the tradition that describes Kantian ethics as a deontology, a moral system of rules of duty. She finds the central idea of Kantian ethics not in duty but in practical rationality as a norm of unconditioned (...) goodness. This book both clarifies Kant's own theory and adds programmatic vitality to modern moral philosophy. (shrink)

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of decentralized clinical trials, trials conducted in whole or in part at locations other than traditional clinical trial sites, significantly increased. While these trials have the potential advantage of access, participant centricity, convenience, lower costs, and efficiency, they also raise a number of important ethical and practical concerns. Here we focus on a number of those concerns, including participant safety, privacy and confidentiality, remote consent, digital access and proficiency, and trial oversight. (...) Awareness of these ethical complexities will help foster the development of processes and cooperative solutions to promote safe, ethical trials going forward, optimized to decrease burden and increase access for all participants. (shrink)

The ancient history of flamenco is pure hypothesis, partly owing to the “ Dark Ages “ which shrouded the folk expression of a large portion of Andalusia from soon after the victory of the Catholic Kings at Granada in 1492 until the emancipation laws of Charles III in 1783. Although flamenco as such is a product of the nineteenth century, the hypothesis may be taken right back to pre-Iberian days when there was a flourishing civilization in the south of Spain, (...) with its capital, Tartessos, more or less where Seville—or Cadiz—is now, perhaps the first Empire in the West. The Iberians inhabited the north and the east but the towns along the Andalusian coast were founded by Phoenicians from Tyre (Cadiz) and Phocaeans from Asia Minor (Málaga). During the Celtic invasions the south was held by Carthage until Andalusia finally became Roman as a result of the Punic wars. (shrink)

Is the neurophysiology of pain all there is to pain? How do words and mental pictures come to represent things in the world? Do computers think, and if so, are their thought processes significantly similar to our thought processes? Or is there something distinctive about human thought thatprecludes replication in a computer? These are some of the puzzles that motivate the philosophical discipline called "philosophy of mind," a central area of philosophy.This Very Short Introduction introduces the philosophy of mind, and (...) looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism. Barbara Montero also discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with definingconsciousness in animals, aliens and machines. Considering these and other such thorny issues such as physicalism and intentionality, she demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate disciplines outside of philosophy, including psychology, neuroscience, economics,evolutionary biology, and linguistics. As she observes, most everyone, at some time or another, has ruminated over the relation between mind and matter.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Trois dates ponctuent le présent volume, composé d'un ensemble d'inédits, d'un dossier, d'études et de lectures critiques, et donnent ainsi à Bergson sa place dans le XXe siècle philosophique. 1902, il y a cent ans exactement : c'est la date du cours inédit au Collège de France dont on lira ici les premières leçons et qui prépare L'introduction à la métaphysique publiée l'année suivante. Dans ce cours intégralement sténographié pour Péguy, on entend Bergson exposer comment le réel se donne et (...) se retire immédiatement à nous, se donne dans un contact absolu, sympathie ou intuition, se retire pour les besoins de l'action et par la force des signes, et doit être reconquis par la métaphysique, dès lors introduite avec sa différence dans le jeu philosophique du siècle. L dossier présenté ici porte ensuite sur Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, publiées trente ans plus tard, en 1932. Il témoigne d'un impressionnant renouveau d'intérêt pour cet ouvrage trop vite et trop exclusivement situé dans l'itinéraire spirituel de son auteur, les querelles religieuses de son époque, les enjeux immédiats des années 1930. Tous ces enjeux sont aussi présents ici, à travers un inédit de Bergson et des articles de chercheurs français et étrangers, mais à travers aussi des perspectives anthropologiques, sociologiques, philosophiques, entièrement nouvelles. 1960 enfin : telle est la date du cours inédit de Victor Goldschsnidt, plus connu comme lecteur de Platon, des stoïciens ou de Rousseau, que nous présentons ici, qui porte sur le premier chapitre de Matière et mémoire et la notion de "champ transcendantal", et qui introduit aussi au dossier sur le livre que ce cours a inspiré en 1964 au philosophe brésilien Bento Prado Jr, récemment traduit. Cet ensemble conduit à réévaluer entièrement la place de Bergson dans le moment philosophique des années 1960 : elle est centrale, aussi bien en elle-même qu'à travers Merleau-Ponty ou Deleuze. Aujourd'hui enfin, à travers les études générales également rassemblées, et l'ensemble de ce volume qui en appelle d'autres, nous pouvons réaccéder à Bergson à la fois pour lui-même, dans le débat avec les moments principaux du siècle, et pour aller plus loin. (shrink)

The present booklet contains ten short philosophical writings, which are not so much intended for a narrow circle of people, by education of philosophers, but by a wider readership. Specifically, they are for the homeless, the (long-term) unemployed, the elderly, people with mental health problems, people with special needs and so on, as well as for the general public in general. So they are for people who are not close to philosophy, especially for those who need the help of others (...) the most. The red thread of the collection is an attempt to answer the question of why philosophy for them. The records collected here were created in the period 2015-2019 and were also published in newspapers or magazines.--Publisher's website. (shrink)