Sustainability is typically viewed as consisting of three forces, economic, social, and ecological, in tension with one another. In this paper, we address the dangers posed to societal sustainability. The concern being addressed is the very survival of societies where the rights of individuals, personal and collective freedoms, an independent judiciary and media, and democracy, despite its messiness, are highly valued. We argue that, as a result of various technological innovations, a range of dysfunctional impacts are threatening social and political (...) stability. For instance, robotics and automation are replacing human labor and decision-making in a range of industries; search engines, monetized through advertising, have access to, and track, our interests and preferences; social media, in connecting us to one another often know more about us than we ourselves do, enabling them to profit in ways which may not coincide with our well-being; online retailers have not only acquired the ability to track and predict our buying choices, but also they can squeeze vendors based on their outsize bargaining power; and, in general, virtual technologies have changed both the way we think and our sense of self. With the rising deployment of the Internet of Things, and developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, the threats to individual freedoms and rights, societal cohesion and harmony, employment and economic well-being, and trust in democracy are being ratcheted up. This paper lauds the benefits and addresses the harm wrought by the high tech giants in Information and Communication Technologies. The search for rapidly growing revenues drives firms to accelerate product innovation without fully investigating the entire gamut of their impacts. As greater wealth accrues to the leaders of tech firms, inequalities within firms and societies are widening, creating social tensions and political ferment. We explore the ethical nature of the challenge employing a simple utilitarian calculus, complemented by approaches rooted in rights, justice, and the common good. Various options to address the challenges posed by ICTs are considered and evaluated. We argue that regulation may do little more than slow down the damage to society, particularly since societal values and political preferences vary internationally. Firms need to establish ethical standards, imbuing the upholders of these standards with sufficient authority, while creating a culture of morality. User involvement and activism, and shareholders’ concerns for the sustainability of societies on whose continued prosperity they depend, are imperative to humanity’s ability to decide the future direction of technology. (shrink)

Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such (...) as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems. (shrink)

Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'. His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time, are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers. Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for (...) his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes' _Meditations _are not merely a description but the very enactment of philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and philosophy generally. With a new foreword by John Cottingham. (shrink)

This book presents the thought of the Kyoto School in comparison with continental philosophers better known in the West and addresses the affiliation of some of its members with the militarism of the 1930s and 1940s.

After more than a decade teaching ancient Greek history and philosophy at University College, Oxford, British philosopher and political theorist Bernard Bosanquet resigned from his post to spend more time writing. He was particularly interested in contemporary social theory, and was involved with the Charity Organisation Society and the London Ethical Society. He saw himself as a radical in the Liberal Party, and at a theoretical level he was a 'collectivist', considering the individual to be a part of a (...) larger social organism. He thought the state should be in harmony with the general will, and that going beyond it would lead to repression. Bosanquet's political ideas are explained in this influential work, which was published in 1899 and ran to four editions by 1923. Bosanquet begins with the theory of state, and then addresses sociological and philosophical ideas about politics before examining the idea of 'will'. (shrink)

This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.

Epistemic decolonization, in its various conceptual formulations and presentations, could be taken to hold promise for either the completion of the anti-colonial struggle or the self-re-discovery of the formerly colonized and oppressed. In Africa this project has had a long history as both a counter to hegemonic histories of claimed Western epistemological superiority as well as theories of racism and racist practices against black people of African descent. What is not entirely clear are the precise achievements of decolonial thought and (...) practice. I interrogate the relevance, use and continuation of decoloniality as a genre of thought and practice on the African continent against the background of the perennial problems of material underdevelopment and stifled political spaces that render the supposed beneficiaries of decolonization hopeless subjects who continue to be disempowered and oppressed in their own home. This interrogation is to be carried alongside another inquiry aimed at evaluating the achievements of African philosophy as a form of epistemic decolonization. If African philosophy is a form of decolonization, as it should be, it should be able to clearly demonstrate its achievements and how they have had an effect on broader goals of decolonizing and empowering inhabitants of the African continent. (shrink)

In "Global Spencerism" the authors analyse the communication and appropriation of Herbert Spencer s ideas around the globe. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Spencer s distinctive theory of evolution, based on Lamarckianism, was almost as influential as Darwin s.".

Boucs émissaires, violences sacrificielles, désir mimétique, autant de thèmes que René Girard (1923-2015) n'a cessé d'explorer et qui sont devenus des ressources essentielles pour notre compréhension des sociétés. L'anthropologie mimétique, dont il a posé les bases, a en effet eu des échos multiples dans les sciences humaines et les religions. Avec ce livre, Bernard Perret offre une présentation éloquente de ce vaste chantier théorique. Il éclaire notamment la fonction et la signification de la violence dans les rapports humains, des (...) origines à nos jours, tout en explorant les liens et les différences entre la pensée de Girard et celle d'autres grands auteurs du XXe siècle (Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Mauss...). Le lien particulier de Girard aux Écritures juives et chrétiennes, le sens à la fois novateur et controversé qu'il donne à la passion et à la mort du Christ, ne sont pas éludés, tout comme sa vision apocalyptique du politique. En exposant la cohérence profonde et la fécondité d'une pensée majeure de notre temps, ce livre permet de ressaisir tous les débats passionnants auxquels elle a donné et donne toujours lieu."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The paper examines the view that Nietzsche's perspectivism about practical judgments, understood as a form of internalism about practical reasons, implies that any legitimate criticism of judgments emanating from a foreign perspective must be in terms that are internal to this perspective. Insofar as it is thought to be motivated by certain general theoretical strictures of perspectivism, this view is incoherent. The paper argues that, on the contrary Nietzsche's recourse to a strategy of internal criticism is motivated by his own (...) particular commitment to preserving the freedom of spirit of his interlocutors. The paper concludes with a discussion of how freedom of spirit is preserved by internal criticism, and how the nature of freedom of spirit affects the particular form such criticism will assume. (shrink)

A travers cet ouvrage, l'auteur démontre comment la pensée philosophique, de même que l'engagement politique d'Hannah Arendt contre le nazisme et la barbarie sous toutes ses formes, sont largement héritiers de Tocqueville.

Volume 48, Issue 3, November 2019, Page 471-488.

Volume 48, Issue 3, November 2019, Page 471-488.

A bold new interpretation of Aristotelian thought is central to Bernard Yack's provocative new book. He shows that for Aristotle, community is a conflict-ridden fact of everyday life, as well as an ideal of social harmony and integration. From political justice and the rule of law to class struggle and moral conflict, Yack maintains that Aristotle intended to explain the conditions of everyday political life, not just, as most commentators assume, to represent the hypothetical achievements of an idealistic "best (...) regime." By showing how Aristotelian ideas can provide new insight into our own political life, Yack makes a valuable contribution to contemporary discourse and debate. His work will excite interest among a wide range of social, moral, and political theorists. (shrink)

This volume tackles the burden of judgment and the challenges of ethical disagreements, organizes the cohabitation of scientific and ethical argumentations in such a way they find their appropriate place in the political decision. It imagines several forms of agreements and open ways of conflicts resolution very different compared with ones of the majority of political philosophers and political scientists that are macro-social and general. It offers an original contribution to a scrutinized interpretation of the precautionary principle, as structuring the (...) decision in interdisciplinary contexts, to make sure to arrive this time to the "Best of the Worlds". (shrink)

BERTRAND RUSSELL ON MODALITY AND LOGICAL RELEVANCE - SECOND EDITION of 2015. Praise for the first edition of 1999: "In the twenty-nine years since Russell's death, much of the major scholarship has drawn heavily on his manuscripts and unpublished correspondence. The author shows that the published Russell is capable of new interpretations; in particular, that modal notions such as possibility have a greater place in various aspects of his logical and philosophical thought than has been previously imagined." -Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Foreword (...) to the first edition. EXCERPT FROM PUBLISHED REVIEW: "Dejnožka's book is the first full-length study of modality in Russell. It is useful for its very full survey of passages in which Russell makes use of or alludes to modal notions. Dejnožka's command of Russell's huge output is indeed impressive and his utilization of it thorough...." - Nicholas Griffin, Studia Logica. EXCERPT FROM PUBLISHED REVIEW: "Dejnožka's book raises a very important point in the history of formal logic. Until now the major studies on this topic have drawn heavily on the development of classical logic as standardized by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. Dejnožka challenges the reader to open his mind for a new interpretation of Russell's work, in particular that modal and relevance notions have a greater place in his philosophy of logic than has been stressed before.... "Dejnožka rightly observes that many of Russell's insights on modality are a result of his discussions with Hugh MacColl, who was indeed the first to seriously attempt to develop formal modal logic. This particularly applies to Russell's conception of a modal logic without modal operators....That is, classical logic can be used to simulate modal expressions. Thus, the notions of (logical) necessity and possibility are not 'fundamental notions'....On this basis, Dejnožka develops a higher level of modality, where the quantification scope extends to the predicates yielding what Russell calls 'fully general propositions'.... "The best studied translation method is known as the standard translation, and it is quite compatible with Dejnožka's suggestions.... "Dejnožka's book is full of material which stimulates [one] to rethink Russell's philosophy of logic and...it is greatly to the author's credit that he brings to light such a wealth of crucial issues in the history and philosophy of logic. - Shahid Rahman, History and Philosophy of Logic. BOOK DESCRIPTION: This book is the only exhaustive study of Russell on modality and logical relevance ever written. This is the second edition, revised over a period of over sixteen years, and over twice as long. Russell initially rejects the possibility of a modal logic in an unpublished paper written ca. 1903-05 and read to an audience in 1905. But the very next year, he adopts the theory of modality he had rejected, and he repeats that theory in published works for many years to come. That theory, together with other texts scattered among Russell's writings, implies eight modal logics which Russell himself never expressly accepted. And Russell's express acceptance of the early Wittgenstein's theory of entailment ("following from") as truth-ground containment implies a deductive relevance logic in Russell's writings which Russell himself never expressly accepted. The book ends with a look at John Maynard Keynes and Anglo-American evidence law as the origins of Russell's theory of probability as degree of logical relevance. Thus the book is written toward the reunion of modern classical logicians with modal logicians and relevantists. On the reunion of modern classical logicians with relevantists, please see also The Concept of Relevance and the Logic Diagram Tradition (2012). Thus I hope to have created two new fields of Russell studies. I may have created a new legal field as well: the history of logical relevance in evidence law: 132 pages (368-500) in chapter 10. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Academic freedom is typically understood as a means of protecting faculty rights against the violence—physical or intellectual—of the state or of the institution’s administration. This article argues that academic freedom may be seen as a form of violence, insofar as it is potentially threatening to the methodological and institutional stasis of colleges and universities.

À la manière de Sartre, qui renonce à la question de l'essence de la littérature et lui préfère celle de son utilité, Deleuze interroge, non l'essence de l'art, mais son usage pour le philosophe. Selon Deleuze, l'art est nécessaire au philosophe pour penser sa propre condition. En effet, pour échapper à la représentation qui dénature et assujettit la pensée, la philosophie exige un détour par l'art qui transforme à la fois l'exercice de la pensée et les conditions de l'expérience. L'usage (...) de l'art, c'est ce que fait l'art. L'art capte des forces (il rend visibles des forces invisibles) et transforme, à la fois, l'artiste et le corps social (il bouleverse les manières de sentir et de penser). Cette nouvelle manière de penser et d'user de l'art déborde le cadre habituel des études esthétiques. Il s'agit ici d'établir une périodisation de la question de l'art dans l'oeuvre de Deleuze, en fonction des problèmes qu'il pose. On retiendra trois périodes qui sont trois philosophies de l'art : la première accorde la priorité à la littérature ; la deuxième opère le passage du littéraire au sémiotique, en mettant en lumière le rôle politique de l'art ; et la troisième élabore une sémiotique de l'image, à partir de la peinture et du cinéma. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valéry wrote of a "crisis of spirit", brought about by the instrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordination of culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearly that the stock of mind, or spirit, continues to fall. The economy is toxically organized around the pursuit of short-term gain, supported by an infantilizing, dumbed-down media. Advertising technologies make relentless demands on our attention, reducing us to idiotic beasts, no longer (...) capable of living. Spiralling rates of mental illness show that the fragile life of the mind is at breaking point. Underlying these multiple symptoms is consumer capitalism, which systematically immiserates those whom it purports to liberate. Returning to Marxʹs theory, Stiegler argues that consumerism marks a new stage in the history of proletarianization. It is no longer just labour that is exploited, pushed below the limits of subsistence, but the desire that is characteristic of human spirit. The cure to this malaise is to be found in what Stiegler calls a "pharmacology of the spirit". Here, pharmacology has nothing to do with the chemical supplements developed by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmakon, defined as both cure and poison, refers to the technical objects through which we open ourselves to new futures, and thereby create the spirit that makes us human. By reference to a range of figures, from Socrates, Simondon and Derrida to the child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Stiegler shows that technics are both the cause of our suffering and also what makes life worth living. -- Publisher description. (shrink)

From one of the most respected historians in America, twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a new collection of essays that reflect a lifetime of erudition and accomplishments in history. The past has always been elusive: how can we understand people whose worlds were utterly different from our own without imposing our own standards and hindsight? What did things feel like in the moment when outcomes were uncertain? How can we recover the uncertainties of the past, before the outcomes (...) were known? What kind of imagination goes into the writing of transformative history? Are there latent trends that distinguish the kinds of history we now write? How unique was North America among the far-flung peripheries of the early British empire? As Bernard Bailyn argues in this elegant, deeply informed collection of essays, history always combines approximations based on incomplete data, with empathic imagination and the interweaving of strands of knowledge into a narrative which also explains. This is a stirring and insightful work drawing on the wisdom and perspective of a career spanning more than five decades--a book that will appeal to anyone interested in history"--From publisher's website. (shrink)