The class of recursive functions over the reals, denoted by , was introduced by Cristopher Moore in his seminal paper written in 1995. Since then many subsequent investigations brought new results: the class was put in relation with the class of functions generated by the General Purpose Analogue Computer of Claude Shannon; classical digital computation was embedded in several ways into the new model of computation; restrictions of were proved to represent different classes of recursive functions, e.g., recursive, primitive recursive (...) and elementary functions, and structures such as the Ritchie and the Grzergorczyk hierarchies.The class of real recursive functions was then stratified in a natural way, and and the analytic hierarchy were recently recognised as two faces of the same mathematical concept.In this new article, we bring a strong foundational support to the Real Recursive Function Theory, rooted in Mathematical Analysis, in a way that the reader can easily recognise both its intrinsic mathematical beauty and its extreme simplicity. The new paradigm is now robust and smooth enough to be taught. To achieve such a result some concepts had to change and some new results were added. (shrink)

Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work profession. The paper discusses the stance taken by individuals and professional associations on participation (...) in controlled settings, including as participant, bystander and advocate, and asks when the provision of care becomes collusion with oppression. (shrink)

Australia has one of the harshest regimes for the processing of asylum seekers, people who have applied for refugee status but are still awaiting an answer. It has received sharp rebuke for its policies from international human rights bodies but continues to exercise its resolve to protect its borders from those seeking protection. One means of doing so is the detention of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat. Health care providers who care for asylum seekers in these conditions (...) experience a conflict of “dual loyalty,” whereby their role in preserving and maintaining the health of patients can run counter to their employment in detention facilities. Many psychiatrists who have worked in the detention setting engage in forms of political activism in order to change the process of seeking refuge. (shrink)

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring (...) a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population. (shrink)

The combination of increased availability of large amounts of fine-grained human behavioral data and advances in machine learning is presiding over a growing reliance on algorithms to address complex societal problems. Algorithmic decision-making processes might lead to more objective and thus potentially fairer decisions than those made by humans who may be influenced by greed, prejudice, fatigue, or hunger. However, algorithmic decision-making has been criticized for its potential to enhance discrimination, information and power asymmetry, and opacity. In this paper, we (...) provide an overview of available technical solutions to enhance fairness, accountability, and transparency in algorithmic decision-making. We also highlight the criticality and urgency to engage multi-disciplinary teams of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, and citizens to co-develop, deploy, and evaluate in the real-world algorithmic decision-making processes designed to maximize fairness and transparency. In doing so, we describe the Open Algortihms project as a step towards realizing the vision of a world where data and algorithms are used as lenses and levers in support of democracy and development. (shrink)

General-elimination harmony articulates Gentzen’s idea that the elimination-rules are justified if they infer from an assertion no more than can already be inferred from the grounds for making it. Dummett described the rules as not only harmonious but stable if the E-rules allow one to infer no more and no less than the I-rules justify. Pfenning and Davies call the rules locally complete if the E-rules are strong enough to allow one to infer the original judgement. A method is given (...) of generating harmonious general-elimination rules from a collection of I-rules. We show that the general-elimination rules satisfy Pfenning and Davies’ test for local completeness, but question whether that is enough to show that they are stable. Alternative conditions for stability are considered, including equivalence between the introduction- and elimination-meanings of a connective, and recovery of the grounds for assertion, finally generalizing the notion of local completeness to capture Dummett’s notion of stability satisfactorily. We show that the general-elimination rules meet the last of these conditions, and so are indeed not only harmonious but also stable. (shrink)

German classicist's monumental study of the origins of European thought in Greek literature and philosophy. Brilliant, widely influential. Includes "Homer's View of Man," "The Olympian Gods," "The Rise of the Individual in the Early Greek Lyric," "Pindar's Hymn to Zeus," "Myth and Reality in Greek Tragedy," and "Aristophanes and Aesthetic Criticism.".

This paper argues that we should solve paradoxes for propositions (such as the Russell–Myhill paradox) in essentially the same way that we solve Russellian paradoxes for sets. That is, the standard, iterative approach to sets is extended to include properties, and then the resulting hierarchy of sets and properties is used to construct propositions. Propositions on this account are structured in the sense of mirroring the sentences that express them, and they would seem to serve the needs of philosophers of (...) language and metaphysicians who rely on such propositions. The resulting account has limitations, comparable to those faced by the iterative approach to sets, but it is argued to be in important ways preferable to others that have been proposed. (shrink)

In a series of papers, 137–158; 1994, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23, 61–74, 1999) Fine develops his hylomorphic theory of embodiments. In this article, we supply a formal semantics for this theory that is adequate to the principles laid down for it in. In Section 1, we lay out the theory of embodiments as Fine presents it. In Section 2, we argue on Cantorian grounds that the theory needs to be stabilized, and sketch some ways forward, discussing various choice points (...) in modeling the view. In Section 3, we develop a formal semantics for the theory of embodiments by constructing embodiments in stages and restricting the domain of the second-order quantifiers. In Section 4 we give a few illustrative examples to show how the models deliver Finean hylomorphic consequences. In Section 5, we prove that Fine’s principles are sound with respect to this semantics. In Section 6 we present some inexpressibility results concerning Fine’s various notions of parthood and show that in our formal semantics these notions are all expressible using a single mereological primitive. In Section 7, we prove several mereological results stemming from the model theory, showing that the mereology is surprisingly robust. In Section 8, we draw some philosophical lessons from the formal semantics, and in particular respond to Koslicki’s main objection to Fine’s theory. In the appendix we present proofs of the inexpressibility results of Section 6. (shrink)

European thought begins with the Greeks. Scientific and philosophic thinking--the pursuit of truth and the grasping of unchanging principles of life--is a historical development, an achievement; and, as Bruno Snell writes in The Discovery of the Mind, nothing less than a revolution. The Greeks did not take mental resources already at their disposal and merely map out new subjects for discussion and investigation. In poetry, drama, and philosophy they in fact discovered the human mind. The stages in man's gradual (...) understanding of himself are revealed in the course of ancient literature from Homer to Virgil. A rational view of the nature of man slowly established itself in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and literary criticism, pre-Socratic thought, and early Greek ethics all the way to the discovery of humanitas and the spiritual landscape of Virgil's Arcadia. The Discovery of the Mind is a landmark work in tracing this evolution of consciousness--one of the distinguishing characteristics of the history of man. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the prima facie plausible thesis that things couldn’t have been related while being nothing. The thesis plays an important role in a number of arguments in metaphysics, e.g., in Plantinga’s argument for the claim that propositions do not ontologically depend on the things that they are about and in Williamson’s argument for the claim that he, Williamson, is necessarily something. Salmon has put forward that which is, arguably, the most pressing challenge to serious actualists. Salmon’s objection is (...) based on a scenario intended to elicit the judgment that merely possible entities may nonetheless be actually referred to, and so may actually have properties. It is shown that predicativism, the thesis that names are true of their bearers, provides the resources for replying to Salmon’s objection. In addition, an argument for serious actualism based on Stephanou, 219–250 2007) is offered. Finally, it is shown that once serious actualism is conjoined with some minimal assumptions, it implies property necessitism, the thesis that necessarily all properties are necessarily something, as well as a strong comprehension principle for higher-order modal logic according to which for every condition there necessarily is the property of being a thing satisfying that condition. (shrink)

How international research might contribute to justice in global health has not been substantively addressed by bioethics. Theories of justice from political philosophy establish obligations for parties from high-income countries owed to parties from low and middle-income countries. We have developed a new framework that is based on Jennifer Ruger's health capability paradigm to strengthen the link between international clinical research and justice in global health. The ‘research for health justice’ framework provides direction on three aspects of international clinical research: (...) the research target, research capacity strengthening, and post-trial benefits. It identifies the obligations of justice owed by national governments, research funders, research sponsors, and investigators to trial participants and host communities. These obligations vary from those currently articulated in international research ethics guidelines. Ethical requirements of a different kind are needed if international clinical research is to advance global health equity. (shrink)

Are there ‘self-referential’ propositions? That is, propositions that say of themselves that they have a certain property, such as that of being false. There can seem reason to doubt that there are. At the same time, there are a number of reasons why it matters. For suppose that there are indeed no such propositions. One might then hope that while paradoxes such as the Liar show that many plausible principles about sentences must be given up, no such fate will befall (...) principles about propositions. But the existence of self-referential propositions would dash such hopes. Further, the existence of such propositions would also seem to challenge the widespread claim that Liar sentences fail to express propositions. The aim of this paper is thus to settle the question–at least given an assumption. In particular, I argue that if propositions are structured, then self-referential propositions exist. (shrink)

This book provides a thoroughly worked out and systematic presentation of an interpretivist position in the philosophy of mind, of the view that having mental properties is a matter of interpretation. Bruno Mölder elaborates and defends a particular version of interpretivism, the ascription theory, which explicates the possession of mental states with contents in terms of their canonical ascribability, and shows how it can withstand various philosophical challenges. Apart from a defence of the ascription theory from the objections commonly (...) directed against interpretivism, the book provides a critical analysis of major alternative accounts of mental state possession as well as the interpretivist ideas originating from Donald Davidson and Daniel Dennett. The viability of the approach is demonstrated by showing how one can treat mental causation as well as the faculties closely connected with consciousness -- perception and the awareness of one’s own mental states -- in the interpretivist framework. (shrink)

How international research might contribute to justice in global health has not been substantively addressed by bioethics. Theories of justice from political philosophy establish obligations for parties from high‐income countries owed to parties from low and middle‐income countries. We have developed a new framework that is based on Jennifer Ruger's health capability paradigm to strengthen the link between international clinical research and justice in global health. The ‘research for health justice’ framework provides direction on three aspects of international clinical research: (...) the research target, research capacity strengthening, and post‐trial benefits. It identifies the obligations of justice owed by national governments, research funders, research sponsors, and investigators to trial participants and host communities. These obligations vary from those currently articulated in international research ethics guidelines. Ethical requirements of a different kind are needed if international clinical research is to advance global health equity. (shrink)

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different ways to exist. It is a position with deep roots in the history of philosophy, and in which there has been a recent resurgence of interest. In contemporary presentations, it is stated in terms of fundamental languages: as the view that such languages contain more than one quantifier. For example, one ranging over abstract objects, and another over concrete ones. A natural worry, however, is that the languages proposed by the pluralist (...) are mere notational variants of those proposed by the monist, in which case the debate between the two positions would not seem to be substantive. Jason Turner has given an ingenious response to this worry, in terms of a principle that he calls ‘logical realism’. This paper offers a counter-response on behalf of the ‘notationalist’. I argue that, properly applied, the principle of logical realism is no threat to the claim that the languages in question are notational variants. Indeed, there seems to be every reason to think that they are. (shrink)

Are there different sizes of infinity? That is, are there infinite sets of different sizes? This is one of the most natural questions that one can ask about the infinite. But it is of course generally taken to be settled by mathematical results, such as Cantor’s theorem, to the effect that there are infinite sets without bijections between them. These results settle the question, given an almost universally accepted principle relating size to the existence of functions. The principle is: for (...) any sets A and B, if A is the same size as B, then there is a bijection from A to B. The aim of the paper, however, is to argue that this question is in fact wide open: to argue that we are not in a position to know the answer, because we are not in one to know the principle. The aim, that is, is to argue that for all we know there is only one size of infinity. (shrink)

German classicist's monumental study of the origins of European thought in Greek literature and philosophy.

This paper offers two competing accounts of normative requirements, each of which purports to explain why some—but not all—requirements are normative in the sense of being related to normative reasons in some robust way. According to the reasons-sensitive view, normative requirements are those and only those which are sensitive to normative reasons. On this account, normative requirements are second-order statements about what there is conclusive reason to do, in the broad sense of the term. According to the reasons-providing view—which I (...) attribute to John Broome—normative requirements are those and only those which constitute or provide normative reasons. I argue that the reasons-providing view is susceptible to two serious objections. First, the view generates an explanatory gap. Secondly, the view is implausible. I argue that these two objections give us reason to prefer the reasons-sensitive view of normative requirements over the reasons-providing view. (shrink)

I argue that dialetheists have a problem with the concept of logical consequence. The upshot of this problem is that dialetheists must appeal to a hierarchy of concepts of logical consequence. Since this hierarchy is akin to those invoked by more orthodox resolutions of the semantic paradoxes, its emergence would appear to seriously undermine the dialetheic treatments of these paradoxes. And since these are central to the case for dialetheism, this would represent a significant blow to the position itself.

I argue that dialetheists have a problem with the concept of logical consequence. The upshot of this problem is that dialetheists must appeal to a hierarchy of concepts of logical consequence. Since this hierarchy is akin to those invoked by more orthodox resolutions of the semantic paradoxes, its emergence would appear to seriously undermine the dialetheic treatments of these paradoxes. And since these are central to the case for dialetheism, this would represent a significant blow to the position itself.

This article investigates whether or not theories of justice from political philosophy, first, support the position that health research should contribute to justice in global health, and second, provide guidance about what is owed by international clinical research (ICR) actors to parties in low- and middle-income countries. Four theories—John Rawls's theory of justice, the rights-based cosmopolitan theories of Thomas Pogge and Henry Shue, and Jennifer Ruger's health capability paradigm—are evaluated. The article shows that three of the four theories require the (...) conduct of health research for justice in global health. The theories help identify the ends of justice to which ICR is to contribute, but they cannot tell us how to organize ICR to promote these ends. Aside from Ruger's health capability paradigm, the theories also lack an allocative principle for assigning specific duties to specific actors. This creates difficulties for establishing obligations for certain types of ICR actors. (shrink)

Abstract: The standard picture of rationality requires that the agent acts so as to realize her most preferred alternative in the light of her own desires and beliefs. However, there are circumstances where such an agent can predict that she will act against her preferences. The story of Ulysses and the Sirens is the paradigmatic example of such cases. In those circumstances the orthodoxy requires the agent to be ‘sophisticated’. That is to say, she should take into account her expected (...) future choices and prevent her future self to act in certain ways. She should ‘bind’ herself to a certain course of action. This is a form of causal commitment. It is generally recognized that this form of self-commitment is the only one that is available to a rational agent. Rational commitment, where the agent gives herself a reason to act in a certain way rather than making herself act in that way, is considered not feasible. In this paper, I question this verdict. I sketch the broad outlines of a model of rational commitment, which takes as its starting point Michael Bratman’s ‘planning theory’ of intention. There are two important objections against this theory (one by John Broome and one by the Dutch philosopher Govert den Hartogh.) Both criticisms claim that such a theory is a form of ‘bootstrapping’ reasons for action into existence. In the remainder of the paper, I will defend the theory against these objections. This way, I hope to establish that defending the feasibility of rational commitment is not an obvious mistake. (shrink)

This chapter challenges Cantor’s notion of the ‘power’, or ‘cardinality’, of an infinite set. According to Cantor, two infinite sets have the same cardinality if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between them. Cantor showed that there are infinite sets that do not have the same cardinality in this sense. Further, he took this result to show that there are infinite sets of different sizes. This has become the standard understanding of the result. The chapter challenges this, arguing (...) that we have no reason to think there are infinite sets of different sizes. It begins with an initial argument against Cantor’s claim that there are infinite sets of different sizes and then proceeds, by way of an analogy between Cantor’s mathematical result and Russell’s paradox, to a more direct argument. (shrink)

Metaphysically possible worlds have many uses. Epistemically possible worlds promise to be similarly useful, especially in connection with propositions and propositional attitudes. However, I argue that there is a serious threat to the natural accounts of epistemically possible worlds, from a version of Russell’s paradox. I contrast this threat with David Kaplan’s problem for metaphysical possible world semantics: Kaplan’s problem can be straightforwardly rebutted, the problems I raise cannot. I argue that although there may be coherent accounts of epistemically possible (...) worlds with fruitful applications, any such an account must fundamentally compromise the basic idea behind epistemic possibility. (shrink)

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring (...) a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population. (shrink)

Necessitism, Contingentism, and Theory Equivalence is a dissertation on issues in higher-order modal metaphysics. Consider a modal higher-order language with identity in which the universal quantifier is interpreted as expressing universal quantification and the necessity operator is interpreted as expressing metaphysical necessity. The main question addressed in the dissertation concerns the correct theory formulated in this language. A different question that also takes centre stage in the dissertation is what it takes for theories to be equivalent.The whole dissertation consists of (...) an extended argument in defence of the truth of two seemingly inconsistent higher-order modal theories, specifically: 1.Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, a theory based on Plantinga’s [1] modal metaphysics that is committed to, among other things, the contingent being of some individuals and the necessary being of all possible higher-order entities;2.Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, a theory advocated by Williamson [3] which is committed to, among other things, the necessary being of every possible individual as well as of every possible higher-order entity.Part of the case for these theories’ joint truth relies on defences of the following metaphysical theses: Thorough Serious Actualism, the thesis that no things could have been related while being nothing, and Higher-Order Necessitism, the thesis that necessarily, every higher-order entity is necessarily something. It is shown that Thorough Serious Actualism and Higher-Order Necessitism are both implicit commitments of very weak logical theories. The defence of Higher-Order Necessitism constitutes a powerful challenge to Stalnaker’s [2] Thorough Contingentism, a theory committed to, among other things, the view that there could have been some individuals as well as some entities of any higher-order that could have been nothing.In the dissertation it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are in fact equivalent, even if they appear to be jointly inconsistent. The case for this claim relies on the Synonymy account, a novel account of theory equivalence developed and defended in the dissertation. According to this account, theories are equivalent just in case they have the same commitments and conception of logical space.By way of defending the Synonymy account’s adequacy, the account is applied to the debate between noneists, proponents of the view that some things do not exist, and Quineans, proponents of the view that to exist just is to be some thing. The Synonymy account is shown to afford a more nuanced and better understanding of that debate by revealing that what noneists and Quineans are really disagreeing about is what expressive resources are available to appropriately describe the world.By coupling a metatheoretical result with tools from the philosophy of language, it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are synonymous theories, and so, by the lights of the Synonymy account, equivalent. Given the defence of their extant commitments made in the dissertation, it is concluded that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are both correct. A corollary of this result is that the dispute between Plantingans and Williamsonians is, in an important sense, merely verbal. For if two theories are equivalent, then they “require the same of the world for their truth.”Thus, the results of the dissertation reveal that if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, then one will not go wrong. Notwithstanding, one will still go wrong if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism.On the basis of a conception of the individual constants and predicates of second-order modal languages as strongly Millian, i.e., as having actually existing entities as their semantic values, in the appendix are presented second-order modal logics consistent with Stalnaker’s Thorough Contingentism. Furthermore, it is shown there that these logics are strong enough for applications of higher-order modal logic in mathematics, a result that constitutes a reply to an argument to the contrary by Williamson [3]. Finally, these logics are proven to be complete relative to particular “thoroughly contingentist” classes of models. (shrink)

The notion of a proposition is central to philosophy. But it is subject to paradoxes. A natural response is a hierarchical account and, ever since Russell proposed his theory of types in 1908, this has been the strategy of choice. But in this paper I raise a problem for such accounts. While this does not seem to have been recognized before, it would seem to render existing such accounts inadequate. The main purpose of the paper, however, is to provide a (...) new hierarchical account that solves the problem. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce au juste que le mental? Les nouvelles "sciences de l'esprit" ne paraissent pas avoir de doute sur la réponse : c'est ce qu'il y a dans la boîte crânienne. L'idée que le mental puisse être autre chose que le côté "interne" d'une métaphore qui l'oppose à de l'externe, et qu'à ce titre il puisse s'avérer intrinsèquement social, leur paraît incongrue. C'est pourtant cette idée que le présent ouvrage s'applique à défendre. Il élabore une conception sociale du mental, en prenant (...) appui sur les courants de recherche qui, en philosophie et en sciences humaines et sociales, ont souligné, tant d'un point de vue conceptuel qu'empirique, l'imbrication du social et du mental. Cette élaboration passe par une clarification des deux concepts. D'un côté, il est nécessaire de remédier au rétrécissement du social non seulement par les sciences cognitives, mais aussi par une partie des sciences sociales. De l'autre, il faut proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que l'on entend par mental. La conception esquissée est une conception qu'on peut qualifier d'adverbiale : "mental" est un concept opératoire qui qualifie une modalité de l'action d'agents appartenant à une société. (shrink)

A necessarily true sentence is 'brute' if it does not rigidly refer to anything and if it cannot be reduced to a logical truth. The question of whether there are brute necessities is an extremely natural one. Cian Dorr has recently argued for far-reaching metaphysical claims on the basis of the principle that there are no brute necessities: he initially argued that there are no non-symmetric relations, and later that there are no abstract objects at all. I argue that there (...) are nominalistically acceptable brute necessities, and that Dorr's arguments thus fail. My argument is an application of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. (shrink)

Collecting, comparing, and computing molecular sequences are among the most prevalent practices in contemporary biological research. They represent a specific way of producing knowledge. This paper explores the historical development of these practices, focusing on the work of Margaret O. Dayhoff, Richard V. Eck, and Robert S. Ledley, who produced the first computer-based collection of protein sequences, published in book format in 1965 as the Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure. While these practices are generally associated with the rise of (...) molecular evolution in the 1960s, this paper shows that they grew out of research agendas from the previous decade, including the biochemical investigation of the relations between the structures and function of proteins and the theoretical attempt to decipher the genetic code. It also shows how computers became essential for the handling and analysis of sequence data. Finally, this paper reflects on the relationships between experimenting and collecting as two distinct “ways of knowing” that were essential for the transformation of the life sciences in the twentieth century. (shrink)

This book analyses the evolution of the French model of capitalism in relation to the instability of socio-political compromises. In the 2010s, France was in a situation of systemic crisis, namely, the impossibility for political leadership to find a strategy of institutional change, or more generally a model of capitalism, that could gather sufficient social and political support. This book analyses the various attempts at reforming the French model since the 1980s, when the left tried briefly to orient the French (...) political economy in a social-democratic/socialist direction before changing course and opting for a more orthodox macroeconomic and structural policy direction. The attempts of governments of the right to implement a radically neo-liberal structural policy also failed in the face of a significant social opposition. The enduring French systemic crisis is the expression of contradictions between the economic policies implemented by the successive left and right governments, and the existence of a dominant, social bloc, that is, a coalition of social groups that would politically support the dominant political strategy. Since 1978, both the right and the left have failed to find a solution to the contradictions between the policies they implemented and the expectations of their respective social bases, which are themselves inhabited by tensions and contradictions that evolve with the structural reforms that gradually transformed French capitalism. (shrink)

This paper analyses Giordano Bruno's dialogue De l’infinito universo e mondi (The Infinite Universe and Worlds), written during his stay in England (1583–85), in the context of his philosophical works and, particularly, within the context of scientific and imaginative writings such as Cyrano de Bergerac's Other Worlds (published posthumously in 1662) and Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1638). The article also discusses the contemporary speculations of Galileo and Kepler regarding the existence of a plurality of worlds and (...) the presence of creatures on the moon and their rapport with humans. Besides the imaginative, fantastic and pseudoscientific elements, attention is also given to religious implications and attitudes, especially in the case of Godwin, who, like his countryman John Wilkins—author of The Discovery of the Worlde in the Moone (1638)–was a bishop and therefore wanted to avoid any controversy with the church. (shrink)

In his article Banicki proposes a universal model for all forms of philosophical therapy. He is guided by works of Martha Nussbaum, who in turn makes recourse to Aristotle. As compared to Nussbaum’s approach, Banicki’s model is more medical and less based on ethical argument. He mentions Foucault’s vision to apply the same theoretical analysis for the ailments of the body and the soul and to use the same kind of approach in treating and curing them. In his interpretation of (...) philosophical therapy, there are, however, some controversial issues, to which we would like to call attention: -/- Is restoring health by a philosophical method of treatment – health understood as a person’s ability to reach his/her vital goals – a convincing explication of philosophical therapy in general? In order to answer this question, it may be useful to look at Plato. It is not only Platonism (and especially Neo-platonism since Plotinus) that questions the idea that therapy is necessarily connected with „vital goals“. Buddhist and Gnostic philosophies are questioning „the vital“ in general. The immense effort in the history of philosophy to liberate the mind from the body casts doubt on the project to explain philosophical therapy solely in analogy to medical therapy. -/- According to Banicki a therapeutic philosophy has to identify the diseases it attempts at curing. There are, however, reasons for associating the term therapy with suffering/risk rather than disease. If a therapy aims at reducing the fear of death, as for example many classical philosophical therapies do, then there is no disease to be cured. A model based on chances and risks also has the advantage that the Buddhist and Stoic reinterpretation of desires/emotions as “diseases” can be dropped in contemporary philosophical therapy. -/- Banicki mentions the comparison of therapies as one of the primary goals of modelling. Methods should be verified by a statistical correlation between method and therapeutic success and/or by a theory which justifies the method. Some forms of therapies, however, avoid theory-specific terms and concepts in favor of an unprejudiced interpretation of the patient’s statements. Others share the (Nietzschean) aspiration to explore and change measures of value. If the therapeutic process is seen as a unique phenomenon, then there can be no theory and no statistics with co-occurrences. -/- According to Banicki philosophical therapy has to describe techniques which qualify as genuinely philosophical. Techniques like maieutics and hermeneutics, however, are antique philosophical “inventions”, which were later adopted by psychotherapy. If meditation is accepted as a therapeutic tool – as it was in ancient times – then there is not only a methodical but also an emotional relation to religion. If finally, the Socratic search for a good life is seen as one of the characteristics of philosophical therapy, then delimitation even turns into a criterion for non-philosophical therapies. The search for a good life requires an interdisciplinary approach. -/- For the concretization of the formal structure, we suggest a typology of therapies, which is based on chances and risks. Such a typology has the advantage, that it can model conflicting (and even opposing) forms of therapies. The variety of therapeutic goals and methods is a consequence of the historical development towards conceptual freedom. (shrink)

Brain imaging studies suggest that truth telling constitutes the default of the human brain and that lying involves intentional suppression of the predominant truth response. By manipulating the truth proportion in the Sheffield lie test, we investigated whether the dominance of the truth response is malleable. Results showed that frequent truth telling made lying more difficult, and that frequent lying made lying easier. These results implicate that the accuracy of lie detection tests may be improved by increasing the dominance of (...) the truth response and that habitual lying makes the lie response more dominant. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to argue that all—or almost all—logical rules have exceptions. In particular, it is argued that this is a moral that we should draw from the semantic paradoxes. The idea that we should respond to the paradoxes by revising logic in some way is familiar. But previous proposals advocate the replacement of classical logic with some alternative logic. That is, some alternative system of rules, where it is taken for granted that these hold without exception. (...) The present proposal is quite different. According to this, there is no such alternative logic. Rather, classical logic retains the status of the ‘one true logic’, but this status must be reconceived so as to be compatible with (almost) all of its rules admitting of exceptions. This would seem to have significant repercussions for a range of widely held views about logic: e.g. that it is a priori, or that it is necessary. Indeed, if the arguments of the paper succeed, then such views must be given up. (shrink)