On the young bride’s shoulder is a mauve bite mark: the outline of a mouth, a double arch,teeth marks, open jaws, lips raised up over hard enamel. Not the barely open lips of a kisson the skin; open, rather, as for a kiss on the mouth, but this time penetrating the skin: abristling kiss with the teeth bared, extreme – at the limit of the kiss, or beyond. A cruelkiss: a kiss of flesh . A young couple kisses in a (...) plane: the beginning ofthe film. Later we will see this icon, not knowing when it was imprinted, like a tattoo or abranding with the red hot iron of some ancient justice.What is a kiss? This is the question posed by Claire Denis’s film. Or rather: what isfucking?2It has long been accepted and repeated that kissing is a kind of devouring. Itbelongs to a core of imagery and metaphor that includes fairy tales , the fascination with cannibalism, the symbolism of Christian communion andthat of the lacerations of Dionysos, Osiris or Acteon, together with ghouls, striges andvampires, werewolves, incubi and succubi. This entire carnivorous breed is concealedwithin the film. It is recalled in its entirety, evoked by the gesture of Coré, the sick woman, standing on a bank, filmed from a low angle raising her coat aboveher shoulders to bring to mind for a moment the silhouette of Murnau’s Nosferatu.The vampire’s true formula is only revealed when one says ‘the kiss of the vampire’.That is what is at stake here, allowing for the fact that we are no longer in the era ofvampire stories: the kiss as vampire.It is not a question of any particular kiss, but rather that the kiss, in itself, opens on to the bite, and the taste of blood. And consequently it is a question of another wellknown coupling, that of Eros and Thanatos: not in a dialectic of opposites, but in a mutualexcitation and exasperation, each asking the other to go further, to go all the way to theend, to get completely lost. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century a significant tradition in French thought promoted a highly dramatized reading of the Hegelian struggle for recognition. In this tradition a violent struggle was regarded as an indispensable means to the realization of both individual and social ideals. The following article considers Claire Denis's film I Can't Sleep as an oblique challenge to this tradition. I Can't Sleep performs a careful dedramatization of an extremely violent story and thereby points to the possibility of an alternative (...) form of co-existence outside a logic of conflict. (shrink)

Messud's The Woman Upstairs as a post-9/11 craft makes use of transnational characters to emphasize the hidden bigotry and hypocrisy in the current age. The dominance of feminine figures in The Woman Upstairs highlights the significance of 'Agonistic feminine identity' in the twenty-first century America that reflects how the interactions among women are socio-politically flavored. Messud’s feminine setting in The Woman Upstairs sketches out Nora as a woman who constructs her life in accordance with the socio-cultural norms her mother and (...) the society promote. Yet women’s friendship that bridges the sociocultural gap between women of the First World and women of the Third World reveals to be a fake friendship that covers the antagonisms. Thus, although multiraciality is constantly represented in Messud’s oeuvre, the tension against the ‘others’ who are to be neocolonially subjugated in the postcolonial America is symbolically represented through Messud's ‘Wonderland’. Decoding the sociocultural behavior of women in the twenty-first century America through Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism, it can be concluded that a new form of feminine identity, that can be well labeled as 'agonistic feminine identity', is constructed in the twenty first century America due to traumatic events such as the 9/11. Hence, intolerance and revenge that is flooding between the two women of two different worlds is agonistically controlled through the construction of The Woman Upstairs. Messud's The Woman Upstairs as a post-9/11 craft makes use of transnational characters to emphasize the hidden bigotry and hypocrisy in the current age. The dominance of feminine figures in The Woman Upstairs highlights the significance of 'Agonistic feminine identity' in the twenty-first century America that reflects how the interactions among women are socio-politically flavored. Messud’s feminine setting in The Woman Upstairs sketches out Nora as a woman who constructs her life in accordance with the socio-cultural norms her mother and the society promote. Yet women’s friendship that bridges the sociocultural gap between women of the First World and women of the Third World reveals to be a fake friendship that covers the antagonisms. Thus, although multiraciality is constantly represented in Messud’s oeuvre, the tension against the ‘others’ who are to be neocolonially subjugated in the postcolonial America is symbolically represented through Messud's ‘Wonderland’. Decoding the sociocultural behavior of women in the twenty-first century America through Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism, it can be concluded that a new form of feminine identity, that can be well labeled as 'agonistic feminine identity', is constructed in the twenty first century America due to traumatic events such as the 9/11. Hence, intolerance and revenge that is flooding between the two women of two different worlds is agonistically controlled through the construction of The Woman Upstairs. (shrink)

Can we make mistakes about what rationality requires? A natural answer is that we can, since it is a platitude that rational belief does not require truth; it is possible for a belief to be rational and mistaken, and this holds for any subject matter at all. However, the platitude causes trouble when applied to rationality itself. The possibility of rational mistakes about what rationality requires generates a puzzle. When combined with two further plausible claims – the enkratic principle, and (...) the claim that rational requirements apply universally – we get the result that rationality generates inconsistent requirements. One popular and attractive solution to the puzzle denies that it is possible to make rational mistakes about what rationality requires. I show why (contra Titelbaum (2015b), and Littlejohn (2015)) this solution is doomed to fail. (shrink)

This article presents an interview method which enables us to bring a person, who may not even have been trained, to become aware of his or her subjective experience, and describe it with great precision. It is focused on the difficulties of becoming aware of one’s subjective experience and describing it, and on the processes used by this interview technique to overcome each of these difficulties. The article ends with a discussion of the criteria governing the validity of the descriptions (...) obtained, and then with a brief review of the functions of these descriptions. (shrink)

Automated Influence is the use of AI to collect, integrate and analyse people's data in order to deliver targeted interventions that shape their behaviour. We consider three central objections against Automated Influence, focusing on privacy, exploitation, and manipulation, showing in each case how a structural version of that objection has more purchase than its interactional counterpart. By rejecting the interactional focus of 'AI Ethics', in favour of a more structural, political philosophy of AI, we show that the real problem with (...) Automated Influence is the crisis of legitimacy that it precipitates. (shrink)

A Conversation with Claire Katz about her book, Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism.

French journalist Claire Parnet's famous dialogues with Gilles Deleuze offer an intimate portrait of the philosopher's life and thought. Conversational in tone, their engaging discussions delve deeply into Deleuze's philosophical background and development, the major concepts that shaped his work, and the essence of some of his famous relationships, especially his long collaboration with the philosopher Félix Guattari. Deleuze reconsiders Spinoza, empiricism, and the stoics alongside literature, psychoanalysis, and politics. He returns to the notions of minor literature, deterritorialization, the (...) critical and clinical, and begins a nascent study of cinema. New to this edition is Deleuze's essay "Pericles and Verdi," which reflects on politics and historical materialism in the work of the influential French philosopher François Châtelet. An enduring record of Deleuze's unique personality and profound contributions to culture and philosophy, _Dialogues II_ is a highly personable account of the evolution of one of the greatest critics and theorists of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The well-known experiments of Nisbett and Wilson lead to the conclusion that we have no introspective access to our decision-making processes. Johansson et al. have recently developed an original protocol consisting in manipulating covertly the relationship between the subjects’ intended choice and the outcome they were presented with: in 79.6% of cases, they do not detect the manipulation and provide an explanation of the choice they did not make, confirming the findings of Nisbett and Wilson. We have reproduced this protocol, (...) while introducing for some choices an expert guidance to the description of this choice. The subjects who were assisted detected the manipulation in 80% of cases. Our experiment confirms Nisbett and Wilson’s findings that we are usually unaware of our decision processes, but goes further by showing that we can access them through specific mental acts. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s Ethics The ethical thought of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche can be divided into two main components. The first is critical: Nietzsche offers a wide-ranging critique of morality as it currently exists. The second is Nietzsche’s positive ethical philosophy, which focuses primarily on what constitutes health, vitality, and flourishing for certain individuals, the so-called … Continue reading Nietzsche’s Ethics →.

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 388-399, April 2022.

Giorgio Agamben emerged in the twenty-first century as one of the most important theorists in the continental tradition. Until recently, 'continental' philosophy has been tied either to the German tradition of phenomenology or to French post-structuralist concerns with the conditions of language and textuality. Agamben draws upon and departs from both these lines of thought by directing his entire corpus to the problem of life political life, human life, animal life and the life of art. Influenced by the work of (...) Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin and the broader tradition of critical Marxism, Agamben's work poses the profound question for our time just how exceptional are human beings. This beautifully written book provides a systematic, engaging overview of Agamben's writings on theology, aesthetics, political theory and sovereignty. Covering the full range of Agamben's work to date Claire Colebrook and Jason Maxwell explain Agamben's theology and philosophy by referring the concepts to some of today's most urgent political and ethical problems. They focus on the audacious way in which Agamben re-conceptualizes life itself. Assessing the significance of the concepts key to his work such as bio-politics, sovereignty, the ‘state of exception’ and ‘bare life’, they demonstrate his wide-ranging influence across the humanities. They also explore the critical reactions to Agamben's thinking and his reception in philosophical and theoretical circles. This book will be essential reading for students in anthropology, politics, philosophy and related disciplines and anyone interested in finding out more about one of the influential thinkers writing today. (shrink)

By drawing attention to these facts and to the relationship between Cantor’s and Husserl's ideas, I have tried to contribute to putting Frege's attack on Husserl "in the proper light" by providing some insight into some of the issues underling criticisms which Frege himself suggested were not purely aimed at Husserl's book. I have tried to undermine the popular idea that Frege's review of the Philosophy of Arithmetic is a straightforward, objective assessment of Husserl’s book, and to give some specific (...) reasons for thinking that the uncritical reading of Frege's review has unfairly distorted philosophers' perception of a work they do not know very well. (shrink)

Before we respond to Tamara Browne's proposal for an external ethics advisory review panel to oversee content in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, we wish to introduce ourselves. One of us is a professor of bioethics, a lawyer, and a doctor of public policy, and one of us is a philosopher of psychiatry who studies psychiatric nosology, and who has done bioethics work for two congressional advisory agencies. Based on our backgrounds, we flatter ourselves that we might (...) be considered as members of the DSM ethical review panel Browne proposes. However, we realize that one of us would likely be ineligible because of a lack of experience in psychiatry, and the other would... (shrink)

This article revisits Arendt’s and Foucault’s converging accounts of modern (bio)politics and the entry of biological life into politics. Agamben’s influential account of these ideas is rejected as a misrepresentation both because it de-historicizes biological/organic life and because it occludes the positivity of that life and thus the discursive appeal and performative force of biopolitics. Through attention to the genealogy of Arendt’s and Foucault’s own ideas we will see that the major point of convergence in their thinking is their insistence (...) upon understanding biological thinking from the inside, in terms of its positivity. Agamben’s assessment of modern politics is closer to Arendt’s than it is to Foucault’s and this marks a fascinating point of disagreement between Arendt and Foucault. Whereas Arendt sees the normalizing force of modern society as being in total opposition to individuality, Foucault posits totalization and individuation as processes of normation, which casts a light upon the relative import they place upon politics and ethics. (shrink)

One hundred years ago Gottlob Frege published a damaging, abusive review of Edmund Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic. Although rather a lot has now been written abound Frege’s review and the role it might have played in the development of Husserl’s thought, much still remains to be rectified regarding Frege’s assessment of the book and the credence his review has been accorded. Philosophers have generally been all too willing to trust Frege’s judgment, and so all too ready to dismiss Husserl’s book (...) as irredeemably muddled. (shrink)

Gestational surrogacy relies on a legal agreement between the surrogate and the intended parents to define the roles and responsibilities of the parties, including explicit consent by the surrogate to allow the physician to release all pregnancy-related medical information to the intended parents. In the event of surrogate misconduct, however, physicians may feel conflicted if the surrogate asks the physician to withhold information about potentially dangerous behaviour in pregnancy from the intended parents. While the American Society for Reproductive Medicine guidelines (...) may support disclosure over the objections of the surrogate, the authors argue that such disclosure is a violation of the surrogate’s rights and the physician’s ethical and professional duties. A surrogate’s confidentiality must be maintained as it is an essential element of the physician–patient relationship. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl was one of the very first to experience the direct impact of challenging problems in set theory and his phenomenology first began to take shape while he was struggling to solve such problems. Here I study three difficulties associated with Frege's use of sets that Husserl explicitly addressed: reference to non-existent, impossible, imaginary objects; the introduction of extensions; and 'Russell's paradox'.I do so within the context of Husserl's struggle to overcome the shortcomings of set theory and to develop (...) his own theory of manifolds. I define certain issues involved and discuss how Husserl's theory of manifolds might confront them. In so doing I hope to help bring Husserl's theories about sets and manifolds out of the realm of abstract theorizing and prompt further exploration of uncharted philosophical territory rich in philosophical implications. (shrink)

This article explores some of the implications of understanding sin as failure of perception. The theological underpinning of the argument is the choice made in the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge rather than the fruit of the tree of life, or wisdom. This has led to distorted perception, in which all things are seen as having separate, independent existences rather than joined together by their common divine source and their deep interrelatedness in the (...) covenant made with God. The article discusses the fascination with the principle of respect for autonomy in the light of this theology. It also looks at perceptions of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. It finishes with a definition of repentance that makes right perception possible. (shrink)

A prefrontal control system that is less mature than the limbic reward system in adolescence is thought to impede self-regulatory abilities, which could contribute to poor dietary choices and obesity. We, therefore, aimed to examine whether structural morphology of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are associated with dietary decisions and obesity in children and adolescents. Seventy-one individuals between the ages of 8–22 years participated in this study; each participant completed a computer-based food choice task and a T1- and T2-weighted (...) structural brain scans. Two indices of obesity were assessed, including age- and sex-specific body mass index and waist-to-height ratio. The behavioral task included rating 60 food stimuli for tastiness, healthiness, and liking. Based on each participant’s self-ratings, 100 binary food choices were then made utilizing a computer mouse. Dietary “self-control” was calculated as the proportion of trials where the individual chose the healthier food item over the total number of trials. Cortical thickness and amygdala subnuclei volumes were quantified using FreeSurfer 6.0 and CIT168 atlas, respectively. We found that WHtR was negatively associated with the thickness of bilateral superior frontal, left superior temporal, right insula, and right inferior temporal regions. We also found WHtR to be positively associated with the volume of the central nucleus region of the amygdala, after adjusting for the hemisphere, age, sex, and intracranial volumes. A similar data pattern was observed when BMIz was used. Moreover, we found that across all participants, thinner right superior frontal cortex and larger left CEN volumes predicted lower dietary self-control. These results suggest that differential development of the PFC and amygdala relate to obesity and dietary self-control. Further longitudinal studies are merited to determine causal relationships among altered PFC to amygdala neural circuitry, dietary self-control, and obesity. (shrink)

Using limpid language and citing abundant documentary evidence, the two authors demonstrate two fundamental and closely interconnected theses. The first is that Frege in no wise influenced Husserl in the manner and to the extent believed by many analytic philosophers. The second is that Husserl’s logical ideas were formally, ontologically and cognitively more advanced than Frege’s.

So why is it so difficult to figure out how to take what is in the Bible and apply it to the tough issues we encounter in daily life?" "Claire Disbrey presents the ancient concept of virtue ethics as a way to work through this difficulty.

Biographical essays explore the careers of two major early photographers, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey and William James Stillman. in addition, portfolios with works by Maxime Du Camp, John Beasley Greene, Francis Frith, Robert Macpherson, Adolphe Braun and others testify to the strength and consistency of other early photographers who captured the antique worlds around the Mediterranean."--BOOK JACKET.

: My response focuses on three main issues raised by the commentaries that it is essential to clarify in order to understand anchoring in lived experience as an act of resistance: the ….

Since its rediscovery in 1903, the Logica Demonstrativa by Girolamo Saccheri is known in three editions ?1697, 1701, and 1735, the 1735, edition being posthumous. The 1697 edition is without the name of the author. This article calls attention to two unnoticed editions (1696? and 1699), the first one unsigned and the second by ?Carolus Iosephus Saccarellus?, a Saccheri pseudonym. The publishing history of the work has been partially clarified, though a number of problems remain unsolved. Après sa redécouverte in (...) 1903, on connait trois éditions de la Logica demonstrativa par Girolamo Saccheri (1697, 1701, 1735: cette dernière édition après sa mort). L'édition du 1697 est anonyme. L'article veut faire connaitre deux éditions inconnues (1696? et 1699), dont la première est ancore anonyme et la deuxième a comme auteur ?Carolus Saccarellus?, un pseudonyme de Saccheri. Ça éclaircit, en part, les questions liées à l'histoire des éditions de l'oeuvre. Hieronymi Saccherii Logica demonstrativa ex oblivione tracta est a Johannes Vailati, Italiae philosopho, Anno Domini 1903. Ter Logica edita fuit, in commune doctorum virorum opinione, annis Domini 1697, 1701, 1735. Quorum editionum, prima sine nomine auctoris est, postrema eius mortem secuta. Duas autem ignotas Logicae editiones inveni, alteram pariter sine auctoris nomine, alteram quodam Iosepho Saccarello ascriptam, certe ipsius Saccherii alienum nomen. Quae omnia nonnullas quaestiones de Logica demonstrativa illustrant. (shrink)

Rousseau's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse is two novels in one: a story of wifely virtue and a counterstory of women's friendship. Whereas the virtue story exemplifies what feminist readers since Mary Wollstonecraft have considered to be the most oppressive of Rousseau's prescriptions for women, the friendship counterstory questions the ethical foundations and social manifestations of the model of patriarchal authority that Rousseau ordinarily defends. In this essay, I read the novel with an eye for both stories and the tension (...) between them. (shrink)

Rousseau's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloise is two novels in one: a story of wifely virtue and a counterstory of women's friendship. Whereas the virtue story exemplifies what feminist readers since Mary WoRstonecraft have considered to be the most oppressive of Rousseau's prescriptions for women, the friendship counterstory questions the ethical foundations and social manifestations of the model of patriarchal authority that Rousseau ordinarily defends. In this essay, I read the novel with an eye for both stories and the tension (...) between them. (shrink)

With the growth and evolution of the field of clinical ethics, the one constant has been its variation. Resolving ethical issues at the bedside is done differently across the country based on one’s...

Little and colleagues’ paper describing a key aspect of cancer patients’ experience, that of “liminality,” is remarkable for giving articulation to a very common and yet mostly overlooked aspect of patient experience. Little et. al. offered a formulation of liminality that deliberately set aside the concept’s more common use in analysing social rituals, in order to grasp at the interior experience that arises when failing bodily function and awareness of mortality are forced into someone’s consciousness, as occurs with a diagnosis (...) of cancer. We set out the reasons as to why this analysis was so significant in 1998—but we also consider how the “liminality” described by Little and colleagues was a feature of modernity, founded on what we term “the mirage of settlement.” We argue that this mirage is impossible to sustain in 2022 amid the many forms of un-settling that have characterized late modernity, including climate change and COVID-19. We argue that many people in developed nations now experience liminality as a result of the being forced into the consciousness of living in a continued state of coloniality. We thus rejoin the social aspects of liminality to the interior, Existential form described by Little et. al. (shrink)