Dorothea Olkowski's exploration of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies the gifted French thinker's writings for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Deleuze, she says, accomplished the "ruin of representation," the complete overthrow of hierarchic, organic thought in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as in society at large. In Deleuze's philosophy of difference, she discovers the source of a new ontology of change, which in turn opens up the creation of new modes of life and thought, not only in (...) philosophy and feminism but wherever creation is at stake. The work of contemporary artist Mary Kelly has been central to Olkowski's thinking. In Kelly she finds an artist at work whose creative acts are in themselves the ruin of representation as a whole, and the text is illustrated with Kelly's art. This original and provocative account of Deleuze contributes significantly to a critical feminist politics and philosophy, as well as to an understanding of feminist art. (shrink)

_The Universal_ proposes a radically new philosophical system that moves from ontology to ethics. Drawing on the work of De Beauvoir, Sartre, and Le Doeuff, among others, and addressing a range of topics from the Asian sex trade to late capitalism, quantum gravity, and Merleau-Ponty's views on cinema, Dorothea Olkowski stretches the mathematical, political, epistemological, and aesthetic limits of continental philosophy and introduces a new perspective on political structures. Straddling a course between formalism and conventionalism, Olkowski develops the concept (...) of an ontological unconscious that arises from our "sensible" relation to the world-the information we absorb and emit that affects our encounters with the environment and others. In this "realm of the senses," or the field of vulnerability defined by our experience with pleasure and pain, Olkowski is able to rethink the space-time relations put forth by Irigaray's notion of the "interval," Bergson's "recollection," Merleau-Ponty's idea of the "flesh," and Deleuze's "plane of immanence." This aesthetic sense is shared by all humankind and nonhuman entities in the organic and inorganic world. The sensible universal can be applied to categories of pure and practical reason; experiential binaries of male-female and subject-object; and issues of autonomy, moral laws, and the regulation of perception. (shrink)

The essays presented here by Olkowski and Weiss attempt to situate Merleau-Ponty in the larger context of feminist theory, while impartially evaluating his contributions, both positive and negative, to that theory.

The collection also contains a comprehensive bibliography of feminist thinkers who are enacting French philosophy in English, German, and French.

Le concept d’enseignement se trouve au centre des conférences faites par Levinas au Collège philosophique et récemment publiées. Cette notion est toujours présente dans Totalité et Infini, mais semble disparaître ensuite de la philosophie de Levinas. Le but de ce travail est de comprendre pourquoi cela a lieu. En faisant un détour par un texte de Levinas sur « Judaïsme et éducation » de la même période, il est possible de proposer que la notion d’éducation chez Levinas conduise à une (...) ambiguïté au regard de la position du soi responsable faisant qu’il oscille entre l’accusatif et le datif. Cette ambiguïté est la cause de son abandon plus tardif ou plutôt : elle est résolue par la transformation de l’éducation en une instruction non médiate pour laquelle la révélation de la loi est la figure paradigmatique. (shrink)

Zwischen Johann Gottlieb Fichte, dem Philosophen der „abstrakten Denkkünsteleien“ (Husserl), und Jean-Paul Sartre, dem Existentialisten, der sich von der Phänomenologie faszinieren ließ, weil man damit selbst über ein Glas Bier philosophieren könne, scheinen Welten zu liegen. Umso überraschender ist das Resultat der vorliegenden Studie, die aufzeigt, daß sich wesentliche Argumentationsweisen und Resultate von Sartres Selbstbewußtseinstheorie vor dem Hintergrund der Fichteschen Transzendentalphilosophie interpretieren und einsichtig machen lassen. Während Sartre bisher zumeist mit Husserl, Heidegger oder Hegel in Verbindung gebracht wurde, stellt diese (...) Arbeit die erste Monographie dar, die die Theorie Sartres in _Das Sein und das Nichts_ aus der Perspektive des frühen Fichte in den Blick nimmt. Dessen _Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre_ von 1794/95 dient der Autorin als Interpretationsfolie, vor der die grundlegenden Elemente von Sartres Ansatz untersucht werden: Die Konstitution des Für-sich in ihrem apriorischen Bedingungsgefüge, die Endlichkeit des Selbstbewußtseins und dessen Intentionalität, die ursprüngliche Mangelhaftigkeit des Für-sich angesichts des höchsten Werts, das präreflexive Cogito sowie schließlich die Aspekte, die mit dem „Primat des Praktischen“ in Verbindung stehen. Auch wenn der ‚Priester der Freiheit’ des 20. Jahrhunderts den ‚Priester der Wahrheit’ des 18. Jahrhunderts abzulösen scheint, zeigt die Autorin auf, daß Sartre in vielen Punkten als eine Art ‘französischer Fichte’ verstanden werden kann. (shrink)

The present paper offers a philosophical discussion of phenomena which in the empirical literature have recently been subsumed under the concept of ‘mental time travel’. More precisely, the paper considers differences and similarities between two cases of ‘mental time travel’, recollective memories (‘R-memories’) of past events on the one hand, and sensory imaginations (‘S-imaginations’) of future events on the other. It develops and defends the claim that, because a subject who R-remembers a past event is experientially aware of a past (...) particular event, while a subject who S-imagines a future event could not possibly be experientially aware of a future particular event, R-memories of past events and S-imaginations of future events are ultimately mental occurrences of two different kinds. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. (...) Against this background we outline three procedural characteristics which are essential for judging the legitimacy of NGOs as potential or actual partners of corporations. (shrink)

Sometimes we remember past objects or events in a vivid, experiential way. The present paper addresses some fundamental questions about the metaphysics of such experiential or ‘recollective’ memories. More specifically, it develops the ‘Relational Account’ of recollective memory, which consists of the following three claims. A subject who recollectively remembers a past object or event stands in an experiential relation to the relevant past object or event. The R‐remembered object or event itself is a part of the R‐memory; that is, (...) the subject's present R‐memory is partly constituted by the relevant past object or event. When a subject R‐remembers a past object, the past object is a constitutive part of the conscious experience itself; that is, the object is immediately available to the subject in conscious experience. In developing the Relational Account, the present paper hopes to make a substantial contribution to any attempt to account for the nature of recollective memory. Furthermore, in order to explain how a subject could understand the beliefs that she forms about the past on the basis of an R‐memory, and how a subject could, on the basis of an R‐memory, gain any knowledge about the past, we arguably also need to rely on the Relational Account of recollective memory. Thus, the Relational Account will also play an important role in an attempt to account for various other ways in which a subject might be related to the past in general, and to her own past in particular. Standing in such relations to the past is, in turn, a central feature of our human existence. Ultimately, therefore, the Relational Account of recollective memory should also play a crucial role in furthering our understanding of ourselves, and of our own existence in time. (shrink)

In their paper "Remembering," first published in the Philosophical Review in 1966, Martin and Deutscher develop what has since come to be known as the Causal Theory of Memory. The core claim of the Causal Theory of Memory runs as follows: If someone remembers something, whether it be "public," such as a car accident, or "private," such as an itch, then the following criteria must be fulfilled: 1. Within certain limits of accuracy he represents that past thing. 2. I f (...) the thing was "public," then he observed what he now represents. If the thing was "private," then it was his. 3. His past experience of the thing was operative in producing a state or successive states in him finally operative in producing his representation. These three statements express the condition which we consider to be separately necessary and jointly sufficient, if an event is to be an instance of remembering. (shrink)

_The Infrastructure of Accountability _brings together leading and emerging scholars who set forth an ambitious conceptual framework for understanding the full impact of large-scale, performance-based accountability systems on education. Over the past 20 years, schools and school systems have been utterly reshaped by the demands of test-based accountability. Interest in large-scale performance data has reached an unprecedented high point. Yet most education researchers focus primarily on questions of data quality and the effectiveness of data use. In this bold and thought-provoking (...) volume, the contributors look beneath the surface of all this activity to uncover the hidden infrastructure that supports the production, flow, and use of data in education, and explore the impact of these large-scale information systems on American schooling. These systems, the editors note, “sit at the juncture of technical networks, work practices, knowledge production, and moral order. (shrink)

The following paper considers one important feature of our experiential or ‘recollective’ memories, namely their spatial perspectival characteristics. I begin by considering the ‘Past-Dependency-Claim’, which states that every recollective memory (or ‘R-memory’) has its spatial perspectival characteristics in virtue of the subject’s present awareness of the spatial perspectival characteristics of a relevant past perceptual experience. Although the Past-Dependency-Claim might for various reasons seem particularly attractive, I show that it is false. I then proceed to develop and defend the ‘Present-Dependency-Claim’, namely (...) the claim that the spatial perspectival characteristics of an R-memory depend on the spatial perspectival characteristics of perceptual experiences that the subject has at the time at which the R-memory occurs. Lastly, I discuss the phenomenon of so-called ‘observer-memories’, which presents a special challenge for any attempt to account for the spatial perspectival characteristics of R-memories. I argue that we have no good reason to deny that the relevant experiences should count as memories, and I show that we can account for the spatial perspectival characteristics of observer-memories with the help of the ‘Present-Dependency-Claim’. More generally, the paper shows that certain events that occur in a subject’s mental life (namely, a subject’s R-memories) are necessarily dependent on other events that occur in the relevant subject’s mental life (namely, on certain perceptual experiences). This more general conclusion in turn should be relevant for any attempt to develop an appropriate account of a subject’s mental life as a whole. (shrink)

We sometimes experience emotions which are directed at past events (or situations) which we witnessed at the time when they occurred (or obtained). The present paper explores the role which such "autobiographically past-directed emotions" (or "APD-emotions") play in a subject's mental life. A defender of the "Memory-Claim" holds that an APD-emotion is a memory, namely a memory of the emotion which the subject experienced at the time when the event originally occurred (or the situation obtained) towards which the APD-emotion is (...) directed. On this view, APD-emotions might play an important role in our acquiring knowledge about our own past emotions, which renders the view rather attractive. However, as I show in the present paper, none of the various possible versions of the Memory-Claim are tenable. This leaves us with the "Universal-New-Emotion-Claim", according to which all APD-emotions are new emotional responses to the past events (or situations) towards which the relevant APD-emotions are directed. Further consideration of the "Universal-New-Emotion-Claim" shows that while APD-emotions do not play the epistemological role they could have played had some version of the Memory-Claim turned out to be true, a subject's APD-emotions nevertheless do play a vital role in a subject's mental life: they help the subject to develop a balanced sense of self. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While multiple crisis phenomena have sparked experimentation with alternative forms of production and consumption on the micro level, it is not clear if and how these alternative practices may become hegemonic and thus displace capitalism as the hegemonic order on the macro level, rather than merely fostering pockets of a solidarity economy within capitalism. This question is hard to research, because it relates to post-capitalist futures rather than actual events or phenomena in the past or present. In this article, (...) I propose a methodological framework for studying the transformative potential of counter-hegemonic initiatives. Building on debates on causality and prediction within Critical Realism, I introduce the concept of ‘ex-ante’ retroduction. Using this mode of reasoning helps to identify possible generative mechanisms for the viability and achievability of alternative futures which can then be empirically investigated. (shrink)

Memory can play two quite different roles in grief. Memories involving a deceased loved one can make them feel either enjoyably present, or especially and painfully absent. In this paper, we consider what makes it possible for memory to play these two different roles, both in grief and more generally. We answer this question by appeal to the phenomenological nature of vivid remembering, and the context in which such memories occur. We argue that different contexts can make salient different aspects (...) of memory's phenomenological nature, thus making what is remembered sometimes feel pleasantly 'present' again, and sometimes painfully absent. (shrink)

Capitalism is often modernised and stabilised by its very critics. Gramsci called this paradox a 'passive revolution'. What are the pitfalls through which critique becomes absorbed? This question is taken up using a Cultural Political Economy approach for analysing the resistant potential of 'degrowth discourses' against the neoliberal hegemony. Degrowth advocates an economy without growth in order to achieve the transformation that is necessary in ecological and social terms. It thus does not follow the neoliberal idea of green capitalism that (...) already has absorbed much environmental critique. This paper argues that degrowth needs to be further differentiated in order to draw any conclusions about its counter-hegemonic potential. Three dimensions are identified for differentiating sub-hegemonic from counter-hegemonic degrowth positions: the mode of growth critique, the interpellation of the individual and the subsequent actions motivated. (shrink)

Young children help others in a range of situations, relatively indiscriminate of the characteristics of those they help. Recent results have suggested that young children’s helping behaviour extends even to humanoid robots. However, it has been unclear how characteristics of robots would influence children’s helping behaviour. Considering previous findings suggesting that certain robot features influence adults’ perception of and their behaviour towards robots, the question arises of whether young children’s behaviour and perception would follow the same principles. The current study (...) investigated whether two key characteristics of a humanoid robot (animate autonomy and friendly expressiveness) would affect children’s instrumental helping behaviour and their perception of the robot as an animate being. Eighty-two 3-year-old children participated in one of four experimental conditions manipulating a robot’s ostensible animate autonomy (high/low) and friendly expressiveness (friendly/neutral). Helping was assessed in an out-of-reach task and animacy ratings were assessed in a post-test interview. Results suggested that both children’s helping behaviour, as well as their perception of the robot as animate, were unaffected by the robot’s characteristics. The findings indicate that young children’s helping behaviour extends largely indiscriminately across two important characteristics. These results increase our understanding of the development of children’s altruistic behaviour and animate-inanimate distinctions. Our findings also raise important ethical questions for the field of child-robot interaction. (shrink)

The present article aims to show that a subject can only fully grasp the concept of the past if she has some experiential, or recollective, memories of particular past events. More specifically, I argue that (1) in order for a subject to understand the concept of the past, it is necessary that the subject understand the concept of a particular past event in such a way that it might contribute to her understanding of the concept of the past. (2) But (...) then, in order for a subject to understand the concept of a particular past event in such a way that it might contribute to her understanding of the concept of the past, it is necessary that the subject have some recollective memories of particular past events. (C) Hence, a subject can only understand the concept of the past if she has some recollective memories of particular past events. I defend the premises of the present argument against various objections, indicate why we should accept both premises, and accordingly end by endorsing the argument's conclusion. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged that Hobbes's radical scepticism is intimately connected with his nominalism, and that his nominalism in turn rests upon the doctrine of meaning and truth set out in its best-known version in Chapters 4 and 5 of Leviathan.

The present paper considers the question whether, and if so how, a subject's full attention to an object which she interacts with might have value. More specifically, I defend the claim that in order for a subject's activity to have value, it is sufficient that the subject give her full attention to the object towards which the activity is directed.

In the industrialized countries university research and state-financed research are increasingly evaluated from the point of view of their contribution to technology transfer, industrial innovation, and the competitiveness of national industries. Political debates on the viability of orienting basic research toward practical applications are paralleled by discussions, among social scientists, about the risks and opportunities of political direction over science. These debates are the frame of reference for this study, which analyzes the differences between basic and applied research, their correlates (...) and consequences, in high-temperature superconductor research in the Federal Republic of Germany. It will be shown that basic and applied research are fundamentally different in their social organization, their research goals, and their research strategies. These differences are in contrast to the call of science policy for more intense interaction and assimilation. Nevertheless, there are conditions under which basic or applied re searchers will partially follow "foreign" orientations and strategies. These conditions may, in part, be shaped by policy decisions. (shrink)

The present paper considers our ability to ‘shape our own mental lives’; more specifically, it considers the claim that subjects sometimes can and do engage in ‘mental self-regulation’, that is, that subjects sometimes can be, and are, actively involved with their own mental lives in a goal-directed way. This ability of mental self-regulation has been rather neglected by contemporary philosophers of mind, but I show why it deserves careful philosophical attention. In order to further our understanding of the nature of (...) the phenomenon of mental self-regulation and to locate it within the wider context of our everyday lives and the world we live in, I proceed to develop some conditions which need to be met in order for a subject to be able to engage in mental self-regulation. In developing those conditions we find that compared to the physical realm, our mental lives are a rather elusive domain in the face of attempts at intervention, and our ability to intervene in our own mental lives is rather fragile. We also find that our ability to regulate our own mental lives in many cases depends on our possession of mental skills and mental know-how. Both these observations in turn throw new light on our understanding of the nature of the human mind. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Oft genügen geschichtswissenschaftliche Erklärungen nicht den strengen Maßstäben einer Kausalerklärung, wie sie etwa in der Physik vorkommen mag. Das heißt aber nicht, daß es in der Geschichtswissenschaft keine Erklärungen gibt. Wir haben an Beispielen gesehen, daß Historiker und Historikerinnen sehr wohl auch 'Warum?'-Fragen zu beantworten versuchen, und daß sich diese Antworten zum Teil sogar in direkte DN-bzw. IS-Erklärungen umformen lassen. Es besteht also keine Ursache, die Geschichtswissenschaft von den sogenannten "theoretischen Wissenschaften" methodologisch scharf zu trennen. Außerdem liefern nicht wenige (...) Erklärungen in geschichtswissenschaftlichen Kontexten Beispiele für normalerweise epistemisch befriedigende Erklärungsepisoden, die nicht in das Schema der strikten Kausalerklärung passen. Dazu zählen aufgrund der differenzierten Fragestellungen an Historiker auch bloße detaillierte Geschehensbeschreibungen oder teleologische Erklärungen von Handlungen. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Oft genügen geschichtswissenschaftliche Erklärungen nicht den strengen Maßstäben einer Kausalerklärung, wie sie etwa in der Physik vorkommen mag. Das heißt aber nicht, daß es in der Geschichtswissenschaft keine Erklärungen gibt. Wir haben an Beispielen gesehen, daß Historiker und Historikerinnen (i) sehr wohl auch 'Warum?'-Fragen zu beantworten versuchen, und daß sich (ii) diese Antworten zum Teil sogar in direkte DN-bzw. IS-Erklärungen umformen lassen. Es besteht also keine Ursache, die Geschichtswissenschaft von den sogenannten "theoretischen Wissenschaften" methodologisch scharf zu trennen. Außerdem liefern (...) nicht wenige Erklärungen in geschichtswissenschaftlichen Kontexten Beispiele für normalerweise epistemisch befriedigende Erklärungsepisoden, die nicht in das Schema der strikten Kausalerklärung passen. Dazu zählen aufgrund der differenzierten Fragestellungen an Historiker auch bloße detaillierte Geschehensbeschreibungen oder teleologische Erklärungen von Handlungen. (shrink)

Maternal opioid use during pregnancy is a growing national problem and can lead to newborns developing neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome soon after birth. Recent data demonstrates that nearly every 15 min a baby is born in the United States suffering from NOWS. The primary treatment for NOWS is opioid replacement therapy, commonly oral morphine, which has neurotoxic effects on the developing brain. There is an urgent need for non-opioid treatments for NOWS. Transcutaneous auricular neurostimulation, a novel and non-invasive form of (...) electrostimulation, may serve as a promising alternative to morphine. tAN is delivered via a multichannel earpiece electrode worn on and around the left ear, targeting two cranial nerves—the vagus and trigeminal nerves. Prior research suggests that auricular neurostimulation exerts an anxiolytic effect on the body by releasing endogenous opioids and reduces withdrawal symptoms in adults actively withdrawing from opioids. In this first-in-human prospective, open-label trial, we investigated tAN as an adjuvant to morphine therapy in eight infants >33 weeks gestational age suffering from NOWS and receiving oral morphine treatment. Infants received tAN for 30 min 1 h before receiving a morphine dose. tAN was delivered at 0.1 mA below perception intensity at two different nerve targets on the ear: Region 1, the auricular branch of the vagus nerve; and Region 2, the auriculotemporal nerve. tAN was delivered up to four times daily for a maximum of 12 days. The primary outcome measures were safety [heart rate monitoring, Neonatal Infant Pain Scale, and skin irritation] and morphine length of treatment. tAN was well-tolerated and resulted in no unanticipated adverse events. Comparing to the national average of 23 days, the average oral morphine LOT was 13.3 days and the average LOT after tAN initiation was 7 days. These preliminary data suggest that tAN is safe and may serve as a promising alternative adjuvant for treating NOWS and reducing the amount of time an infant receives oral morphine. (shrink)

Criminal law operates under the assumption that persons have the capacity for free, voluntary choice. However, since the concept of free will and self-determination may be understood in a variety of ways, it must be made the subject of philosophical scrutiny if it is to provide a solid foundation for law. This paper will present two major philosophical concepts of self-determination and evaluate their utility for criminal law. The conclusion delineates the possibilities and limitations of these concepts when applied in (...) particular to the field of criminal law. (shrink)

First published in 1918, this volume was partly based on lectures delivered by Dorothea Jane Stephen at and near Bangalore and was intended to illustrate the considerable influence exercised by the early literature of India on later Indian philosophy and culture. Examining themes of divinity and religion together with morality and human nature, the essays in this book combine to offer a fitting introduction to the importance and far-reaching effects of early Indian thought.

Umberto Eco oversat af Finn Frandsen, første gang bragt i Slagmark #5.

This book explores "real" valuation through tracing the pragmatic meanings of "mattering." Employing Peirce's overall pragmatic method and realism to understand what we mean when we say something "matters," it encourages consideration of the practices we engage in, the values attached to those practices, and their consequences.

Much attention in the meaningful work literature has been devoted to calling as an orientation toward work characterized by a strong sense of purpose and a prosocial motivation beyond self-gain. Nonetheless, debate remains as to whether individuals change or maintain their calling, and especially whether they live their calling differently in different occupational stages. In this article, we respond to this conundrum through an analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) occupation—substantiated by interviews with 57 CSR practitioners from Swedish international (...) companies who are living their calling. We demonstrate that social/commercial tensions affect these CSR practitioners, fueled by a divide between their social aspirations and the commercial goals, and prompt them to respond in a way that impacts how they construct the purpose of their work. Subsequently, we induce three stages of the CSR occupation—_early-, mid- and late-stage_—and conceptualize three types of purpose in each stage—_activistic_, _win–win_ and _corporate purpose_. By uncovering how and why CSR practitioners respond to social/commercial tensions and construct different types of purpose in each stage of the CSR occupation, we show that individuals can live the same calling in multiple ways. Hence, our article advances the meaningful work literature as well as studies of micro-CSR. (shrink)