In the ongoing ‘brain death’ controversy, there has been a constant push for the use of the ‘higher brain’ formulation as the criterion for the determination of death on the grounds that brain-dead individuals are no longer human beings because of their irreversible loss of consciousness and mental functions. This essay demonstrates that such a position flows from a Lockean view of human persons. Compared to the ‘consciousness-related definition of death,’ the substance view is superior, especially because it provides a (...) holistic vision of the human person, and coheres with the perennial axiom about the ‘whole and parts.’. (shrink)

This discussion note aims to address the two points which Lizza raises regarding my critique of his paper “Defining Death: Beyond Biology,” namely that I mistakenly attribute a Lockean view to his ‘higher brain death’ position and that, with respect to the ‘brain death’ controversy, both the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are unclear and vague. First, it is known from the writings of constitutionalist scholars that the constitution view of human persons, a theory which (...) Lizza also holds, has its roots in John Locke’s thought. Second, contrary to Lizza’s claims, the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are both more than adequately described in the biomedical and biophilosophical literature. (shrink)

This article examines the ways in which Bruce Nauman’s art installations provoke audience experiences analogous to those felt during traumatic events. A central assertion of the present study is that the looping mechanisms of Nauman’s video artworks produce a theoretical stilling of the moving image that is reflective of the fight-flight-or-freeze response to a highly charged incident, which often entails a temporal shift as time appears to slow to a halt. Whereas in the past, the human response to acute stress (...) was typically prompted by a physical threat in the natural environment, today an evolutionary misfire occurs when this survival mechanism becomes prompted instead during everyday situations. Throughout human history, the experience of viewing an artwork has developed into an act of aesthetic appreciation involving a search for meaning. However, in this case, the sensory overload triggered by Nauman’s artwork purposefully impedes neuroprocessing, highlighting the adverse effects of mediation saturation in contemporary society; therefore, a stilling of the moving image in essence functions as a biological adaptation strategy in an attempt to come to terms with the puzzling nature of these artworks. By applying French philosopher Roland Barthes’s theories of the image, this article expands Barthes’s thought from the image to the performative as a reflection of human adaptation to technological advancement. (shrink)

We construct a world model consisting of a matter field living in 4 dimensional spacetime and a gravitational field living in 11 dimensional spacetime. The seven hidden dimensions are compactified within a radius estimated by reproducing the particle–wave characteristics of diffraction experiments. In the presence of matter fields the gravitational field develops localized modes with elementary excitations called gravonons which are induced by the sources. The final world model treated here contains only gravonons and a scalar matter field. The gravonons (...) are localized in the environment of the massive particles which generate them. The solution of the Schrödinger equation for the world model yields matter fields which are localized in the 4 dimensional subspace. The localization has the following properties: There is a chooser mechanism for the selection of the localization site. The chooser selects one site on the basis of minor energy differences and differences in the gravonon structure between the sites, which at present cannot be controlled experimentally and therefore let the choice appear statistical. The changes from one localization site to a neighbouring one take place in a telegraph-signal like manner. The times at which telegraph like jumps occur depend on subtleties of the gravonon structure which at present cannot be controlled experimentally and therefore let the telegraph-like jumps appear statistical. The fact that the dynamical law acts in the configuration space of fields living in 11 dimensional spacetime lets the events observed in 4 dimensional spacetime appear non-local. In this way the phenomenology of CQM is obtained without the need of introducing the process of collapse and a probabilistic interpretation of the wave function. Operators defining observables need not be introduced. All experimental findings are explained in a deterministic way as a consequence of the time development of the wave function in configuration space according to Schrödinger’s equation without the need of introducing a probabilistic interpretation. (shrink)

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient because dynamic ecological-economic interactions and uncertainties occur. Thus more demanding no whinge standards are needed. In this paper, we first argue that these new boundaries can be endogenously exhibited with the mathematical concepts of viability (...) kernel and viable controls. Second, it is shown how these no whinge kernels have components, such as harvesting of resources, that should remain within safe corridor while some other components, in particular biodiversity, have only lower conservation limits. Thus, using radar charts, we show how this no whinge kernels can take the shape of a tree that we name viability tree. These trees of viability capture the idea that the unbounded renewal potential of biodiversity combined with a bounded use of the different ecosystem services are crucial ingredients for the sustainability of socio-ecosystems and the design of no whinge policies reconciling the different stakeholders involved. (shrink)

The wages of Dexios. The new Amphictyonic coinage reconsidered In Spring 336 BCE, the Delphic Amphictyony decided to create a full-weight Aeginetic coin-age : the “ new Amphictyonic”. A re-examination of the preliminary estimate of the minting (CID II 75, col. I, l. 46-56) allows us to establish that the minter was paid at a rate of 9 Amphictyonic obols per delivered mina, and had a margin of a sixtieth (1.67%) of the total silver mass, in order to cover the (...) losses in melting. An allowance for those two expenses, as well as the actual weight shortage of the different lots of coins intended for the melting pot, were entered in the account of the global ajpousiva (l. 48-49). Such a complex calculation fits perfectly with the practices of Greek goldsmiths. In Spring 335 BCE, the experiment of the new Amphictyonic was brutally interrupted, while about 46 talents of metal were still to be struck. This raw silver mass, intended to produce 44.31 talents of Amphictyonic coins, was exchanged for 45.31 talents of Attic coins – which meant a saving of a little more than a talent (CID II 76, col. III, l. 38-42). (shrink)

To date, we know very little about the effects of the differences in attachment classifications on the physiological correlates of stress regulation in adolescent age groups. The present study examined for the first time heart rate and heart rate variability during an attachment interview in adolescents. HR and HRV data were collected during a baseline assessment as well as during the administration of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System in a community-based sample of 56 adolescents. We additionally used the Adult (...) Attachment Interview in 50% of our sample to test the convergent validity. Adolescents with a secure attachment representation showed a higher HRV from baseline to the AAP interview compared to those with an insecure-dismissing and the unresolved group. A comparison between the two insecure attachment groups showed no significant difference related to HR and HRV. Cohen’s Kappa revealed an almost perfect agreement between the AAP and the AAI for the four-group classification. Our results indicate that adolescents with a secure attachment representation are more capable of dealing with attachment-related distress which is represented in higher HRV during an attachment interview. (shrink)

ObjectiveDespite its prevalence, insomnia disorder remains poorly understood. In this study, we used machine learning to analyze the functional connectivity disturbances underlying ID, and identify potential predictors of treatment response through recurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and pharmacotherapy.Materials and methods51 adult patients with chronic insomnia and 42 healthy age and education matched controls underwent baseline anatomical T1 magnetic resonance imaging, resting-stage functional MRI, and diffusion weighted imaging. Imaging was repeated for 24 ID patients following four weeks of treatment with pharmacotherapy, with (...) or without rTMS. A recently developed machine learning technique, Hollow Tree Super was used to classify subjects into ID and control groups based on their FC, and derive network and parcel-based FC features contributing to each model. The number of FC anomalies within each network was also compared between responders and non-responders using median absolute deviation at baseline and follow-up.ResultsSubjects were classified into ID and control with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.828. Baseline FC anomaly counts were higher in responders than non-responders. Response as measured by the Insomnia Severity Index was associated with a decrease in anomaly counts across all networks, while all networks showed an increase in anomaly counts when response was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Overall, responders also showed greater change in all networks, with the Default Mode Network demonstrating the greatest change.ConclusionMachine learning analysis into the functional connectome in ID may provide useful insight into diagnostic and therapeutic targets. (shrink)

Christopher Buondelmonti, famous «traveller, geographer, cartographer», priest of Florence, spent the last years of his life at Rhodes, where he served as dean of the cathedral chapter in 1430. This article reminds the substantial work that has been devoted to him in recent years. Then, it states much of what is known of the Latin Church of Rhodes, in particular of its cathedral chapter, in the early years of the fifteenth century. Finally, two acts of 1430 on Buondelmonti, dean of (...) this chapter, are presented here. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend brain death as a criterion for determining death against objections raised by Don Marquis, Michael Nair-Collins, Doyen Nguyen, and Laura Specker Sullivan. I argue that any definition of death for beings like us relies on some sortal concept by which we are individuated and identified and that the choice of that concept in a practical context is not determined by strictly biological considerations but involves metaphysical, moral, social, and cultural considerations. This view supports acceptance (...) of a more pluralistic legal definition of death as well as acceptance of brain death as death. (shrink)

Edwin Cannan, prodigious author and scholar whose name is inextricably linked with two great economic institutions, Adam Smith and the London School of Economics , probably had his greatest success as a professor. He nurtured a generation of scholars, teachers and writers at the LSE during his three decades as a dominant figure in economics there, from when the school opened in 1895 until the spring term of 1926 when he retired. Cannan was almost solely responsible for the gradual change (...) of direction of the economic thought of the LSE from Marshallian economics to classical liberalism. For this he was very much admired; at his death the student paper wrote: 'His influence was truly remarkable. To the outside world, and to his students, whether specialists in economics or not, he typified the School'. Among other accomplishments throughout his life, Cannan contributed twenty-five entries to the original Palgrave's Dictionary of Poitical Economy and between 1895 and 1935 had sixty book reviews published in The Economic Journal . This collection brings together Cannon's major contributions to the theory of distribution, quantity theory and the definition of "Classical Economics" as well as touching on his life at a more personal level in the articles and reminiscences written by scholars and friends. (shrink)

The paper explores the philosophical and theological opinions of Friedrich Leubnitz (1597-1652), Leibniz’s father and the Dean of Philosophy in Leipzig, by examining an address he delivered in the magister ordination ceremony of 1646. The lecture depicts a perpetual conflict between Lucifer, who is also Apollo, the god of knowledge, and Christian philosophers. Among other features, the lecture presents Eve as a serpent and Christian philosophy as an occupation to avoid. Accordingly, Friedrich was probably more heterodox than usually portrayed, a (...) style of thinking that might have influenced his son. (shrink)

The doyen of living English philosophers, by these reflections, took hold of and changed the outlook of a good many other philosophers, if not quite enough. He did so, essentially, by assuming that talk of freedom and responsibility is talk not of facts or truths, in a certain sense, but of our attitudes. His more explicit concern was to look again at the question of whether determinism and freedom are consistent with one another -- by shifting attention to certain (...) personal rather than moral attitudes, first of all gratitude and resentment. In the end, he arrived at a kind of Compatibilist or, as he says, Optimist conclusion. That is no doubt a recommendation but not the largest recommendation of this splendidly rich piece of philosophy. (shrink)

The doyen of university presidents emeriti, Patrick (Paddy) Masterson remains one of UCD's most admired scholars and leaders twenty-five years after he was its President. A Festschrift is the crowning accolade for an academic, and the present volume is testament to the high esteem in which Paddy Masterson is regarded by his peers. It is also a token of gratitude from his Alma Mater. Outside of Ireland, he has been honoured in Portugal, Italy, the United States, and his beloved (...) France. He shares his intellect and wit by continuing to publish in philosophy and his more recent passion, fiction.. (shrink)

The doyen of living English philosophers, by these reflections, took hold of and changed the outlook of a good many other philosophers, if not quite enough. He did so, essentially, by assuming that talk of freedom and responsibility is talk not of facts or truths, in a certain sense, but of our attitudes. His more explicit concern was to look again at the question of whether determinism and freedom are consistent with one another -- by shifting attention to certain (...) personal rather than moral attitudes, first of all gratitude and resentment. In the end, he arrived at a kind of Compatibilist or, as he says, Optimist conclusion. That is no doubt a recommendation but not the largest recommendation of this splendidly rich piece of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Against Ethical CriticismRichard A. PosnerOscar Wilde famously remarked that “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” He was echoed by Auden, who said in his poem in memory of William Butler Yeats that poetry makes nothing happen (though the poem as a whole qualifies this overstatement), by Croce, and by formalist critics such as (...) Cleanth Brooks, a doyen of the New Critics, who insisted that edification was the function of religion but not of poetry. 1 George Orwell, though himself a didactic novelist, was of this view as well, 2 and it is one that most critics adopt when the issue is censorship. I accept Wilde’s thesis—the creed of aestheticism, of art for art’s sake—if understood to mean that the moral content and consequences of a work of literature are irrelevant to its value as literature; or as the critic Helen Vendler has put it, that “treating fictions as moral pep-pills or moral emetics is repugnant to anyone who realizes the complex psychological and moral motives of a work of art.” 3 This is not to deny that reading can have consequences, including moral and political ones. Information affects people’s outlook and behavior, and reading is a source of information. Imaginative literature conveys ideas, opinions, and information, often with great power. Think of the role that novels by Turgenev (Fathers and Sons), Dostoevsky (The Possessed), Conrad (The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes), Koestler (Darkness at Noon), Orwell (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four), and, of course, Solzhenitsyn played in exposing the horrors of anarchism and communism. Of A Passage to India it has been said that “as an account of the social conditions of British India it was powerful enough to have influenced events.” 4 Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is thought to have incited federal regulation of food processing; and few doubt the effect of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) on the abolitionist cause. [End Page 1]At the core of the aesthetic tradition, which I shall be defending in this essay particularly against its opponents in the “law and literature” movement, are three theses. First, immersion in literature does not make us better citizens or better people. One might be able to pick out some works of literature that would have such an effect because of the information they convey or the emotional state they induce, but they would constitute a skewed sample of literary works. Second, we should not be put off by morally offensive views encountered in literature even when the author appears to share them. A work of literature is not to be considered maimed or even marred by expressing unacceptable moral views; by the same token, a mediocre work of literature is not redeemed by expressing moral views of which we approve. The proper criteria for evaluating literature are aesthetic rather than ethical. Third, authors’ moral qualities or opinions should not affect our valuations of their works.The insistence, in short, is on the separation of the moral from the aesthetic—but with two qualifications. Some literature has little interest or value apart from the didactic and for it the proper criticism is didactic. And the separation of moral from aesthetic values is not a rejection of the former. The aesthetic outlook is a moral outlook, one that stresses the values of openness, detachment, hedonism, curiosity, tolerance, the cultivation of the self, and the preservation of a private sphere—in short, the values of liberal individualism.The counter tradition in literary criticism to the aesthetic originates with Plato and insists upon the importance, in some versions to the near or even total exclusion of anything else, of the ethical or political content and effects of works of literature, and less commonly of the author’s own morality. Martha Nussbaum, for example, deems Greek tragedies and Anglo-American realistic novels a part of moral philosophy. 5 Reading novels, she argues, “develops moral capacities without which citizens will not succeed in making reality out of the normative conclusions of any moral or political theory, however excellent.” 6 Wayne Booth, disagreeing with his illustrious... (shrink)

Scientific naturalism is a metaphysical doctrine, a view about what there is, or what we ought to believe that there is. It maintains that natural science should be our guide in matters metaphysical: the ontology we should accept is the ontology that turns out to be required by science. Quine is often regarded as the doyen of scientific naturalists, though the supporting cast includes such giants as David Lewis and J. J. C. Smart.

La résistance au protestantisme, durant les années de paix qui suivent l'édit d'Amboise, fut ritualisée par le miracle de Laon (1566), dont l'actrice principale fut la jeune femme, Nicole Obry, originaire de Vervins en Picardie. Possédée d'une trentaine de diables « elle en était tellement tourmentée qu'on lui oyait craquer les os... » - disait à l'époque Florimond de Raemond. Suite aux exorcismes successifs, effectués à l'aide de l'hostie (donc du « corps de notre Seigneur ») les diables quittent la (...) jeune femme. Seul Beelzebub résiste. Enfin, le 6 février 1566 lui aussi sort, s'inclinant ainsi devant le pouvoir épiscopal. Le présent ouvrage est le premier à examiner les divers récits dont fit l'objet le miracle de Laon entre 1566 et 1578. Le cabaliste chrétien, Guillaume Postel, y voit la réalisation de la suprématie politique et religieuse « gauloise » et le début de l'ère nouvelle. Jean Boulaese, amanuensis de Postel et chroniqueur le plus zélé du miracle, considère celui-ci tantôt comme moyen d'obtenir de l'argent en vue de l'impression de la Bible en langue arabe, tantôt comme moyen de promouvoir sa propre carrière. Christophe de Héricourt, doyen de Laon, et chroniqueur dit « officiel » ou « royal », veut surtout éviter d'offenser les huguenots. Enfin, Barthélemy de Faye, conseiller-clerc au Parlement de Paris, cherche par son récit, à faire de la propagande tant pour les décrets tridentins sur la résidence des évêques que pour un gallicanisme modéré. Les récits du miracle de Laon fournissent ainsi un excellent témoignage de la diversité des catholicismes français à l'époque mouvementée des guerres de religion. (shrink)

"C'est en 2010 que le doyen Alassane Ndaw me confia l'édition d'un recueil de ses textes incluant des articles déjà publiés ainsi que des inédits. Il me demanda expressément de rédiger, à cet effet, outre une introduction, une préface, et m'assura que j'avais toute liberté de conduire le travail éditorial. L'ouvrage, Penser l'Afrique noire, se présente donc comme un ensemble de quatorze textes déjà publiés ou inédits, auxquels s'ajoute un quinzième constituant l'épilogue qui fut à l'origine une magistrale préface (...) de Ndaw au beau livre d'art d'Olivier Föllimi, Hommage l'Afrique (Paris, Editions de la Martinière, 2010, 336 p.). Toute sa vie, Alassane Ndaw a poursuivi une seule idée, un seul objectif : établir une puissante synthèse entre tradition et modernité, entre pensée africaine et philosophie occidentale, en vue d'aboutir à la définition d'une personnalité culturelle capable, en surmontant tout déchirement, de se remembrer. Il cherchait moins une philosophie africaine qu'une forme africaine de la philosophie. L'élaboration de cette forme africaine de la philosophie lui apparaissait comme la tâche par excellence de l'herméneutique, qu'il fallait d'abord créer. Aussi bien s'était-il constamment attelé à deux activités majeures : expliciter et interpréter les traditions culturelles africaines, c'est-à-dire créer l'herméneutique africaine en la faisant. De la permanence de cette tâche, en même temps que de son actualité, témoigne cet ouvrage posthume de ce grand maître de la pensée africaine. " Djibril Samb. (shrink)

Marc Pelchat | Résumé : La présente contribution s’intéresse aux défis auxquels se mesure le théologien qui assume la charge d’animer et de diriger une institution de formation théologique, afin de la situer dans l’Église et dans l’Université dans le contexte d’une société en changement. Voilà une forme de la pratique théologique ou une autre modalité du service de la théologie que le professeur et doyen émérite René-Michel Roberge a accepté de remplir pendant une période importante de sa vie, (...) à la suite d’une carrière d’enseignant et de chercheur. En relisant cet itinéraire d’un professeur devenu administrateur de son institution de formation sans cesser d’être aussi un théologien, on trouve de bons indicateurs pour comprendre l’évolution du projet théologique dans une société en changement et pour être en mesure d’inscrire la parole théologienne dans l’espace public aujourd’hui. |: The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges faced by one theologian who, as dean of a faculty of theology, steered a course designed to redefine the place that institution occupies within the Church, the university, and the changing society in which both were evolving. René-Michel Roberge, emeritus professor and dean, devoted a considerable part of his life to that form of practical theology required of anyone who would assume the leadership of a faculty of theology in a university setting ; and he took up this form of theological service on the heels of an already rich career as teacher and researcher. Revisiting the itinerary of this professor-cum-administrator of an institution of higher education, one finds indicators useful for situating the theological project and theological discourse in the public arena today. (shrink)

PREFACE WORD -/- Hilmi Ziya Ülken was born in Istanbul during the last period of the Ottoman Empire, was educated during this period and worked in many areas of the intellectual life of the newly established Republic. Although he was interested in many fields of social sciences, he gained fame in philosophy, sociology, history of thought and literature. Again, he undertook important tasks in revealing and introducing medieval Islamic thinkers and post-Tanzimat Turkish thought, and due to his deep knowledge of (...) Eastern and Western philosophies, he made comparative studies in these fields and tried to reveal the similarities and differences in both cultures. Many graduate studies, book chapters and articles have been written about such an important thinker whose works are also recognized abroad. Among the thinkers of the Republican Era, Ülken is one of the most studied names. In this study, Ülken's biography, his intellectual adventure, his understanding of philosophy and his ideas about the life of thought are discussed panoramically, and the bibliographic information obtained about his articles and other works that have not yet been fully revealed has been added to the study. Another important document added to this study is Ülken's biography written in his own handwriting. Our hope is that with the completion of the information missing in this study, a complete portrait of Ülken will be revealed. When Ülken's works are taken into consideration, it is understood that he wrote works in many fields of social sciences. The fact that he did not concentrate on a certain field but worked in many fields has been a frequently criticized aspect of him. In this sense, we think that the phrase "A Thinker of Mütebahhir", which we wrote as a subtitle to the title of our study, defines him very well. Many names have used the adjective mütebahhir, which means ocean and depth in Ottoman Turkish, about Ülken. While Necati Öner used it in a positive sense, names such as Cemil Meriç (1916-1987) and İsmail Tunalı (1923-2015) used it in a sense that includes negative connotations, such as saying words in every field, his knowledge is unlimited but formless and non-systematic, and Salâh Birsel (1919-1999) wrote on every subject. On the other hand, scholars such as Kurtuluş Kayalı and Ali Utku, who have recently conducted competent studies on Ülken, have emphasized that Ülken - contrary to popular belief - thought and worked within a system and was very sensitive about his system of thought. When Ülken's works are examined in general, it is seen that many of them were formed by turning lecture notes into books, and this situation caused many problems. This situation led to problems such as the disorganization of his works, the lack of a certain systematization, the lack of the necessary methodological sensitivity in footnotes and citations, and the use of some terms in their original language instead of their Turkish equivalents. When we look at the life stories of important thinkers in the history of thought, we observe that they were not only influenced by the social, political, economic, etc. conditions of the period in which they lived, but also that they influenced these conditions in the period in which they lived. The best example of this situation among the thinkers of the early years of the Republic is Ülken. When his works are examined in chronological order, it is noticeable that his ideas constantly changed, that he had to defend the ideas he criticized from time to time, and that he was in a constant search. He explained his works in many fields by saying that he wrote works that would be a source for his own works and that he served as a bridge to the past. The fact that he was a doyen in many fields of social sciences despite having a Mülkiye education can be explained by his self-education. Ülken, who set an example for academics and thinkers with his hard work, diligence, and lifestyle of constantly reading, researching and writing, carried out very important works in his 73 years of life. As Öner, a student of his who knew him closely, says: "In his daily life, Ülken was either reading, writing or philosophizing." Again, Tunalı says about his diligence that "when he was finishing a book, he would have written another book!" It can be said that one of Ülken's efforts was to establish a tradition of sociology and philosophy in Turkey by recognizing the disconnect in our world of thought. Ülken expressed this to his student Necati Öner by saying, "We are a quarter in philosophy, you will be half, and then we will be complete!" While the influence of philosophers and sociologists who came to our country with the educational reforms was quite limited, Ülken succeeded in establishing a tradition in Istanbul Sociology and Ankara Theology. For this reason, important sociologists and philosophers of our country, such as Baykan Sezer (1938-2002) and Kurtuluş Kayalı (born 1949), admitted that "we are students of the Ülken tradition" even though they were not his direct students. Ülken provided an important opening in the social sciences with his methodology that analyzed the problems he dealt with in depth, tried to deal with all aspects of the issues and made synthesis attempts between different ideas. In addition, with the newly established Republic, he made great efforts to collect and translate sources in many fields, especially philosophy, and to carry out activities on a philosophical basis. The fact that his works continued to attract attention in every period after him and were reprinted and read again and again reveals the centrality of his role in the intellectual life of the Republican period. In this study, in which the life, philosophy and thoughts of Hilmi Ziya Ülken, whose valuable contributions to Turkish-Islamic thought are undeniable, have been tried to be presented in general terms, the articles and book chapters I have written about Ülken in various journals and book chapters and whose titles I have given in the bibliography and bibliography section have also been utilized. I hope that this monographic study will make a small contribution to the studies on Ülken, who deserves to be remembered with mercy and gratitude. -/- . (shrink)

[Richard Glauser] Shaftesbury's theory of aesthetic experience is based on his conception of a natural disposition to apprehend beauty, a real 'form' of things. I examine the implications of the disposition's naturalness. I argue that the disposition is not an extra faculty or a sixth sense, and attempt to situate Shaftesbury's position on this issue between those of Locke and Hutcheson. I argue that the natural disposition is to be perfected in many different ways in order to be exercised in (...) the perception of the different degrees of beauty within Shaftesbury's hierarchy. This leads to the conclusion that the exercise of the disposition depends, from case to case, on many different cognitive and affective conditions, that are realised by the collaborative functionings of our ordinary faculties. Essential to Shaftesbury's conception of aesthetic experience is a disinterested, contemplative love, that causes (or contains) what we may call a 'disinterested pleasure', but also an interested pleasure. I argue that, within any given aesthetic experience, the role of the disinterested pleasure is secondary to that of the disinterested love. However, an important function of the disinterested pleasure is that, in combination with the interested pleasure, it leads one to aspire to pass from the aesthetic experience of lower degrees of beauty to the experience of higher ones in the hierarchy. /// [Anthony Savile] (1) If Shaftesbury is to be seen as the doyen of modern aesthetics, his most valuable legacy to us may not so much be his viewing aesthetic response as a sui generis disinterested delight as his insistence on its turning 'wholly on [experience of] what is exterior and foreign to ourselves'. Not that we cannot experience ourselves, or what is our own, as a source of such admiration. Rather our responses, favourable or no, are improperly grounded in any essentially reflexive, or first-personal, ways of taking what engages us. The suggestion is tested against the case of Narcissus. (2) Glauser interestingly emphasizes Shaftesbury's neo-Platonic conception of a hierarchy of aesthetic experience that culminates in the joyful contemplation of God. That hierarchy must be something that is less unitary and systematic than Shaftesbury himself had supposed, even when his emphasis on the tie between aesthetic pleasure and contemplative experience is allowed to extend beyond perception and to encompass episodes of thought itself. (shrink)

This issue ofScience in Contextis dedicated to the question of whether there was a “cinematographic turn” in the sciences around the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1895, the Lumière brothers presented their projection apparatus to the Parisian public for the first time. In 1897, the Scottish medical doctor John McIntyre filmed the movement of a frog's leg; in Vienna, in 1898, Ludwig Braun made film recordings of the contractions of a living dog's heart (cf. Cartwright 1992); in 1904, Lucien (...) Bull filmed in slow motion a bullet entering a soap bubble. In 1907 and 1908, respectively, Max Seddig and Victor Henri recorded Brownian motion with the help of a cinematograph (Curtis 2005). In 1909, the Swiss Julius Ries was one of the first to film fertilization and cell division in sea urchins (Ries 1909). In that same year in Paris, Louise Chevroton and Frédéric Vlès used a film camera to observe cell division in the same object (Chevroton and Vlès 1909). As early as 1898, the Parisian surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen began filming several of his operations, among them the spectacular separation of the Siamese twins Doodica and Radica (Bonah and Laukötter 2009). And in England, the scientist and zoologist Francis Martin Duncan produced an array of popular-scientific films for Charles Urban: “The unseen world: A series of microscopic studies” was presented to the public in the Alhambra Theatre in London for the first time in 1903 (see Gaycken in this issue). (shrink)

Raymond Boudon is the doyen of French sociology. His 2004 book The Poverty of Relativism counters the relativist plague with philosophical, historical, and comparative deconstruction and proposes an alternative: a cognitive notion of values that rehabilitates the notions of reason, correctness, and progress. More surprising is his rehabilitation of moral evolutionism that restores to it a human face. Will his efforts staunch relativism? Some considerations pro and con are offered. Key Words: relativism • reason • truth • morality • (...) social facts. (shrink)

There seems to be an important historical connexion between changes in the concept of evidence and that of the person capable of giving evidence. Michel Foucault urged that during the classical age the relationship between evidence and the person was reversed: scholasticism derived statements’ authority from that of their authors, while scientists now hold that matters of fact are the most impersonal of statements.1 In a similar vein, Ian Hacking defines a kind of evidence which ‘consists in one thing pointing (...) beyond itself’, and claims that until the early modern period ‘testimony and authority were primary, and things could count as evidence only insofar as they resembled the witness of observers and the authority of books’.2 This captures a rather familiar theme of the ideology of early modern natural philosophy. Nullius in verba was the Royal Society of London’s motto. Robert Boyle, doyen of the Society’s experimental philosophers, tried to build up the credit of laboratory objects at the expense of untrustworthy humans. He reckoned that ‘inanimate bodies … are not capable of prepossessions, or giving us partial informations’, while vulgar men may be influenced by predispositions, and so many other circumstances, that they may easily give occasion to mistakes’. So an inanimate body’s deeds could function as signs of some other state of affairs in a way that the stories of vulgar humans could not.3 1. See Michel Foucault, L’Ordre du discours: Leçon inaugurale au Collêge de France prononcée le 2 décembre 1970 .2. Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference , pp. 34, 33.3. Quoted in Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump , p. 218. See also Peter Dear, ‘Totius in verba:’ Rhetoric and Authority in the Early Royal Society’, Isis 76 : 145-61. Simon Schaffer lectures in history and philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is the coauthor of Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life and coauthors of The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences. (shrink)

Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, clearly one of the early modern doyens of Indian Philosophy, remained much enamored of Western thought—of which he took the ancient to classical tradition as his model—and he spent a good part of his speculative life attempting to reconfigure Indian thought to fit the vesture, maybe the toga, of his Greek heroes, namely Plato and Plotinus, and to an extent of Hegelianism that came across via F. H. Bradley: Occidental in form, and Indian in content. It was (...) as if this ‘fusion’ or ‘harmonization’ was easy of making without compromising what since Max Müller has come to be called ‘Indian Philosophy’. The paper intends to demonstrate this worrisome yet compelling motif by advancing an analysis of certain representative texts and arguments from Radhakrishnan’s prolific writing on Indian Philosophy and East-West Thinking; particularly as these relate to the question of the ‘appearances’, their alignment with Platonic ‘shadows,’ while finding their redemption in the realism propelled by modern empirical science. The paper traces the justification for Radhakrishnan’s variegated moves to ‘save the appearances’ through his strained reading of the Upaniṣadic texts and under-standing of Śaṅkara’s nondualism, leading to the argument that although the world is brought about by māyā, it is not an illusion or nonexistent, or unhinged from the Absolute, but rather naïvely real. There may have been a supplementary political motivation as well inspired by the burgeoning nationalist spirit, after Gandhi, and the need for India to become culturally and morally strong in its own terms. (shrink)

L’édition spéciale que le lecteur tient entre ses mains est la toute première édition de la Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique en langue française. Elle lui propose un éventail d’analyses représentatives des différentes conceptions de la linguistique juridique ou jurilinguistique comme la dénomme nos collègues canadiens. Elle est dédiée au Doyen Cornu, qui fut, comme l’indique le Professeur Beauchard dans son hommage, une des personnalités juridiques les plus reconnues en France pour ses travaux dans le domaine de la langue (...) et du droit. Les articles sélectionnés dégagent l’essentiel de la linguistique juridique: ils soulignent certains aspects de recherches déjà avancées (Gémar, Goltzeberg) et d’autres débats encore peu explorés (Mattila, Lenoble-Pinson), permettant ainsi au lecteur de situer les enjeux actuels de la linguistique juridique tout en lui révélant les perspectives à venir. (shrink)

Invités à renouer avec la pratique de la disputatio médiévale, deux philosophes débattent sur l'existence de Dieu, question traditionnelle aujourd'hui réactivée. Philippe Capelle, doyen de la faculté de philosophie de l'Institut catholique de Paris et président de la Conférence mondiale des facultés de philosophie des universités catholiques, expose ses arguments de philosophe et théologien croyant. André Comte-Sponville, philosophe et écrivain, définit sa position d'" athée fidèle ". L'argumentation est serrée, à la fois rigoureuse et vivante, exigeante et claire ; (...) le débat est cordial mais sans concession. L'ouvrage le confirme : sur une question aussi sensible, le dialogue généreux est créateur. A sa lecture, on reçoit une leçon de loyauté intellectuelle, de respect de l'autre, d'humanité telle qu'on l'aime. (shrink)

Texte de l'hommage rendu par le Doyen de la Faculté de théologie à la fin de la messe célébrée à la mémoire de Mgr Thils le 11 mai 2000 en l'église Saint-François à Louvain-la-Neuve.

This book constitutes a supplement to the 1926 account of Alfred Marshall's Official Papers edited by John Maynard Keynes. The book presents material which Keynes did not include, editorial notes and introductions to the various pieces. It focuses on the advice that Marshall, a founding father of modern economics, offered to the British government in the late nineteenth century. The topics covered include education, the role of women, trade unions, unemployment, public enterprise, the quantity theory of money, inflation and trade, (...) benefits of free trade and dangers of protection. The material offers valuable insights into policy thinking at the time, much of which has a surprising degree of relevance to pressing policy issues during our own time. The contents facilitates understanding this doyen of British economics and founder of the Cambridge School of Economics. (shrink)

Dreyer Kruger, now in his eighties, was asked to reflect on the years of his active professional experience, especially while at Rhodes University from 1974 to 1989. Considered by many to be the doyen of phenomenological psychology in South Africa, he introduced what, at that time, was a revolutionary view in the social sciences of understanding what it means to be human.During his tenure as an academic psychologist, a cohort of doctoral level phenomenologically-oriented psychologists emerged, many of whom emigrated (...) from South Africa during its apartheid era to take up high-raking positions elsewhere in the academic arena in the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand, while those remaining in South Africa continued his legacy of promoting phenomenology as a field of interrogation in the social and human sciences. (shrink)

Reagan mixes the genres of biographical essay, memoir, philosophical essay, and interview to provide the reader with a fascinating and highly readable account. The biographical essay narrates Ricoeur’s early life, his experience as a POW during the Second World War, professorships at the Sorbonne, Nanterre, and Chicago, and his “rediscovery” in and return to France after the publication of Time and Narrative. Reagan’s analysis betrays Ricoeur’s comment that “no one is interested in my life... [since] my life is my work... (...) my books and my articles.” Ricoeur’s captivity as a prisoner of war, the problems he encountered at Nanterre University as doyen of the Faculty of Letters during the 1960s, and the pain and love he and Simone felt for Olivier, their fourth child who committed suicide, are some of the intriguing and touching elements of the narrative. After Olivier’s tragic death in 1986, Ricoeur added “suffering” to the phrase “human action” whenever he wrote about the problem of human action and suffering. (shrink)

These autobiographical reflections by a major contemporary philosopher offer an enjoyable and enlightening tour not only of his own intellectual development but of the rich and fruitful collaboration of minds during a rich period in German cultural history. Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author of Truth and Method, traces his "philosophical apprenticeships" with some of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.Perhaps more than anyone else, Hans-Georg Gadamer, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Heidelberg, is the doyen of (...) German philosophy and the recognized chief theorist of hermeneutics. His book Reason in the Age of Science is an ideal introduction to his thought and to the problems of hermeneutics more generally. Philosophical Apprenticeships is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

These autobiographical reflections by a major contemporary philosopher offer an enjoyable and enlightening tour not only of his own intellectual development but of the rich and fruitful collaboration of minds during a rich period in German cultural history. Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author of Truth and Method, traces his "philosophical apprenticeships" with some of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Perhaps more than anyone else, Hans-Georg Gadamer, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Heidelberg, is the doyen (...) of German philosophy and the recognized chief theorist of hermeneutics. His book Reason in the Age of Science (MIT Press paperback) is an ideal introduction to his thought and to the problems of hermeneutics more generally. Philosophical Apprenticeships is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

"L'ouvrage que nous propose aujourd'hui Mme Delphine Espagno est peut-être la plus belle des invitations qui ait été écrite afin d'inciter le lecteur, citoyen et/ou juriste, à comprendre la pensée du doyen de Bordeaux. Léon Duguit méritait effectivement le présent ouvrage et hommage car le doyen, comme Jean-Jacques Rousseau avant lui, a longtemps été et est encore souvent présenté soit comme un marginal de la pensée juridique, soit est même dédaigné de façon méprisante comme si sa qualité de (...) juriste lui était déniée. Hauriou, nous rappelle l'auteure, ira même ainsi jusqu'à affubler Duguit d'être un "anarchiste de la chaire" ce qui n'avait manifestement pas totalement déplu à ce dernier! Car, ce que rappelle Mme Espagno dès son introduction, c'est bien une nouvelle manière de penser et de réinventer le Droit dans son ensemble que nous invite à accomplir Léon Duguit. Il n'est pas qu'un faiseur de théorie(s) (comme celles du service public, des agents publics ou encore de l'Etat), il est - pour reprendre l'expression de Chenot désormais consacrée - un véritable "faiseur de système dans son sens le plus noble et mélioratif. Duguit assume en effet son rôle de guide et nous a donné à voir une nouvelle façon d'appréhender le Droit non pas tel qu'il est mais tel qu'il devrait être. Un Droit qu'il a comme réinventé en chaussant de nouvelles lunettes tel le spectateur qui verrait en deux dimensions et désormais en découvrirait - grâce à lui - une troisième. Après Léon Duguit, les juristes n'ont ainsi pu feindre de ne concevoir le Droit qu'à l'instar d'un artifice fictif, technique et juridique : le Droit est devenu indissociable de la sociologie. Ce "droit duguiste" nous offre alors grâce à la lumière qu'y dépose avec délicatesse Mme Delphine Espagno la vision renouvelée des relations existantes entre Droit, individu et collégialité ou société. En outre, ce que va construire le doyen de Bordeaux n'est pas - comme on le lit encore souvent - une "simple" théorie du service public mais une théorie réaliste de l'Etat par le service public", Mathieu Touzeil-Divina. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage rend hommage au Professeur Claude JOURNÈS, ancien Président de l'Université LUMIERE Lyon 2 et membre fondateur du mouvement Critique du droit. Les Mélanges offerts au Professeur Claude JOURNÈS ont retenu cette approche, utilisant le droit comme un outil de mise en perspective critique de l'ordre social et de l'ordre politique. Après un hommage au Doyen JOURNÉES (P. BLACHÈR) et l'évocation des ambitions et perspectives du mouvement critique Du droit (S. BASSET ou J. MICHEL), l'ouvrage se construit en (...) deux temps. La première partie, intitulée « Le droit critique de l'ordre social », regroupe des réflexions sur le pouvoir médical (F. DEMICHEL), sur les crimes coloniaux (A. MAHIOU), sur la dimension anthropologique du vocabulaire juridique (M.-C. HATTI) et sur le contrôle policier (M. SAOUDI), le tout ouvrant sur la possibilité d'un humanisme séculier (H. PUEL). La seconde partie, « Le droit critique de l'ordre politique », entend montrer comment le droit porte en lui une conception du pouvoir et de l'autorité. Les études explorent des pistes très diverses mêlant les finances publiques (J.-L. ALBERT), les renseignements (C. ARROUDJ), l'histoire du droit (J.-L. AUTIN, J.-C GENIN), l'histoire de la doctrine (H. GOURDON), les institutions politiques (P. BACOT, A.-S. MESCHERIAKOFF, R. CHARVIN), les institutions territoriales (J.-J. GLEUAL, H. OBERDORFF, R. PAVRE), la littérature (S. CAPORAL, G. HARE) ou les nouvelles technologies (G. PROTIÉRE). II ressort de l'ensemble que, loin d'être un simple outil technique, le droit est un puissant instrument de modélisation sociale et de justification du pouvoir. Inversant la logique dominante, la perspective critique du droit dévoile les limites d'une telle conception et rappelle que le droit, comme tous les construits sociaux, est le produit de luttes politiques et de rapports de force. En ce sens, à l'instar des valeurs défendues par le dédicataire de cet ouvrage, l'ordre critique du droit est un appel à contester les évidences, condition d'une conception plus ouverte et pluraliste de l'ordre juridique. (shrink)

There is perhaps no other branch of philosophy that has suffered as much scorn and ridicule as metaphysics. With bruised ego and much the worse for wear, it always re-emerges as methodologies become fatigued and the discussion of the central questions within exhausts itself. Even Bradley, the doyen of what was believed to be a metaphysics finished once and for all, can regain his place in the pantheon along side the likes of Plato, Descartes and Spinoza.

En pleine renaissance de l’Université de Strasbourg, créée le 1er janvier 2009, il m’est apparu qu’un colloque interdisciplinaire autour du thème de « la personne»s’imposait comme une évidence, tant par les enjeux contemporains de cette thématique que par la richesse du dialogue qu’elle pouvait éveiller au sein de notre nouvelle université. Ayant proposé, alors que j’étais moi-même doyen de la Faculté de droit, de sciences politiques et de gestion, à la doyenne de la Faculté de philosophie,...