The mapping of numbers onto space is fundamental to measurement and to mathematics. Is this mapping a cultural invention or a universal intuition shared by all humans regardless of culture and education? We probed number-space mappings in the Mundurucu, an Amazonian indigene group with a reduced numerical lexicon and little or no formal education. At all ages, the Mundurucu mapped symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers onto a logarithmic scale, whereas Western adults used linear mapping with small or symbolic numbers and logarithmic (...) mapping when numbers were presented nonsymbolically under conditions that discouraged counting. This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education. (shrink)

This paper reviews Deleuze’s theory of language in Logic of Sense, and Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of language in A Thousand Plateaus. In the ontology informed by the Stoics described in those books, human being and language do not exist separately but in a mixture of words and things. The author argues that this flattened ontology of surfaces is incommensurable with the ontology of depth used in conventional humanist qualitative methodology and recommends beginning new empirical inquiry with a concept instead (...) of with method and methodology. (shrink)

Kant argued that Euclidean geometry is synthesized on the basis of an a priori intuition of space. This proposal inspired much behavioral research probing whether spatial navigation in humans and animals conforms to the predictions of Euclidean geometry. However, Euclidean geometry also includes concepts that transcend the perceptible, such as objects that are infinitely small or infinitely large, or statements of necessity and impossibility. We tested the hypothesis that certain aspects of nonperceptible Euclidian geometry map onto intuitions of space that (...) are present in all humans, even in the absence of formal mathematical education. Our tests probed intuitions of points, lines, and surfaces in participants from an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucu, as well as adults and age-matched children controls from the United States and France and younger US children without education in geometry. The responses of Mundurucu adults and children converged with that of mathematically educated adults and children and revealed an intuitive understanding of essential properties of Euclidean geometry. For instance, on a surface described to them as perfectly planar, the Mundurucu's estimations of the internal angles of triangles added up to ∼180 degrees, and when asked explicitly, they stated that there exists one single parallel line to any given line through a given point. These intuitions were also partially in place in the group of younger US participants. We conclude that, during childhood, humans develop geometrical intuitions that spontaneously accord with the principles of Euclidean geometry, even in the absence of training in mathematics. (shrink)

I don’t agree that postmodernism and poststructuralism are dead, any more than are Platonism, Cartesianism, phenomenology, pragmatism, Frankfurt School critical theory, feminist theory, critical ra...

Adults are skilled at using language to construct/negotiate identity and to signal affiliation with others, but little is known about how these abilities develop in children. Clearly, children mirror statistical patterns in their local environment (e.g., Canadian children using zed instead of zee), but do they flexibly adapt their linguistic choices on the fly in response to the choices of different peers? To address this question, we examined the effect of group membership on 7‐ to 9‐year‐olds' labeling of objects in (...) a trivia game, exploring whether they were more likely to use a particular label (e.g., sofa vs. couch) if members of their “team” also used that label. In a preregistered study, children (N = 72) were assigned to a team (red or green) and were asked during experimental trials to answer questions—which had multiple possible answers (e.g., blackboard or chalkboard)—after hearing two teammates and two opponents respond to the same question. Results showed that children were significantly more likely to produce labels less commonly used by the community (i.e., dispreferred labels) when their teammates had produced those labels. Crucially, this effect was tied to group membership, and could not be explained by children simply repeating the most recently used label. These findings demonstrate how social processes (i.e., group membership) can guide linguistic variation in children. (shrink)

To help infer the meanings of novel words, children frequently capitalize on their current linguistic knowledge to constrain the hypothesis space. Children's syntactic knowledge of function words has been shown to be especially useful in helping to infer the meanings of novel words, with most previous research focusing on how children use preceding determiners and pronouns/auxiliary to infer whether a novel word refers to an entity or an action, respectively. In the current visual world experiment, we examined whether 28‐ to (...) 32‐month‐olds could exploit their lexical semantic knowledge of an additional class of function words—prepositions—to learn novel nouns. During the experiment, children were tested on their ability to use the prepositions in, on, under, and next to to identify novel creatures displayed on a screen (e.g., The wug is on the table), as well as their ability to later identify the creature without accompanying prepositions (e.g., Look at the wug). Children overall demonstrated understanding of all the prepositions but next to and were able to use their knowledge of prepositions to learn the associations between novel words and their intended referents, as shown by greater‐than chance looks to the target referent when no prepositional phrase was provided. (shrink)

All humans share a universal, evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) that estimates and combines the numbers of objects in sets with ratio-limited precision. Interindividual variability in the acuity of the ANS correlates with mathematical achievement, but the causes of this correlation have never been established. We acquired psychophysical measures of ANS acuity in child and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucú, who have a very restricted numerical lexicon and highly variable access to mathematics education. (...) By comparing Mundurucú subjects with and without access to schooling, we found that education significantly enhances the acuity with which sets of concrete objects are estimated. These results indicate that culture and education have an important effect on basic number perception. We hypothesize that symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical thinking mutually enhance one another over the course of mathematics instruction. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

Much research supports the existence of an Approximate Number System (ANS) that is recruited by infants, children, adults, and non-human animals to generate coarse, non-symbolic representations of number. This system supports simple arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, and ordering of amounts. The current study tests whether an intuition of a more complex calculation, division, exists in an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucu, whose language includes no words for large numbers. Mundurucu children were presented with a video event (...) depicting a division transformation of halving, in which pairs of objects turned into single objects, reducing the array's numerical magnitude. Then they were tested on their ability to calculate the outcome of this division transformation with other large-number arrays. The Mundurucu children effected this transformation even when non-numerical variables were controlled, performed above chance levels on the very first set of test trials, and exhibited performance similar to urban children who had access to precise number words and a surrounding symbolic culture. We conclude that a halving calculation is part of the suite of intuitive operations supported by the ANS. (shrink)

What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

Does geometry constitues a core set of intuitions present in all humans, regarless of their language or schooling ? We used two non verbal tests to probe the conceptual primitives of geometry in the Munduruku, an isolated Amazonian indigene group. Our results provide evidence for geometrical intuitions in the absence of schooling, experience with graphic symbols or maps, or a rich language of geometrical terms.

Des branches entières des mathématiques sont fondées sur des liens posés entre les nombres et l’espace : mesure de longueurs, définition de repères et de coordonnées, projection des nombres complexes sur le plan… Si les nombres complexes, comme l’utilisation de repères, sont apparus relativement récemment (vers le XVIIe siècle), la mesure des longueurs est en revanche un procédé très ancien, qui remonte au moins au 3e ou 4e millénaire av. J-C. Loin d’être fortuits, ces liens entre les nombres et l’espace (...) reflèteraient une intuition fondamentale, universelle, façonnée au cours des millénaires par la sélection naturelle, et qui aurait servi de guide et d’inspiration aux mathématiciens au fil des siècles. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

La connaissances noyau de la géométrie euclidienne est liée au raisonnement déductif et non à la reconnaissance de motifs perceptuels.

The performance of the Mundurucu on the number-space task may exemplify a general competence for drawing analogies between space and other linear dimensions, but Mundurucu participants spontaneously chose number when other dimensions were available. Response placement may not reflect the subjective scale for numbers, but Cantlon et al.'s proposal of a linear scale with scalar variability requires additional hypotheses that are problematic.

We agree with Nuñez that the Mundurucu do not master the formal propreties of number lines and logarithms, but as the term "intuition" implies, they spontaneously experience a logarithmic mapping of number to space as natural and "feeling right.".

This article examines the responses of Parisian noble women to campaigns for women's rights in France of the early Third Republic. The methodology of the article is based on the works of Pierre Bourdieu. His concept of the habitus is used to analyse the effects of class and gender in noble women's attitudes to French feminisms before the First World War. The conditioning of Parisian noble women explains their resistance, indeed often outspoken opposition, to feminists' demands. These female aristocrats (...) supported their own oppression within a social order governed by the state, the scientific and medical establishments, the expectations of family, and the Catholic Church of the time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Report on the Tenth European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies Conference:History as a Challenge to Buddhism and ChristianityJohn O’Grady, Elizabeth J. Harris, and Jonathan A. SeitzThe Tenth Conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies (ENBCS) brought together between sixty and seventy people at the Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium, between 27 June and 1 July 2013, to examine the theme “History as a Challenge to Buddhism and Christianity.” It (...) was a collaborative effort between the ENBCS and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The 2011 ENBCS conference had focused on whether hope was a relevant concept for Buddhists and Christians. The choice of history as a theme complemented this. It also resonated with a research concern of both KU Leuven and the Network.Five key themes were chosen for examination: the traditional Christian and Buddhist conceptions of history; Jesus and the Buddha: fact and fiction; Buddhist and Christian historiography; dangerous memory in Christianity and Buddhism; and permitting historical consciousness in Buddhism and Christianity. Each was approached from a Buddhist and a Christian perspective. An opening lecture addressed the theme “Modern Historical Consciousness and the Challenge to Religion.” In addition, eighteen research papers on Buddhist-Christian relations were given in parallel sessions on Friday evening and Saturday morning. These covered topics as various as the writings of Edmund Pezet (Pierre Gillet), Paul Knitter’s understanding of Buddhist-Christian double belonging (Achim Riggert), Keiji Nishitani and the death of God (Jonatan Navarro Estrada), the encounter of Zen Buddhism and Christianity in the works of D. T. Suzuki (Mariusz Rucki), Buddhist-Christian encounters by Han Yong Woon (Seung Chul Kim), and “Liberating the Conflict from ‘History’ in Sri Lanka” (Jude Lal Fernando).Perry Schmidt-Leukel (Münster, Germany), in the opening lecture, discussed [End Page 189] seven challenges that modern historical consciousness was posing to religion: the challenge of falsification (when historical evidence, for example, showed some doctrines cherished by believers were not taught by the founder), the challenge of uncertainty or methodological doubt, the challenge of methodological naturalism (should a natural explanation be considered more probable than a supernatural one?), the challenge of the distance between past and present, the challenge of change (religions are not static), the challenge of demystification, and the challenge of relativity (the writing of history is perspectival, conditioned by context). He stressed that it would be a blessing to religion if these challenges were faced and, throughout the conference, encouraged other speakers to face them.The first theme was tackled by Mark Blum (Berkeley, USA) from a Buddhist perspective and Jan-Olav Henriksen (Norwegian School of Theology) from a Christian perspective. In a magisterial historical and geographical survey of the Buddhist tradition, Blum first noted that no one had unearthed a traditional notion of Buddhist history in the early texts. The theme of decline and reformation had been taken from Indian cosmology, but with a Buddhist twist and the conviction that it was pointless to talk about beginnings. And in the growth of the Mahāyāna tradition, a dehistoricization of the Buddha had occurred in the belief that the Buddha’s dharma-body was his only “real” body.Henriksen argued that Christian salvation history had its origin in the narrative of the Fall, an event for which there was no historical evidence, and developed into a history of God’s call (election) to all people that they should be brought together in community. It was a history that was linked with the divine logos, a force that Christian theology has seen as deeply interwoven into creation from the beginning of time and that was made human in Jesus.Terrence Merrigan (KU Leuven, Belgium), giving a Christian perspective on the second theme, distinguished three quests or attempts to reach the historical Jesus. The first, from 1774 to 1906, sought to uncover the Jesus that had been obscured by dogma. It imploded with the realization that separating “core” from “myth” was impossible, and conditioned a reactive “no-quest” in the first half of the twentieth century. A “new quest” arose in the 1950s, initiated by Käsemann’s reaction to the theologies of Barth and Bultmann. A further quest that appealed to archaeology and the... (shrink)

This essay explores small “ordinary” experiences of moral harm as problems of social injustice. Starting with two stories, we first argue against a dominant framework of personal responsibility that assigns responsibility to particular blameworthy agents. Instead we sketch an account of why structural responsibility for social harm must be considered, drawing on the work of Iris Marion Young and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, drawing on Margaret Walker’s notion of moral repair and Christopher Marshall’s interpretation of the parable of the Good (...) Samaritan, we sketch an account of Christian moral responsibility grounded in restorative justice that seeks to address daily experiences of moral harm through the moral repair work of neighbor-love. (shrink)

How management philosophy is conceived depends on if pragmatism is acknowledged or not! After having been under the main domination of management science both research and education has until recently widened its scope from a decision-making to an action-perspective. It seems to be a recent reconnection to pragmatism that makes the 2011 Carnegie report propose to rethink management in liberal arts terms, whilst the vastly influential 1959 Carnegie Pierson report distanced itself from American pragmatism thus focusing on decisions and forgetting (...) actions. Actions may contain decisions and choices but contain more than that. A decision-perspective explains by causal inference modelling choices as calculated or programmed. The action-perspectives strive at understanding intentions of agents by philosophical interpretations of action stories. It is less limited to finding the logics for constructing worlds, to paraphrase Herbert Simon’s favorite philosopher Rudolf Carnap, than embarking on plausible, although not certain, reconstructions of intentions giving meaning to action stories. This can be illustrated by turning to Elizabeth Anscombe’s Wittgensteinian investigation of intentions as Aristotelian syllogistic reasoning. Her constant analytical care to defend a philosophy of action against metaphysical assumptions and taken-for-granted “psychologisms” shows that an action-perspective is as analytic as ever one of decision-making. What differs is that the latter seems constantly attracted by programming inquiry by “scientific methodology” whilst the latter is charmed by philosophical approaches to action welcoming fascinating conundrums, enigmas and human goofs in the reality of managerial practice. Management science wants to reduce management to logics, programs and models for formal decision making whereas management philosophy is closer to spotting the artfully entrepreneurial in actions. The latter points in the direction of engineering tools, the former to appreciate the toys of management as artwork. Finally the argument of Georg Henrik von Wright helps us see that the two are philosophically compatible; for in a pragmatically inspired management philosophy actions may well contain decisions. (shrink)

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume (...) 49, Number 3. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should (...) be made to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should (...) be made to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

De Pierre Bayle, la tradition critique a longtemps voulu ne faire qu'un précurseur des Lumières. C'était trop négliger la personnalité et la pensée du théologien calviniste, et le considérer comme un auteur mineur. En 1964, Élizabeth Labrousse, directeur de recherches au CNRS et grande historienne du protestantisme, publiait son Pierre Bayle qui allait vite s'imposer comme l'ouvrage de référence sur le réfugié de Rotterdam. Grâce à ce livre en deux volumes, l'auteur du Dictionnaire Critique retrouvait enfin sa place (...) de penseur au coeur de la « crise de la conscience européenne », de théoricien de la tolérance, de théologien philosophe convaincu qu'avec le triomphe du cartésianisme la foi chrétienne abordait aux rives des temps modernes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, CritiqueJosé R. Maia NetoAntony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, editors. Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, Critique. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. Pp. 589. Cloth, €90.00.Pierre Bayle is an early modern philosopher who has received relatively little attention given the philosophical relevance and historical influence of his work. Fortunately this situation has been rapidly changing (...) in recent years. This volume, edited by Antony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, is a good sample of the volume, quality, scope, and polemical nature of current Bayle scholarship. The book contains twenty-five articles by the main Bayle scholars from France, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States. It also contains an introduction by the editors, who give an overview of current scholarship, summarizing its main trends and achievements, and a useful name index. The articles are organized in five sections, each dealing with some aspect of Bayle's life and thought.The first set of articles, gathered under the heading, "Interlocutors, Friends and Enemies," deals with Bayle's personal relations as a Huguenot exiled in the Netherlands. Luisa Simonutti deals with Bayle's relations to one of the radical Reformed groups in Holland, the Quakers. Although Bayle disagreed with their religious views, he respected and maintained [End Page 476] healthy intellectual exchanges with them. Hans Bots examines Bayle's view of the "republic of letters," of which he was a major architect—a republic whose right to citizenship required the suspension of religious, political, and national partisanship and engagement in free intellectual debate. H. H. M. van Lieshout contests the entrenched view that Bayle lived as a recluse scholar in Rotterdam. Both she and Bots show how Bayle's main work, the Dictionary, exhibits his life committed to the "republic of letters." Finally, Hubert Bost focuses on Bayle's activity as a journalist, crucial in this republic but also revealing the difficulty of the pursued ideal of neutrality.The next three sections of the book deal with Bayle's thoughts on religion and philosophy. Anna Belgrado denies the late Bayle scholar Elizabeth Labrousse's thesis that Bayle's thought is wrought with Protestantism. Bayle's views on the Jews, the Middle Ages, and women are examined, respectively, by Myrian Yardeni, Gregorio Piaia, and Maria-Cristina Pitassi, who concur in concluding that, although not free from the prejudices of his time, Bayle's views are more complex and balanced than those of his contemporaries.Bayle's political views and in particular his view on tolerance receive a good deal of attention in the volume. Stefano Brogi explains Bayle's attack on the "rational theologians" (Le Clerc), at first sight puzzling given their defense of religious tolerance, pointing out Bayle's radical opposition between faith and reason. According to Jean-Michel Gros, it is this radical separation of philosophy from theology that renders Bayle's view of tolerance so modern, unlike Locke's, for instance, which still has a theological ground. Jonathan Israel explains another apparent puzzle: Bayle's defense of absolute monarchism despite his philosophical and religious ideas, which were no less radical than Spinoza's. Bayle, unlike Spinoza, does not support republicanism because of his pessimistic view of human nature. John Christian Laursen shows that the political menace posed by the Millenarians explains Bayle's unusual lack of tolerance towards them.One of the most influential contemporary Bayle scholars, Gianluca Mori, summarizes his view of Bayle as a philosophical atheist, and he is contested in this by Jean-Luc Solère, who argues that for Bayle, materialism does not provide a coherent metaphysical system alternative to the Christian one, so that Bayle's position amounts to a radical skepticism with regard to reason. In his contribution to the volume, Mori argues that Bayle's skepticism is restricted, and is not relevant to the issue of theism versus atheism. He replies to Solère's objections to his interpretation in an appendix to his article. Mori's interpretation relies on the method of reading Bayle's text as containing irreligious views hidden beneath apparently orthodox claims. Thomas Lennon relies on the opposite approach to argue... (shrink)

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

Disability is primarily a social phenomenon -- a way of being a minority, a way of facing social oppression, but not a way of being inherently or intrinsically worse off. This is how disability is understood in the Disability Rights and Disability Pride movements; but there is a massive disconnect with the way disability is typically viewed within analytic philosophy. The idea that disability is not inherently bad or sub-optimal is one that many philosophers treat with open skepticism, and sometimes (...) even with scorn. The goal of this book is to articulate and defend a version of the view of disability that is common in the Disability Rights movement. To be physically disabled is not to have a defective body, but simply to have a minority body. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how the prospect of artificial placenta technology (nearing clinical trials in human subjects) should encourage further consideration of the loss experienced by individuals when their pregnancy ends unexpectedly. Discussions of pregnancy loss are intertwined with procreative loss, whereby the gestated entity has died when the pregnancy ends. However, we demonstrate how pregnancy loss can and does exist separate to procreative loss in circumstances where the gestated entity survives the premature ending of the pregnancy. In outlining (...) the value that can be attached to pregnancy beyond fetal-centric narratives, we illustrate how pregnancy loss, separate to procreative loss, can be experienced. This loss has already been recognised among parents who have experienced an unexpected early ending of their pregnancy, resulting in their child being cared for in neonatal intensive care unit. Artificial placentas, however, may exacerbate these feelings and make pregnancy loss (without procreative loss) more visible. We argue that pregnancy is an embodied state in which gestation is facilitated by the body but gestation itself should be recognised as a process—and one that could be separable from pregnancy. In demarcating the two, we explore the different ways in which pregnancy loss can be understood. Our objective in this paper goes beyond contributing to our philosophical understanding of pregnancy towards practical-orientated conclusions regarding the care pathways surrounding the artificial placenta. We make recommendations including the need for counselling and careful consideration of the language used when an artificial placenta is used. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, CritiqueJosé R. Maia NetoAntony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, editors. Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, Critique. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. Pp. 589. Cloth, €90.00.Pierre Bayle is an early modern philosopher who has received relatively little attention given the philosophical relevance and historical influence of his work. Fortunately this situation has been rapidly changing (...) in recent years. This volume, edited by Antony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, is a good sample of the volume, quality, scope, and polemical nature of current Bayle scholarship. The book contains twenty-five articles by the main Bayle scholars from France, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States. It also contains an introduction by the editors, who give an overview of current scholarship, summarizing its main trends and achievements, and a useful name index. The articles are organized in five sections, each dealing with some aspect of Bayle's life and thought.The first set of articles, gathered under the heading, "Interlocutors, Friends and Enemies," deals with Bayle's personal relations as a Huguenot exiled in the Netherlands. Luisa Simonutti deals with Bayle's relations to one of the radical Reformed groups in Holland, the Quakers. Although Bayle disagreed with their religious views, he respected and maintained [End Page 476] healthy intellectual exchanges with them. Hans Bots examines Bayle's view of the "republic of letters," of which he was a major architect—a republic whose right to citizenship required the suspension of religious, political, and national partisanship and engagement in free intellectual debate. H. H. M. van Lieshout contests the entrenched view that Bayle lived as a recluse scholar in Rotterdam. Both she and Bots show how Bayle's main work, the Dictionary, exhibits his life committed to the "republic of letters." Finally, Hubert Bost focuses on Bayle's activity as a journalist, crucial in this republic but also revealing the difficulty of the pursued ideal of neutrality.The next three sections of the book deal with Bayle's thoughts on religion and philosophy. Anna Belgrado denies the late Bayle scholar Elizabeth Labrousse's thesis that Bayle's thought is wrought with Protestantism. Bayle's views on the Jews, the Middle Ages, and women are examined, respectively, by Myrian Yardeni, Gregorio Piaia, and Maria-Cristina Pitassi, who concur in concluding that, although not free from the prejudices of his time, Bayle's views are more complex and balanced than those of his contemporaries.Bayle's political views and in particular his view on tolerance receive a good deal of attention in the volume. Stefano Brogi explains Bayle's attack on the "rational theologians" (Le Clerc), at first sight puzzling given their defense of religious tolerance, pointing out Bayle's radical opposition between faith and reason. According to Jean-Michel Gros, it is this radical separation of philosophy from theology that renders Bayle's view of tolerance so modern, unlike Locke's, for instance, which still has a theological ground. Jonathan Israel explains another apparent puzzle: Bayle's defense of absolute monarchism despite his philosophical and religious ideas, which were no less radical than Spinoza's. Bayle, unlike Spinoza, does not support republicanism because of his pessimistic view of human nature. John Christian Laursen shows that the political menace posed by the Millenarians explains Bayle's unusual lack of tolerance towards them.One of the most influential contemporary Bayle scholars, Gianluca Mori, summarizes his view of Bayle as a philosophical atheist, and he is contested in this by Jean-Luc Solère, who argues that for Bayle, materialism does not provide a coherent metaphysical system alternative to the Christian one, so that Bayle's position amounts to a radical skepticism with regard to reason. In his contribution to the volume, Mori argues that Bayle's skepticism is restricted, and is not relevant to the issue of theism versus atheism. He replies to Solère's objections to his interpretation in an appendix to his article. Mori's interpretation relies on the method of reading Bayle's text as containing irreligious views hidden beneath apparently orthodox claims. Thomas Lennon relies on the opposite approach to argue... (shrink)

Social constructionism is often considered a form of anti-realism. But in contemporary feminist philosophy, an increasing number of philosophers defend views that are well-described as both realist and social constructionist. In this paper, I use the work of Sally Haslanger as an example of realist social constructionism. I argue: that Haslanger is best interpreted as defending metaphysical realism about social structures; that this type of metaphysical realism about the social world presents challenges to some popular ways of understanding metaphysical realism.

Much of the literature on the relationship between belief and credence has focused on the reduction question: that is, whether either belief or credence reduces to the other. This debate, while important, only scratches the surface of the belief-credence connection. Even on the anti-reductive dualist view, belief and credence could still be very tightly connected. Here, I explore questions about the belief-credence connection that go beyond reduction. This paper is dedicated to what I call the independence question: just how independent (...) are belief and credence? I look at this question from two angles: a descriptive one (as a psychological matter, how much can belief and credence come apart?) and a normative one (for a rational person, how closely connected are belief and credence?) Ultimately, I suggest that the two attitudes are more independent than one might think. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Women as commercial baby factories, nature as an economic resource, life as one big shopping mall: This is what we get when we use the market as a common ...

In this project I am concerned with the extent to which conceptual engineering happens in domains outside of philosophy, and if so, what that might look like. Specifically, I’ll argue that...