The intersection of AI and neurotechnology has resulted in an increasing number of medical and non-medical applications and has sparked debate over the need for new human rights, or “neurorights,”...

One important concern regarding implantable Brain Computer Interfaces is the fear that the intervention will negatively change a patient’s sense of identity or agency. In particular, there is concern that the user will be psychologically worse-off following treatment despite postoperative functional improvements. Clinical observations from similar implantable brain technologies, such as deep brain stimulation, show a small but significant proportion of patients report feelings of strangeness or difficulty adjusting to a new concept of themselves characterized by a maladaptive je ne (...) sais quoi despite clear motor improvement. Despite the growing number of cases in the DBS literature, there is currently no accepted or standardized tool in neuroethics specifically designed to capture the phenomenological postoperative experience of patients implanted with DBS or BCI devices. Given potential risks of postoperative maladaptation, it is important for the field of neuroethics to develop a qualitative instrument that can serve as a shared method for capturing postoperative variations in patient experience of identity and agency. The goal of this article is to introduce an instrument we have developed for this purpose and call for further neuroethical efforts to assess the phenomenology of implantable brain device use. (shrink)

E. O. Wilson (1974: 54) describes the problem that social organisms pose: “On what bases do we distinguish the extremely modified members of an invertebrate colony from the organs of a metazoan animal?” This framing of the issue has inspired many to look more closely at how groups of organisms form and behave as emergent individuals. The possible existence of “superorganisms” test our best intuitions about what can count and act as genuine biological individuals and how we should study them. (...) As we will discuss, colonies of certain organisms display many of the properties that we usually reserve only to individual organisms. Although there is good reason to believe that many social insects form genuine emergent biological individuals, the conclusion offered here is of a slightly different sort. I will argue that to understand some social insects' interactions and the emergent traits they give rise to, it may be helpful to shift our understanding from a community-level approach to an ecosystem-level approach. I will argue that viewing certain insect colonies (termites) as parts of ecosystems allows us to better understand some of the adaptations that have emerged from their evolution. (shrink)

Esta obra se abre con una introducción histórica, no heleno ni eurocéntrica, en la que se reinterpretan los sistemas éticos en la historia mundial, hasta situar la problemática en la Modernidad dentro del sistema-mundo como proceso de globalización que simultáneamente excluye a la mayoría de la humanidad. En la primera parte se aborda una crítica a las morales formales (Kant, Rawls, Apel, Habermas) desde un principio material o de contenido con pretensión de universalidad; el deber de producir, reproducir y desarrollar (...) la vida humana en comunidad. El principio de factibilidad ética, por su parte, permite que el cumplimiento del acto, institución o sistema de eticidad pueda tener la pretensión de bondad. En la segunda parte, desde la imposibilidad de que dicho acto, institución o sistema de eticidad «buenos» pueda tener pretensión de perfección acabada, se descubren los que «sufren» en su corporalidad vulnerable la imposibilidad de vivir, el hecho de ser excluidos. Se trata de las víctimas, al decir de Marx, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Freud o Lévinas. Desde las víctimas comienza propiamente el discurso de la Ética de la Liberación, en su nivel negativo material (deben poder vivir), en el principio discursivo crítico (deben poder participar en la argumentación), todo lo cual culmina en el principio crítico negativo de la factibilidad: el principio-liberación que inspira las transformaciones con pretensión de justicia. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the peculiar case of infectious logics, a group of systems obtained generalizing the semantic behavior characteristic of the -fragment of the logics of nonsense, such as the ones due to Bochvar and Halldén, among others. Here, we extend these logics with classical negations, and we furthermore show that some of these extended systems can be properly regarded as logics of formal inconsistency and logics of formal undeterminedness.

The unlivable is the most extreme point of human suffering and injustice. But what is it exactly? How do we define the unlivable? And what can we do to prevent and repair it? These are the intriguing questions Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms discuss in a captivating dialogue situated at the crossroads of contemporary life and politics. Here, Judith Butler criticizes the norms that make life precarious and unlivable, while Frédéric Worms appeals to a "critical vitalism" as a way of (...) allowing the hardship of the unlivable to reveal what is vital for us. For both Butler and Worms, the difference between the livable and the unlivable forms the critical foundation for a contemporary practice of care. Care and support, in all their aspects, make human life livable, that is, "more than living." To understand it, we must draw on the concrete practices of humans who are confronted with the unlivable: the refugees of today and the witnesses and survivors of past violations and genocide. They teach us what is intolerable but also undeniable about the unlivable, and what we can do to resist it. Crafted with critical rigor, mutual respect, and lively humor, the compelling dialogue transcribed and translated in this book took place at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) on April 11, 2018, at a time when close to two thousand migrants were living in nearby makeshift camps in northern Paris. The Livable and the Unlivable showcases this 2018 dialogue in the context of Butler's and Worms's ongoing work and the evolution of their thought, as presented by Laure Barillas and Arto Charpentier in their equally engaging introduction. It concludes with a new afterword that addresses the crises unfolding in our world and the ways a philosophically rigorous account of life must confront them. While this book will be of keen interest to readers of philosophy and cultural criticism, and those interested in vitalism, new materialism, and critical theory, it is a far from merely academic text. In the conversation between Butler and Worms, we encounter questions we all grapple with in confronting the distress and precarity of our times, marked as it is by types of survival that are unlivable, from concentration camps to prisons to environmental toxicity, to forcible displacement, to the Covid pandemic. The Livable and the Unlivable at once considers longstanding philosophical questions around why and how we live, while working to retrieve a philosophy of life for today's Left. (shrink)

La logique classique, qui repose sur trois principes fondamentaux (d'identité, de non-contradiction et de tiers-exclu), a pu séduire par son efficacité orientée vers l'être, elle permet d'appréhender la cohérence du réel, donc de développer les savoirs. Pour autant, sa puissance s'avère limitée dans certaines situations des limitations internes des formalismes à l'apparition de nouveaux objets paradoxaux, la science du XXe siècle a été confrontée à une crise de ses fondements dont elle n'est pas encore sortie. Or, s'affranchir de ce qui (...) vient en nous entraver la pensée a été un enjeu pour des courants soucieux de fonder leur rigueur démonstrative sur un au-delà de l'être. Dans la lignée de l'hénologie néoplatonicienne, ces modes d'explication ont néanmoins souvent été jugés irrationnels, mystiques ou simplement absurdes. À l'aide des logiques non standards contemporaines, c'est une étude systémique de ces positions qui est ici envisagée à travers la critique de l'hégémonie des trois grands principes logiques grâce à la logique intuitionniste, il devient possible de construire rigoureusement la notion de néant suressentiel; grâce aux logiques paraconsistantes, les contradictions et les paradoxes qu'une telle dialectique engendre perdent leur caractère irrationnel; enfin, grâce aux traditions logiques indiennes et japonaises, le principe d'identité peut lui-même être questionné. Cette remise en cause radicale de nos certitudes les mieux ancrées permet ultimement de dégager de nouvelles perspectives à la pensée logique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

'Peut-être que putain tu as juste un peu besoin de te calmer/calm the fuck down. Je m'appelle Jenny et j'offre des services de coaching stoïcien avec juste un tantinet de grossièreté/dash of profanity/et des résultats', lance sur son site promotionnel avec sa photo souriante en noir-et-blanc une jeune 'coach' à lunettes. 'En tant que coach, annonce un autre du même âge qui pose avec un livre à la main doctus cum libro, j'apporte l'expertise d'un praticien stoïcien professionnel ainsi que la (...) connaissance de la façon dont le cerveau apprend de nouvelles informations. Avec huit ans de pratique stoïcienne quotidienne, je suis le témoignage vivant de son succès. C'est ma passion d'armer les gens avec les techniques mentales pour vivre une vie pleine et calme/full and calm life!' Le néo-stoïcisme est en vogue auprès de la jeunesse, élixir d'endurance pour époque tourmentée. Ce nouveau courant est-il fidèle au geste cynique initial qui inspira jadis Zénon, Cléanthe, et Chrysippe? Fournit-il des réponses adaptées à la dictature écologique qui vient, au culte de la guerre, aux fantasmes du transhumanisme? Il donne en tout cas ici l'occasion d'un retour sur 2300 ans d'histoire d'une philosophie de la liberté humaine, en des temps où celle-ci est de plus en plus déniée"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The Positive Evolution of Religion CHAPTEB I ORTHODOX CRITICISM IT may surprise not a few, but it is certainly true that on general principles, in spirit, ...

Comment Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, auteur d'ouvrages sur la philosophie allemande et la "mentalité primitive", peut-il éclairer les enjeux des sciences sociales aujourd'hui? Pour actualiser cette grande figure de la Troisième République, il faut repenser les liens entre le socialisme français et le système colonial à partir de l'affaire Dreyfus. Celle-ci mit à l'épreuve la thèse de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl sur la responsabilité et le conduisit à étudier les formes d'anticipation de l'avenir dans les sociétés sans État. À partir d'archives inédites et d'une (...) hypothèse théorique nouvelle, ce livre retrace les engagements de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, du soutien des ouvriers au cours de la Première Guerre mondiale à l'aide aux exilés juifs dans les années 1930, et replace l'ethnologie parmi d'autres sciences de la vigilance, comme les statistiques et l'épidémiologie. Il montre ainsi que l'étude des sociétés éloignées permet à la nôtre de se préparer aux catastrophes à partir de l'observation des sentinelles."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation (...) to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. (shrink)

L'expérience esthétique est la voie de la phénoménologie ; c'est du moins ce qu'établit Dufrenne avec une profondeur inégalée. Cette expérience est décrite de façon novatrice selon une phénoménologie du sentiment, qui est le fil conducteur de cette philosophie. La réduction - devenue dès lors réduction esthétique - conduit à l'essence de la manifestation et se prolonge en une réduction cosmologique : le monde se trouve conquis en sa figure originaire, la Nature, qui est pensée comme source ou matrice universelle. (...) L'esthétique enveloppe en outre une réflexion sur l'imagination, l'image et l'imaginaire, comme sur la beauté, marquant l'une des originalités de la perspective dufrennienne. Les percées ontologiques réalisées débouchent alors sur une cosmo-esthétique qui se prolonge en une cosmopoétique. Il s'agit à la fois de concevoir l'appartenance de l'homme au monde, qui le précède et l'excède, ainsi que la différence subjective, puisqu'il est capable de le percevoir. Cette philosophie définit la Nature comme Infini expressif - esthétique et poétique -, et montre que l'homme est appelé à vivre poétiquement, les exigences éthiques et politiques étant nouées à l'esthétique, où le sens de l'humain s'atteste."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

'A very welcome compendium on the wide range of research methods available for economists and social scientists more generally. Highly recommended, particularly for those wishing to explore alternative methods to be applied in all fields of economic analy.

This book is a guide to working with social science concepts. Concepts are the prisms through which we see the social world. They are foundational to the social science enterprise, and the quality of investigations hinges in part on how well researchers make use of them. Most social science concepts are drawn from ordinary language used in everyday ways; however, many social scientists "reconfigure" ordinary words to meet their research needs. They tinker with the meanings of words to fit their (...) theoretical aims and make them precise, useful tools of measurement and comparison. This book examines social science concepts through an interpretivist lens with the aim of providing concrete conceptual guidance for future research. Specifically, this book seeks to: 1) identify characteristic dangers that attend the making and use of reconfigured concepts; 2) lay out ways in which a select number of interpretivist approaches have been used to mitigate these dangers; 3) introduce practical tools that rework these interpretivist approaches into explicit and useable research methods; 4) show concretely how these elucidation tools can be gainfully used by social scientists working both within and outside of the interpretivist tradition. It will be an essential guide for social science research. (shrink)

Excerpt from John Stuart Mill Not only is the language of the Liberty somewhat vague in defining the respective limits of 'persuasion and 'coer cion, ' but the practical illustrations of lawful restrictions by the State seem at times hardly consistent with so abso lute a doctrine. It is somewhat startling, after such tren chant assertion of the absolute freedom of the individual. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com (...) This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This book develops John Dewey's broad conception of social conflict as a natural process of discovery and preference adjustment, resolving Kenneth Arrow's famous theorem of the impossibility of ordering diverse preferences through voting. It addresses the nature and resolution of today's urgent problems and political polarization.

Esta obra aborda el tema de la libertad, como el problema número uno de nuestro tiempo, junto al desarrollo.

Al hilo de los testimonios y las entrevistas, las biografías y el análisis de la obra de figuras cardinales como Isaiah Berlin, Jorge Luis Borges, Leszek Kolakowski, Hugh Thomas, Paul Kennedy o John Elliott, Travesía liberal ofrece las claves para comprender los vaivenes de la historia, desde la España imperial hasta el 11-S, y arrojar nueva luz en el inquietante comienzo del siglo xx. Sólo un historiador como Enrique Krauze podía vertebrar episodios tan alejados en el tiempo y en la (...) geografía como el movimiento neozapatista y el Holocausto, la Revolución de Terciopelo y el humanismo indigenista o el conflicto árabe-israelí... El rigor y la brillantez analítica que caracterizan las obras de Krauze confluyen en este volumen, en el que poco a poco se perfila no sólo la travesía de la humanidad a lo largo de los siglos, sino también la andadura intelectual del autor. (shrink)

Attempts to lay a foundation for the sciences based on modern mathematics are questioned. In particular, it is not clear that computer science should be based on set-theoretic mathematics. Set-theoretic mathematics has difficulties with its own foundations, making it reasonable to explore alternative foundations for the sciences. The role of computation within an alternative framework may prove to be of great potential in establishing a direction for the new field of computer science.Whitehead''s theory of reality is re-examined as a foundation (...) for the sciences. His theory does not simply attempt to add formal rigor to the sciences, but instead relies on the methods of the biological and social sciences to construct his world-view. Whitehead''s theory is a rich source of notions that are intended to explain every element of experience. It is a product of Whitehead''s earlier attempt to provide a mathematical foundation for the physical sciences and is still consistent with modern physics. (shrink)

Cet article commente une lettre de jeunesse d’un Hume qui traverse une grave dépression nerveuse. Cet épisode pourtant n’a rien d’anecdotique, parce que Hume y théorise déjà le rapport entre la mélancolie, diagnostiquée à l’époque comme la maladie des lettrés, et sa manière de philosopher.