Conflict and harmony -- The disunity of science -- The abundance of nature -- Dehumanizing humans.

This chapter contains section titled: Suggested Reading.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction From Slavoj Žizžek, For They Know Not What They Do From Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter From Luce Irigaray, “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine” From Luce Irigaray, “Veiled Lips” From Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of the Simulacra” From Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time‐Image Suggested Reading.

Qu'il s'agisse de recherche ou d'enseignement, la création artistique interpelle autant les théoriciens que les praticiens. Abordée selon diverses approches, la démarche de création révèle des perspectives de recherche multiples. Grâce aux contributions de plusieurs chercheurs, enseignants, artistes et médiateurs d'institutions culturelles, cet ouvrage participe à un changement de paradigme, où les rapports entre créateurs-enseignants-étudiants-chercheurs tracent désormais de nouveaux réseaux et de nouvelles perspectives.

The present study was aimed at investigating whether and how the explicit representation of the decision outcome, framed in terms of lives saved or lost, could affect decision choices, emotional experience, and decision times in the course of a moral dilemma task. Decision outcomes were framed in a between-group design by means of smiling or injured faces depicting, respectively, the lives saved or lost with each choice. A control condition with no frame and no outcome was included. Results showed that (...) behavioral choices were highly resistant to the framing manipulation in both dilemma types. However, an overall reduction in the number of utilitarian choices and in the decision times, associated with an increase in unpleasantness during decision-making, was found, suggesting a progressive increase in aversive emotional activation favoring the rejection of utilitarian resolutions. Interestingly, at the beginning of the task, the POS group showed a delay in decision times as compared with the NOF group, specifically for footbridge-type dilemmas. This result might be interpreted as an interference effect temporarily slowing decision-making during the resolution of dilemmas in which the internal representation is spontaneously focused on the personal cost of causing intentional harm to others. (shrink)

Philosopher, physicist, and anarchist Paul Feyerabend was one of the most unconventional scholars of his time. His book Against Method has become a modern classic. Yet it is not well known that Feyerabend spent many years working on a philosophy of nature that was intended to comprise three volumes covering the period from the earliest traces of stone age cave paintings to the atomic physics of the 20th century – a project that, as he conveyed in a letter (...) to Imre Lakatos, almost drove him nuts: “Damn the,Naturphilosophie.” The book’s manuscript was long believed to have been lost. Recently, however, a typescript constituting the first volume of the project was unexpectedly discovered at the University of Konstanz. In this volume Feyerabend explores the significance of myths for the early period of natural philosophy, as well as the transition from Homer’s “aggregate universe” to Parmenides’ uniform ontology. He focuses on the rise of rationalism in Greek antiquity, which he considers a disastrous development, and the associated separation of man from nature. Thus Feyerabend explores the prehistory of science in his familiar polemical and extraordinarily learned manner. The volume contains numerous pictures and drawings by Feyerabend himself. It also contains hitherto unpublished biographical material that will help to round up our overall image of one of the most influential radical philosophers of the twentieth century. (shrink)

First comprehensive collection of Feyerabend's philosophy of quantum physics, the hotbed of all key issues of his most debated ideas.

Bd. 1. Der wissenschaftstheoretische Realismus und die Autorität der Wissenschaften -- Bd. 2. Probleme des Empirismus.

Die Aufsätze in diesem Band befassen sich mit gewissen Aspekten der Rolle der Wissenschaften in unserer Kultur. Im ersten Teil wird gefragt, ob die Wissenschaft einen Beitrag zu unserem Weltbild leisten kann, oder ob sie einzig dazu taugt, Voraussagen zu machen oder Erfahrungen zu ordnen in einer Welt, deren Züge durch andere überlegungen bereits festgelegt sind. Im zweiten Teil wird gefragt, ob die Methoden und Ergebnisse der Wissen schaft wirklich die immense Autorität haben, die man ihnen heute zuschreibt. Die Antwort (...) auf die erste Frage lautet: die Wissenschaft kann eine Kosmolo gie im vollen Sinne des Wortes sein, sie ist in dieser Hinsicht der Religion, der Philosophie, dem Alltagsdenken, dem Mythos sicher nicht untergeordnet. Ich erreiche diese Antwort auf dem Umweg über die Diskussion eines Problems, das in der Literatur den etwas pompösen Namen 'Das Problem der Existenz theoreti scher Entitäten' erhalten hat. Die Antwort auf die zweite Frage lautet: die Wissenschaft ist anderen Ideolo gien aber auch nicht übergeordnet, sie hat keine höhere Autorität als jene. Diese Antwort erhalte ich in zwei Schritten. Erstens durch eine Kritik der Wissenschafts theorie, wo man ja zeigen will, warum die Wissenschaft so hervorragt. Zweitens durch eine Kritik der von den Wissenschaften selbst gemachten Ansprüche. (shrink)

The Description for this book, Machiavelli in Hell, will be forthcoming.

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

Introduction: Advantageous effects of biological motion detection, a low-perceptual mechanism that allows the rapid recognition and understanding of spatiotemporal characteristics of movement via salient kinematics information, can be amplified when combined with motor imagery, i.e., the mental simulation of motor acts. According to Jeannerod’s neurostimulation theory, asynchronous firing and reduction of mu and beta rhythm oscillations, referred to as suppression over the sensorimotor area, are sensitive to both MI and action observation of BM. Yet, not many studies investigated the use (...) of BM stimuli using combined AO-MI tasks. In this study, we assessed the neural response in the form of event-related synchronization and desynchronization patterns following the observation of point-light-walkers and concordant MI, as compared to MI alone.Methods: Twenty right-handed healthy participants accomplished the experimental task by observing BM stimuli and subsequently performing the same movement using kinesthetic MI. We recorded an electroencephalogram with 32 channels and performed time-frequency analysis on alpha and beta frequency bands during the MI task. A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to test statistical significance among conditions and electrodes of interest.Results: The results revealed significant ERD/S patterns in the alpha frequency band between conditions and electrode positions. Post hoc comparisons showed significant differences between condition 1 and condition 3 over the left primary motor cortex. For the beta band, a significantly less difference in ERD patterns was detected only between condition 3 and condition 4.Discussion: Our results confirmed that the observation of BM combined with MI elicits a neural suppression, although just in the case of jumping. This is in line with previous findings of AO and MI eliciting a neural suppression for simulated whole-body movements. In the last years, increasing evidence started to support the integration of AOMI training as an adjuvant neurorehabilitation tool in Parkinson’s disease.Conclusion: We concluded that using BM stimuli in AOMI training could be promising, as it promotes attention to kinematic features and imitative motor learning. (shrink)

1. Preambolo In qualsiasi conversazione a tavola se provo a chiedere ai commensali se c’è una differenza tra moneta e denaro, dopo una prima perplessità e una certa sorpresa per la domanda, quasi tutti dicono sì, ma poi trovano difficile spiegare in che cosa si distinguano. Un dato però è certo: tutti pensano che una qualche diversità vi sia. Un secondo quesito potrebbe essere invece posto a chi come me ha intrapreso un’indagine per comprendere le caratteristiche e la natura di (...) tale differenz... (shrink)

Paul Feyerabend's globally acclaimed work, which sparked and continues to stimulate fierce debate, examines the deficiencies of many widespread ideas about scientific progress and the nature of knowledge. Feyerabend argues that scientific advances can only be understood in a historical context. He looks at the way the philosophy of science has consistently overemphasized practice over method, and considers the possibility that anarchism could replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge. -- Amazon.com.

No study in the philosophy of science created such controversy in the seventies as Paul Feyerabend's Against Method. In this work, Feyerabend reviews that controversy, and extends his critique beyond the problem of scientific rules and methods, to the social function and direction of science today. In the first part of the book, he launches a sustained and irreverent attack on the prestige of science in the West. The lofty authority of the "expert" claimed by scientists is, he (...) argues, incompatible with any genuine democracy, and often merely serves to conceal entrenched prejudices and divided opinions with the scientific community itself. Feyerabend insists that these can and should be subjected to the arbitration of the lay population, whose closes interests they constantly affect—as struggles over atomic energy programs so powerfully attest. Calling for far greater diversity in the content of education to facilitate democratic decisions over such issues, Feyerabend recounts the origin and development of his own ideas—successively engaged by Brecht, Ehrenhaft, Popper, Mill and Lakatos—in a spirited intellectual self-portrait. Science in a Free Society is a striking intervention into one of the most topical debates in contemporary culture and politics. (shrink)

Go to John Cantwell’s response to the original paper from here › Go to Grazia Ietto-Gillies’ original paper from here ›.