L’intérêt et l’originalité de l’humanisme merleau-pontien consiste à mes yeux dans sa mise en lumière du dévoilement de l’origine refoulée de l’homme dans le registre de l’art et de l’expression du corps en général. Merleau-Ponty a su percevoir exemplairement ce mouvement de récursion vers l’inhumain dans l’oeuvre de Cézanne. « Je vous dois la vérité en peinture disait Cézanne ». Cézanne nous donne en effet la vérité de l’hominisation en peinture. Nul mieux que Merleau-Ponty nous permet d’entendre encore aujourd’hui la (...) voix de Cézanne. Il nous permet de fonder sur l’écho de cette voix un nouvel humanisme, un humanisme qui garde en mémoire l’inhumain, qui lève le refoulement mais sans le supprimer, tout comme l’artiste présente l’invisible du visible et tout comme le philosophe décrit la profondeur de l’être. Cet humanisme de la surrection est celui de l’apparition de l’homme à lui-même dans la constellation hasardeuse des signes et dans l’adversité du non-sens, à égale distance de l’humanisme sans vergogne des aînés de Merleau-Ponty et de l’antihumanisme postmoderne de ses cadets.The interest and originality of Merleau-Ponty’s humanism lie, in my view, in the unveiling of the repressed origin of humanity in the domain of art and the expression of the body more generally. Merleau-Ponty was able to perceive an example of this recursive movement toward the inhuman in Cézanne’s works. “I owe you the truth in painting,” said Cézanne. In effect, Cézanne gives us the truth of humanization in painting. None better than Merleau-Ponty allows us to hear Cézanne’s voice today. Through the echo of this voice, he allows us to found a new humanism, a humanism that bears the memory of the inhuman, that lifts up the repressed but without effacing it, all while presenting us with the invisible in the visible and exposing the profundity of the human being. This humanism of upheaval is that of the appearance of humanity to itself in a hazardous constellation of signs and in the adversity of non-sense set in equal distance from the shameless humanism of Merleau-Ponty’s predecessors and the postmodern antihumanism of those who came after him.L’interesse e l’originalità dell’umanismo merleau-pontyano consiste ai nostri occhi nella sua capacità di disvelare l’origine rimossa dell’uomo nella dimensione dell’arte e dell’espressione corporea in generale. Merleau-Ponty ha saputo percepire esemplarmente questo movimento di ritorno e di ricorso all’inumano nell’opera di Cézanne. “Je vous dois la vérité en peinture”, affermava Cézanne. Egli ci restituisce, in pittura, la verità dell’ominazione. Ancor oggi nessuno meglio di Merleau-Ponty ci consente di intendere la voce di Cézanne. Merleau-Ponty ci consente di fondare sull’eco di quella voce un nuovo umanismo, un umanismo che conserva memoria dell’inumano, che innalza il rimosso senza sopprimerlo, proprio come l’artista presenta l’invisibile del visibile, e il filosofo descrive la profondità dell’essere. Quest’umanismo della “surrezione” è l’umanismo dell’apparizione dell’uomo a se stesso nella costellazione aleatoria dei segni e nell’avversità del non-senso come rimosso, un umanismo che si pone a uguale distanza dall’umanismo senza vergogna dei predecessori di Merleau-Ponty e dell’anti-umanismo postmoderno dei suoi successori. (shrink)

A travers la lecture du Visible et de l ‘Invisible, Guy-Félix Duportail se propose de montrer que la notion de chair connaît une structure topologique que l’on peut expliciter sous la forme de trois principes élémentaires : indivision, division, et réversibilité. Ceux-ci constituent l’infrastructure oubliée de la conscience et forment un inconscient phénoménologique (l’invisible- du visible). De plus, ces trois principes de la chair possèdent une signification· ontologique_ Dire que ľêtre est charnel, c’est ipso facto reconnaître la médiation nécessaire (...) d’ un troisième terme qui modifie le lien entre l’Être et le Néant. Ce troisième terme est ľ ouverture qui apparaît dans les phénomènes comme béance et qui s’apparente à l’objet du désir. L’ontologie de Merleau- Ponty dépasse ainsi la philosophie de la conscience de Husserl et de Sartre, de même que l’ontologie désincarnée de Heidegger. (shrink)

« Le moment topologique » désigne la référence commune à la topologie faite par de nombreux auteurs dans les années soixante (Merleau-Ponty, Lacan, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida). Dans le paradigme phénoménologique, il conditionna deux réponses antonymes : d’un côté, chez Merleau-Ponty, il ouvrit la voie vers une nouvelle réduction, d’un autre côté, chez Derrida, il permit une rupture d’avec le cadre méthodologique de la phénoménologie. C’est pourtant le dépassement de cette opposition qui est ici proposé.

« Le moment topologique » désigne la référence commune à la topologie faite par de nombreux auteurs dans les années soixante . Dans le paradigme phénoménologique, il conditionna deux réponses antonymes : d’un côté, chez Merleau-Ponty, il ouvrit la voie vers une nouvelle réduction, d’un autre côté, chez Derrida, il permit une rupture d’avec le cadre méthodologique de la phénoménologie. C’est pourtant le dépassement de cette opposition qui est ici proposé.« The topological moment » denotes the common reference to topology (...) developed by numerous authors during the 1960’s . In the phenomenological paradigm, it created two antonymous responses : on one side, Merleau-Ponty paved the way for a new reduction, on the other side, Derrida facilitated a break from the methodical framework of phenomenology. However, this article proposes to move beyond this opposition. (shrink)

A partir du double constat d’une carence de statut et d’une crise de sens de la topologie lacanienne du nœud borroméen, nous tenterons d’expliciter le sens phénoménologique de ce nœud. Réduit à son essence, le nœud borroméen est composé de points et de trous. Or ces trous sont le résultat de mouvements expérimentables sur un mode affectif et charnel. La pul- sion, le désir, l’amour, constituent en effet la matière phénoménale du nœud borroméen. Avec Husserl, Merleau-Ponty et Patočka, nous montrerons (...) que la Terre originaire et immobile cons- titue l’ancrage de tous ces mouvements. Les mouvements-nœuds de la vie affective reçoivent alors une signification ontologique. Ils sont autant de variantes du mouvement primordial vers l’être. (shrink)

It is question in this text of analyzing the intention to mean something to somebody in the light of the husserlian concept of intentionality. The communication is described there as aiming at the cooperation between the persons by means of ostensive appearance of some of their intentions, on the foundation of the desire of recognition. The constituent role of the communication for any Community is put in it in evidence.

Il s’agit dans ces lignes de montrer comment, à partir de ses propres prémisses, la psychanalyse lacanienne est confrontée au problème de l’ineffabilité de la structure du langage. Cette question est loin d’être mineure, car elle engage la compréhension du « jeu de langage » de la psychanalyse, ainsi que l’élucidation ultime de son rapport à la philosophie.

In his latest work, Force-Pulsion-Désir, Rudolf Bernet seeks to clarify one of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, that of “drive.” He engages such authorsas Aristotle, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Freud, Husserl, Nietzsche and Lacan to better elucidate philosophically the sense of the concept of drive. The work’s argument thushighlights a kind of destiny of drive: the first moment concerns the dynamic aspect of the drive, that of force; the second is that of drive taken in its essence and truth;the third is that (...) of desire which prolongs and sublimates the drive. The path followed in this book thus goes from the non-human to the human or, if one prefers, fromnature to subject, and interrogates their interpenetration. In contrast to naturalism and historicism, Rudolf Bernet chooses to read Freud in a resolutely philosophical way, in a way that at the same time challenges our perception of the relation between philosophy and psychoanalysis. The epistemic stakes are high. Without claiming to address every implication, we briefly retrace here the overall trajectory. (shrink)

Mon corps est-il un objet parmi d'autres dans l'espace ou bien crée-t-il l'étendue qu'il perçoit jusqu'à l'écho des étoiles? À quelle spatialité suis-je assujetti pour être relié de l'intérieur au monde et aux autres corps qui m'entourent? Les dimensions de l'espace sont-elles des coordonnées de la matière morte ou sont-elles des variations modales de mon esprit? C'est à la découverte de la spatialité du corps vivant que nous invite Guy-Félix Duportail dans son Analytique de la chair. il nous apprend, (...) entre autres, que la phénoménologie et la psychanalyse se rencontrent en ces lieux de la chair suivant des principes topologiques communs. Guy-Félix Duportail dessine le schéma intérieur de la subjectivité comme se donnant à l'extérieur, dans le monde. La subjectivité incarnée se retourne comme un gant et se retrouve ainsi exposée au-dehors, dans son sinthome, comme disait Lacan, dans son implexe, comme disait Merleau-Ponty. Dans tous les cas, elle se réalise dans une création réparatrice de son mal-être. L'immanence est donc dans la transcendance, et l'espace-temps se réfléchit dans la chair, dans les tourbillons de sa jouissance. La présente Analytique de la chair révèle qu'un corps sans organes (Deleuze et Guattari) est certes moins qu'un noeud, mais demeure plus qu'un emmêlement, et qu'une chair sublime mais sans corps (Levinas, Henry) ne fait du visage qu'un masque, et de la Vie glorieuse du Moi qu'un éloge de la pulsion de mort. (shrink)

Luck threatens in similar ways our conceptions of both moral and epistemic evaluation. This essay examines the problem of luck as a metaphilosophical problem spanning the division between subfields in philosophy. I first explore the analogies between ethical and epistemic luck by comparing influential attempts to expunge luck from our conceptions of agency in these two subfields. I then focus upon Duncan Pritchard's challenge to the motivations underlying virtue epistemology, based specifically on its handling of the problem of epistemic luck. (...) I argue that (1) consideration of the multifold nature of the problem of epistemic luck to an adequate account of human knowledge drives us to a mixed externalist epistemology; and (2) the virtue-theoretical approach presents a particularly advantageous way of framing and developing a mixed externalist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Metaphilosophy is the property of Blackwell Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts). (shrink)

In 1907, Alfred Stieglitz took what was to become one of his signature photographs, The Steerage. Stieglitz stood at the rear of the ocean liner Kaiser Wilhelm II and photographed the decks, first-class passengers above and steerage passengers below, carefully exposing the film to their reflected light. Later, in the darkroom, Stieglitz developed this film and made a number of prints from the resulting negative. The photograph is a familiar one, an enduring piece of social commentary, but what exactly is (...) The Steerage which Stieglitz has given us? It is clearer what The Steerage is not. It is distinct from each of its prints and from its negative. These may be dusty or torn without The Steerage being so, and any one of these could be destroyed without thereby destroying The Steerage itself. Nor is The Steerage the set of its prints. The set could not have had different members, while The Steerage could have had more, fewer, or different prints.1 Similar reasoning rules out the mereological sum of parts of its actual prints, for The Steerage’s prints might not have comprised just these parts. We are left with a puzzle, what sort of thing is a photograph? This puzzle is not unique to photography. Similar reasoning generates an analogous puzzle for any repeatable work of art. Novels, poems, plays, symphonies, songs, and the rest share an ontological predicament and create a 1 general puzzle concerning the ontological status of repeatable works of art. It is widely held that the puzzle has an equally general solution, one which I will argue fails for systematic reasons. Although my target here is the supposed solution to the general problem, photography will remain the central case under scrutiny. I offer it as a model for our thinking about the wider class in order to reap the benefits of thinking in terms of concrete cases. Although this risks a trade-off with the generality of my conclusions—there are important differences of detail between the cases—I hope it is clear that the considerations I appeal to in photography are not idiosyncratic but shared by the wider class.. (shrink)

Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several general arguments supporting the centrality of perceptual representations to concepts. In this article, I identify a number of weaknesses in these arguments and defend a multiple semantic code approach that posits both perceptual and non-perceptual representations.

While all agree that score compliance in performance is valuable, the source of this value is unclear. Questions about what authenticity requires crowd out questions about our reasons to be compliant in the first place, perhaps because they seem trivial or uninteresting. I argue that such reasons cannot be understood as ordinary aesthetic, instrumental, epistemic, or moral reasons. Instead, we treat considerations of score compliance as having a kind of final value, one which requires further explanation. Taking as a model (...) the Humean account of fidelity as an artificial virtue, I sketch a practice-theoretic account of the nature and source of such reasons, one on which we can say that they are, after all, aesthetic, but only indirectly so. (shrink)

Inductive characterizations of the sets of terms, the subset of strongly normalizing terms and normal forms are studied in order to reprove weak and strong normalization for the simply-typed λ-calculus and for an extension by sum types with permutative conversions. The analogous treatment of a new system with generalized applications inspired by generalized elimination rules in natural deduction, advocated by von Plato, shows the flexibility of the approach which does not use the strong computability/candidate style à la Tait and Girard. (...) It is also shown that the extension of the system with permutative conversions by η-rules is still strongly normalizing, and likewise for an extension of the system of generalized applications by a rule of ``immediate simplification''. By introducing an infinitely branching inductive rule the method even extends to Gödel's T. (shrink)

Saul Kripke has claimed that there are necessary connections between material things and their material origins. The usual defences of such necessity of origin theses appeal to either a sufficiency of origin principle or a branching-times model of necessity. In this paper we offer a different defence. Our argument proceeds from more modest ‘independence principles’, which govern the processes by which material objects are produced. Independence principles are motivated, in turn, by appeal to a plausible metaphysical principle governing such processes, (...) their invulnerability to non-local prevention. We outline the new argument, and distinguish it from both of the usual defences. (shrink)

The appealing idea that knowledge is best understood as a kind of achievement faces significant criticisms, among them Matthew Chrisman’s charge that the whole project rests on a kind of ontological category mistake. Chrisman argues that while knowledge and belief are states, the kind of normativity found in, for example, Sosa’s famous ‘Triple-A’ structure of assessment is only applicable to performances, end-directed events that unfold over time, and never to states. What is overlooked, both by Chrisman and those he criticizes, (...) is a whole range of projects, those like friendship, health, marriage, and sobriety, where the end is not distinct from our pursuit of it. I suggest that such ‘inner projects’ are in fact stative achievements and thus provide a different sort of model for thinking about knowledge as an achievement. Reconceiving the project along these lines also helps to solve another outstanding problem, the charge that being an achievement is not necessary for knowledge because some knowledge, especially testimonial knowledge, is come by with little or no effort. (shrink)

Many believe that severe intellectual impairment, blindness or dying young amount to serious harm and disadvantage. It is also increasingly denied that it matters, from a moral point of view, whether something is biologically normal to humans. We show that these two claims are in serious tension. It is hard explain how, if we do not ascribe some deep moral significance to human nature or biological normality, we could distinguish severe intellectual impairment or blindness from the vast list of seemingly (...) innocent ways in which we fail to have as much wellbeing as we could, such not having super-intelligence, or not living to 130. We consider a range of attempts to draw this intuitive normative distinction without appealing to normality. These, we argue, all fail. But this doesn't mean that we cannot draw this distinction or that we must, implausibly, conclude that biological normality does possess an inherent moral importance. We argue that, despite appearances, it is not biological normality but rather statistical normality that, although lacking any intrinsic moral significance, nevertheless makes an important moral difference in ways that explain and largely justify the intuitive distinction. (shrink)

Much seems to be at stake in metaphysical questions about, for example, God, free will or morality. One thing that could be at stake is the value of the universe we inhabit—how good or bad it is. We can think of competing philosophical positions as describing possibilities, ways the world might turn out to be, and to which value can be assigned. When, for example, people hope that God exists, or fear that we do not possess free will, they express (...) attitudes towards these possibilities, attitudes that presuppose answers to questions about their comparative value. My aim in this paper is to distinguish these evaluative questions from related questions with which they can be confused, to identify structural constraints on their proper pursuit, and to address objections to their very coherence. Answers to such evaluative questions offer one measure of the importance of philosophical disputes. (shrink)

When is an artwork complete? Most hold that the correct answer to this question is psychological in nature. A work is said to be complete just in case the artist regards it as complete or is appropriately disposed to act as if he or she did. Even though this view seems strongly supported by metaphysical, epistemological, and normative considerations, this article argues that such psychologism about completeness is mistaken, fundamentally, because it cannot make sense of the artist's own perspective on (...) his or her work. For the artist, the question is not about his or her own psychology, but about the character of the work and the context in which he or she works. A nonpsychological account of completeness, on which completeness is a question of whether the work satisfies the conditions implicit in the artist's plan, avoids this problem and is equally or better able to explain the metaphysical, epistemic, and normative phenomena which appeared to support psychologism. (shrink)

Several authors have suggested that we cannot fully grapple with the ethics of human enhancement unless we address neglected questions about our place in the world, questions that verge on theology but can be pursued independently of religion. A prominent example is Michael Sandel, who argues that the deepest objection to enhancement is that it expresses a Promethean drive to mastery which deprives us of openness to the unbidden and leaves us with nothing to affirm outside our own wills. Sandel's (...) argument against enhancement has been criticized, but his claims about mastery and the unbidden, and their relation to religion, have not yet received sufficient attention. I argue that Sandel misunderstands the notions of mastery and the unbidden and their significance. Once these notions are properly understood, they have surprising implications. It turns out that the value of openness to the unbidden is not just independent of theism, as Sandel claims, but is in fact not even fully compatible with it. But in any case that value cannot support Sandel's objection to enhancement. This is because it is not enhancement but certain forms of opposition to enhancement that are most likely to express a pernicious drive to mastery. (shrink)

A New Route to the Necessity of Origin’ (2004, henceforth ‘NR’), we offered an argument for the thesis that there are necessary connections between material things and their material origins. Much of the philosophical interest lay in our claim that the argument did not depend on so-called sufficiency principles for crossworld identity. It has been the verdict of much recent work on the necessity of origin that valid arguments for the thesis require some such sufficiency principle as a premise but (...) that such principles are deeply problematic.1 Finding an argument free of such principles would advance both our understanding and the plausibility of that thesis. These claims are now the subject of a pair of insightful critiques by Teresa Robertson and Graeme Forbes (2006, henceforth ‘RF’) and by Ross Cameron and Sonia Roca (2006, henceforth ‘CR’), and we welcome the opportunity to clarify and improve our account of the matter. (shrink)

The search for the best wellness practice has promoted the development of devices integrating different technologies and guided meditation. However, the final effects on the electrical activity of the brain remain relatively sparse. Here, we have analyzed of the alpha and theta electroencephalographic oscillations during the realization of the arrest reaction when a chromotherapy session performed in a dedicated room [Rebalance device], with an ergonomic bed integrating pulsed-wave light stimulation, guided breathing, and body scan exercises. We demonstrated that the PWL (...) induced an evoked-related potential characterized by the N2-P3 components maximally recorded on the fronto-central areas and accompanied by an event-related synchronization of the delta–theta–alpha oscillations. The power of the alpha and theta oscillations was analyzed during repeated ARs testing realized along with the whole RB session. We showed that the power of the alpha and theta oscillations was significantly increased during the session in comparison to their values recorded before. Of the 14 participants, 11 and 6 showed a significant power increase of the alpha and theta oscillations, respectively. These increased powers were not observed in two different control groups who stayed passively outside or inside the RB room but without any type of stimulation. These preliminary results suggest that PWL chromotherapy and guided relaxation induce measurable electrical brain changes that could be beneficial under neuropsychiatric perspectives. (shrink)

We live in times where it is possible to control our emotions using biomedical means – for example by taking pills that make us feel better. This chapter discusses one worry about the biomedical enhancement of mood. It is a worry that seems to play an important role in more familiar objections to biomedical enhancement of mood, such as the objection that it would lead to inauthenticity. The worry is that the use of positive mood enhancers will corrupt emotional lives. (...) Ethical questions about the biomedical enhancement of mood are often really questions about our affective reasons. Negative emotions typically feel bad, positive ones typically feel good. Here our hedonic reasons come into direct competition with affective reasons. Those who entirely dismiss affective reasons, or at least think that negative affective reasons are extremely weak, are likely to see little problem with positive mood enhancers. (shrink)

Could a work of art actually authored by one artist have been authored, instead, by another? This is the question of the necessity of authorship. After distinguishing this question from another, regarding individuation, with which it is often confused, this paper offers an argument that authorship is indeed a necessary feature of most artworks. The argument proceeds from ‘independence principles’, which govern the processes by which artworks are produced. Independence principles are motivated, in turn, by metaphysical reflections on what it (...) takes to prevent an artist from producing a particular work of art. (shrink)

Debates about new technologies, such as crop and food genetic modification, raise pressing questions about the ways ‘experts’ and ‘ nonexperts’ communicate. These debates are dynamic, characterized by many voices contesting numerous storylines. The discoursal features, including language choices and communication strategies, of the GM debate are in some ways taken for granted and in others actively manipulated by participants. Although there are many voices, some have more influence than others. This study makes use of 50 hours of in-depth interviews (...) with GM scientists, nonexperts, and other stakeholders in the GM debate to examine this phenomenon. We uncover rhetorical devices used by scientists to characterize and ultimately undermine participation by non-experts in areas including rationality, knowledge, understanding and objectivity. Scientists engage with ‘the public’ from their own linguistic and social domain, without reflexive confirmation of their own status as part of the public and the citizenry. This raises a number of interesting ironies and contradictions, which are explored in the article. As such, it provides valuable insights into an increasingly important type of discourse. (shrink)

Several climate ethicists have recently argued that having children is morally equivalent to over-consumption, and contributes greatly to parents’ personal carbon footprints. We show that these claims are mistaken, for two reasons. First, including procreation in parents’ carbon footprints double-counts children’s consumption emissions, once towards their own, and once towards their parents’ footprints. We show that such double-counting defeats the chief purpose of the concept of carbon footprint, namely to measure the sustainability and equitability of one’s activities and choices. Furthermore, (...) we show that proposals to avoid double-counting have other unacceptable implications. Second, we show that the key arguments for a supposed moral equivalence of procreation and consumption overgenerate and lead to unacceptable consequences in many cases, such as for the work of doctors who save lives or enable procreation. Finally, we propose that rather than counting children’s emissions towards their parents’ carbon footprints, we should consider these emissions as part of the parents’ carbon impact, i.e. the difference that their choices make to the overall global carbon emissions. It is from the perspective of impact that we should think about the ethics of procreation in an age of climate change. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While a common view in the literature is that Nietzsche cannot successfully argue against Schopenhauer’s pessimism, a detailed explanation of why this is so is lacking. In this paper I provide such a detailed analysis. Specifically, a consideration of three of Nietzsche’s strategies for a revaluation of pain and suffering reveals two problems: the problem of ‘the direction of revaluation’ and the ‘dilemma of the intransigence of hedonism’. According to the first, the success of a revaluation cannot be guaranteed (...) on strictly argumentative grounds and can in principle bring about a revaluation that proceeds in the opposite direction than the one desired. According to the second, Nietzsche’s revaluations are of no significance since they either ground an un-Nietzschean affirmation of life, or they do not engage pessimism’s hedonistic perspective on the basis of which it condemns life. I then examine two strategies that Nietzsche can be seen to employ in his attempts to revalue the hedonistic perspective itself and explain why they too are unsatisfactory. The analysis illuminates the nature of the dialectical stand-off between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and clarifies the limitations of Nietzschean revaluations as a philosophical tool. (shrink)

This volume includes Felix Noeggerath's dissertation from 1916, published here for the first time in a reliable critical edition. The dissertation represents a daring and far-reaching re-conceptualization of Kantian and neo-Kantian thought that consists in "critique of anti-rationalism," especially in the form of vitalism. Both Kant's and Hermann Cohen's philosophies can be experienced anew through the far-reaching optic that Noeggerath developed - an optic that he reiterates and develops into a comprehensive theory of art in a 1951 essay - republished (...) here, as well. The introduction by Hartwig Wiebebach provides an overview and incisive analysis of Noeggerath's philosophical program, while the afterword by Peter Fenves describes in detail the effect of Noeggerath's thought on Walter Benjamin's own attempts at a critique of anti-rationalism. Altogether, the volume provides a new point of access to the important legacy of neo-Kantian thought in the early twentieth century not only in terms of the systematic philosophy, but also in relation to the theory of art and the philosophy of modern science. (shrink)

More and more researchers are examining grammar acquisition from theoretical perspectives that treat it as an emergent phenomenon. In this essay, I argue that a robustly developmental perspective provides a potential explanation for some of the well-known crosslinguistic features of early child language: the process of acquisition is shaped in part by the developmental constraints embodied in von Baer’s law of development. An established model of development, the Developmental Lock, captures and elucidates the probabilistic generalizations at the heart of von (...) Baer’s law. When this model is applied to the acquisition of grammar, it predicts that grammatical achievements that are more generatively entrenched will emerge earlier in development and will be more developmentally resilient than those that are less generatively entrenched. I show that the first prediction is supported by a wealth of psycholinguistic evidence involving typically developing children and that the second prediction is supported by numerous studies involving both children who receive deficient linguistic input and children who experience various language impairments. The success of this model demonstrates the analytic potential of a developmental approach to the study of language acquisition. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

I think "schizo-culture" here is being used rather in a special sense. Not referring to clinical schizophrenia, but to the fact that the culture is divided up into all sorts of classes and groups, etc., and that some of the old lines are breaking down. And that this is a healthy sign. -- William Burroughs, from _Schizo-Culture_ The legendary 1975 "Schizo-Culture" conference, conceived by the early Semiotext collective, began as an attempt to introduce the then-unknown radical philosophies of post-'68 France (...) to the American avant-garde. The event featured a series of seminal papers, from Deleuze's first presentation of the concept of the "rhizome" to Foucault's introduction of his _History of Sexuality_ project. The conference was equally important on a political level, and brought together a diverse group of activists, thinkers, patients, and ex-cons in order to address the challenge of penal and psychiatric institutions. The combination proved to be explosive, but amid the fighting and confusion "Schizo-Culture" revealed deep ruptures in left politics, French thought, and American culture. The "Schizo-Culture" issue of the Semiotext journal came three years later. Designed by a group of artists and filmmakers including Kathryn Bigelow and Denise Green, it documented the chaotic creativity of an emerging downtown New York scene, and offered interviews with artists, theorists, writers, and No Wave and pre-punk musicians together with new texts from Deleuze, Foucault, R. D. Laing, and other conference participants. This slip-cased edition includes _The Book: 1978_, a facsimile reproduction of the original Schizo-Culture publication; and _The Event: 1975_, a previously unpublished and comprehensive record of the conference that set it all off. It assembles many previously unpublished texts, including a detailed selection of interviews reconstructing the events, and features Félix Guattari, William Burroughs, Kathy Acker, Michel Foucault, Sylvère Lotringer, Guy Hocquenghem, Gilles Deleuze, John Rajchman, Robert Wilson, Joel Kovel, Jack Smith, Jean-François Lyotard, Ti-Grace Atkinson, François Peraldi, and John Cage. (shrink)