Mom and motivational speaker Amy Wolff wants you to know that you are never too broken to help others. In Signs of Hope, Wolff tells the story of how she founded an accidental movement, one that guided her through her own grief and touched thousands of others throughout the world.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE "JUSTIFIABLE HOMOCIDE" OF ABORTION PROVIDERS: MORAL REASON, MIMETIC THEORY, AND THE GOSPEL James Nash Our land will never be cleansed without the blood of abortionists being shed. (Shelly Shannon) The above quotation is taken, with permission, from a letter written to me by Ms. Shannon. A devout Roman Catholic, she is currently doing time at Federal prison in Kansas, sentenced to 3 1 years for shooting a (...) famous abortion provider. I have also been in touch with Paul Hill, the former Presbyterian minister, who killed the Pensacola abortion doctor, John Britton. Mr. Hill has written extensively on how his Christian faith led him to what he calls the "justifiable homicide" of Dr. Britton. The connection between this kind of religiously-justified violence and the work of René Girard is too obvious to be ignored. The violenct acts and rhetoric that polarize both sides of the abortion debate serve to illustrate our society's collapsing ability to distinguish effectively between "good" and "bad" violence (Girard 1972, 52-3). At the same time, the almost universal condemnation ofthe "religious" proponents ofjustifiable homicide confirms the Girardian claim that in cultures under gospel influence, "acts of violence that once endowed its perpetrators with religious and cultural preeminence radually begin to rob them of it" (Bailie 52-3). Finally, as we shall see, the incoherence of religiouslygrounded efforts to condemn "justifiable homicide suggests that James Nash69 contemporary Christianity is also having increasing difficulty in distinguishing "good" and "bad" violence. But before exploring these issues I want to ask another question, one that will prepare the ground for the application of Girard's theory to abortion violence. What light can moral reason shed on the problem of the "justifiable homicide" of abortion doctors? Are there clear arguments which will convince any reasonable person it is wrong to kill abortion providers in order to protect unborn human life? At first it might appear rather simple to produce such arguments —after all an overwhelming majority of Americans currently believe killing abortion workers is wrong, no matter where they stand on the morality of abortion itself. On the other hand, there is a danger that because the current moral consensus against this type of killing appears to be so strong, we may be misled into a false sense of security. After all, thirty or forty years ago there was little debate about the morality of homosexuality, pre-marital sex, or abortion itself. In fact, there are an increasing number of voices suggesting that violence against abortion providers is justified; the question has in fact divided the pro-life movement. What I will attempt to show in what follows is that the arguments offered by moral reason against shooting abortionists are surprisingly weak. While there is little danger in the foreseeable future that anywhere near a majority of people will view this form of killing as "justifiable," there are, I believe, solid grounds to fear that "moral reason" alone is no longer strong enough to provide compelling arguments against abortion violence. If ethical rationality cannot account for the moral revulsion most people feel at the shooting of abortion doctors, the ground is prepared for another way of understanding and avoiding this religiously—sanctioned violence. I am referring to René Girard's mimetic theory, and at the end of this article I hope to show how it can help us to understand both why some pro-life people have turned to violence, and how this response to abortion can be avoided. For if we come to doubt that moral reason alone can uphold the prohibition against "justifiable homicide," then perhaps we need to develop a different kind of reason, or different kinds of reasons. This will lead, finally, to reflection on some of the radical theological implications of Girard's thought, a dimension of his work which, in my judgment, is too often neglected. 70"Justifiable Homicide " Before going any further, I realize I must define what I mean by "moral reason." My use of this term is simply the common post-Kantian notion that if an action is truly immoral, one will avoid doing it not because offear, custom or human law; rather one's actions will be guided... (shrink)

The existence and unity of a discipline called economics reside in the eye and mind of the beholder. The perception of economics's unity and disciplinarity itself arises in some, but not all, of the different schools of thought that we would loosely categorize as economic. Indeed, as we hope to show, the presumption of unity and disciplinarity—the idea that there is a center or “core” of propositions, procedures, and conclusions or a shared historical “object” of theory and practice—is suggested (...) in the concepts and methods of some schools of economic thought, but is opposed by others. Further, we argue that the portrayal of economics as a discipline with distinct boundaries is often a discursive strategy by one school or another to hegemonize the field of economic discourse. In this way, the issue of the existence of an economics discipline and its principles of unity or dispersion is in part a political question. Its effects are felt in the hiring and firing of economics professors and practitioners, the determination of what comprises an economics curriculum, the determination of what is a legitimate economic argument and what is not, the dispensation of public and private grant monies, and the differential entry into or exclusion from ideological, political, and economic centers of power and decision making.Our view is that no discipline of economics exists. Or, rather, no unified discipline exists. The “discipline” of economics is actually an agonistic and shifting field of fundamentally different and often conflicting discourses. The dispersion and divisions that exist between the schools of thought we discuss here as “economic” may have some regularities. But we do not see closer contiguity of these economic schools when placed on a horizontal scale than, to take just one example, among all of the many different "disciplinary" forms of Marxian thought. That is, in our view, Marxian economic thought shares more concepts, approaches, and methods—may have more discursive regularity—with Marxian literary theory than do Marxian economic thought and neoclassical economic theory. Jack Amariglio is associate professor of economics at Merrimack College and the editor of Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture, and Society. He is working on a book entitled Modernism and Postmodernism in Economics with Arjo Klamer. Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff are professors of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Their recent coauthored books are Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy and Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. (shrink)

Innovation in basic science is often a cause for won­der and excitement. Those associated with a new development are quick to point out the anticipated benefits: a cure for cancer or dementia, an end to unsafe water or hunger. These advocates are slower to draw at­tention to the possible costs, which may become known only much later. It is always hard to have an accurate overview, as it is almost impossible to predict the total effects of the widespread adoption of (...) any new technology and, especially, its longer‐term or cumulative effects, as as­bestos and CFCs demonstrate. For this reason, some policy‐makers or members of the public hope that we can apply “the precautionary principle” to innovation. Unfortunately, if one is looking for a principle that can guide action, then, strictly speaking, there is no pre­cautionary principle. One might better speak of a “pre­cautionary approach,” although even this needs to be unpacked. (shrink)

Feenberg’s new book,Technosystem: the social life of reason, makes an important intervention in the study of technological systems by showing that instrumental reason requires value judgement at the moment of its realization in this world. It fosters hope that technological development can be redirected towards the fulfilment of human needs through public interventions of nonexperts. However, Feenberg does not sufficiently engage with the political dilemmas that inevitably accompany these interventions as a result of the formal capitalist bias of the (...) technosystem. The books by Bridle and Bucher underline the importance of confronting these dilemmas as they encounter them in various domains and provide possible ways for dealing with them. (shrink)

Feenberg’s new book, Technosystem: the social life of reason, makes an important intervention in the study of technological systems by showing that instrumental reason requires value judgement at the moment of its realization in this world. It fosters hope that technological development can be redirected towards the fulfilment of human needs through public interventions of nonexperts. However, Feenberg does not sufficiently engage with the political dilemmas that inevitably accompany these interventions as a result of the formal capitalist bias of (...) the technosystem. The books by Bridle and Bucher underline the importance of confronting these dilemmas as they encounter them in various domains and provide possible ways for dealing with them. (shrink)

The importance of the pure concepts of the understanding (i.e. the categories) within Kant’s system of philosophy is undeniable. As I hope to make clear in this essay, however, the categories are also an essential part of Kant’s critique of Christian Wolff. In particular, I argue that Kant’s development of the categories represents a decisive break with the Wolffian conception of the understanding and that this break is central to understanding the task of the Transcendental Analytic. This break, (...) however, is not merely that Kant affirms while Wolff and his followers deny a sharp distinction between sensibility and the understanding, which is the aspect of Kant’s rejection of Wolff that scholars most frequently note. Rather, this break concerns differences in their views about the understanding itself. For while Wolff conceives of the understanding as a mental capacity to extract and make distinct content already present in the senses, Kant conceives of the understanding in its “real use” as a capacity to produce purely intellectual content. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Baumgarten’s views on the soul in the context of the Pietist critique of Wolff’s rational psychology. My primary aim is to account for the largely unacknowledged differences between Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s rational psychology, though I also hope to show that, in some cases, the Pietists were rather more perceptive in their reading of Wolff than they are typically given credit for as their criticisms frequently succeed in drawing attention to significant omissions (...) in Wolff’s discussion. (shrink)

It is argued that the natural and human vicissitudes of the Northern Hemisphere—or at least western European history between 1315 and 1648—provide a preview of the sort of consequences for humanity and its demography that will result from the serious if not catastrophic climate change that is now anticipated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Game theory suggests that at least some nation-state players in the strategic problem that climate change raises will not choose Nash equilibria that (...) mitigate the problem. The only feasible solution will be the discovery or invention of some non-greenhouse-gas-emitting energy source so cheap that its owner will be indifferent to free-riding by all other users of energy. Recent efforts to develop fusion reactors do not provide much hope for this eventuality. (shrink)

Nick Bostrom and others have suggested treating decision-making under moral uncertainty as analogous to parliamentary decision-making. The core suggestion of this “parliamentary approach” is that the competing moral theories function like delegates to the parliament, and that these delegates then make decisions by some combination of bargaining and voting. There seems some reason to hope that such an approach might avoid standard objections to existing approaches (for example, the “maximise expected choiceworthiness” (MEC) and “my favourite theory” approaches). However, the (...) parliamentary approach is so far extremely underspecified, making it largely indeterminate how such a model will in fact behave in the respects that those concerned with moral uncertainty care about. This paper explores one way of making it precise. We treat predicaments of moral uncertainty as analogous to bargaining situations alone (setting aside voting), and apply a version of the Nash solution that is standard in bargaining theory. The resulting model does indeed perform in many of the hoped-for ways. However, so also does a version of MEC that employs a structural approach to intertheoretic comparisons. It seems to us an open question which, regarding this version of MEC and the bargaining-theoretic approach, is superior to the other. We identify the key points on which the two differ. (shrink)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This timely book addresses the conflict between globalism and nationalism. It provides a liberal communitarian response to the rise of populism occurring in many democracies. The book highlights the role of communities next to that of the state and the market. It spells out the policy implications of liberal communitarianism for privacy, freedom of the press, and much else. In a persuasive argument that speaks to politics today from Europe (...) to the United States to Australia, the author offers a compelling vision of hope. Above all, the book offers a framework for dealing with moral challenges people face as they seek happiness but also to live up to their responsibilities to others and the common good. At a time when even our most basic values are up for question in policy debates riddled with populist manipulation, Amitai Etzioni’s bold book creates a new frame which introduces morals and values back into applied policy questions. These questions span the challenges of jobless growth to the unanswered questions posed by the role of artificial intelligence in a wide range of daily life tasks and decisions. While not all readers will agree with the communitarian solutions that he proposes, many will welcome an approach that is, at its core, inclusive and accepting of the increasingly global nature of all societies at the same time. It is a must read for all readers concerned about the future of Western liberal democracy. Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution and College Park Professor/University of Maryland In characteristically lively, engaging, and provocative style Etzioni tackles many of the great public policy dilemmas that afflict us today. Arguing that we are trapped into a spiral of slavish consumerism, he proposes a form of liberal communitarian that, he suggests, will allow human beings to flourish in changing circumstances. Jonathan Wolff, Blavatnik Chair of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. (shrink)

The paper points out that in dynamic games a player may be better-off if other players do not know his choice of strategy. That is, a player may benefit by not revealing (or not pre-determining) the choice of his action in an information set he (thereby) hopes will not be reached. He would be better-off by exercising his ``right to remain silent'' if he believes –- as the empirical evidence shows –- that players display aversion to ``Knightian uncertainty''. In this (...) case, a player who behaves strategically, may wish to avoid revealing his strategy. This is true under various interpretations of the notion of ``strategy profiles''. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 123 become the origin of the norms of moral freedom and the formal origin of the laws os nature. The totality of the world may be interpreted in terms of the homo noumenon, or in terms of a totality of values, in terms of feeling or as the historical stream of experience. The interrelationship between the various aspects of reality is misconstrued by humanism when the modal (...) laws of the world are absolutized, and a single aspect is made the basic denominator of reality. The neo-Augustinian philosophy of Dooyeweerd recognizes the priority of faith and would unmask the alleged neutrality of theoretical reason as a dogma concealing the religious foundations of theoretical thought. The Archimedean point of Dooyeweerd's philosophy is not cogito ergo sum, nor vivo in [luxu continuo, etiam cogitans, but it is rather: Ego, in Christo regeneratus, etiam cogitans ex Christo vivo. The heart in its Biblical sense is the religious root and center of human existence, the center in which our temporal functions find their religious concentration and consummation of meaning. The Christian philosopher finds the ultimate origin of the world in God's sovereign and creative will, out of which originate all laws, and all things which are subject to law. The Christian philosopher finds the coherence of the modal diversity of the cosmos in a divine world order. The unity of the world is not a construction of philosophical thought, but is rather an enduring effect of God's sovereign power, so that each mode, each aspect of the cosmos is under divine law. Every aspect of the world is a sphere of law, sovereign under God in its own domain. God's laws constitute the universal valid determination and limitation of the individual things subject to them. Consequently, the Christian philosopher cannot hold to a theoretical conception of reality which is emancipated from the Biblical motive of creation, for all such conceptions are at least partially dominated by apostate religious motives. Nash does not attempt to refute Dooyeweerd's main thesis concerning the impossibility of a religiously neutral philosophy; however, his critical remarks do point out that more argumentation is needed in defense of that thesis, and that the introduction of a new terminology, shifts in the meaning of traditional terms, as well as vagueness and ambiguity, necessitate further elaboration on the part of Dooyeweerd and the members of his School. Nash's work successfully accomplishes a two-fold purpose: it calls attention to an important development within the Augustinian tradition of philosophy, and it raises issues which cannot be ignored by members of Dooyeweerd's own school as well as by philosophers who are self-critical of their own presuppositions. Nash's book deserves careful attention and it is to be hoped that it will direct the serious reader to a study of Dooyeweerd's own works and that it will stimulate others to take part in the critical study of a system of thought which "gives important and exciting direction to present and future thought and action and is, in the fullest sense of the word, a Christian Philosophy and a great one." DAWD H. FREEMAN University of Rhode Island Husserl et la pensde moderne--Husserl und das Denken der Neuzeit. Edited by H. L. Van Breda and J. Taminiaux. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959. Pp. x + 250.) This volume contains papers which were read at the Second International Colloquium on Phenomenology which was held at Krefeld in Germany, November 1-3, 1956, under the auspices of the Husserl Archives of Louvain and Cologne. Though the names which 124 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY appear in this volume are among the leading figures in European phenomenology, the content of the volume itself is somewhat disappointing. The editors note that the discussion of these papers was prolonged and lively but they regret that it was impossible to record and publish this part of the Colloquium. The reader of this volume can but share the regret of the editors in this case since many of the papers are but rough drafts, clearly meant to pose questions and lead into discussion and, of themselves, contain very little in the way of new or... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religious Dualism and the Problem of Dual Religious IdentityJonathan A. SeitzThe word “dualism” is used in many senses. It can refer to the separation of mind and body in classical Western philosophy or to the separation of divine and human in some religious traditions, but religious dualism is also used in the social sciences to describe how two religious systems may relate to each other. Personally, I am interested (...) in this topic because I teach at a Taiwanese seminary, where students draw deeply on Taiwanese culture even as they assert a very clear Christian identity that often challenges or clashes with the broader culture. Like many Protestants, my students generally reject an idea of syncretism while simultaneously affirming Taiwanese culture and many popular beliefs. This dual identity fascinates me.“Dualism” in anthropological research is sometimes used to describe the attachment to two discrete religious or cultural traditions, such as Buddhism and Christianity. An important early theorist was anthropologist June Nash, whose work grew out of ethnographic research in Bolivia and Mexico. Nash looked at Bolivian miners and studied their popular devotion. She wrote that “this technique of syncretizing elements as developed by the Spaniards in the early years of conquest seems alien to the Bolivian way of thinking. It relates to a mode of thinking that accepts only a single, hierarchically defined system of ideas. Indigenous thought is capable of entertaining coexistant and apparently contradictory world views.” Nash says that she “hope[d] to clarify this point of the segmentation in time and space of the two systems, since it defies the model of acculturation as a homogenous blend.”1In this understanding, “dualism” better describes the reality with which many people live than do more general terms like “indigenization” or “acculturation,” and it also resists an understanding that religious traditions simply blend together—rather, they are segmented and retain elements of coherence even when held simultaneously.languages of dual belonging“Dualism” has been helpful because it allows for the recognition that people may belong to two or more distinct traditions. More recently, “dual religious belonging” has been used by theologians such Paul Knitter and Rose Drew. In the past, Buddhist-Christian [End Page 49] Studies has devoted considerable space to the topic.2 The theological step is a step further beyond anthropological dualism, but it is also interested in affirming the “both-ness” of holding to two traditions simultaneously.In this essay I want to grapple with the ways in which dualism can be understood. I believe this systemic language holds some real benefits over other approaches, particularly over more general process terms like “contextualization,” “accommodation,” “indigenization,” “acculturation,” “vernacularization,” and so on. These “-ation” words are helpful in pointing to how conversion or Christianization occurs over time, but they also assume a sort of final synthesis or resolution, and for most people this is probably not how it works. This paper briefly treats two approaches to dual belonging, Nicole Constable’s study of Hakka Protestants in Hong Kong and Jon Kirby’s analysis of northern Ghanaian Catholic communities, and then contrasts these with the more theological language of dual religious belonging found in papers by scholars like Paul Knitter.Essentially, dualism proposes a “both/and” understanding, a type of personal or religious emulsion where two systems are mixed together but resist a full integration. For some scholars, this is fundamentally a positive thing, since it allows for the integrity of the different systems. In others, it is seen as a type of failure to arrive at a reconciled identity, or the bifurcation of an indigenous tradition because of the arrival of Christianity (or another religion).Part of the reason I am interested in this topic is precisely because it gets at a tension—a real ambivalence (i.e., two valences)—that other approaches may not reach. For instance, there is a wide range of uses of contextualization, appropriation, enculturation, vernacularization, indigenization, and so on. My hunch is that scholars use these terms in part because they reduce the cognitive dissonance involved in simultaneously living or working in multiple cultures. Contextualization is a process that may assume a type of full integration, while with dualism the tension is... (shrink)

Some think politics and art should not mix. The problem with this view is that politics and art were always entwined. Human experience is structured politically, even if much of it is not. Here, I illustrate this with a series of artistic examples that take us from work songs in a Mississippi 1940s forced labour camp to a desolate dead forest landscape in a former Krasnoyarsk gulag, evocative of a Paul Nash World War I painting. Powerful artworks help us (...) to come to grips with human experience, more than merely “expressing emotion”. I treat songs as representations, looking for a way their political significance is part of their aesthetic value. To do this, I defend James Young’s (2001) concept of “illustrative representation” as bridging the gap between formalism and contextualism. But instead of Young’s “Wollheimian” (resemblance between experiences) approach to how such representation works I draw on Kulvicki’s (2020) notion of “syntactic parts”, combining it with Carroll’s (2016) concept of form as the “ensemble of artistic choices”, and Black’s (1954-55) frame-and-focus model of meaning in metaphor. Hopefully, in the end I will have clarified the ways in which (some) songs are both politically and aesthetically meaningful. (shrink)

The point of this study is to reconsider the roots of German idealism in pre-Kantian German modern philosophy of the seventeenth and early eight eenth centuries, or in pre-Enlightenment philosophy, which paved the way for the Enlightenment. Considered for far too long as depending solely on Leibniz and stigmatized as dogmatic—all too often it is referred to and summed up as “Leibnizo-Wolffian”—modern German philosophy appears, under close examination, to bear the mark of scepticism. This scepticism is precisely embodied by Thomasius, (...) who is in many ways the father of German modern philosophy and a contemporary opponent of Leibniz. The aim of this paper is to reconsider the important series of philosophical transformations from Leibniz to Kant. I will be arguing that the pervasive nature of scepticism in the thought of Thomasius and his followers enabled the striking spread of Hume’s philosophy in modern German philosophy, Wolff included. In this way, I hope to contribute to understanding the sources of modern philosophy through what can be called, with Foucault in mind, an archaeology of the Aufklärung, with the aim of rethinking Kant’s own contribution. (shrink)

For Kant one of the goals of any critique of pure reason is to answer the question, how are a priori synthetic propositions possible? Because rationalists such as Eberhard and Wolff took the principle of sufficient reason (hereafter, the PSR) as the principle of all a priori synthetic judgments, understanding both the various formulations of this principle and arguments in favor of its use as an axiom in metaphysical reasoning provides an interesting back door to understanding The Critique of (...) Pure Reason. Despite his statements in the First Critique rejecting the PSR as a principle of judgment1, I argue that Kant was actually more sympathetic to the PSR than these passages alone would suggest. The Kant-Eberhard Controversy suggests that, even though Kant explicitly denies that the PSR can guide metaphysical reasoning, he actually presupposes its truth. I show that Kant’s position is tenable because, like the rationalists, Kant accepts the assumption that real essences exist and that they ground real possibility2; this leads him to accept the truth of all clear statements of the PSR. Unlike the rationalists, however, he does not accept the assumption that human understanding is isomorphic with real essences. As a result, Kant rejects only the use of the PSR to determine a priori the existence or properties of a thing. In this paper I hope to illuminate this position. I will begin with a survey of the various formulations of the PSR that have been put forward by Kant and his predecessors: Leibniz, Eberhard, and Wolff. Then I will examine Wolff and Eberhard’s arguments in favor of the PSR along with Kant’s criticisms of these arguments. Lastly, I will show why Kant rejected the very possibility of justifying this use of the PSR while presupposing its truth. (shrink)

Much of the history of game theory has been dominated by the problem of indeterminacy. The very search for better versions of rationality, as well as the long list of attempts to refine Nash equilibrium, can be seen as answers to the indeterminacy that has accompanied game theory through its history. More recently, the experimental approach to game theory has attempted a more radical solution: by directly generating a stream of behavioral observations, one hopes that behavioral hypotheses will be (...) sharper, and predictions more accurate. This article looks at several attempts to address indeterminacy, including the shift to evolutionary models. However, because its goal is to establish whether rational choice models are inescapably doomed to produce indeterminate outcomes, it pays much more attention to the experimental turn in game theory, the difficulty it encounters, and the promising results obtained by more realistic models of rationality that include a social component. (shrink)

The point of this study is to reconsider the roots of German idealism in pre-Kantian German modern philosophy of the seventeenth and early eight eenth centuries, or in pre-Enlightenment philosophy, which paved the way for the Enlightenment. Considered for far too long as depending solely on Leibniz and stigmatized as dogmatic—all too often it is referred to and summed up as “Leibnizo-Wolffian”—modern German philosophy appears, under close examination, to bear the mark of scepticism. This scepticism is precisely embodied by Thomasius, (...) who is in many ways the father of German modern philosophy and a contemporary opponent of Leibniz. The aim of this paper is to reconsider the important series of philosophical transformations from Leibniz to Kant. I will be arguing that the pervasive nature of scepticism in the thought of Thomasius and his followers enabled the striking spread of Hume’s philosophy in modern German philosophy, Wolff included. In this way, I hope to contribute to understanding the sources of modern philosophy through what can be called, with Foucault in mind, an archaeology of the Aufklärung, with the aim of rethinking Kant’s own contribution. (shrink)

Of the 218 letters, 126 belong to correspondence with the Imperial Count Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel, a dedicated patron of the supporters of Christian Wolff and the head of the Berlin chapter of the Society of Alethophiles. In Berlin and Leipzig great hopes were placed in the Prussian heir apparent Friedrich II, whom many saw a kind of Platonian “philosopher king” who would help elevate reason and Wolffian philosophy to new heights. The letters document the development of a rationalistic (...) strain in Gottsched's sermons. They also provide insight into the satires of Wolff's opponents written by L.A.V. Gottsched. Gottsched's speeches concerning Martin Opitz and the “book printing anniversary” found strong resonance in the correspondence and inspired letters concerning similar undertakings. Jakob Brucker's letters illuminate the planning and creation of the “Bilder-sal”, a contemporary history of notable scholars that featured biographies and portraits, and which came to include Gottsched and his wife. (shrink)

We studied the role of time in the experience of boredom and its relationship with various psychological states using virtual reality. Sixty-six participants visited nine virtual waiting rooms and evaluated their perception of time and psychological experiences, including boredom, exhaustion, restlessness, amotivation, frustration, anger, unhappiness, spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering, fantasy, and absorption. Results confirmed the relationship between boredom and time perception, showing that the higher the levels of boredom, the slower time seems to pass. However, manipulating time-related information via a (...) slower/faster ticking clock did not affect boredom. We also found that boredom increased as participants progressed through the nine virtual rooms, and its affective characterisation over time remained stable, while its cognitive characterisation fluctuated. While boredom was consistently associated with exhaustion, restlessness, amotivation, and frustration, its relationship with fantasy, absorption, spontaneous mind-wandering and deliberate mind-wandering, evolved over time. These findings provide novel insights into the intricate and differentiated cognitive and affective consequences of being bored. (shrink)

ResumoO texto aqui apresentado pretende dar uma pequena contribuição à discussão sobre a relação entre lógicae ontologia na filosofia kantiana. Seu objetivo é mostrar como Kant segue a lógica dos wolffianos, mantendosua abordagem geral, não sem introduzir algumas mudanças importantes. Ao contrário dos filósofosdogmáticos, Kant, como se sabe, enfatiza a neutralidade ontológica e epistemológica da lógica geral, diferenciando-a da lógica transcendental, que apresenta as condições universais necessárias apenas com basenas quais se pode falar de conhecimento objetivo. Leibniz, Wolff e (...) seus seguidores teriam negligenciadoessa distinção e dado à lógica geral um significado ontológico e heurístico, que absolutamente não lhepertence. Este artigo examina até que ponto essa versão da lógica dogmática, tão bem construída por Kante geralmente aceita pelos estudiosos, é confiável; tenta também mostrar que Kant flerta aqui e ali comasserções ontológicas e, ao fazê-lo, sua lógica também funciona como uma heurística. Os juízos categóricoe hipotético, bem como seus respectivos silogismos, serão aqui examinados em sua relação recíproca comocasos emblemáticos desse uso menos neutro da lógica formal por Kant. Além disso, espera-se que esteexame revele alguns dos procedimentos metódicos seguidos pelo filósofo em sua investigação conceitual,modo de proceder que, embora respeitando estritamente as regras lógicas estabelecidas, introduz modulaçõesdentro dessas mesmas regras, para enfrentar os desafios do pensamento crítico.Palavras-chave: Kant, lógica, ontologiaAbstractThe text presented here intends to make a small contribution to the discussion on the relationship betweenlogic and ontology in Kantian philosophy. Its purpose is to show how Kant follows the logic of theWolffians, maintaining their general approach, not without introducing some important changes. Unlikedogmatic philosophers, Kant, as is well known, lays stress on the ontological and epistemological neutralityof general logic, differentiating it from transcendental logic, which presents the necessary universal conditionsonly on the basis of which one can speak of objective knowledge. Leibniz, Wolff and his followerswould have neglected this distinction and given general logic an ontological and heuristic meaning, whichabsolutely does not belong to it. This article examines to what extent this version of dogmatic logic, so wellconstructed by Kant and generally accepted by the scholars, is reliable; it also tries to show that Kant flirtshere and there with ontological assertions and, in doing so, his logic also functions as a heuristic. The categoricaland the hypothetical judgments, as well as their respective syllogisms, will be examined here in theirreciprocal relationship as emblematic cases of this less neutral use of formal logic by Kant. Furthermore, thisexamination will hopefully reveal some of the methodical procedures followed by the philosopher in hisconceptual investigation, a way of proceeding that, although strictly respecting the established logical rules,introduces modulations within these same rules, to face the challenges of the critical thought. (shrink)

La " philosophie politique " est le singulier croisement, effectué par Aristote, de deux produits de l'histoire grecque. Depuis lors, toute la pensée politique (de Machiavel à Marx, de Montesquieu à H. Arendt) se nourrit de celle d'Aristote. Il convenait d'analyser les livres fondateurs de cette pensée fondatrice pour en livrer à tous l'intention singulière et le sens universel. Les problèmes des cités où vécut Aristote ne sont sans doute pas ceux de nos Etats. Et pourtant les réflexions philosophiques d'Aristote (...) sur ces problèmes peuvent toujours éclairer nos questions. Tous les pouvoirs sont-ils du même type? Est-il naturel d'obéir? Qui doit commander? Quel est le meilleur régime? Qu'est-ce que la justice en politique? Qu'est-ce que la démocratie? Ceux-là mêmes qui ne veulent pas en entendre parler pourraient entendre quelles inquiétudes cache ce mot de " politique " " pourquoi vivre ensemble? " et " comment vivre ensemble? ". (shrink)

A l'heure de l'inflation normative, une réflexion sur la fin du droit peut paraître paradoxale, voire aller à contre-courant des mutations contemporaines du droit. En outre, les nombreux travaux relatifs à ces mêmes mutations et aux transformations du droit ces dernières années laissent penser que le droit ne peut connaître de fin, se renouvelant en permanence pour ne jamais laisser d'espace de non droit. Sans à coup, sans coupe nette, le droit poursuivrait sa progression sans heurt. Le droit n'aurait-il donc (...) jamais de fin? L'adage "ubi societas ibi jus" plaide, à l'évidence, pour une réponse négative. Cependant, de multiples questions se posent. Est-ce qu'une norme peut vraiment cesser d'exister et si oui, à partir de quand? Le droit connaît-il un terme? Peut-il disparaître? Issu d'un colloque qui s'est tenu à l'Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, composé de contributions de spécialistes reconnus des diverses branches du droit public, cet ouvrage offre à travers l'examen de la fin du droit un regard sur sa définition même. (shrink)

This article is part of a symposium on property-owning democracy. In A Theory of Justice John Rawls argued that people in a just society would have rights to some forms of personal property, whatever the best way to organise the economy. Without being explicit about it, he also seems to have believed that protection for at least some forms of privacy are included in the Basic Liberties, to which all are entitled. Thus, Rawls assumes that people are entitled to form (...) families, as well as personal associations which reflect their tastes as well as their beliefs and interests. He seems also to have assumed that people are entitled to seclude themselves, as well as to associate with others, and to keep some of their beliefs, knowledge, feelings and ideas to themselves, rather than having to share them with others. So, thinking of privacy as an amalgam of claims to seclusion, solitude, anonymity and intimate association, we can say that Rawls appears to include at least some forms of privacy in his account of the liberties protected by the first principle of justice. -/- However, Rawls did not say very much about how he understands people’s claims to privacy, or how those claims relate to his ideas about property-ownership. This is unfortunate, because two familiar objections to privacy seem particularly pertinent to his conception of the basic liberties. The first was articulated with customary panache by Judith Thomson, in a famous article on the moral right to privacy, in which she argued that talk of a moral right to privacy is confused and confusing, because privacy rights are really just property rights in disguise. The second objection has long been a staple of leftist politics, and is that the association of privacy with private property means that privacy rights are just a mask for coercive and exploitative relationships, and therefore at odds with democratic freedom, equality and solidarity. If the first objection implies that Rawls is wrong to think that protection for privacy can be distinguished from protection of personal property, the second objection implies that Rawls cannot hope to protect privacy without thereby committing himself to the grossest forms of capitalist inequality. -/- In this paper I will not discuss Rawls’ views of property-owning democracy. However, by clarifying the relationship between claims to privacy and claims to property-ownership, I hope to illuminate some of the conceptual, moral and political issues raised by Rawls’ ideas, and by work on the concept of a property-owning democracy, which he inspired. As we will see, privacy-based justifications of private ownership are not always unappealing, and privacy is sometimes promoted, rather than threatened, by collective ownership. The conclusion draws out the significance of these claims for the idea of a property-owning democracy. (shrink)

One of the most important methods in dealing with the optimization of large, complex systems is that of hierarchical decomposition. The idea is to reduce the overall complex problem into manageable approximate problems or subproblems, to solve these problems, and to construct a solution of the original problem from the solutions of these simpler prob lems. Development of such approaches for large complex systems has been identified as a particularly fruitful area by the Committee on the Next Decade in Operations (...) Research (1988) [42] as well as by the Panel on Future Directions in Control Theory (1988) [65]. Most manufacturing firms are complex systems characterized by sev eral decision subsystems, such as finance, personnel, marketing, and op erations. They may have several plants and warehouses and a wide variety of machines and equipment devoted to producing a large number of different products. Moreover, they are subject to deterministic as well as stochastic discrete events, such as purchasing new equipment, hiring and layoff of personnel, and machine setups, failures, and repairs. (shrink)

Theorists of global justice confront an apparent dilemma. If citizens in the developed world have duties of (socio-economic) justice to those elsewhere on the globe, then it is supposed that the duties must be very extensive indeed, requiring the same concern to be shown for everyone on earth. Those who deny that global obligations are as extensive as domestic obligations seem therefore to have to concede that any obligations beyond borders must be based on charity, rather than justice. The assumption (...) on which this dilemma is based is that 'justice is uniform'. In this paper I argue that such an assumption should be rejected in favour of the view that justice is relative to norms of cooperation. Consequently it is possible to develop a view of 'justice but not the same justice': the ‘layers of justice’ view. (shrink)