ABSTRACT In “Il faut défendre la société”, Foucault attempted to historicize and criticize Nietzsche’s equating of the social with struggle. In order to do so, Foucault produced a descriptive discursive history of his genealogical project by deploying the method of the critical archaeology. Foucault realized thereinafter that his archaeological exposition of the genealogical discourse in fact laid bare a close historical and conceptual bond between genealogy and modern racial discourses. In the first lectures, Foucault, unearthed the genealogical discourse hidden in (...) the literature written by the nobility as they attempted to resist the centralisation of royal power. In the latter part of his lectures, he described a discursive interplay between genealogy-as-struggle and the biopolitical practices of the modern state. As such, he gave a tentatively description how the modern state inherited and extensively applied the notion of struggle in its biopolitical control on its populations. The immoral and historical consequences of this affinity, resulting in the biopolitics of genocide, warranted Foucault to distance himself from Nietzsche’s concept, which in effect resulted in rethinking the social within the framework of gouvernmentalité, in which struggle was a modality rather than the prime mover of society. (shrink)

One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surpriseepistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore’s paradoxical ‘p and I don’t believe that p.’ Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin’s. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work (...) in the student’s paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the structure of the strong reductio, so-calledbecause it is more difficult to refute, but ultimately unsound because of reasons associated with Moore-paradoxicality. Previous commentators have not always appreciated this difference, with the result that the strong reductio is not addressed, or the response to the weak reductio is superfl uous. This is one reason why other analyses in the tradition are vulnerable to objections to which mine is not. (shrink)

One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surpriseepistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore’s paradoxical ‘p and I don’t believe that p.’ Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin’s. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work (...) in the student’s paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the structure of the strong reductio, so-calledbecause it is more difficult to refute, but ultimately unsound because of reasons associated with Moore-paradoxicality. Previous commentators have not always appreciated this difference, with the result that the strong reductio is not addressed, or the response to the weak reductio is superfl uous. This is one reason why other analyses in the tradition are vulnerable to objections to which mine is not. (shrink)

Das Interesse am Lebenslauf Baruch de Spinozas, das stets das Interesse an seiner Philosophie begleitet hat, ist - im Vergleich zum Interesse an anderen Gestalten der Philosophiegeschichte - ungewöhnlich groß gewesen und bis heute lebendig geblieben. Keiner hat - in den Augen der Zeitgenossen - so radikal wie er das traditionale Denken in Frage gestellt. Die Neuausgabe dieses Bandes, der die sechs überlieferten Lebensbeschreibungen Spinozas von Jelles, Lucas, Kortholt, Bayle, Colerus und Stolle-Hallmann enthält, erfaßt im gänzlich neu bearbeiteten Anhang alle (...) zwischenzeitlich neu aufgefundenen Dokumente und Urkunden zu Leben und Werk Spinozas. Die beigegebene Bibliographie verzeichnet alle Veröffentlichungen zu Leben und Werk Spinozas. (shrink)

One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surpriseepistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore’s paradoxical ‘p and I don’t believe that p.’ Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin’s. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work (...) in the student’s paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the structure of the strong reductio, so-calledbecause it is more difficult to refute, but ultimately unsound because of reasons associated with Moore-paradoxicality. Previous commentators have not always appreciated this difference, with the result that the strong reductio is not addressed, or the response to the weak reductio is superfl uous. This is one reason why other analyses in the tradition are vulnerable to objections to which mine is not. (shrink)

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; (...) rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science. (shrink)

Controversy over providing financial incentives to research participants has a long history and remains an issue of contention in both current discussions about research ethics and for institutional review bodies/human research ethics committees which are charged with the responsibility of deciding whether such incentives fall within ethical guidelines. The arguments both for and against financial incentives have been well aired in the literature. A point of agreement for many is that inducement in the form of financial incentive is permissible when (...) the risk of harm to the individual is negligible in terms of degree and probability of occurrence. In the absence of harm to the individual, encouraging more people to participate in research would appear to be a good thing in so far as it will lead to statistically more robust research outcomes, which can then be translated into better healthcare and other practice. Whilst, on the face of it, this position seems highly defensible, I will explore the possibility that it is counterproductive – that is, providing individuals with financial incentives to become research participants may have the unintended outcome of reducing participation rates in some areas of research. In exploring this idea I will draw on empirical findings from the literature on crowding-out – the hypothesis that providing monetary incentives to people can backfire by overall reducing intrinsic motivation, in this instance intrinsic motivation to behave altruistically or undertake civic duties. (shrink)

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527-Criticism and interpretation ; Political science-Translating.

Logic; Islamic philosophy; Islam--doctrines.

Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

There have been many discussions on problems of logic over the past several years. While the problem of the nature of the law of contradiction, one of the laws of formal logic, has received particular attention by everyone, the question has not been posed very precisely in the arguments. Actually, the question is not whether the movement, change, and development of things can be reflected in consciousness by use of the methods of formal logic, or in distinguishing the effectiveness of (...) the law of contradiction in disputation, proofs, or theoretical systems from its effectiveness in the general process of cognition, when applied to phenomena. If the development of reality cannot at all be reflected by the use of the logical tools of formal logic, what use do they have? No one denies that formal logic does not suffice as a method of cognition. If, in disputations and proofs, or in the establishment of theoretical systems, one relies only on the logical tools of formal logic, this is also not enough. The scope of applicability of the laws of formal logic, as laws that are studied by a concrete science, is necessarily limited. It is impossible for them to be all-powerful; it is of course impossible, relying on the law of contradiction, to know and grasp the contradictions in reality — the unity and conflict of opposites. All disputations and proofs, and the establishment of theoretical systems, are, in fact, efforts to know real objects, efforts of the subjective to grasp the objective. In principle, the use of formal logic in disputations and proofs and in the establishment of theoretical systems, and its use in knowing an object, should be no different. What, then, is the question? The question should be posed as follows: can thought contravene the law of contradiction? (shrink)

On inquiring into the nature of the Charites one may be astonished at the disagreement of their compounding elements. On the one hand, they appear as the very representatives and even personification of gracefulness and charm, brightness, and joy; their name itself seems to testify this, closely allied as it is with the verb χαρειν besides the particular names of the most renowned Hesiodic trinity—Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia—that is to say, brilliancy, mirth, and florescence. Hence arose the Roman conception of (...) the Gratiae decentes; hence also the widespread neo-humanistic idea, clothed by Goethe in the well-known verse of the Classical Walpurgis Night: ‘Grace we are bringing into life ….’ But, on the other hand, we discover the incontestable kinship of Charis with Charon, the ugly and sullen ferryman of the lower world, the still more amazing relation between Eurynome, the mother of the Hesiodic trinity, and Eurynomos, the horrid demon of decay, the vulture-skinned devourer of putrefying corpses in the Delphic Nekyia of Polygnotos. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é discutir o pensamento político de Espinosa confrontando-o, por um lado, com o que poderíamos chamar a “ideologia dominante" da época, o pensamento cristão, aqui examinado a partir da correspondência com o dinamarquês N. Stensen, e, por outro lado, com o quadro teórico em que a questão política está então a ser recolocada, o pensamento de Hobbes. Além da conhecida explicitação do que o distingue em relação a Hobbes ( Carta L, a J. Jelles), é na (...) Correspondência que Espinosa expõe a articulação entre a política e os grandes temas de sua metafísica, como são a doutrina da causa imanente e o binômio liberdade/necessidade. Lugar privilegiado de auscultação da opinião dominante e, por isso, exercício em si mesmo exemplarmente político, as cartas são também o espaço textual em que a metafísica se expõe às suas consequências políticas e a teoria se confronta com a prática, oferecendo uma visão de Espinosa que, se está longe do "positivista" hobbesiano, não está menos longe do visionário afastado da realidade que o circunda e o condiciona. (shrink)