The human brain is divided into two hemispheres, right and left, that are joined by a thick ‘cable’ of neural fibres called the corpus callosum. It has long been observed that injury to the left hemisphere in the average adult damages speech, speech comprehension, and reading, and causes paralysis on the right side of the body. Injury to the right hemisphere, on the other hand, seems to leave linguistic capabilities intact, but causes paralysis on the left side of the body. (...) These observations have given rise to the twin concepts of contralaterality of hemispheric control and cognitive specialization of hemispheric function. As far back as the nineteenth century, it was recognized that the left hemisphere’s specialty was language. Pioneering British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson asserted in 1868 that the left hemisphere was the ‘leading side’ in most people, responsible for the control of speech and will. In the decade of the 1940s, French neurologist Henry Hecaen and British psychologist Oliver Zangwill demonstrated that the right hemisphere, far from being passive, controlled visuospatial processing. (shrink)

Modernity has challenged the ancient ideal of a universal quest for wisdom, and today's world of conflicting cultures and values has raised further doubts regarding the possibility of objective ethical standards. Robert Kane refocuses the debate on the philosophical quest for wisdom, and argues that ethical principles about right action and the good life can be seen to emerge from that very quest itself. His book contends that the search for wisdom involves a persistent striving to overcome narrowness of (...) vision that comes from the inevitable limitations of finite points of view. When applied to questions of value and the good life, this striving has ethical implications about the way we should treat ourselves and others. This study argues for the merits of this central thesis against alternative theories in contemporary normative ethics, and discusses its practical applications for social ethics, political philosophy, law and moral education. (shrink)

Hearing Double is an extended meditation on the jazz standard that brings together both musical analysis and philosophical analysis to offer a novel theory of musical works. Rather than focus on works of classical music, which has been the main focus of most Anglophone philosophy of music, Hearing Double focuses on "jazz standards" and attempts to theorize what makes them ontologically and historically specific and important. In this theory, standards are understood to emerge from networks of musical performances. Part I (...) describes the ontology of these musical networks by considering two musical processes, "replication" and "nomination," and their interaction. Part II discusses the historical conditions that encouraged standards to emerge. These conditions promoted an auditory culture where new songs were expected to circulate in ever-changing performances and arrangements. By weaving together ontological theory and auditory cultural history, Hearing Double challenges conventional understandings of the jazz repertoire, and opens up a new method for understanding the history, purpose, meaning, and aesthetics of jazz standards. (shrink)

​While it may appear that generative AI has mastered the mystery of the human mind and released its full power, The Emergence of Mind: Where Technology Ends and We Begin demonstrates the profound and fundamental limitations of the technology and its use as a model of human thinking. In response, the book offers an emergent model of the human mind rooted in our experiences as living, sentient, social and conscious beings. The text explores the nature of meaning in human cognition (...) and the critical importance of the experience of ideas. In so doing, it offers insights into the cultivation of specific generative capacities of the human mind. (shrink)

How can we register the participation of a range of elements, extending beyond the human subject, in the production of HIV events? In the context of proposals around biomedical prevention, there is a growing awareness of the need to find ways of responding to complexity, as everywhere new combinations of treatment, behavior, drugs, norms, meanings and devices are coming into encounter with one another, or are set to come into encounter with one another, with a range of unpredictable effects. In (...) this paper I consider the operation of various framing devices that attribute responsibility and causation with regard to HIV events. I propose that we need to sharpen our analytic focus on what these devices do, their performativity—that is, their full range of worldly implications and effects. My primary examples are the criminal law and the randomized control trial. I argue that these institutions operate as framing devices: They attribute responsibility for HIV events and externalize other elements and effects in the process. Drawing on recent work in science and technology studies as well as queer theory, I set out an analytic frame that marks out a new role for HIV social research. Attentiveness to the performative effects of these devices is crucial, I suggest, if we want better to address the global HIV epidemic. (shrink)

Julie Houts has cultivated a devoted following as "Instagram's favourite illustrator" (Vogue) by lampooning the conflicting messages and images women consume and share with the world every day. A collection of darkly comic illustrated essays, Literally Me chronicles the daily exploits of "slightly antisocial heroines" (Refinery29) in vivid, excruciatingly funny detail, including: -The beauty routine of a deranged bride who aspires to be "truly without flaws" on her wedding day -What happens when Kylie Jenner has an existential crisis and (...) can no longer "step out" -A journey to Coachella by the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse -The true dating confessions of a fembot -The terrifying description for Alice Staunch's book How to be the Perfect Feminist -The diary of Fiddle Ficus, a tree that lives inside a CÉLINE store, and much more. Literally Me marks the launch of a brilliant new social satirist. Julie's singular voice and beautiful illustrations reveal the truth about the absurdity of life in the social media age: the line between becoming a total `Girlboss' and a 21st-century American Psycho is razor-thin."--Dust jacket. (shrink)

When Ron Giere introduced perspectivism into philosophy of science, he provided a perspectivist analysis of both scientific instruments and scientific theorizing. Today, there is a burgeoning literature that extends Giere’s analysis of theorizing, with many philosophers examining the perspectivist approach to aspects of theorizing such as models, laws, explanations, and so on. However, relatively little attention has been paid to Giere’s analysis of instruments. In this article, I hope to fill this gap. I argue that the perspectivist analysis of instruments (...) should be rejected. First, I give a general account of the kind of instrumentation relevant to instrumental perspectivism, drawing on Cartwright’s notion of nomological machines, which forms the basis of my criticism of Giere’s argument for instrumental perspectivism. Next, I present the case against instrumental perspectivism. I argue that instrumental perspectivism is dependent on theoretical perspectivism in a way that robs it of philosophical significance, and that it introduces new puzzles while adding little to our understanding of instruments. (shrink)

"J’étais morte, mais pas enterrée, et c’est la philosophie qui m’a ramenée à la vie. Comme une mère, elle m’a non seulement donné la vie en me donnant accès à ma vie intérieure par l’élargissement de ma conscience, mais elle m’a également appris à vivre, c’est-à-dire comment agir au mieux dans la vie quotidienne. Tout au long de ses réflexions et de son témoignage, l’auteure affirme haut et fort que la philosophie peut sauver des vies, car elle rend possibles la (...) conversion du regard et la prise en charge de sa propre liberté."--Résumé de l'éditeur. (shrink)

This introduction outlines the importance that Hans-Georg Backhaus’s transcript of Adorno’s 1962 seminar on ‘Marx and the Basic Concepts of Sociological Theory’ has for shedding light on the relationship between Adorno’s critical theory and the critique of political economy. PartIsignals the importance of the seminar by assaying the Anglophone scholarship on Adorno. PartIIcontextualises the seminar in the development of his thought. PartsIIIandIVfocus on what the transcript tells us about Adorno’s interpretation of Marx and the importance this interpretation held for Adorno’s (...) critical social theory. PartVpoints to the influence this interpretation of the critique of political economy had on the formation of the New German Reading of Marx. (shrink)

According to constructive empiricists, accepting a scientific theory involves belief only that it is true of the observable world, where observability is defined in terms of what is detectable by the unaided senses. On this view, scientific instruments are machines that generate new observable data, but this data need not be interpreted as providing access to a realm of phenomena beyond what is revealed by the senses. A recent challenge to the constructive empiricist account of instruments appeals to the extended (...) mind thesis, according to which cognitive processes are sometimes constituted not just by brain activity, but can extend into the rest of the body and the surrounding environment. If this is right, scientific instruments may, in the right circumstances, literally become part of our perceptual processes. In this article, I examine this extended perception argument, and I find that it fails for the vast majority of scientific instruments. Even if the extended mind thesis is accepted, the constructive empiricist can draw a line between observables and unobservables that makes very few concessions to the realist. (shrink)

Adorning the Country with Ruins -- The Western Baroque Landscape -- The Irish Tours -- Designing Picturesque Ireland -- Epilogue: Studies in a Point of View.

This article examines how the formation of markets in bottled water has relied on assembling a particular subject: the subject of hydration. The discourse of hydration is a conspicuous feature of efforts to market bottled water, allowing companies to appeal to scientifically framed principles and ideas of health in order to position the product as an essential component in self-health and healthy lifestyles. Alongside related principles, such as the ‘8 × 8 rule’, hydration has done much to establish new practices (...) of water drinking and consumption in which the consumer appears to be always at risk of dehydration and must engage in practices of ‘frequent sipping’. This article traces the emergence of the concept of hydration from its origins in exercise science and explores its circulation, contemporary uses and purchase. I argue that the appeal to biomedical languages and concepts found in the discourse of hydration connects with much broader ways of conceiving and acting upon the self that have become prevalent in contemporary society – what Rose and Novas call ‘biological citizenship’ – indicating how the ensemble of hydration participates in wider-ranging transformations in forms of rule. The story of hydration reveals how biomedical techniques of the self can be made to double up as ‘market devices’ by offering specific procedures for assessing the self and calculating the body’s needs. In order to grasp these developments, I position the health sciences, and health and fitness in particular, as a potent site of popular culture in which bodies learn to be affected by the procedures of scientific experiment. A critical grasp of this context is best enabled, I argue, by situating the producers and consumers of scientific principles and commercial products as embodied and looking at their interconnection in processes of emergence. Through these means, we can begin to develop a fully materialized account of the question: how have we become so thirsty? (shrink)

A short story exploring cloning and the Teletransporter Thought Experiment. Rather than abstract consideration, the focus is on the first-personal experience.

Self-deception may be a natural consequence of active goal operation instead of an adaptation for negotiating the social world. We argue that because autonomous goal programs likely drove human judgment and behavior prior to evolution of a central executive or “self,” these goal programs can operate independently to attain their desired end states and thereby produce outcomes that “deceive” the individual.

The importance of voice and myth of the 'voiceless' -- Community pespective, experience and voice -- Glebelands Hostel, Durban -- Xolobeni, Eastern Cape -- Thembelihle community, Johannesburg -- Dominant media telling and elite communication -- The polical economy of dominant power and storytelling -- media diversity and voices(s) -- Rethinking media freedom, revamping media ethics -- Planting the seeds of change.

A travers la vingtaine de textes qui composent cet ouvrage, portant sur des savoirs et des pratiques de l'Afrique noire, l'auteur fonde son analyse sur l'hypothèse suivante : un invariant, plus significatif que tous les autres, occupe le coeur de la pensée africaine. Ce signifié ultime, c'est l'homme. Penser l'humain : la part africaine est une investigation philosophique sur des objets aussi variés que les mythes et les cosmogonies ; la conception et l'organisation de l'espace-temps ; la nature et la (...) fonction du savoir ; l'idéologie et le pouvoir ; le sacré et le profane ; l'idée de nombre et les spéculations sur ses usages. La recherche d'une unité aux discours portant sur ces différents objets trouve sa justification dans un avant-propos intitulé "La part africaine", formulation d'une problématique dont l'auteur s'emploie à dissiper les ambiguïtés et les équivoques pour mieux en souligner l'intérêt. Une manière de rappeler que si la réflexion sur l'homme et sa place dans l'univers peut être considérée comme un trait commun à tous les hommes, de toutes les cultures, cet universel s'incarne dans des profils que sont ses différentes manifestations dans le particulier. Dire de manière quasi obsessionnelle, au détriment d'autres approches du réel, que sans l'homme il n'y a pas de signification du monde, constitue ce qu'Abdoulaye Elimane Kane croit être le fond de la pensée africaine. (shrink)

Le vécu dont je tire ce récit est mon expérience d'homme vivant avec une maladie chronique, l'asthme, dont les périodes alternées, plus ou moins longues, de crise et de rémission me donnèrent envie d'extrapoler sur le thème plus large du plaisir et de la douleur, retenant déjà comme titre provisoire de mon ouvrage Le plaisir et l'ennui, ces deux termes visant une extension de l'analyse au-delà des seules questions de santé et de maladie, incluant par conséquent, leurs équivalents et synonymes (...) dans la vie individuelle et collective. Entre-temps, mes enfants qui n'ont connu que deux de leurs grands-parents, sur le tard, et presque rien de la vie au Fouta alors que nos références familiales et nos évocations quotidiennes en sont remplies ; qui m'ont vu entrer dans la vie active et m'engager politiquement sans en comprendre toujours les tenants et les aboutissants, revinrent plusieurs fois à la charge pour me suggérer d'écrire sur la famille, sur ma petite expérience d'enseignant et d'homme politique, sur les hommes et les femmes qui m'ont marqué et, surtout, sur la place que j'accorde à l'amitié, à la fraternité et à la solidarité, trois notions qu'ils m'ont entendu évoquer souvent et qui, à ce qu'il leur semblait, importent, aujourd'hui, plus aux yeux des jeunes qu'à ceux des adultes. (shrink)

This book offers a radical alternative to the positive orientation of popular psychology. This positive orientation has been criticized numerous times. However, there has yet to be a coherent alternative proposed. We all know today that life hurts and that there is no ultimate remedy to this pain. The positive approach feels to us as dishonest and irrelevant. We require a new, more negative, perspective and practice, one that is honest and does not pretend to offer an escape from the (...) agonies of the world. This book offers in three main chapters a ‘depressive realist’ perspective that explores the structural role of negativity and tragedy in relation to the individual psyche, society, and nature. It explores the possibility of ‘negative psychoanalysis’ which takes into account the tragedy of human existence instead of adopting escapist positions. (shrink)

This article discusses what is involved in having full moral status, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status and surveys different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.

That remark, by a long forgotten critic, was meant as a rebuke for the painter who did not work from sketches. Jean Simeon Chardin's counter.

Most jurisdictions require that a mental capacity assessment be conducted using a functional model whose definition includes several abilities. In England and Wales and in increasing number of countries, the law requires a person be able to understand, to retain, to use or weigh relevant information and to communicate one’s decision. But interpreting and applying broad and vague criteria, such as the ability ‘to use or weigh’ to a diverse range of presentations is challenging. By examining actual court judgements of (...) capacity, we previously developed a descriptive typology of justifications used in the application of the Mental Capacity Act criteria. We here critically optimise this typology by showing how clear definitions—and thus boundaries—between the criteria can be achieved if the ‘understanding’ criterion is used narrowly and the multiple rationales that fall under the ability to ‘use or weigh’ are specifically enumerated in practice. Such a typology-aided practice, in theory, could make functional capacity assessments more transparent, accountable, reliable and valid. It may also help to create targeted supports for decision making by the vulnerable. We also discuss how the typology could evolve legally and scientifically, and how it lays the groundwork for clinical research on the abilities enumerated by the MCA. No data are available. This paper does not report any original data. (shrink)

Où en sont aujourd'hui les études au sujet de Maître Eckhart (1260-1327), frère prêcheur et maître en théologie de l'université de Paris, dont plusieurs propositions ont été condamnées par le pape Jean XXII dans la bulle In agro dominico? De la variété et de la richesse des directions de recherche actuelles, ce volume en propose, conformément à l'esprit de la collection, une sélection. Quatre perspectives principales se dégagent. La première concerne les questions métaphysiques et théologiques majeures - Dieu, l'Un, la (...) Trinité, les transcendantaux - ainsi que la théorie de l'intellect. La deuxième regroupe les questions spirituelles, morales et anthropologiques soulevées par la réflexion eckhartienne. Une troisième s'intéresse aux auteurs aux-quels les textes d'Eckhart ouvrent, que ces auteurs précèdent ou suivent chronologiquement le maître thuringien : Plotin, Maïmonide, le Liber de causis et l'idéalisme allemand, Heidegger, Derrida ou encore les études comparatistes de Shizuteru Ueda avec le bouddhisme zen. Une quatrième manière de lire ce recueil consiste à suivre la distinction et la complémentarité de oeuvre latine et de oeuvre allemande de Maître Eckhart avec les différents problèmes herméneutiques et doctrinaux qu'elles posent. Que chaque lecteur puisse trouver à son gré, à travers les différences d'approches et de voix, ses propres chemins pour entrer dans oeuvre de Maître Eckhart. (shrink)

This book critically reviews all principal contributions to the American animal rights debate by activists, campaigners, academics, and lawyers, while placing animal rights in context with other related and competing movements.

Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively and engaging conversation Offers the reader (...) a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophy series. (shrink)

Reveals how our survival depends on embracing complexity consciousness and relating to nature and all life as sacred.

Broadly speaking, an entity has moral status if and only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Some philosophers, who think of moral status in terms of duties and rights owed to an entity, allow that moral status can come in degrees, with only some beings having status of the highest degree – that is, full moral status (FMS). We critically review the competing accounts of what qualifies one for FMS. Some accounts demand cognitive sophistication, which (...) excludes many children, while others are inclusive of children but fail by (a) putting children morally on a par with most animals (experiencing subject of a life), (b) invoking criteria of dubious moral relevance (potentiality, membership in a biological species), or (c) not securing impartial moral status (special relationships). We end with our own account, which attempts to rectify such problems, addressing specifically the moral status of children. (shrink)