In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dogs and MonstersObservations on the Evacuation of Afghanistan and the Intersection of Human Rights and the AnthropoceneK. M. Ferebee (bio)On August 28, 2021, former Royal Marine and charity worker Pen Farthing was evacuated from Afghanistan with almost two hundred dogs and cats that his Kabul animal charity, Nowzad Dogs, had rescued. The role of the British government in this evacuation remains hotly contested: At the time, the British Ministry (...) of Defence tweeted (Fig. 1) that Farthing's escape had been assisted by the British military, but Farthing later disputed this claim and argued that his rescue was not the result of high-level intervention in the British government. In January 2022 controversy erupted around the emergence of documents suggesting that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had lied to Parliament about the personal role that he played in just such an intervention. Notably, Nowzad's Afghan staff members were not evacuated alongside Farthing and the animals, though they would eventually escape to Pakistan. Following Farthing's escape, the British government failed to evacuate hundreds of British citizens and residents (Merriman and Ghouri), as well as many more Afghans who had worked on behalf of British forces. The Nowzad Dogs evacuation became a site of symbolic struggle over Britain's respect (or lack thereof) for human rights. "What a story to tell the world: Britain values dogs more than Afghan people," the headline of an opinion piece in the Guardian (Hinsliff) read.The story of Nowzad Dogs is interesting to me not only as a tale of human-nonhuman relations, but also because I was, at the time it occurred, volunteering within the Afghan aid community to assist relatives of a friend, British Afghans who had been visiting Kabul when the government [End Page 52] collapsed. The family repeatedly asked for assistance from the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—assistance that never appeared. Ultimately, due to the generosity of donors and the coordination of a volunteer team, the family was able to flee to Pakistan, where they boarded a commercial flight to London. This case was a particularly stark and powerful illustration of the negotiations of rights and value that took place during and following the evacuation. It seemed nonsensical, in August 2021, to suppose that British citizens, including British children (the family I worked with included a six- and an eleven-year-old who were British citizens), would be abandoned while Afghan dogs had their rights prioritized. As I hope to demonstrate here, however, such an incident becomes comprehensible and even logical when it is understood as part of a specifically Anthropocene manifestation of subjectivity.Upendra Baxi suggests that 1948's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) marks a broad shift from the era of "modern" (42) human rights (which began with the American and French Revolutions) to the era of "contemporary" (42) human rights. His periodization links these eras in human rights to shifts in the ideology of capitalism and empire. The "modern" era of human rights, he writes, "signals a whole variety of ideological 'justifications' for colonization and world domination" and "provides a register of major development in industrial capitalism" (42), while the "contemporary" era of human rights "is based on the premise of radical self-determination" (46). Such a periodization also brings human rights into close alignment with the Anthropocene, which is rooted in the capitalist-colonial Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, yet often dated most concretely to the circa-1950 shift that some (such as J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke) label the "Great Acceleration." Indeed, one could reasonably appropriate Baxi's terms and speak of "modern" and "contemporary" Anthropocenes mapped identically onto the global timeline.I propose to use the 2021 Afghan evacuation as a site from which to explore how human rights and the Anthropocene have together coproduced certain forms of subjectivity that are essential for the continued smooth functioning of world-ecological capitalism. These new forms of subjectivity are necessary to sustain the important fiction of individual [End Page 53] agency and value and conceal the ways in which the Anthropocene moment renders this fiction meaningless. Ultimately, I paint a picture of an Anthropocene without any human agency at all. I want... (shrink)

Abstract: Some first person statements, such as ‘I am in pain’, are thought to be immune to error through misidentification (IEM): I cannot be wrong that I am in pain because—while I know that someone is in pain—I have mistaken that person for myself. While IEM is typically associated with the self-ascription of psychological properties, some philosophers attempt to draw anti-Cartesian conclusions from the claim that certain physical self-ascriptions are also IEM. In this paper, I will examine whether some physical (...) self-ascriptions are in fact IEM, and—if they are—what role that fact is supposed to play in arguments for the anti-Cartesian claim that self-consciousness is consciousness of oneself as a material object. I will argue that if we accept the assumptions required to show that physical self-ascriptions are IEM, then IEM cannot play the role it needs to play in these anti-Cartesian arguments. (shrink)

To reconcile true claims of de re necessity with the supposedly contingent existence of the concrete objects those claims are typically about, Kripkean essentialists invoke weak necessity. The claim that a is necessarily F is held to be equivalent to the claim that necessarily, if a exists then a is F. This strategy faces a barrage of serious objections a proper subset of which shows that the strategy fails to achieve its intended purpose. Relief can be provided via recourse to (...) a markedly non-Kripkean version of essentialism.1. (shrink)

This paper spells out the attention schema theory of consciousness in terms of the predictive processing framework. As it stands, the attention schema theory lacks a plausible computational formalization that could be used for developing possible mechanistic models of how it is realized in the brain. The predictive processing framework, on the other hand, fails to provide a plausible explanation of the subjective quality or the phenomenal aspect of conscious experience. The aim of this work is to apply the formal (...) tools of predictive processing to outline a possible model of cognition that details a plausible way in which organisms may acquire or construct the kinds of schemas postulated by the attention schema theory. This is done in terms of Bayesian control models, which tend to favour representing information in a frugal or 'sparse' manner that strips away detail in precisely the way that the attention schema requires. Once integrated, these two accounts can offer a plausible explanation of the supposedly irreducible and mysterious 'feel' of conscious experience, in terms of the frugal manner in which perceptual mechanisms are represented by the attention schema. (shrink)

Stone, J. Thoughts on supposed "Death of law".--Krishna Iyer, V. R. Jurisprudence and jurisconscience.--Sharma, G. S. Law and social change in India.--Sharma, S. D. The concept of justice in Manu.--Chand, H. Legal values for a developing country.--Ramarao, T. S. The new international law relating to the rights and duties of States.--Sinha, B. S. Custom and customary law in Indian jurisprudence.--Mazumdar, D. L. Techno-economic structure of our industrial society.--Subrahamanian, N. Law and social change.

A review of empirical and theoretical work on reasoning and linguistic inference, which will be a useful introduction to the subject for students of language and thought. The book focuses on the relationship between what people do and what people are supposed to do when making inferences.

In these challenging pages, Unger argues for the extreme skeptical view that, not only can nothing ever be known, but no one can ever have any reason at all for anything. A consequence of this is that we cannot ever have any emotions about anything: no one can ever be happy or sad about anything. Finally, in this reduction to absurdity of virtually all our supposed thought, he argues that no one can ever believe, or even say, that anything is (...) the case. (shrink)

E.J. Lowe claims that quantum physics provides examples of ontic indeterminacy, of vagueness in the world. Any such claim must confront the Evans-Salmon argument to the effect that the notion of ontic indeterminacy is simply incoherent (Evans 1978, Salmon 1981: 243-46). Lowe argues that a standard version of the Evans-Salmon argument fails quite generally (Lowe 1994). Harold Noonan (1995) has outlined a non-standard version of the argument, but Lowe argues that this non-standard version fails for specifically quantum mechanical reasons (Lowe (...) 1997). He claims that it is perfectly coherent to suppose that his quantum case is an example of ontic indeterminacy. In this paper, I raise some objections to Lowe's claim. (shrink)

Goff argues that Galileo erred in denying that sensory qualities are present in the physical world and that we should correct his error by supposing that all matter has an intrinsic conscious aspect. This paper argues that we should be open to another theoretical option. Galileo's real error, I argue, was not about the location of sensory qualities, but about their very existence. Like most people, Galileo assumed that sensory qualities are instantiated somewhere. I argue that this is a theoretical (...) assumption which can and should be questioned. If we drop it, we can give a natural account of the function of sensory quality talk and explain how our puzzlement about consciousness arises. (shrink)

We argue that, under certain plausible assumptions, de Sitter space settles into a quiescent vacuum in which there are no dynamical quantum fluctuations. Such fluctuations require either an evolving microstate, or time-dependent histories of out-of-equilibrium recording devices, which we argue are absent in stationary states. For a massive scalar field in a fixed de Sitter background, the cosmic no-hair theorem implies that the state of the patch approaches the vacuum, where there are no fluctuations. We argue that an analogous conclusion (...) holds whenever a patch of de Sitter is embedded in a larger theory with an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, including semiclassical quantum gravity with false vacua or complementarity in theories with at least one Minkowski vacuum. This reasoning provides an escape from the Boltzmann brain problem in such theories. It also implies that vacuum states do not uptunnel to higher-energy vacua and that perturbations do not decohere while slow-roll inflation occurs, suggesting that eternal inflation is much less common than often supposed. On the other hand, if a de Sitter patch is a closed system with a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, there will be Poincaré recurrences and dynamical Boltzmann fluctuations into lower-entropy states. Our analysis does not alter the conventional understanding of the origin of density fluctuations from primordial inflation, since reheating naturally generates a high-entropy environment and leads to decoherence, nor does it affect the existence of non-dynamical vacuum fluctuations such as those that give rise to the Casimir effect. (shrink)

A common way to understand memory structures in the cognitive sciences is as a cognitive map​. Cognitive maps are representational systems organized by dimensions shared with physical space. The appeal to these maps begins literally: as an account of how spatial information is represented and used to inform spatial navigation. Invocations of cognitive maps, however, are often more ambitious; cognitive maps are meant to scale up and provide the basis for our more sophisticated memory capacities. The extension is not meant (...) to be metaphorical, but the way in which these richer mental structures are supposed to remain map-like is rarely made explicit. Here we investigate this missing link, asking: how do cognitive maps represent non-spatial information?​ We begin with a survey of foundational work on spatial cognitive maps and then provide a comparative review of alternative, non-spatial representational structures. We then turn to several cutting-edge projects that are engaged in the task of scaling up cognitive maps so as to accommodate non-spatial information: first, on the spatial-isometric approach​ , encoding content that is non-spatial but in some sense isomorphic to spatial content; second, on the ​ abstraction approach​ , encoding content that is an abstraction over first-order spatial information; and third, on the ​ embedding approach​ , embedding non-spatial information within a spatial context, a prominent example being the Method-of-Loci. Putting these cases alongside one another reveals the variety of options available for building cognitive maps, and the distinctive limitations of each. We conclude by reflecting on where these results take us in terms of understanding the place of cognitive maps in memory. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the study of continuous-time computational models. However, not so much has been done with respect to setting up a complexity theoretic framework for such models. The present paper intends to go a step into this direction. We consider problems over the real numbers which we try to relate to Lyapunov theory for dynamical systems: The global minimizers of particular energy functions are supposed to give solutions of the problem. The structure of such (...) energy functions leads to the introduction of problem classes U and NU; for the systems we are considering they parallel the classical complexity classes P and NP. We then introduce a notion of reducibility among problems and show existence of complete problems for NU and for PU, a polynomial hierarchy of continuous-time problems.For previous work on the computational capabilities of continuous-time systems see the surveys by Cris Moore [9] and by Pekka Orponen [10]. Our paper presents a step into the direction of creating a general framework for a complexity theory of continuous-time systems as outlined in [10]. It is closely related to work done by A. Ben-Hur, H. Siegelmann, and S. Fishman [12, 11]. (shrink)

An extrinsic desire is defined as a desire for something, not for its own sake, but for its supposed propensity to secure something else that one desires. I argue that the notion of ‘extrinsic desire’ is theoretically redundant. I begin by defining desire as a propositional attitude with a desirability characterization. The roles of desire and intention in practical reasoning are distinguished. I show that extrinsic desire does not have its own motivational role. I also show that extrinsic desire is (...) not needed for other roles besides motivation to carry out the means, and is not generated by reason. Finally, I argue that an account of extrinsic motivation in terms of intention is preferable to an account in terms of extrinsic desire. Because of the fundamental differences between extrinsic desire and intrinsic desire, it is more advantageous to distinguish between them as different kinds of mental states: intention and desire. (shrink)

Suppose some person 'A' sets out to accomplish a difficult, long-term goal such as writing a passable Ph.D. thesis. What should you believe about whether A will succeed? The default answer is that you should believe whatever the total accessible evidence concerning A's abilities, circumstances, capacity for self-discipline, and so forth supports. But could it be that what you should believe depends in part on the relationship you have with A? We argue that it does, in the case where (...) A is yourself. The capacity for "grit" involves a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of evidence suggesting that one might fail, and this makes it rational to respond to the relevant evidence differently when you are the agent in question. We then explore whether similar arguments extend to the case of "believing in" our significant others -- our friends, lovers, family members, colleagues, patients, and students. (shrink)

Quine, taking the molecular constitution of matter as a paradigmatic example, offers an account of the relation between theory confirmation and ontology. Elsewhere, he deploys a similar ontological methodology to argue for the existence of mathematical objects. Penelope Maddy considers the atomic/molecular theory in more historical detail. She argues that the actual ontological practices of science display a positivistic demand for “direct observation,” and that fulfillment of this demand allows us to distinguish molecules and other physical objects from mathematical abstracta. (...) However, the confirmation of the atomic/molecular theory and the development of scientists’ ontological attitudes towards atoms was more complicated and subtle than even Maddy supposes. The present paper argues that the history of the theory in fact supports neither Quine’s and Maddy’s accounts of scientific ontology. There was no general demand from scientists to “see” atoms before they were reckoned to be real; but neither did the indispensable appearance of atoms in the best theory of chemical combination suffice to convince scientists of their reality. (shrink)

L’idée leibnizienne de la science universelle suppose l’idée de l’unité des sciences.Les signes qui doivent être créés par la caractéristique universelle appartiennent tous à la même catégorie sémantique ; ils forment une partie du vocabulaire d’un langage dans lequel toutes les sciences peuvent être exposées.Les systèmes de calcul logique contiennent une définition de la vérité. La caractéristique universelle est un langage qui n’a besoin d’aucune règle de raisonnement. Les systèmes de calcul logique se rapportent à des langues générales.

I tried to analyse the proceedings of heredity, methodologically separating the factors of “irritation and the reaction” upon it on the part of the living substance. The question was, to investigate the development of the hereditarily directed growth of the cells by “formative irritation” according to the conception of H.Driesch, that is to say in their homogeneousness with the biological reaction upon irritation on the part of the nutritive substances. It so became evident, that mechanism and vitalism have to co-operate (...) in separate sections of investigation: the first towards the substancially conceivable side, the latter towards an irrational order of ideas, as vitalism lays them down in “Entelechy“.Practically the same idea is expressed inSpemann's “Regenerations” by looking on the “Organisatoren” as substancial bearers of hereditary immaterial factors. The same thing results in all probability from an analysis ofPawlow's “conditioned Teflexes”.From all this results, that mechanism and vitalism ought to supplement one another in acting conjointly as to the conception of “totality” in the organic structure. In his “Holism”,Adolf Meyer, going beyond mechanism and vitalism, placed his conceptions of totality at the head and by “simplification” deducted the simple from the complicated.Hans Schmalfuss says: simplifying and complicating have each of them three sides, a substancial one, a planning-one and one constructed by thought. The planning side is the connecting link between the substancial side and the one constructed by thought and cannot be separated from either. He proves this by thorough argument in his “Substance and Life”. He is able to include naturallyvon Uexküll's “Planlehre”.All this corresponds to the adaptation of all that is living to the environment as belonging to a harmonious life of the individual. Even here the extreme mechanists suppose themselves able to draw upon the future and therefore remain implacable adversaries of vitalism. Perhaps there might be a reconciliation even here, if the order of ideas about an “All-life” as well as an “All-plan” combined with “Holism” should prove indispensable in scientifically enlightening the mystery of life.There follow a few words concerning the problem of heredity of qualities acquired, “erworbene Eigenschaften” .J'ai essayé d'analyser les procédés de l'hérédité en séparant méthodologiquement les facteurs de „l'irritation et ceux de la réaction” de la part de la substance vivante. Il s'agit ici du développement de la croissance des cellules par „l'irritation formative” d'après la conception de H.Driesch, cela veut dire d'après leur homogénéité avec la réaction biologique de la substance nutritive. Il se montra ainsi, que le mécanisme et le vitalisme doivent coopérer: le premier du côté substantiellement concevable, le dernier du côté de l'ordre des idées irrationelles telles que le vitalisme les expose dans „l'entéléchie”.Pratiquement, la même idée est exposée dans les „Régénérations” deSpemann, en regardant les „Organisatoren” comme porteurs des facteurs héréditaires et immatériels. Le même résultat se montre avec probabilité dans une analyse des „réflexes conditionels” dePawlow.De tout cela résulte, que le mécanisme et le vitalisme devraient suppléer l'un l'autre dans un travail commun quant à la notion de „totalité” dans la croissance organique. Dans son „Holisme”,Adolf Meyer, allant au delà du mécanisme et du vitalisme, a mis à la tête la conception de „totalité” et par la simplification il a déduit le simple du compliqué.Hans Schmalfuss dit: la simplification et la complication ont chacune trois côtés, un côté substantiel, un côté „planlich” et un côté provenant de la pensée. Le côté „planlich” est le lien entre le côté substantiel et celui provenant de la pensée et ne peut être séparé d'aucun des deux. Il prouve cela par un argument profond dans son livre „la Substance et la Vie”. Il inclut tout naturellement la „Planlehre” devon Uexküll.Tout cela correspond à l'adaptation de tout ce qui est vivant à son milieu, faisant ainsi part de la vie harmonieuse de l'individu. Il est vrai, que les extrêmes mécanistes croient pouvoir tirer sur l'avenir et c'est pour cette raison, qu'ils restent des adversaires implacables du vitalisme. Peut-être y aura-t-il une réconciliation si les ordres d'idées d'un „All-Leben” ainsi que d'un „All-Plan” combinés avec le „Holisme” se trouvent être indispensables à l'éclaircissement du mystère de la vie selon la science.Quelques mots suivent concernant le problème de l'hérédité des qualités acquises, „erworbene Eigenschaften”. (shrink)

Les fouilles effectuées au cours de ces dernières dizaines d’années, ont modifié profondément le tableau qu’on se faisait de la préhistoire chinoise. Au début du xxe siècle, les savants les plus connus pouvaient encore mettre en doute l’existence d’une époque néolithique chinoise — mais depuis lors, l’activité de l’archéologie a mis à jour un vaste matériel et paléolithique et néolithique. Le présent article, extrait du premier volume d’une histoire économique et sociale de la Chine, donne une vue d’ensemble du matériel (...) nouvellement acquis et cherche à le mettre en valeur pour une considération sociologique.L’homo pekinensis, l’ancien habitant de la Chine paléolithique du Nord connaissait le feu ; il se servait d’instruments et d’armes en pierre travaillée. Aux deux degrés de son évolution de chasseur primitif et de chasseur évolué, correspondent deux degrés de perfection de ces instruments. Il semble bien que les prisonniers aient été tués (et mangés?) sans distinction d’âge et de sexe. Les chasseurs ne sauraient que faire du travail d’esclave.Vers la fin de l’époque néolithique chinoise se produisit un épanouissement que la rare perfection de la céramique „rouge“ et „noire“ indique assez bien. La filiation somatique de l’homo pekinensis et du Chinois des époques ultérieures est probable ; il semble hors de doute que l’homme de l’époque néolithique soit du même type que celui de la Chine historique. Primitivement, l’agriculture (à la houe) était faite par les femmes, qui en même temps confectionnaient à la main — par la suite au moyen d'une plaque très simple — la céramique,,rouge“ ; les hommes continuaient à s'occuper de la chasse et de la pêche. Dès lors apparaît, encore qu'assez vaguement, une civilisation démocratique et paysanne, caractérisée probablement par des éléments matriarchaux. Vers l'époque de la céramique „noire“ se produit la transition vers l'élevage et à la céramique qui connaît alors le tour de potier — ces deux sortes de travaux incombent aux hommes. L'agriculture se fait plus intense, c'est peut-être ici qu'il convient de supposer les premiers débuts de la construction de terrasses et de l'irrigation. Les esclaves trouvent un emploi, une différenciation sociale se produit, c'est l'origine des villes. La société agraire primitive fait place à un ordre nouveau. Celui-ci s'exprime socialement parlant par une noblesse de clan primitive, politiquement par l'État.Les découvertes les plus récentes de l'archéologie chinoise apportent de nombreuses preuves pour l'évolution telle qu'elle vient d'être esquissée. L'analyse des mythes archaïques et des contes populaires de la Chine confirme, par la suite, au moyen de l'anthropologie ce que l'étude avait jusqu'ici rendu hautement probable par les méthodes de l'archéologie.Die Ausgrabungen der letzten Jahrzehnte haben das Bild der chinesischen Frühgeschichte grundlegend geändert. Während noch zu Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts führende Gelehrte die Existenz eines chinesischen Neolithikums bezweifelten, hat seither die Tätigkeit der Archäologie sowohl paläolithische wie neolithische Funde in grosser Reichhaltigkeit zutage gefördert. Der vorliegende Aufsatz — Sektion I des ersten Bandes einer Wirtschafts-und Sozialgeschichte Chinas — gibt einen Überblick über das neu gewonnene Material und sucht es sozialwissenschaftlich auszuwerten.Homo pekinensis, der (früh) altsteinzeitliche Bewohner Nordchinas kannte das Feuer ; er benutzte Werkzeuge und Waffen aus behauenem Stein. Zwei Stufen der Bearbeitung seiner Geräte deuten zwei Stufen seiner ökonomischen Entwicklung an, die des „niederen“ und des „höheren“ Jägertums. Gefangene scheinen ohne Unterschied von Alter und Geschlecht getötet (und verzehrt?) worden zu sein. Jäger haben für Sklavenarbeit keine Verwendung.Reich entwickelt ist Chinas (spätes) Neolithikum, dessen „rote“ und „schwarze“ Töpferei von seltener Vollkommenheit ist. Der Zusammenhang des homo pekinensis mit den späteren Chinesen ist somatisch wahrscheinlich, die Zugehörigkeit der Bewohner des chinesischen Neolithikums zu dem geschichtlichen Chinesentum scheint ausser Zweifel. Ursprünglich wurde offenbar der Ackerbau (Hackbau) von Frauen betrieben, die zugleich mit der Hand — und später mit einem einfachen Drehrad — die „rote“ Töpferei herstellten, während die Männer fortfuhren zu jagen und zu fischen. Das Bild einer primitiven demokratischen Dorfkultur mit vermutlich mutterrechtlichen Zügen wird andeutungsweise sichtbar. Es folgt zur Zeit der „schwarzen“ Töpferei der Übergang zur von Männern betriebenen Viehzucht und zu einer mit der Töpferscheibe von Männern durchgeführten Töpferei. Der Ackerbau wird intensiver, die ersten Anfänge von Terrassenbau und Bewässerung liegen vielleicht hier. Sklaven werden verwendbar, soziale Differenzierung tritt ein. Städte entstehen. Die primitive Agrargesellschaft verwandelt sich in eine Ordnung neuer Art, deren sozialer Ausdruck ein primitiver Clan-Adel, deren politischer Ausdruck der Staat ist.Die jüngsten Entdeckungen auf dem Gebiete der chinesischen Archäologie erbringen zahlreiche Beweise für einen derartigen Entwicklungsgang. Die Analyse von Chinas archaischen Mythen und Volkserzählungen bestätigt im Fortgang der Untersuchung mit den Mitteln der Anthropologie, was die hier gebotene Darstellung mit den Methoden der Archäologie bereits in hohem Grad wahrscheinlich gemacht hat. (shrink)

G.E.M. Anscombe famously claimed that acting intentionally entails knowing "without observation" what one is doing. Among those that have taken her claim seriously, an influential response has been to suppose that in order to explain this fact, we should conclude that intentions are a species of belief. This paper argues that there are good reasons to reject this "cognitivist" view of intention in favor of the view that intentions are distinctively practical attitudes that are not beliefs and do not (...) constitutively involve the belief that one will do what one intends. A theory is then proposed on behalf of Distinctive Practical Attitude views of intention to explain Anscombe's non-observational knowledge phenomenon. It is argued that intentions do not embody non-observational knowledge, but they do provide the evidential basis for it: we know without observation what we are doing by inferring from our intentions. (shrink)

Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism (...) about God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God. (shrink)

The editor has arranged forty-nine essays on and by Santayana into eight chapters representing major areas of Santayana's thought such as "Materialism and Idealism," "Essence, Substance, and Existence," "Art and Beauty." The essays supposedly speak to their chapter titles and to each other to create "the sense of dialogue"; with a few exceptions they were not written as deliberate conversation. This "dialogue" treats the reader to a fine display of the variety of minds and interests at work in philosophy and (...) illustrates the fact that one man's philosophical arena is rarely another man's. From J. H. Randall, Jr. to John Crowe Ransom, a recurring point of contention is Santayana's conception of Essences and their relationship to Matter. The range of interpretation on this issue goes from plaintive objections that "Essences don't do anything!" to appreciative acknowledgment that "Essences don't do anything!". Arguments over "isms" abound; realism, idealism, epiphenominalism are examined from many angles besides Santayana's. Santayana is highlighted nicely, arranged in this way beside his critics. His ability to locate the vital force behind an idea and to indicate where specific thrusts of thought will lead evinces his title of philosopher and master critic. This collection is not limited in appeal to Santayana aficionados.--A. K. T. (shrink)

The mental realm seems different to the physical realm; the mental is thought to be dependent on, yet distinct from the physical. But how, exactly, are the two realms supposed to be different, and what, exactly, creates the seemingly insurmountable juxtaposition between the mental and the physical? This review identifies and discusses five marks of the mental, features that set characteristically mental phenomena apart from the characteristically physical phenomena. These five marks (intentionality, consciousness, free will, teleology, and normativity) are not (...) presented as a set of features that define mentality. Rather, each of them is something we seem to associate with phenomena we consider mental, and each of them seems to be in tension with the physical view of reality in its own particular way. It is thus suggested how there is no single mind-body problem, but a set of distinct but interconnected problems. Each of these separate problems is analyzed, and their differences, similarities and connections are identified. This provides a useful basis for future theoretical work on psychology and philosophy of mind, that until now has too often suffered from unclarities, inadequacies, and conflations. (shrink)

In this article I examine the compatibility of a leading trope bundle theory of substance, so-called Nuclear Theory, with trope theory more generally. Peter Simons (1994) originally proposed Nuclear Theory (NT), and continues to develop (1998, 2000) and maintain (2002/03) the view. Recently, building on Simons’s theory, Markku Keinänen (2011) has proposed what he calls the Strong Nuclear Theory (SNT). Although the latter is supposed to shore up some of NT’s weaknesses, it continues to maintain NT’s central tenet, the premise (...) that tropes are variously existentially interdependent. I argue that the central tenet of NT frustrates several important aims of trope theory. If my arguments go through, they also implicate SNT. Because of this, I largely set aside other aspects of NT and SNT and focus on their shared central tenet. (shrink)

Various grounds for methodological differences between the natural and social sciences have been suggested in recent philosophical literature. It is said, for example, that the natural sciences deal with verifiable hypotheses, “exact” findings, measurable phenomena and invariable observations, whereas the social sciences do not. One of the most plausible of all such contentions is the suggestion that the natural sciences produce theories which correctly predict future events, whereas in the social sciences, there are cases in which correct prediction of future (...) events is, in principle, impossible. If such a case is to be found in the social sciences, it must, of course, be further demonstrated that an analogous case is not to be found in the natural sciences. If such a case is not to be found in the social sciences, the contention rests unverified. (shrink)

Leibniz’s mature philosophical understanding of the laws of nature emerges rather suddenly in the late 1670’s to early 1680’s and is signaled by his embrace of three central theses.1 The first, what I’ll call the thesis of Contingency, suggests that the laws of nature are not only contingent, but, in some sense, paradigmatically contingent; they are supposed to provide insight into the very nature of contingency as Leibniz comes to understand it. The second, what I’ll call the thesis of Providence, (...) suggests that the laws of nature provide a basis for a new argument from design by showing how reflection on God’s ends can be positively useful in the practice of natural philosophy. The third, what I’ll call thesis of .. (shrink)

Our aim in this article is to attempt to discuss propagating organization of process, a poorly articulated union of matter, energy, work, constraints and that vexed concept, “information”, which unite in far from equilibrium living physical systems. Our hope is to stimulate discussions by philosophers of biology and biologists to further clarify the concepts we discuss here. We place our discussion in the broad context of a “general biology”, properties that might well be found in life anywhere in the cosmos, (...) freed from the specific examples of terrestrial life after 3.8 billion years of evolution. By placing the discussion in this wider, if still hypothetical, context, we also try to place in context some of the extant discussion of information as intimately related to DNA, RNA and protein transcription and translation processes. While characteristic of current terrestrial life, there are no compelling grounds to suppose the same mechanisms would be involved in any life form able to evolve by heritable variation and natural selection. In turn, this allows us to discuss at least briefly, the focus of much of the philosophy of biology on population genetics, which, of course, assumes DNA, RNA, proteins, and other features of terrestrial life. Presumably, evolution by natural selection—and perhaps self-organization—could occur on many worlds via different causal mechanisms. Here we seek a non-reductionist explanation for the synthesis, accumulation, and propagation of information, work, and constraint, which we hope will provide some insight into both the biotic and abiotic universe, in terms of both molecular self reproduction and the basic work energy cycle where work is the constrained release of energy into a few degrees of freedom. The typical requirement for work itself is to construct those very constraints on the release of energy that then constitute further work. Information creation, we argue, arises in two ways: first information as natural selection assembling the very constraints on the release of energy that then constitutes work and the propagation of organization. Second, information in a more extended sense is “semiotic”, that is about the world or internal state of the organism and requires appropriate response. The idea is to combine ideas from biology, physics, and computer science, to formulate explanatory hypotheses on how information can be captured and rendered in the expected physical manifestation, which can then participate in the propagation of the organization of process in the expected biological work cycles to create the diversity in our observable biosphere. Our conclusions, to date, of this enquiry suggest a foundation which views information as the construction of constraints, which, in their physical manifestation, partially underlie the processes of evolution to dynamically determine the fitness of organisms within the context of a biotic universe. (shrink)

There are powerful skeptical challenges to the idea that we are free. And yet, it seems simply impossible for us to shake the sense that we really are free. Some are convinced that the skeptical challenges are insurmountable and resign themselves to living under an illusion, while others argue that the challenges can be met. Even among those who believe that our sense of ourselves as free is at least roughly accurate, there are deep differences of opinion concerning what freedom (...) requires. On the one hand, there are “libertarians” about freedom, those who believe both that we are free and that freedom requires the falsity of determinism. On the other hand, there are “compatibilists”, those who believe that freedom is compatible with determinism. While there is an impressive variety of arguments and motivations available on all sides of the debate over freedom, our inescapable sense of ourselves as free has played a recurrent and key role in the debate, sometimes explicit and sometimes not. In this paper, I explore one way that our self-conception has been used by libertarians against compatibilists, and I argue that the reasoning employed is not convincing. The libertarian appeal to our self-conception hinges on locating in each of us an essential commitment to indeterminism, or, more cautiously, a commitment to something that, with the addition of a few plausible (if not self-evident) premises, entails indeterminism. The idea, then, is that we are “natural” indeterminists, seeing our actions as undetermined (or, again, more cautiously, as having qualities that, upon reflection, we can recognize entail the falsity of determinism). By itself, this is not an argument to the effect that we are correct in 1 believing that our actions are undetermined, or to the effect that freedom requires indeterminism. But if we are in fact natural indeterminists when it comes to our own actions, then that fact serves as important motivation for libertarianism, especially if our supposed natural indeterminism captures our unshakeable sense of freedom. Kant famously located our sense of freedom in our nature as rational agents, claiming that we must act under the “idea of freedom.”2 This has suggested to many that: (R) Rational deliberators, in virtue of their very nature as rational deliberators, must represent themselves as free.. (shrink)

We may now consider this ancient evidence that Andes lay three miles away from Mantua in connection with Conway's remaining arguments and with Virgil's ‘own statement’ in his Bucolics.In the matter of the inscriptions, Conway's ‘impenitence’ does nothing to strengthen his case. All the points that he raises in an apparent refutation had been met by me. I had distinguished between public and private inscriptions, as Conway had not done in his earlier article, where he declared the period of the (...) two monuments to be ‘Virgil's own,’ the inscriptions being ‘cut in the style which marks the best work between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50.’ I had not, as he asserts, failed to notice the point that caps the climax of his recent article, that ‘the P. Magius who wrote the inscription of Casalpoglio … was related to Virgil's mother.’ I was inclined to date both inscriptions, with the approval of Professor Egbert, somewhere in the third quarter of the first century of our era, but ‘even allowing for them both a date as early as the end of the first century B.C.,’ which is apparently as far back as Conway means to stretch their date, I clamored for an inscription of the time of Virgil's birth if it were to serve as evidence for his birthplace. This point is not met by Conway. If Virgil was born at Pietole, his fame and his family could certainly have extended as far north as Casalpoglio and Calvisano at the time of his death in 19 B.C. Supposing that we knew on other evidence that he was born at Calvisano, the presence of an inscription with the name of Magius or Vergilius would corroborate that evidence. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

An interpretation of Aristotle's modal syllogistic is proposed which is intuitively graspable, if only formally correst. The individuals to which a term applies, and possibly-applies, are supposed to be determined in a uniform way by the set of individuals to which the term necessarily-applies.

A disciple's exposition of the semi-mystical system of Msgr. Mario Sturzo, drawing solely on the latter's La Filosofia dell' Avvenire. Supposedly a critical re-thinking of the system, the author proposes with an air of daring to alter some of Sturzo's verbal formulas. --L. K. B.

The doctrine of eliminative materialism holds that belief-desire psychology is massively referentially disconnected. We claim, however, that it is not at all obvious what it means to be referentially (dis)connected. The two major accounts of reference both lead to serious difficulties for eliminativism: it seems that elimination is either impossible or omnipresent. We explore the idea that reference fixation is a much more local, partial, and context-dependent process than was supposed by the classical accounts. This pragmatic view suggests that elimination (...) is not the prime model for understanding the complex relations between the mind and brain sciences, and that we have little ground for concluding that in general psychological kinds do not exist. We suggest that reference changes are better seen as continuous rather than completely eliminative. (shrink)

Given the public’s affective responses to volatile global financial markets in recent years, one might expect that “we” as a society would interrogate capitalist conceptions of “value.” After all, if flows of abstract capital are untethered from tangible realities, as the 2008 collapse of global financial markets showed they can be, and if the supposedly concrete gains that people earn from their labors, such as pensions and salaries, remain vulnerable to the vicissitudes of this abstraction, then capitalism’s promises might be (...) thought to lose their appeal. Capitalist practices of value production work through anticipation, and the future of capitalism now appears to be bad for most people. Surely, one might .. (shrink)

Kit Fine has proposed a new solution to what he calls ‘a familiar puzzle’ concerning modality and existence. The puzzle concerns the argument from the alleged truths ‘It is necessary that Socrates is a man’ and ‘It is possible that Socrates does not exist’ to the apparent falsehood ‘It is possible that Socrates is a man and does not exist’. We discuss in detail Fine’s setting up of the ‘puzzle’ and his rejection, with which we concur, of two mooted solutions (...) to it. (One of these uses standard, Kripkean, notions, and the other rests on work done by Arthur Prior.) We set out, and reject, the philosophy of modality underlying Fine’s new solution, and we defend an alternative response to the alleged puzzle. Our solution follows the work of David Wiggins in distinguishing between the sentential operator ‘It is necessary that’ and the predicate modifier ‘necessarily’. We briefly provide this distinction with a possible- world semantics on which it is neither a necessary truth, in some sense, that Socrates exists nor true, in some sense, that Socrates necessarily exists. (shrink)

The problem of evil is widely recognised to be the most serious challenge to the reasonableness of believing this world to be God’s creation. In this paper, I offer a novel way of responding. I argue that given a certain sort of divine command metaethics our moral intuitions and beliefs about what moral goodness substantially involves cannot reasonably be expected to provide reliable insight into what God’s moral goodness substantially involves. As such, even if it is unreasonable to believe this (...) universe to be the creation of an intuitively morally good, omnipotent, omniscient being, this does not entail that it is unreasonable to suppose it to be the creation of God. (shrink)

The description Ausonius has given us of his family and of the teachers and professors of Bordeaux in the mid-fourth century is exceptional among our sources because of its detail and completeness. There is no reason to suppose that the picture he gives is untypical of life in the provinces and it makes a welcome change from the histories of aristocratic politics at Rome or Constantinople. It provides an excellent opportunity for a pilot study in which we may see (...) how the conflicting elements of social status were in practice reconciled and applied. In the traditional, and still prevalent view, the society of the Later Roman Empire was ‘crushed … in the iron clamp of castes separated from one another by barriers which could not be passed’. The evidence of Ausonius suggests that this judgement should be qualified. The society of the fourth century may have been stable. It was not static. (shrink)

Suppose that you have deeply personal information that you do not want to share. Further suppose that this information could help others, perhaps even saving their lives. Should you reveal the information or keep it secret? With the increasing prevalence of genetic testing, more and more people are finding themselves in this situation. Although a patient's genetic results are potentially relevant to all her biological family members, her first‐degree relatives—parents, children, and full siblings—are most likely to be affected. (...) This is especially true for genetic mutations—like those in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes—that are associated with a dramatically increased risk of disease. Fortunately, people are usually willing to share results with their at‐risk relatives. Occasionally, however, a patient refuses to disclose her findings to anyone outside her clinical team. Ethicists have written little on patients’ moral duties to their at‐risk relatives. Moreover, the few accounts that have been advanced are problematic. Some unnecessarily expose patients’ genetic information to relatives who are unlikely to benefit from it, and others fail to ensure that patients’ most vulnerable relatives are informed of their genetic risks. Patients’ duty to warn can be defended in a way that avoids these problems. I argue that the duty to share one's genetic results is grounded in the principle of rescue—the idea that one ought to prevent, reduce, or mitigate the risk of harm to another person when the expected harm is serious and the cost or risk to oneself is sufficiently moderate. When these two criteria are satisfied, a patient will most likely have a duty to warn. (shrink)

Drawing on 2 years of field research conducted between 2008 and 2010 in London’s Kurdish community, I discuss the practical and ethical challenges that confront researchers dealing with violence against women committed in the name of ‘honour’. In examining how feminist methodologies and principles inform my research, I address issues of researcher positioning and the importance of speaking with, rather than for, marginalised groups. I then explore the difficulties of operationalising this position when dealing with honour-based violence. Using the interview (...) data from the 2008–2010 study and a case study of the trial of Mehmet Goren (who was convicted in 2009 of murdering his daughter Tulay for supposedly dishonouring their family), I discuss the socio-cultural norms and values underlying honour codes, examining both the position of men and women in relation to the maintenance of family honour and the regulation of women’s sexuality and conduct. In particular, I explore the difficulties inherent in obtaining and understanding victims’ own personal narratives, especially in legal settings, while simultaneously showing how it is only through empowering women to speak for themselves that we will be able to bring about the deep societal changes needed to eradicate honour-based violence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 59-82 [Access article in PDF] Bombing and the Symptom Traumatic Earliness and the Nuclear Uncanny Paul K. Saint-Amour Many used the Japanese word bukimi, meaning weird, ghastly, or unearthly, to describe Hiroshima's uneasy combination of continued good fortune and expectation of catastrophe. People remembered saying to one another, "Will it be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?" One man described how, each night he was on (...) air-raid watch, "I trembled with fear.... I would think, "Tonight it will be Hiroshima." These "premonitions" were partly attempts at psychic preparation, partly a form of "imagining the worst" as a magical way of warding off disaster. —Robert J. Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967) Robert J. Lifton's pathbreaking work on the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima focuses on the psychological aftermath of the bomb, but opens with a brief and surprising section called "Anticipation." Given the instantaneous and unprecedented devastation caused by the first atomic bomb, the anticipation of so singular an experience is just as difficult to imagine as its subsequent assimilation. In fact, the unassimilable nature of traumatic violence would seem to depend in some way upon the impossibility of its anticipation, as Lifton implies: "Neither past experience nor immediate perceptions—the two sources of prior imagination—could encompass what was about to occur." Yet Lifton also records an expectant, premonitory atmosphere in Hiroshima during the weeks before the bombing, a compound of past experience and immediate perceptions that, while inadequate to "encompass" the eventual experience of the bomb, cannot simply be dismissed as speculation that found an accidental correlate in the nuclear event. While no one in Hiroshima knew ahead of time what would occur on August 6, 1945, many had noted the city's eerie exemption from conventional bombardment and speculated as to the reasons for it. During the summer of 1945, a series of rumors circulated in Hiroshima, rumors attributing the sparing of the city, variously, to its modest military and industrial significance; to the presence of prominent foreigners there, possibly including President Truman's mother; to important American prisoners-of-war supposedly held in the city; to the number of its citizens who had emigrated to the US; to the presence of large numbers of American spies living among its citizens; to its physical appeal in the eyes of Americans who had saved the city as a site for their postwar occupation villas; and, most wishfully, to the wartime grace of a cartographic error: "We thought that perhaps the city of Hiroshima was not on the American maps" [Lifton 15-17]. 1 Other inhabitants [End Page 59] of the city feared that Hiroshima appeared all too prominently on US maps, but had been set aside for "something unusually big"—perhaps the inundation of the city by floodwaters that could be released by the bombing of a massive upstream dam. Still others spoke of a "special bomb" [PWRS 220-22; Lifton 17]. All these rumors responded to citizens' impression that their city had been in some way singled out, and the term bukimi—also meaning "ominous" or "uncanny"—spoke to the suspended question of whether Hiroshima and its inhabitants had been singled out for preservation or for annihilation.The survivors who recollected their anticipatory bukimi years after the bombing may have retrospectively amplified their memories of weird expectation, perhaps as a way of attempting to master an incommensurable and singular event by installing it within a narrative of causality, continuity, even prophecy. Nonetheless, the bukimi experienced by inhabitants of Hiroshima should not be understood as pure retrospection, nor as groundless hunch, since it arose from a series of empirical observations later revealed to have a single and coherent origin in US military strategy. By the summer of 1945, most Japanese cities whose size and military-industrial importance were similar to Hiroshima's had already been bombed with incendiaries: those who lived in Hiroshima had watched waves of American bombers fly past on their way to other targets, while the dozen or so bombs that had fallen accidentally on... (shrink)

Suppose COVID-19 is the runaway tram in the famous moral thought experiment, known as the “Bystander at the Switch.” Consider the two differentiated responses of governments around the world to this new threat, namely the option of quarantine/lockdown and herd immunity. Can we contrast the hypothetical with the real scenario? What do the institutional decisions and strategies for dealing with the virus, in the beginning of 2020, signify in a normative moral framework? This paper investigates these possibilities in order (...) to highlight the similarities and, more importantly, the differences that exist between utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Analysis shows that the hypothetical scenario can never be fully compared to the complex multifactorial nature of the real world. But if a comparison is attempted, the most obvious difference between the two governmental strategies is the concept of duty within the Kantian perspective. Ultimately, it is a matter of comparing freedom and life. Attributing a moral “priority ticket” to one or the other can be analysed through interpersonal aggregation. (shrink)

The oriental martial arts tend to be viewed as having deep, mysterious significance and secret, occult practices. An adept in a martial art is supposed to be not only an expert in combat but also a spiritual master, worthy of assuming a religious status for his students. Much of what is written under the name of "philosophy of the martial arts" emphasizes these characteristics, and makes claims about the results of martial arts training that may well perplex an outsider. We (...) propose to examine three of these claims in such a way that they become intelligible, and are put in terms compatible with the Western philosophical tradition. The task that we set ourselves, then, is not so much to assess the truth of these claims, as to determine and to explain what claims are being made, and what their justifications might be. We seek to show that, although some of the experiences that a person in the martial arts may have may be esoteric, the comprehension of claims made about these experiences need not be. We shall, thus, try to make a start at bringing what is called the philosophy of the martial arts out of a close connection with near mystic insight into a more public domain in which philosophical issues in the martial arts can be discussed in a way compatible with Western philosophy. (shrink)

Rosenberg argues that intentional generalizations in the human sciences cannot be law-like because they are not amenable to significant empirical refinement. This irrefinability is said to result from the principle that supposedly controls in intentional explanation also serving as the standard for successful interpretation. The only credible evidence bearing on such a principle would then need conform to it. I argue that psychological generalizations are refinable and can be nomic. I show how empirical refinement of psychological generalizations is possible by (...) considering concrete cases. A sufficiently detailed view of the role of psychological generalizations in interpretation allows us to find in psychological investigations instances of bootstrap testing. (shrink)

Rosenberg argues that intentional generalizations in the human sciences cannot be law-like because they are not amenable to significant empirical refinement. This irrefinability is said to result from the principle that supposedly controls in intentional explanation also serving as the standard for successful interpretation. The only credible evidence bearing on such a principle would then need conform to it. I argue that psychological generalizations are refinable and can be nomic. I show how empirical refinement of psychological generalizations is possible by (...) considering concrete cases. A sufficiently detailed view of the role of psychological generalizations in interpretation allows us to find in psychological investigations instances of bootstrap testing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Search of a Reality-Based Community:Illusion and Tolerance in Music, Education, and SocietyPatrick K. SchmidtThe two questions that arise in this symposium are: What kind of world engagement is required of music education? and Should music educators participate in political understanding? While my immediate response was and is: How we can afford not to? that is, not to engage fully with the world and not to do so politically, (...) at the same time I also recognize the ways in which that has been problematic in the music education profession. Particularly, in how we continue to experience what I would call events without future: ersatz events made of illusions. Such a proposition is implicated in the following questions: How seriously are we committed to rethinking our practice and re-engaging with our ideals, traditions, visions, and discourses? Has our conception and practice of democracy disappeared (or remained unformed) in the insubstantiality of shadows? How do [End Page 160] we react to political understandings that dismiss the communities in which we live, as well as the singularities and differences that mark us? Who are those of us supposedly living in the/a "reality-based community?"1An aide of the current administration explains the White House stance by saying, "We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."2 The idea, of course, is that we not only can, but perhaps, must dissociate from such communities (particularly those that do not conform to such envisioned reality). An Empire, one might say, seeks power as well as expansion, confluence as well as stability, tradition as well as ideological certainty. It probably comes as no surprise then, that dictatorial regimes are often more stable, including economically, than new or recalcitrant democracies. (I myself grew up in such a regime in Brazil in the 1970s and early 80s.) The word "Empire" conjures up images that are localized, monocentric, confluent, and institutional. The reality today, however, seems much closer to what Antonio Negri and Richard Hardt portray:3 a reality modeled upon the production of subjects with increasingly similar desires and prone to a certain subservience to commodity and technology. But if this "we" is no longer "us" but an illusion, if this reality-based community no longer distinguishes, questions, problematizes, or engages with its own reality or realities, perhaps more than ever it is time that we began to think politically, that our assumptions and that of others be challenged, and that we seek understandings that, as Randall Allsup has proposed, "are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion."Following the model adopted here I will address some of the concepts Estelle Jorgensen proposes, particularly those associated with the notion of supremacy and its propagation through "reductionistic and nationalistic forces." Such a vista will serve as a departing point for my own reflections on the shades, contradictions, complexities, and possibilities we might find when considering majority led silence and voicing, as well as the role of political and empathetic dialogue in our practices, be they professional and/or connected to citizenship.4A Search for the Ethical: Majority Rule?Today, music education as a society negotiates a reality that is more complex and multiple—one of a multitude of one5 —of separation through categories that, while preserving the impression of distinctiveness, allows for a larger invisible and uncontested majority to instill what Alexis de Toqueville called over a century ago the "tyranny of the majority."6 We need to consider here that, as Negri and Hardt propose, there is no one center to this Empire, "no tangible, nuclear element to be identified and/or resisted." This tyrannical majority is paradoxical, for while it dictates it is also silent.7 What is there, then, are spaces in and through which our disengagement allows for the strengthening of what is [End Page 161] perceived and experienced as inevitable, as a faceless majority that controls and decrees, that denies and structures.This tyranny of the majority, the underside of our democratic visions, can lead in politics, as in our professional practices, to a sense of the famous Foucaultian panopticon where total surveillance is... (shrink)