In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.3 (2004) 107-115 [Access article in PDF] The Search for Narrative Laura Felleman Fattal The most cursory cultural investigator cannot help but notice that the visual arts have become a significant source and impetus for the narrative of contemporary books, theater, and dance. In recent memory, the following theatrical and dance performances "Contact" by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, "Art" by (...) Yasmina Reza, "Sunday in the Park with George" by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, "Les Miserables" by Claude-Michel Schfonberg/music and others, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" by Steve Martin, and "The Sleep of Reason," by Antonio Buero-Vallego have taken the not-so-dead-life (natura morta) or still life of painting into the vital arena of the performing arts. The quest to seek intra-discipline aesthetics among dance, music, theater, and the visual arts is not the charge, but instead a turn to establish a narrative that has brought about this invasion of interactivity between the arts. Clearly defined boundaries between the arts have beenfading since Fluxus, Happenings, and Performance Art for over half a century. In the early part of the twentieth century, Marcel Duchamp's chess games and use of the fourth dimension of time in his numerous produced and pondered pieces all speak to the interrelatedness of the arts.Contemporary novels based on historical themes and subjects have created characters based on the lives and works of famous and intriguing artists such as Michelangelo Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Jan Vermeer. The silence and pensive qualities of the figures of Jan Vermeer, the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, have been the catalyst for two books, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland and the Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.1 Vreeland combines the mystic of the Vermeer paintings' characters with the impoverished history of the refugee status of its owners. In various parts of Vreeland's book the authenticity of the Vermeer painting becomes a subtext for describing the work. [End Page 107] Just the lament of some Dutch art historians. Where has such a treasure gone, or some such thing? He turned to pour us both a brandy. So why could this not be? It's his same window opening inward at the left that he has used so often, the same splash of pale yellow light. Take a look at the figures in the tapestry on the table. Same as in nine other paintings. Same Spanish chair with lion's head finials that he used in eleven canvases, same brass studs in the leather. Same black and white tiles placed diagonally on the floor.2A few pages later the interest in the authenticity of the painting continues: No, no signature. But that was not unusual. He often failed to sign his work. Besides, he had at least seven styles of signature. For Vermeer, signatures are not definite evidence. Technique is. Look at the direction of the brush's stroke, those tiny grooves of the brush hairs. They have their lighted and their shaded side. Look elsewhere. You'll find overlapping layers of paint no thicker than silk thread that give a minute difference in shade. That's what makes it a Vermeer.3In Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer's slow and meticulous technique, obsessive involvement with his models and his assiduous composition of light over textures of both animate and inanimate surfaces in the painting become the core of the novel. He had come in and was standing in the studio, looking out a window. "Take a seat, please, Greit," he said, his back to me.I sat in the chair by the harpsichord. I did not touch it — I had never touched an instrument except to clean it. As I waited I studied the paintings he had hung on the back wall that would form part of the concert painting. There was a landscape on the left, and on the right a picture of three people — a woman playing a lute, wearing a dress that revealed much of... (shrink)

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana characterises (...) such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

This article provides a much‐needed review of the neural bases of implicit statistical learning. Batterink, Paller and Reber focus on the neural processes that underpin performance in experimental paradigms employed in implicit learning and statistical learning research. An important insight is that learning across all paradigms is supported by interactions between the declarative and nondeclarative memory systems of the brain. They conclude with a helpful discussion of future directions of research.

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation is a well-accepted treatment for movement disorders and is currently explored as a treatment option for various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Several case studies suggest that DBS may, in some patients, influence mental states critical to personality to such an extent that it affects an individual’s personal identity, i.e. the experience of psychological continuity, of persisting through time as the same person. Without questioning the usefulness of DBS as a treatment option for various serious and treatment refractory (...) conditions, the potential of disruptions of psychological continuity raises a number of ethical and legal questions. An important question is that of legal responsibility if DBS induced changes in a patient’s personality result in damage caused by undesirable or even deviant behavior. Disruptions in psychological continuity can in some cases also have an effect on an individual’s mental competence. This capacity is necessary in order to obtain informed consent to start, continue or stop treatment, and it is therefore not only important from an ethical point of view but also has legal consequences. Taking the existing literature and the Dutch legal system as a starting point, the present paper discusses the implications of DBS induced disruptions in psychological continuity for a patient’s responsibility for action and competence of decision and raises a number of questions that need further research. (shrink)

This paper examines faculty perceptions regarding ethical behavior among colleagues and students, and faculty practices with regard to teaching ethics in three institutions over a 4-year period. Faculty reported an uneven pattern of unethical behavior among colleagues over the period. A majority of business courses included ethics, however as both a specific topic on the syllabus and within course discussions. The percentage of courses with ethics discussions increased in 2006, however, the time allocated to these discussions decreased. These results suggest (...) that faculty are approaching ethics instruction less formally, raising concerns over the success of curriculum integration. (shrink)

Data documenting poor understanding among research participants and real-time efforts to assess comprehension in large-scale studies are focusing new attention on informed consent comprehension. Within the context of biobanking consent, we previously convened a multidisciplinary panel to reach consensus about what information must be understood for a prospective participant’s consent to be considered valid. Subsequently, we presented them with data from another study showing that many U.S. adults would fail to comprehend the information the panel had deemed essential. When asked (...) to evaluate the importance of the information again, panelists’ opinions shifted dramatically in the direction of requiring that less information be understood. Follow-up interviews indicated significant uncertainty about defining a threshold of understanding and what should happen when prospective participants are unable to grasp key information. These findings have important implications for urgently needed discussion of whether... (shrink)

In this article I present a disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity regarding the predicative status of so-called generalised inductive definitions. I begin by offering some motivation for an enquiry in the predicative foundations of constructive mathematics, by looking at contemporary work at the intersection between mathematics and computer science. I then review the background notions and spell out the above-mentioned disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity. Finally, I look at possible ways of defending the constructive (...) predicativity of inductive definitions. (shrink)

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge noted, proper names can have predicative (...) uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge’s cases. In this paper I argue that the Predicate View of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist’s methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names—albeit fundamentally singular referential terms—express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names. (shrink)

Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. It identifies three (...) problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the changing role of government in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last decade, governments have joined other stakeholders in assuming a relevant role as drivers of CSR, working together with intergovernmental organizations and recognizing that public policies are key in encouraging a greater sense of CSR. This paper focuses on the analysis of the new strategies adopted by governments in order to promote, and encourage businesses to adopt, CSR (...) values and strategies. The research is based on the analysis of an explanatory framework, related to the development of a relational analytical framework, which tries to analyze the vision, values, strategies and roles adopted by governments, and the integration of new partnerships that governments establish in the CSR area with the private sector and social organizations. The research compares CSR initiatives and public policies in three European countries: Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom, and focuses on governmental drivers and responses. The preliminary results demonstrate that governments are incorporating a common statement and discourse on CSR, working in partnership with the private and social sectors. For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. However, the research also focuses on the differences between the three governments when applying CSR public policies. These divergences are based on the previous cultural and political framework, such as the welfare state typology, the organizational structures and the business and social and cultural background in each country. (shrink)

The orthodox view of anger takes desires for revenge or retribution to be central to the emotion. In this paper, I develop an empirically informed challenge to the retributive view of anger. In so doing, I argue that a distinct desire is central to anger: a desire for recognition. Desires for recognition aim at the targets of anger acknowledging the wrong they have committed, as opposed to aiming for their suffering. In light of the centrality of this desire for recognition, (...) I argue that the retributive view of anger should be abandoned. I consider and dismiss two types of moves that can be made on the part of a proponent of the orthodox view in response to my argument. I propose that a pluralist view, which allows for both retribution and recognition in anger, is to be preferred. (shrink)

Camp (2009) distinguishes two varieties of conceptual recombination. One of them is full-blown or (as I prefer to call it) spontaneous recombination. The other is causal-counterfactual recombination. She suggests that while human animals recombine their concepts in a full-blown way, many non-human animals are capable of conceptual recombinability but only of the causal-counterfactual kind. In this paper, I argue that there is conceptual space to draw further sub-distinctions on how different animals may recombine their concepts. More specifically, I propose to (...) differentiate between a) narrow causal-counterfactual recombination; b) broad causal-counterfactual recombination; c) lean spontaneous recombination; d) robust spontaneous recombination. Afterwards, I focus on how these distinctions relate to several previous philosophical ideas on the representational capacities of non-human animals. I also provide several empirical examples suggesting that some animals display one or another of these four ways of recombining concepts, at least in some contexts. (shrink)

According to Weyl, “‘inexhaustibility’ is essential to the infinite”. However, he distinguishes two kinds of inexhaustible, or merely potential, domains: those that are “extensionally determinate” and those that are not. This article clarifies Weyl's distinction and explains its enduring logical and philosophical significance. The distinction sheds lights on the contemporary debate about potentialism, which in turn affords a deeper understanding of Weyl.

Over the last five decades, philosophers of language have looked into the mechanisms for doing things with words. The same attention has not been devoted to how to undo those things, once they have been done. This paper identifies and examines three strategies to make one’s speech acts undone—namely, Annulment, Retraction, and Amendment. In annulling an act, a speaker brings to light its fatal flaws. Annulment amounts to recognizing an act as null, whereas retraction and amendment amount to making it (...) null. Speakers employ retraction to cancel the deontic updates engendered by a given act. They instead use amendment to adjust its degree of strength. I will argue that annulling, retracting, and amending are second-order speech acts, whose felicity conditions vary with the type of illocution they operate on. Undoing is therefore conceived of as a form of doing. Furthermore, I claim that, in calling off our acts, we undo the conventional or illocutionary effects of our words while leaving intact their past causal or perlocutionary outcomes. (shrink)

A recurring concern within contemporary philosophy of language has been with the ways in which speakers can be illocutionarily silenced, i.e. hindered in their capacity to do things with words. Moving beyond the traditional conception of silencing as uptake failure, Mary Kate McGowan has recently claimed that silencing may also involve other forms of recognition failure. In this paper I first offer a supportive elaboration of McGowan’s claims by developing a social account of speech act performance, according to which the (...) success of an illocutionary act is not only a function of the intentions of and the conventions deployed by the speaker, but partly depends on how the act is recognized or taken up by the hearer. I then provide a comprehensive definition of illocutionary silencing and spell out what it means for it to occur in a systematic manner. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the changing role of government in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last decade, governments have joined other stakeholders in assuming a relevant role as drivers of CSR, working together with intergovernmental organizations and recognizing that public policies are key in encouraging a greater sense of CSR. This paper focuses on the analysis of the new strategies adopted by governments in order to promote, and encourage businesses to adopt, CSR (...) values and strategies. The research is based on the analysis of an explanatory framework, related to the development of a relational analytical framework, which tries to analyze the vision, values, strategies and roles adopted by governments, and the integration of new partnerships that governments establish in the CSR area with the private sector and social organizations. The research compares CSR initiatives and public policies in three European countries: Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom, and focuses on governmental drivers and responses. The preliminary results demonstrate that governments are incorporating a common statement and discourse on CSR, working in partnership with the private and social sectors. For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. However, the research also focuses on the differences between the three governments when applying CSR public policies. These divergences are based on the previous cultural and political framework, such as the welfare state typology, the organizational structures and the business and social and cultural background in each country. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce an enactive account of loving as participatory sense-making inspired by the “I love to you” of the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray. Emancipating from the fusionist concept of romantic love, which understands love as unity, we conceptualise loving as an existential engagement in a dialectic of encounter, in continuous processes of becoming-in-relation. In these processes, desire acquires a certain prominence as the need to know (the other, the relation, oneself) more. We build on Irigaray’s account of (...) love to present a phenomenology of loving interactions and then our enactive account. Finally, we draw some implications for ethics. These concern language, difference, vulnerability, desire, and self-transformation. (shrink)

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

Past research showed that the ability to focus on one’s internal states positively correlates with the self-regulation of behavior in situations that are accompanied by somatic and/or physiological changes, such as emotions, physical workload, and decision-making. The analysis of moral oriented decision-making can be the first step for better understanding the legal reasoning carried on by the main players in the field, as lawyers are. For this reason, this study investigated the influence of the decision context and interoceptive manipulation on (...) the moral decision-making process in the legal field gathering the responses of two groups of lawyers. A total of 20 lawyers were randomly divided into an experimental group, which was explicitly required to focus the attention on its interoceptive correlates, and a control group, which only received the general instruction to perform the task. Both groups underwent a modified version of the Ultimatum Game, where are presented three different moral conditions and three different offers. Results highlighted a significant increase of Acceptance Rate in those offers that should be considered more equal than fair or unfair ones, associated with a general increase of Reaction Times in the equal offers. Furthermore, the interoceptive manipulation oriented the Lawyers toward a more self-centered decision. This study shows how individual, situational, contextual, and interoceptive factors may influence the moral decision-making of lawyers. Future research in the so-called Neurolaw field is needed to replicate and expand current findings. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the relevance that emotions can play in our epistemic life considering the state of the art of the philosophical debate on emotions. The strategy is the one of focusing on the three main models on emotions as evaluative judgements, bodily feelings, and perceptions, following the fil rouge of emotion intentionality for rising questions about their epistemic functions. From this examination, a major challenge to mainstream epistemology arises, the one that asks to provide (...) prominence to the epistemic agent and to her affects. This chapter discusses these implications, also providing an overview of the many alternatives available nowadays in epistemology, arguing for an open, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approach to emotions in knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse a specific kind of loneliness that can be experienced in the networked life, namely “extended loneliness”. I claim that loneliness—conceived of as stemming from a lack of satisfying relationships to others—can arise from an abundance of connections in the online sphere. Extended loneliness, in these cases, does not result from a lack of connections to other people. On the contrary, it consists in the complex affective experience of both lacking and longing for meaningful relationships while (...) being connected to many people online. The recursive interaction with a digital assistant in a smart flat is my key example for defining the contours of this specific kind of loneliness that emerges when hyperconnectivity becomes pervasive in the user’s daily-life. Drawing on Sherry Turkle’s work and employing the conceptual framework of the extended mind, I analyse the specific characteristics of extended loneliness and explore its phenomenology. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a pragmatist conceptualization of affective habits as relatively flexible ways of channeling affectivity. Our proposal, grounded in a conception of sensibility and habits derived from John Dewey, suggests understanding affective scaffoldings in a novel and broader sense by re-orienting the debate from objects to interactions. We claim that habits play a positive role in supporting and orienting human sensibility, allowing us to avoid any residue of dualism between internalist and externalist conceptions of affectivity. We provide (...) pragmatist tools for understanding the environment's role in shaping our feelings, emotions, moods, and affective behaviors. However, we contend that in addition to environment, the continuous and recursive affective transaction between agent and environment are also crucially involved. We claim that habits are transformative, which is especially evident when we consider that emotions are often the result of a crisis in habitual behavior and successively play a role in prompting changes of habits. The final upshot is a conceptualization of affective habits as pervasive tools for feelings that scaffold human conduct as well as key features in the transformation of behaviors. (shrink)

There has been an ongoing debate about the best approach in environmental ethics. Bryan Norton believes that “weak anthropocentrism” will yield the best results for public policy, and that it is the most defensible position. In contrast, I have argued that an ecocentric, holistic position is required to deal with the urgent environmental problems that face us, and that position is complemented by the ecosystem approach and complex systems theory. I have called this approach “the ethics of integrity,” and in (...) this paper I show why this perspective suggests better solutions to difficult cases, for which “weak anthropocentrism” fails to provide an answer. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Theories of sets such as Zermelo Fraenkel set theory are usually presented as the combination of two distinct kinds of principles: logical and set-theoretic principles. The set-theoretic principles are imposed ‘on top’ of first-order logic. This is in agreement with a traditional view of logic as universally applicable and topic neutral. Such a view of logic has been rejected by the intuitionists, on the ground that quantification over infinite domains requires the use of intuitionistic rather than classical logic. In (...) the following, I consider constructive set theories, which use intuitionistic rather than classical logic, and argue that they manifest a distinctive interdependence or an entanglement between sets and logic. In fact, Martin-Löf type theory identifies fundamental logical and set-theoretic notions. Remarkably, one of the motivations for this identification is the thought that classical quantification over infinite domains is problematic, while intuitionistic quantification is not. The approach to quantification adopted in Martin-Löf’s type theory is subtly interconnected with its predicativity. I conclude by recalling key aspects of an approach to predicativity inspired by Poincaré, which focuses on the issue of correct quantification over infinite domains and relate it back to Martin-Löf type theory. (shrink)

As the technology for ectogenesis continues to advance, the ethical implications of such developments should be thoroughly and proactively explored. The possibility of full ectogenesis remains hypothetical at present, and myriad concerns regarding the safety and efficacy of the technology must be evaluated and addressed, while pressing moral considerations should be fully deliberated. However, it is conceivable that the technology may become sufficiently well established in the future and that eventually full ectogenesis might be deemed ethically acceptable as a reproductive (...) alternative to gestation within a human womb under certain circumstances. If the safety and efficacy of full ectogenesis are established, if ethical dilemmas are sufficiently well addressed, and if the technology is offered as a reproductive option to cisgender heterosexual individuals or couples desiring to become parents, there is a moral obligation grounded in social justice to ensure that full ectogenesis be made available to individuals or couples identifying as members of sexual‐ or gender‐minority groups who likewise seek to pursue parenthood. We examine the history of access to current family‐building options, including assisted reproductive technology, surrogacy and adoption, for these populations and conclude that in the absence of robust empirical evidence suggesting an increased risk of harm to children of individuals and couples who identify as members of sexual‐ or gender‐minority groups, equitable access to ectogenesis as a pathway to parenthood for sexual and gender minorities must be assured as a matter of reproductive justice. (shrink)

Quel est l'intérêt philosophique d'une réflexion sur le "bien" dans le Phédon de Platon, et sur les "origines de la crise" développée par Parménide d'Elée dans son Poème et Paul de Tarse dans sa Première Lettre aux Corinthiens? Il s'agira d'abord de voir comment le "bien" du Phédon de Platon est en mesure d'offrir, du haut de sa transcendance et d'une manière étonnante, une solution inédite au problème de la "séparation" (chôrismos) dans le but d'assurer la cohésion de l'univers, de (...) sauvegarder l'unité de l'homme et de fonder tout discours logique. Une telle étude aurait notamment pour résultat de remettre en cause l'idée reçue selon laquelle Platon développe une philosophie dualiste dans le Phédon. La deuxième partie de l'ouvrage propose de voir comment la "crise" (krisis) provoquée par le logos (raison) philosophique de Parménide d'Elée opère une critique des valeurs mondaines de son temps, et en quoi cette critique demeure valable pour l'homme d'aujourd'hui, afin d'examiner, par la suite, l'apport spécifique de Paul de Tarse au traitement de la "crise" corinthienne qu'il rencontre et qu'il tente de résoudre à partir de son logos (langage) spirituel, tout aussi critique que celui de la philosophie. Peut-on soutenir que ce logos est également en mesure de servir, aujourd'hui, de garde-fou salutaire à toute forme de débordement et d'excès? De quels excès s'agit-il? De quelles façons chacun de ces deux types de logos philosophique et spirituel procure-t-il à l'homme un sens du discernement nécessaire à sa vie? Telles sont certaines des questions auxquelles le présent ouvrage tente de répondre. (shrink)

Cette étude interroge et mesure la pertinence de la solution apportée par Plotin au problème métaphysique de la séparation (chôrismos) hérité de Platon. Les fonctions multiples attribuées par Plotin au Logos et aux logoi au sein de son système hiérarchisé, impliquant des niveaux différents de réalités, sont-elles en mesure de résoudre le problème de la séparation ontologique et cosmologique hérité du platonisme? Ne peut-on pas adresser à Plotin le reproche qu'il fait à ses adversaires gnostiques qui multiplient inutilement les hypostases (...) et les intermédiaires entre le monde intelligible et le monde sensible, et au sein même du monde intelligible? On se demandera également si la réduction de ces logoi multiples à un seul Logos n'apporterait pas une solution à ce problème de la séparation rencontré par Plotin? Le Christ-Médiateur, envisagé en tant que Logos par le Prologue de l'Evangile de Jean, n'est-il pas en d'autres termes en mesure de résoudre, à sa manière et différemment, ce problème de la séparation qui apparaît dans tout système philosophique et théologique induisant une forme de verticalité et de transcendance? En quoi le recours au Logos du Prologue est-il légitime historiquement et philosophiquement pour apporter une solution au problème du chôrismos rencontré par Plotin? Pourquoi Plotin ne fait-il pas mention du Logos johannique sachant que ce dernier offre pourtant des garanties d'unité et d'unicité, d'efficacité et de vitalité, de puissance de relation et de communication tant recherchée par le philosophe néoplatonicien ; et sachant que son disciple direct, Amélius, de l'école plotinienne à Rome, a lui-même eu le besoin de proposer une exégèse philosophique du Prologue? (shrink)

Plotin, philosophe grec du IIIe siècle après J.-C., ayant vécu à Alexandrie et à Rome, offre au lecteur d'aujourd'hui un voyage merveilleux dans le monde "exotique" de la pensée antique. De quelle manière les Traités de Plotin invitent-ils le lecteur du XXIe siècle à adopter des catégories mentales qui lui sont "étrangères"? Et comment l'installent-ils ainsi "à l'extérieur" du monde moderne qu'il habite? N'est-ce pas à travers la richesse du champ sémantique des mots utilisés par les Ennéades, autorisant parfois des (...) associations étonnantes entre des concepts a priori inconciliables ou peu conciliables aux yeux de l'homme d'aujourd'hui, que résiderait notamment l'un des intérêts de la philosophie de Plotin? Les trois chapitres du présent ouvrage intitulés "Exégèse et originalité", "Existence et identité", "Logos et technê", illustrent ces types d'associations conceptuelles déroutantes, et pourtant souvent convaincantes. Lhomme moderne ne peut qu'être fasciné par l'argumentation des Ennéades montrant, pas à pas, les liens indéfectibles et stimulants rattachant par exemple "l'existence à l'identité", "le logos à la technê" ; de tels liens pouvant parfois conduire Plotin à dépasser la tradition dont il est issu et dont il se réclame pourtant. (shrink)

Dans cette étude consacrée à Platon et Plotin, il s'agit de mettre au jour toute l'originalité de la pensée de Platon et de Plotin face au problème de la séparation à travers l'analyse précises de certains dialogues de Platon et de Traités significatifs de Plotin.

Le logos en tant que "discours" n'est-il pas l'instrument par excellence du philosophe? Cette mise en relation des hommes avec les Idées et avec la vérité permet à Platon de lever certaines difficultés propres à son système et de résoudre un problème métaphysique. Quant au logos de Plotin il occupe une position négligeable du fait de son incapacité à exprimer l'Un. Or, le lecteur réalisera que Plotin développe, contrairement à ce que soutient l'opinion commune, une philosophie du langage considérable et (...) fort utile. (shrink)

L'originalité de la philosophie de Platon et de Plotin est de situer l'origine de toutes choses dans un principe supérieur au monde physique et matériel. Cette décision philosophique, qui ne va pas de soi, visant à placer la cause de toutes choses dans un principe transcendant et immatériel, est concomitante d'un autre choix philosophique consistant à "séparer" la cause de son effet, le haut du bas, l'intelligible du sensible, l'invisible du visible, l'incorporel du corporel. De telles "séparations" poseront à Platon (...) et à Plotin le problème de l'unité du monde et des "relations" que ces deux niveaux différents peuvent ou doivent malgré tout entretenir afin d'éviter toute forme de dérive dualiste et de vision pessimiste du monde. Cet ouvrage propose d'affronter cette question épineuse et d'apprécier la pertinence de la solution qu'y apportent Platon et Plotin, en développant chacun une "philosophie de la relation" tout à fait originale et stimulante. (shrink)

Drawing on the built environment concept of “inclusive design” and its emphasis on creating accessible environments for all persons regardless of ability, I suggest that a central task for feminist disability theory is to redesign foundational philosophical concepts to present opportunities rather than barriers to inclusion for people with disability. Accounts of autonomy within liberal philosophy stress self-determination and the dignity of all individual persons, but have excluded people with intellectual disability from moral and political theories by denying their capacity (...) for individual autonomy, seen as a chief marker of moral personhood. This paper modifies and extends feminist theories of relational autonomy by arguing for the need to view autonomy as a feature of persons that is manifested only through relations of support, advocacy, and enablement. An “inclusively designed,” relational account negotiates the tensions encountered in attempts to apply autonomy to people with high support needs, and politicizes the concept as an advocacy tool for people with intellectual disability and their allies. (shrink)

Moorean constructions are famously odd: it is infelicitous to deny that you believe what you claim to be true. But what about claiming that p, only to immediately put into question your evidence in support of p? In this paper, we identify and analyse a class of quasi-Moorean constructions, which we label counterevidentials. Although odd, counterevidentials can be accommodated as felicitous attempts to mitigate one’s claim right after making it. We explore how counterevidentials differ from lexicalised mitigation operators, parentheticals, and (...) anaphoric mitigation devices, and consider some cognate non-assertoric constructions. We conclude by exploring the implications of our analysis for theorising about linguistic responsibility, assertion, and lying. (shrink)

Is religious faith consistent with being an intellectually virtuous thinker? In seeking to answer this question, one quickly finds others, each of which has been the focus of recent renewed attention by epistemologists: What is it to be an intellectually virtuous thinker? Must all reasonable belief be grounded in public evidence? Under what circumstances is a person rationally justified in believing something on trust, on the testimony of another, or because of the conclusions drawn by an intellectual authority? Can it (...) be reasonable to hold a belief on a topic over which there is significant, entrenched disagreement among informed inquirers, or should such disagreement lead all parties to modify or suspend their own judgments? Is there anything about faith that exempts it from measurement against such epistemic norms? And if we would so evaluate it, how exactly should we understand the intellectual commitments faith requires? The volume's introduction provides a roadmap of the central issues and controversies as currently discussed by philosophers. In fourteen new essays written to engage nonspecialists as well as philosophers working in religion and epistemology, a diverse and distinguished group of thinkers then consider the place of intellectual virtue in religious faith, exploring one or more of the specific issues noted above. (shrink)