As an accompaniment to the translation into English of Louis Althusser's 'Letter to the Central Committee of the PCF, March 18th, 1966', this note provides the historical and theoretical context necessary to understand Althusser's 'anti-humanist' interventions into French Communist Party policy decisions during the mid-1960s. Because nowhere else in Althusser's published writings do we see as clearly the political stakes involved in his philosophical project, nor the way in which this project evolved from a 'theoreticist' pursuit into a more (...) practical one, the note also argues that the letter is of importance to Althusser scholars, to historians of Marxist thought, and to those interested in the relevance of Althusser's work to contemporary Marxist philosophy. (shrink)

Cette note devait introduire à un public anglophone la traduction de la « Lettre de Louis Althusser datée du 18 mars 1966 et adressée au Comité central du PCF », elle est ici enrichie dans une version livrée au public français. Elle apporte le contexte historique et théorique nécessaire à la compréhension des interventions « anti-humanistes » de Louis Althusser qui questionne les choix politiques opérés par le PCF au cours des années 1960. Nulle part ailleurs, dans les (...) écrits publiés d’Althusser, nous ne voyons aussi clairement les enjeux politiques imbriqués dans son projet philosophique, ni comment ce projet évolua progressivement d’une entreprise « théoriciste » à la recherche d’une philosophie en lien plus étroit avec la pratique. Cette lettre nous paraît de la plus haute importance pour les spécialistes de l’œuvre d’Althusser, les historiens de la pensée marxiste, mais aussi plus largement à tous ceux qui s’intéressent à l’importance que peut revêtir le travail d’Althusser dans les débats actuels dans le champ de la philosophie marxiste. (shrink)

Linguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist, Julia Kristeva is one of the most influential and prolific thinkers of our time. Her writings have broken new ground in the study of the self, the mind, and the ways in which we communicate through language. Her work is unique in that it skillfully brings together psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, literature, linguistics, and philosophy. In her latest book on the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, Kristeva focuses on an intriguing new dilemma. Freud and (...) psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in our contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom--and against what--and under what forms? Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist John Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. For Kristeva the rebellions championed by these figures--especially the political and seemingly dogmatic political commitments of Aragon and Sartre--strike the post-Cold War reader with a mixture of fascination and rejection. These theorists, according to Kristeva, are involved in a revolution against accepted notions of identity--of one's relation to others. Kristeva places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics. The book also offers an illuminating discussion of Freud's groundbreaking work on rebellion, focusing on the symbolic function of patricide in his _Totem and Taboo_ and discussing his often neglected vision of language, and underscoring its complex connection to the revolutionary drive. (shrink)

The correspondence between the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno and his politically active graduate student Elisabeth Lenk offers fresh insights into both Adorno's view of surrealism and its relation to the student uprisings of 1960s France and Germany. Written between 1962, when Lenk moved to Paris and persuaded an initially reluctant Adorno to supervise her sociology dissertation on the surrealists, and Adorno's death in 1969, these letters reveal a surprisingly tender side of the distinguished professor. The correspondence is accompanied by a (...) selection of documents that bring additional depth and context to the letters and their engagement with the art and politics of the period. Filling in the background of Adorno and Lenk's lively exchange, the volume includes new translations of classic essays by Walter Benjamin ("Surrealism: Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia") and Adorno ("Surrealism Reconsidered"), along with a collection of short prose readings by Adorno and the writer-scholar Carl Dreyfus and three original essays by Lenk: her afterword to Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon, her Introduction to the German edition of Charles Fourier's The Theory of the Four Movements and the General Destinies, and her incisive essay "Critical Theory and Surreal Practice." An Introduction by Lenk's student, the contemporary writer and critic Rita Bischof, points to the continuing challenge of surrealist politics. This remarkable body of correspondence appears here in English for the first time, as do Adorno and Dreyfus's surrealist readings and the essays by Lenk. Together, they provide a rich mine of critical material for reassessing the significance of the surrealist movement and its successors. (shrink)

Linguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist, Julia Kristeva is one of the most influential and prolific thinkers of our time. Her writings have broken new ground in the study of the self, the mind, and the ways in which we communicate through language. Her work is unique in that it skillfully brings together psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, literature, linguistics, and philosophy. In her latest book on the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, Kristeva focuses on an intriguing new dilemma. Freud and (...) psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in our contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom -- and against what -- and under what forms? Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist John Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. For Kristeva the rebellions championed by these figures -- especially the political and seemingly dogmatic political commitments of Aragon and Sartre -- strike the post-Cold War reader with a mixture of fascination and rejection. These theorists, according to Kristeva, are involved in a revolution against accepted notions of identity -- of one's relation to others. Kristeva places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics. The book also offers an illuminating discussion of Freud's groundbreaking work on rebellion, focusing on the symbolic function of patricide in his _Totem and Taboo_ and discussing his often neglected vision of language, and underscoring its complex connection to the revolutionary drive. (shrink)

Linguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist, Julia Kristeva is one of the most influential and prolific thinkers of our time. Her writings have broken new ground in the study of the self, the mind, and the ways in which we communicate through language. Her work is unique in that it skillfully brings together psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, literature, linguistics, and philosophy. In her latest book on the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, Kristeva focuses on an intriguing new dilemma. Freud and (...) psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in our contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom -- and against what -- and under what forms? Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist John Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. For Kristeva the rebellions championed by these figures -- especially the political and seemingly dogmatic political commitments of Aragon and Sartre -- strike the post-Cold War reader with a mixture of fascination and rejection. These theorists, according to Kristeva, are involved in a revolution against accepted notions of identity -- of one's relation to others. Kristeva places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics. The book also offers an illuminating discussion of Freud's groundbreaking work on rebellion, focusing on the symbolic function of patricide in his _Totem and Taboo_ and discussing his often neglected vision of language, and underscoring its complex connection to the revolutionary drive. (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * The gaze drifts where the stare dares not. The gaze is attentive while the stare is intent. Dériver : Equally to drift and/or to derive. —When drifting then, something must be taken along. Something must be derived from the drift. Something of oneself must always become other. Incorporating the other, incorporating oneself as other. Je est un autre , Rimbaud disait; 1 this in his last letter to Georges Izambard, a final correspondence to a former mentor and friend, from whom he was drifting away, having derived much. The drift is a control incomplete. To drift is to come closer and closer, but to always be turning away, pulling apart, pulling oneself apart. It is parabolic in the sense that it is always eluding a formerly established intent. Of all axes, it never finds room to rest. Filling new spaces, always changing places, ever escaping the Cartesian; the indubitable pinpointing of position. It is never pinned down. Love together what we will be apart. Once together, we will drift apart. Il le faut . Attention is held; it traces the path. It follows each point which traces the arc, the line, the swerve. It is not concerned with the figure being drawn, but rather the movement between one point and the next. The smallest movement. The clinamen of De Rerum Natura is the smallest of swerves, it is nothing more than the minimum — nec plus quam minimum . Michel Serres says of the clinamen , that it is an absurdity — a logical, geometrical, mechanical, physical absurdity. 'The clinamen, from here (its state of absurdity), finds refuge in subjectivity; it passes from the world to the soul, from the physical to the metaphysical, from the theory of inert bodies in freefall to the theory of the free movements of the living.' 2 So this swerve is something of the mind and something of the body, both in action, rather than a body which is merely acted upon. Swerve, however, has a connotation of suddenness. It is a movement which is made to avoid an otherwise inevitable impact. Drift, on the other hand, is the unleashing of something which is then allowed to follow a more complex series of forces. These forces now come from within as well as without. It is no longer tethered; now following tides, winds, flows or pitched slopes, now acting on its own. We are not atoms in freefall. Our attention long ago pulled us from this precipitous descent. We now live, ourselves, as one of the many forces. In the drift, as with the gaze, there is an ease. ‘Ease is the proper name of this unrepresentable space.’ It is the space nearest, the next, the neighboring space. To occupy this space requires a turn, a shift or a drift. It cannot be reached by proceeding straight ahead. ‘..the space adjacent, the empty place where each can move freely, in a semantic constellation where spatial proximity borders on opportune time (ad-agio, moving at ease) and convenience borders on the correct relation.’ 3 Intention always seeks to straighten this line, to make it less complex, to isolate the point of departure and the desired destination. It believes there can be two points and, between them, there must be a straight line. Can there be? Maybe. Must there be? Never. Straight lines may exist, but they can never be followed to the finish. After leaving this point, we will never reach that one without being buffeted at least a little — at least the least. One foot in front of the other, this is a very restrictive dance, less even than a two-step. Straight lines lead only to lost intentions, being the shortest and quickest way to get there. When attention drifts it slowly turns away from the intended target, leaving it for something which pulls the attention away. Now we are for a moment free; all at once we can pivot, now we can waltz. Drifting along the page, deriving from what is seen. Reading is seeing; the movement of the eyes as they drift. Reading in the eyes what has been seen, what has been derived from the act of reading. Reading eyes drift back and forth down the page, now and then jump back and forth, up to the top, one word, back down, quickly a few pages back, now gaze out towards the horizon. When attention drifts it is the gaze that follows. Our attention is not restricted to the path the words follow, but links them together; deriving what is to be seen, rather than read. La philosophie fait voir . ‘Thus, philosophers speak through proverbs, and demonstrate. They connect their imaginations with foreign rings, flown into famous tombs.’ 4 Now drifting off to sleep, dreams come as unintended visions. To dream is pure drift, vision without an object, gazing into the dark, reading the unknown of the night. NOTES: Arthur Rimbaud, Poésies (Paris: Bibliothéque de Cluny, 1958), 57. Michel Serres, La Naissance de la Physique (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1977), 10. Translation courtesy of R.H. Jackson. Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), 25. Louis Aragon, Une Vague des Rêves (Paris: Editions Seghers, 2006), 10. Translation courtesy of R.H. Jackson.  . (shrink)

Born in Posen in 1905, Jean Gebser came from an old Franconian family domiciled in Thuringia since 1236. A nephew of German chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, he was a descendant on his mother's side of Luther's friend Melanchthon. He was educated in Breslau, Konigsberg, Rossleben, and at the University of Berlin. In 1929 Gebser emigrated to Italy and subsequently lived in Spain where he was attached to the Ministry of Education of the Spanish Republic. From 1937-1939 he lived in Paris in (...) the circle which included Picasso, Andre Malraux, Paul Eluard, and Louis Aragon. In 1939 he made his permanent home in Switzerland where he became a citizen in 1951. For many years Gebser was Lecturer at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Zurich and was later appointed honorary Professor of Comparative Studies of Civilization at the University of Salzburg, Austria. For his many publications, including books on Rilke, his friend Federico Garcia Lorca, recent developments in the sciences, East-West relations, evolution, and twentieth century civilization and its antecedents, Gebser received several prizes, including a share of the German Schiller prize, the literary award of the Esslingen Artist's Guild, the Koggen prize of the City of Minden, and the literary award of the City of Berne. He died in Berne on May 14, 1973.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 125-132 [Access article in PDF] Incomprehensibility and Understanding:On the Interpretation of Severe Mental Illness Louis A. Sass Keywords hermeneutics, psychopathology, paradox, Wittgenstein, solipsism, delusion, principle of charity, phenomenological psychopathology. I would like to begin by thanking Rupert Read for the care he has put into reading my work, and into thinking through its implications in the context of the "new-Wittgensteinian" interpretation of (...) the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This interpretation derives from an influential reading of this philosopher's early book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1961), that is not explicitly discussed in Read's article, yet that lies behind much of his argument. Read does allude to this reading of the Tractatus when he refers to the concept of "logically alien thought" (see Conant [1992]), and by citing, in his endnotes, the Diamond, Conant, and Cerbone articles that appear in Crary and Read's edited collection, The New Wittgenstein (2000). In an earlier paper that also addresses my work, "On approaching schizophrenia through Wittgenstein," Read (2001) explicitly discusses the relevance of the new-Wittgensteinian interpretation of the Tractatus.According to this new-Wittgensteinian interpretation of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein took absolutely seriously his own realization (explicitly stated at the end of the Tractatus) that his book was internally self-contradictory, and he therefore realized that all or nearly all the sentences of the Tractatus must be totally devoid of any meaning or semantic reference. According to this austere view, the vast bulk of the Tractatus only pretends to be making meaningful statements about the nature of logic and semantics; its real purpose is to give the reader the illusion of meaning, and this it does in order to lead the reader to the eventual realization that there can in fact be no meaningful statements or thoughts at the level of self-referential abstraction at which the Tractatus pretends to be operating. Further, when Wittgenstein (1961) writes (in the famous last line of the book), "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" (p. 189), this statement should, supposedly, not be taken as any kind of mystical pointing toward some ineffable realm or truth, but, rather, as an austere recognition that there just are no ineffable truths—that, so to speak, there just is no mystical there there. [End Page 125]Rupert Read sees an analogy between, on the one hand, the (supposedly mistaken) readers of Wittgenstein's Tractatus who think that Wittgenstein is exploiting self-contradiction to allude to some higher, ineffable truth (i.e., something that can be pointed at even if it cannot be said), and, on the other hand, my own elucidation of Schreber's contradictions (see especially Chapter 2 of Paradoxes of Delusion [1994]) to argue that Schreber can be said to be having particular kinds of experiences, which I refer to as solipsistic or quasi-solipsistic in nature. Just as Wittgenstein's self-contradictions can (supposedly) point nowhere other than to their own failure to mean, so Schreber's self-contradictory and other nonstandard statements cannot (according to Read) be used to illuminate in any meaningful way the form of experience that supposedly lies behind them—as I, for example, have tried to do by offering a phenomenological account of Schreber and schizophrenia. Patients like Schreber and Renée cannot really be understood, just as we cannot really understand logically alien thought—which, in fact, is not really thought at all; in both cases, there is only the illusion of meaning, only the mirage of an alternative mode of thinking or of living. This, at least, is Read's new-Wittgensteinian claim.Few readers of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology will, I suspect, be familiar with these discussions centering on Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which were introduced largely by the philosophers Cora Diamond and James Conant (see Crary and Read [2000]). (I myself have found their writings fascinating and inspiring in many ways, despite my ultimate disagreement on fundamental issues.) 1 Most readers of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology will have no way of assessing the validity of this austere reading of the Tractatus... (shrink)

Covering the major issues of the field succinctly and lucidly, this text takes an analytically rigorous approach and makes it accessible in presentation. Pojman writes from an impartial perspective, presenting various options and points of view while guiding students in their own search for truth over these often emotion-laden, crucial issues.

This volume will thus appeal to advanced students and scholars not just in the history of early modern philosophy but in epistemology and other core areas of ...

Contemporary diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa explicitly refer to affective states of fear and anxiety regarding weight gain, as well as a fixed and very strong attachment to the pursuit of thinness as an overarching personal goal. Yet current treatments for that condition often have a decidedly cognitive orientation and the exact nature of the contribution of affective states and processes to anorexia nervosa remains largely uncharted theoretically. Taking our inspiration from the history of psychiatry, we argue that conceptualizing anorexia (...) nervosa as a passion is a promising way forward in both our understanding and treatment of that condition. Building on the theory of the passions elaborated by Théodule Ribot, the founder of scientific psychology in France, we argue that there is convincing empirical evidence in defense of the empirical hypothesis that anorexia nervosa is a passion in Ribot’s specific, technical sense. We then explore the implications of this finding for current approaches to treatment, including cognitive–behavioral therapy, and clinical and ethical issues associated with treatment refusals. (shrink)

In this paper I link two hitherto disconnected sets of results in the philosophy of emotions and explore their implications for the computational theory of mind. The argument of the paper is that, for just the same reasons that some computationalists have thought that cognition may be a natural kind, so the same can plausibly be argued of emotion. The core of the argument is that emotions are a representation-governed phenomenon and that the explanation of how they figure in behaviour (...) must as such be undertaken in those terms. I conclude with some interdisciplinary reflections in defence of the hypothesis that emotions might be more fundamental in the organization of behaviour than cognition; that, in effect, we may be emoters before we are cognizers . The aim of the paper is: (1) to introduce a number of promising results in philosophical and empirical emotion theory to a wider audience; and (2) to begin the task of organizing those results into a computational theoretical framework. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions regarding the status of emotion as a scientific domain usually get framed in terms of the question whether emotion is a natural kind. That approach to the issues is wrongheaded for two reasons. First, it has led to an intractable philosophical impasse that ultimately misconstrues the character of the relevant debate in emotion science. Second, and most important, it entirely ignores valence, a central feature of emotion experience, and probably the most promising criterion for demarcating emotion from cognition (...) and other related domains. An alternate philosophical hypothesis for addressing the issues is pro- posed. It is that emotion is a naturally occurring valenced phenomenon that is.. (shrink)

This paper is addressed to recent theoretical discussions of the Anthropocene, in particular Bernard Stiegler’s Neganthropocene (Open Universities Press, 2018), which argues: “As we drift past tipping points that put future biota at risk, while a post-truth regime institutes the denial of ‘climate change’ (as fake news), and as Silicon Valley assistants snatch decision and memory, and as gene-editing and a financially-engineered bifurcation advances over the rising hum of extinction events and the innumerable toxins and conceptual opiates that Anthropocene Talk (...) fascinated itself with—in short, as ‘the Anthropocene’ discloses itself as a dead-end trap…”. The objective of this paper is therefore twofold: (1) to discuss how the Anthropocene is appropriated to certain ideological discourses (paradoxically) to maintain the hegemony of precisely those systems of production that have most accelerated climate change etc.; (2) to consider how the factography of the Anthropocene is exploited in this process to mask the ideological character of industry-aligned “technocratic” environmental management. The paper is not concerned with specific case studies in terms of government and industry policy, or climate science, but rather with the ways in which the discourse of the Anthropocene has been inflected within the humanities and the broader cultural field—that is to say, ideologically, as a system or logic of meaning. How the Anthropocene “means” is, in this respect, a question of some importance. This paper does not attempt to address all the facets of this question, but focuses upon a central “apocalyptic” strain in the discourse of the Anthropocene drawn particularly from Francis Fukuyama’s millennial posthumanism and centred in the question of “sustainability” as catastrophe management—with the risk that real environmental degradation will become an alibi for a revived neoliberalism. In other words, that the critical Earth system transformations that characterise the Anthropocene are themselves commodities, and that the project of their amelioration is in process of defining a future (opportunistic) “crisis” rhetoric with a global political franchise. The ideological import of the Anthropocene stems precisely from the fact that it is planetary and, while catalysed by human agency, independent in its specific behaviour from it. The Anthropocene objectively presents as the contemporary counterpart of the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction and the most compelling argument for a new kind of technological “arms race.” But it also presents as the condition of an emerging ideological discourse which will determine how this race is run. From the discourse on “energy security” to the widespread “security crackdown” on environmental activists across the so-called developed & developing world, the Anthropocene has come to represent the co-option of a scientific factography for the thinly disguised resurgence of “ideological science” of the Fukuyamaesque variety (post-history, post-human). For Fukuyama, the true meaning of “posthuman” is thus the accomplishment of humanity’s historical mission. As the “End of History” designates an end of ideological struggle, so too the dénouement of the Anthropocene and the “ends of man” represent the accomplished purpose of species warfare: dominion, not simply over the world, but over all possible worlds. According to this narrative, science—like technology—must be uniquely at the service of the maintenance of the global order, organised around a universal appeal to “crisis management.” It is precisely for this reason that what calls itself post-human masks the return of an ever-more-apocalyptic Humanism. (shrink)

The Greeks are on trial. They have been for generations, if not millennia, from Rome in the first century, to Romanticism in the nineteenth. We debate the place of the Greeks in the university curriculum, in New World culture--we even debate the place of the Greeks in the European Union. This book notices the lingering and half-hidden presence of the Greeks in some strange places--everywhere from the US Supreme Court to the Modern Olympic Games--and in so doing makes an important (...) new contribution to a very old debate. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Some Context The Traditional Interpretation Disarming the Evidence for the Traditional Interpretation Evidence that Hume Considers Inductive Inference Justified The Traditional Interpretation Revisited Hume's Epistemic Options Applications to Extended Objects and Belief in God Limitations on Enumerative Induction Acknowledgments References.

Current debates on recognition and domination tend to be characterized by two polarized positions. Where the “anti-recognition” camp views recognition as a tool for establishing and reproducing relations of power, the “pro-recognition” camp conceives it as a way for dominated individuals and social groups to lay stake to intersubjective relations that are more just. At first glance, Honneth’s normative theory of recognition and Bourdieu’s critical sociology of domination also divide along these lines. Honneth takes the pro-recognition stance, criticizing the French (...) sociologist for adopting a “fragmented” conception of the social world that ignores the “moral consensus” underlying each claim for mutual recognition. In contrast, Bourdieu accuses the German philosopher of endorsing an “enchanted” view of the social world that misrecognizes the way that recognition perpetuates symbolic domination. However, through a close and nuanced reading of their works, this article suggests that, in spite of this difference, Honneth’s and Bourdieu’s theories nonetheless converge on the idea that recognition is neither “good” nor “bad” per se, but “structurally ambiguous” in its relations to symbolic domination. (shrink)

Ideal for introductory ethics courses, The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature, Fifth Edition, brings together an extensive and varied collection of ninety-one classical and contemporary readings on ethical theory and practice. Integrating literature with philosophy in an innovative way, this unique anthology uses literary works to enliven and make concrete the ethical theory or applied issues addressed. It also emphasizes the personal dimension of ethics, which is often ignored or minimized in ethics anthologies. The readings are (...) enhanced by chapter introductions, study questions, suggestions for further reading, and biographical sketches. The fifth edition adds ten new readings, eight of which appear in two new chapters: Feminist Ethics and the Ethics of Care and Global Economic Justice. An updated Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/pojman provides self-quizzes, essay questions, and helpful links for students and reading summaries, a test bank, and PowerPoint-based lecture slides for instructors. (shrink)

Most contemporary models and tests for mental competence do not make adequate provision for the positive influence of emotion in the determination of competence. This most likely is due to a reliance on an outdated view of emotion according to which these models are essentially noncognitive. Leading developments in modern emotion theory indicate that this noncognitive theory of emotion is no longer tenable. Emotions, in fact, are essentially representational in a manner that makes them “cognitive” in an important sense. This (...) requires a reassessment of the place of emotion in the theory of mental competence. Building on Benjamin Freedman’s “recognizable reasons” account of competence, it will be argued that (1) emotions form a class of recognizable reasons of their own, and (2) that competence to consent is a matter of practical, rather than theoretical, reasoning. Emotions, then, are an essential ingredient in mental competence, and the cognitive bias that permeates the theory of mental competence today must be rejected. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Causation, Extrinsic Relations, and Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal Identity Louis E. Loeb According to the account offered in Treatise 1.4.6, "Of personal identity," the identity of a mind over time consists in a sequence of perceptions related by causation. In both ofHume's two definitions of cause, causation is an external or extrinsic relation. Hume is explicit that this result is tolerable. If causation is an extrinsic relation, (...) and personal identity is analysed in terms of causation, then personal identity is an extrinsic relation. I suggest that Hume finds this consequence intolerable, and that his finding it so is the source ofhis famous misgivings in the appendix in regard to his section on personal identity.1 In the appendix, Humeindicates that "there wou'dbe no difficulty" in regard to his section concerning personal identity, if the mind perceived some "real connexion" among perceptions.2 In book 1, however, Hume maintains that causation does not involve a real connection, and that personal identity depends on causation; and he seems content with the result that personal identity does not involve a real connection. At 1.3.14, "Ofthe idea ofnecessary connexion," Hume insists that there is no "real connexion" between causes and effects and, more generally, that there is no "real intelligible connexion" between external objects (T 168; cf. T 103). At T 169-70, he offers two ("exact") definitions of the relation of cause and effect. Hume thinks there are causes and effects, even though there are no real connections. At 1.4.6, Hume writes that whether or not the relation ofpersonal identity is a "real bond" or "real connection" among perceptions is a "question we might easily decide, ifwe wou'd recollect whathas been already pro^d at large, that the understanding never observes any real connexion among objects, and that even the union of cause and effect, when strictly examin'd, resolves itselfinto a customary association ofideas" (T 259-60). A mere three paragraphs later, Hume writes that "the true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are link'd together by the relation ofcause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other" (T 261). So Hume's view, at 1.4.6, is that personal identity requires causation, but does not require a real connection. It is curious that in the appendix Hume takes the claim Volume XVIII Number 2 219 LOUIS E. LOEB thatthereis noreal connectionbetween perceptions toruinhis account of personal identity, whereas in book 1 he treats this result with equanimity. Thispuzzlecan begeneralized somewhat. Hume observesin 1.3.14 that "the terms of efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connexion, andproductive quality, are all nearly synonimous" (T 157). His principal negative claim in that sectionis that(takingefficacy, and the other nearly synonymous concepts, to require something in objects over and above constant conjunction) there is no efficacy, necessity, or connection in causation. Hume targets a number of the nearly synonymous notions not only in 1.3.14, but also at T 246-51 of 1.4.5, and T 632-33 ofthe appendix. In the discussion ofpersonal identity in the appendix, Hume seems to be in search of the sort of bond or connection that he has forcefully rejected, as if he has a lingering commitment to real connections, or to necessity, despite himself. From this perspective, his misgivings easily appear to constitute a retrogression, orlapse, into amode ofthought, or metaphysical picture, that he has taken pains to reject. This is not an attractive explanation ofHume's misgivings. It has the consequence that Hume simply changes his mind, or is of two minds, inregard to therole ofreal connections in an account ofpersonal identity. Although I do not think these possibilities are to be dismissed outofhand, much oftheir support would have to derive from the failure of alternative accounts of what is bothering Hume. At the same time, a solution ought in some way to relate to Hume's thinking about real connections. Hume does write in the appendix, In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to... (shrink)

This chapter argues that the conditions under the umbrella “personality disorders” actually constitute two very different kinds of theoretical entities. In particular, several core personality disorders are actually moral, and not medical, conditions. Thus, the categories that are held to represent them are really moral, and not medical, theoretical kinds. The chapter works back from the possibility of treatment to the nature of the kinds that are allegedly treated, revisiting 18th-century ideas of moral treatment along the way. The discussion closes (...) with a reflection on how the ambiguous medical status of personality disorders and their treatment today is reminiscent of the ideological tug of war that pits alienist “mad doctors” like Pinel against their lay counterparts such as Tuke as they battled over who should be in charge of treating the mad. (shrink)

In this essay I begin with Aristotle’s perplexing observation that a tragic drama is a “whole,” one identified by a clear beginning, middle and ending. I pause to wonder how Aristotle imagines such ends, given his contention that a play concludes in such a way that “nothing can follow from it.” On the face of it, it is very difficult to imagine what Aristotle has in mind here. I suggest that one clue may be found in his title, Poetics, with (...) its clear suggestion that a dramatic event is in fact a making, a poiesis. I develop this idea to suggest that the end of a story, any story, tends to be something the reader imposes, often in the interest of generating a specific moral. I then display these readerly dynamics by providing a close reading of the famous story from Genesis, concerning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. I explore a number of different ways in which this story may be thought to “end,” as well as the implications of each such ending. (shrink)

In this paper we reflect on the effectiveness of cognitive mapping as a method to study farm functioning in its complexity and its diverse forms in the framework of our own experiment with a diverse group of Flemish beef farmers. With a structured direct elicitation method we gathered 30 CMs. We analyzed the content of these maps both qualitatively and quantitatively. The central role of the concept “Income” in most maps indicated a shared concern for economic security. Further, the CMs (...) indicated that farmers dealt with this shared social reality differently, as the relationships included in their maps referred to different functional processes relating to revenue streams, marketing strategies, investment decisions, dependence on production inputs, on-farm resource management, and personal well-being. With a clustering algorithm we grouped farmers based on the relationships in their maps, which allowed us to trace some of the broader patterns within the data, such as the existence of more business- and investment-minded farmers, in contrast to farmers focused on their quality of life, and animal production-oriented in contrast to marketing-oriented farmers. Taking into account farmers’ comments, we find that the applied methods had limited capability to classify farmers based on their perspectives on farming. Still, the system presentations proved useful to study what aspects farmers were working on or towards, and how these aspects may actually fit together as a whole. CMing was therefore mostly effective in exploring farm functioning in its complexity, and less so in exploring farm functioning in its diversity. (shrink)

Les principes fondamentaux régissant les rapports entre l’espace, le temps, l’objet et la causalité sont présentés et examinés. Il est découvert, par des expériences de pensée successives, que l’abandon de l’un ou l’autre de ces principes permettrait peut-être de résoudre de façon neuve des difficultés classiques de la philosophie comme la flèche de Zénon, Achille et la tortue ou le bateau de Thésée. Sont révélés à cette occasion plusieurs asymétries importantes existant entre l’espace et le temps, dans leurs rôles respectifs (...) vis-à-vis des objets matériels et de la relation causale. Le rapport entre le temps et la causalité est, enfin, plus particulièrement étudié. (shrink)

Les principes fondamentaux régissant les rapports entre l’espace, le temps, l’objet et la causalité sont présentés et examinés. Il est découvert, par des expériences de pensée successives, que l’abandon de l’un ou l’autre de ces principes permettrait peut-être de résoudre de façon neuve des difficultés classiques de la philosophie comme la flèche de Zénon, Achille et la tortue ou le bateau de Thésée. Sont révélés à cette occasion plusieurs asymétries importantes existant entre l’espace et le temps, dans leurs rôles respectifs (...) vis-à-vis des objets matériels et de la relation causale. Le rapport entre le temps et la causalité est, enfin, plus particulièrement étudié. (shrink)

In two essays, first published in book form in 1940, Louis Lavelle delves into Evil and Suffering, tracing their relationships with Good and Happiness, the Body and the Spirit, Matter and Spirit. Evil and Suffering is considered a work of moral philosophy. In it, Lavelle leads us to reflect on suffering and how it is inserted in the inner and outer world of the being. From this experience of living suffering, according to the author, the spirit arises. The marks (...) that pain causes in us allows us to transcend what we are to the external world, after understanding ourselves with suffering in the inner world. If suffering is an inherent condition of human life, it remains for him to do his best, face it and overcome it. According to Lavelle, it is suffering itself that gives meaning to life; but this is only possible if there is awareness that one suffers, because it is this awareness that awakens the spirit. The author also, through antitheses, tells us that it is in the absence that we find the presence, in the darkness we see the light, in loneliness we find community, in an inner deepening, where we perceive reality. Therefore, suffering connects beings. Pain shapes us, awakens us and makes us better beings if we know how to face it. Reading this book, of incredible spiritual richness, generates in us a dialogue about suffering, in order to transcend it. (shrink)

This article explores the theological foundations of both classical and contemporary Jewish ethics, with special reference to biomedical issues. Traditional views concerning God's revelation to Israel are shown to underlie the methodological orientation of classical Jewish ethics, which is both legalistic and particularistic. Contemporary Jewish ethicists, by contrast, have tended to embrace more liberal views of revelation which have mitigated both the legalism and the particularism of their approach. Apart from methodological considerations, much of the content of Jewish medical ethics (...) has also been shaped by theological concerns. Specifically, a Jewish theology of creation provides basic norms and values which inform Jewish responses to a range of contemporary biomedical issues. Finally, it is suggested that the theological roots of this ethical tradition do not disqualify it from making a significant contribution to the wider discussion of biomedical issues in our secular, pluralistic society. Keywords: covenant, creation, halakha, Jewish ethics, relevation, Torah CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Comprehensive and accessible, Moral Reasoning introduces students to the historical foundations of moral theory and contemporary ethics. Beginning with Aristotle, the text offers a careful, in-depth introduction to the many schools of moral thought that have contributed to Western philosophy, exploring such topics as utilitarianism, deontology, liberalism, human rights, virtue, and religious ethics. With contemporary examples incorporated throughout, this innovative new book fosters critical reflection on topical moral issues, encouraging students to develop a personal moral compass that transcends peer pressure (...) and ideology. (shrink)

Chow (1996) offers a reconceptualization of statistical significance that is reasoned and comprehensive. Despite a somewhat rough presentation, his arguments are compelling and deserve to be taken seriously by the scientific community. It is argued that his characterization of literal replication, types of research, effect size, and experimental control are in need of revision.