This article develops the concept of proximity as socio-spatial distance by looking at the temporally and spatially condensed events of contemporary art exhibition openings. The article begins by examining some developments in proximity research, the limitations of theorizing the importance of proximity as mere physical nearness, arguing that potentiality renders proximity meaningful. After introducing the art event, we offer a three-pronged approach to proximity by showing the imperatives for being-there, the conditional indeterminacy of potentiality and the politics of proximity. In (...) contrast to much recent research, it is argued that the significance of events is not reducible to evaluated outcomes. Two ethnographic vignettes show the imperatives, indeterminacies and politics in action. We conclude by showing how this conceptualization of proximity has analytic purchase beyond the empirical realm of contemporary art. (shrink)

Unusual atmospheric phenomena (UAPs) were observed in daylight by multiple observers on board two civil aircraft in widely separated locations. We summarise results of an investigation based on radio communications reporting events in real time to Air Traffic Control (ATC), ATC radar and weather radar recordings, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) documents, witness interviews and statements, and other sources. We describe attempts to explain the phenomena with the help of expert specialist advisers and professional resources in the fields of meteorology, atmospheric (...) optics, oceanography and geophysics. We are able to show that widespread media stories describing enormous phenomena up to a mile wide and detected by radar were based on speculation and misunderstandings. Many news reports were grossly exaggerated and inaccurate. However, we are unable to conclusively identify the UAPs observed. It proves possible to eliminate a number of theories with a fairly high level of confidence, leaving us with two types of phenomena—a rare atmospheric-optical effect or an earthquake precursor—both of which have the potential to explain at least some, although not all, features of the reports. We highlight certain features that appear to leave open the possibility of unusual physical processes. Keywords: UAP—atmospheric optics—anomaly—mirage—earthquake lights—EQL. (shrink)

Leibniz has long faced a challenge about the coherence of the distinction between necessary and contingent truths in his philosophy. In this paper, I propose and examine a new way to save genuine contingency within a Leibnizian framework. I conclude that it succeeds in formally solving the problem, but at unbearable cost. I present Leibniz’s challenge by considering God’s choice of the best possible world (Sect. 2). God necessarily exists and necessarily chooses to actualise the best possible world. The actual (...) world therefore could not be different, for if it were different it would be a distinct and inferior world and hence would not be created. In Sect. 3 I defend Leibniz from this challenge. I argue that while it is necessary for God to choose to create the best possible world, it is not necessary for any world to be the best possible. This is because the criterion for judging perfection can itself be contingent. Different criteria will judge different worlds as the best. Thus it is necessary for God to create the best, but not necessary which is the best. Distinguishing between possible worlds in Leibniz’s sense and in the modern sense allows a fuller exposition of this position. There are worries that can arise with the claim that the criterion of perfection is contingent. I consider two of the most pressing (Sect. 4). The first argues that the criterion is in God’s understanding and hence is necessary; the second alleges that a contingent criterion of perfection violates Leibniz’s cherished Principle of Sufficient Reason. These worries are well-grounded, and examining them reveals a deep incompatibility between this solution and Leibniz’s metaphysical views. I conclude that there is a real solution available, but that it is unacceptable to Leibniz or a Leibnizian. The search for a genuine solution that is genuinely Leibnizian goes on. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hobbes: A Biography by A. P. MartinichMartin HarveyA. P. Martinich. Hobbes: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxxii + 384. Cloth, $34.95.In his most recent biography of Hobbes, A. P. Martinich informs the reader that he is “here to praise Hobbes, not to bury his theory”—a task which the author accomplishes with a great deal of literary dexterity (233). The work is chronological in structure with (...) each of the eleven chapters devoted to a specific period in Hobbes’s intellectual and personal development. The reader receives an in depth and well wrought treatment of Hobbes’s earliest years in Malmesbury, including a thorough discussion of his dissolute father and his tutelage in the classics under Robert Latimer. Martinich also goes into detail concerning Hobbes’s student life at Oxford, his lifelong relationship with the Cavendishes, Hobbes’s participation in the Great Tew Circle as well as his decade long exile in France and ultimate return to England. Hobbes’s later years, particularly his fruitless disputes with the Royal Society, are also admirably chronicled.Interwoven with the above is a detailed overview of most of Hobbes’s major and minor works, from his translation of Thucydides in 1629 to Behemoth, published in 1679. Martinich pays close attention to Hobbes’s foundational works in philosophy, particularly The Elements of Law, Leviathan, and De Corpore. The author provides a clear and concise introduction to all facets of Hobbes’s philosophical system and spends time explaining what Hobbes took his project to be; namely the construction of a tripartite Elementa Philosophiae devoted, respectively, to metaphysics/physics, psychology and ethics/politics (118–9). The critical exegesis of Anti-White is exceptional, providing as it does an excellent conceptual backdrop to Hobbes’s mature and considered philosophy of science as found in De Corpore. As such, Hobbes’s philosophical corpus is presented, rightly I believe, as a continuum, by no means seamless perhaps, but nonetheless exhibiting at base a considerable amount of theoretical integrity.As is well known, Hobbes was quite the cantankerous character engaging in numerous professional and, ultimately, personal rows with the great minds of his time. Hobbes’s acrimonious wranglings with René Descartes, Thomas White, Bishop Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Robert Boyle, Seth Ward, and John Wallis all receive their due. The comically churlish debate between Hobbes and Descartes is especially well presented. [End Page 680]Stylistically, Martinich adopts a somewhat pithy approach (e.g., William Cavendish is described as follows: “It was not that Cavendish was unprincipled; rather, his principle was opportunism.” [20]) which, for the most part, is quite successful in keeping the reader’s attention, even when complex philosophical ideas are being conveyed. The work, much to Martinich’s credit, is also punctuated with numerous amusing tidbits such as his listing of the oral exam questions which Hobbes and his fellow students adequately had to answer in order to receive their B.A., e.g., “Whether a new inundation of water [over the whole earth] would be a greater catastrophe than all of it freezing” (13). Hobbes would be happy to know that things haven’t changed all that much.Substantively, a few points are in order. First, as one might expect, Martinich spends a great deal of time discussing Hobbes’s theological views and he is at great pains to paint Hobbes as a committed Calvinist (137–43; see Martinich’s The Two Gods of Leviathan [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992]) for a fuller discussion of this issue. In all fairness, the author readily admits that his reading is a minority interpretation, but this being the case perhaps more time should have been devoted to discussing the received view, i.e., that Hobbes, if he is not an atheist, is at most a deist and not a theist. Second, Martinich portrays Hobbes’s sovereign as wholly absolute, unfettered not only by the civil, but the natural law as well. While quite correct in maintaining that the sovereign, since he or she (or they), is not subject to civil law, it does not follow that Hobbes necessarily believes that “whatever the sovereign says is law” (50). Indeed, in Chapter XXVI of Leviathan Hobbes... (shrink)

The underlying theme of this article is how a successor state should deal with its past. It considers whether a state that is committed to the rule of law may depart from it in order to deal with problems left to it by its predecessor regime. Specifically, may it use retroactive legislation to punish informers who collaborated with a predecessor police state? Lon Fuller's formulation of the canons of the rule of law as an internal morality of law is (...) expounded as well as his notion of legal pathology as symptomatic of departure from the canons' requirements. Various problems inherent to the implementation of the rule of law are examined, such as the effect of the passage of time on reasonable expectations. While legal pathology is always a matter of degree, police states are shown to suffer seriously from it. Among the examples discussed are Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany, though it is granted that there are moral differences between them. In the course of the discussion, a response is made to some contemporary critiques of the rule of law. Although it would be difficult to formulate a retroactive law for punishing informers, it is argued that such a law may be the best way for a successor state to express a moral judgment on its past. Diesem Artikel liegt die Frage zugrunde, in welcher Weise ein Nachfolge-Staat mit seiner Vergangenheit umgehen sollte. Es wird untersucht, ob ein Staat, der sich der Idee des Rechtsstaats verpflichtet fühlt, von dieser Idee abrücken darf, um mit den Problemen umzugehen, die ihm von seinem Vorgänger-Staat hinterlassen worden sind. Insbesondere wird gefragt, ob ein solcher Staat zu dem Mittel rückwirkender Gesetzgebung greifen darf, um Denunzianten zu bestrafen, die mit einem vorangehenden Polizeistaat kollaboriert haben. Lon Fullers Formulierung der Prinzipien eines Rechtsstaats im Sinne einer internen Moralität des Rechts wird ebenso erläutert wie sein Begriff von rechtlicher Pathologie als Symptom für ein Abgehen von den Anforderungen der genannten Prinzipien. Verschiedene Schwierigkeiten, die mit der Verwirklichung des Rechtsstaats entstehen, werden näher untersucht, so etwa die Auswirkungen des Zeitablaufs hinsichtlich vernünftiger Erwartungen . Wenngleich rechtliche Pathologie immer eine Frage des Grades ist, kann doch gezeigt werden, daß Polizeistaaten ernstlich an ihr leiden. Unter den diskutierten Beispielen sind Nazi-Deutschland und das kommunistische Ostdeutschland, obwohl zugegeben werden muß, daß es zwischen diesen moralische Unterschiede gibt. Im Verlauf der Untersuchung wird zudem auf einige gegenwärtige kritische Stellungnahmen zum Rechtsstaat erwidert. Obwohl es schwierig wäre, ein rückwirkendes Gesetz zur Bestrafung von Denunzianten zu formulieren, wird doch die These vertreten, daß ein derartiges Gesetz der beste Weg für einen Nachfolge-Staat sein könnte, ein moralisches Urteil über seine Vergangenheit zum Ausdruck zu bringen. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish a connection between the existence of a legal system and the ideal of the rule of law. Its point of departure is the phenomenon of a transitional regime that is attempting to restore or institute the rule of law. Lon Fuller's formulation of the canons of the rule of law as an internal morality of law is expounded as well as his notion of legal pathology as symptomatic of departure from the canons' requirements. The (...) existence of a legal system, it is argued, is a matter of degree, covariant with the degree to which the rule of law is realized. Problems inherent to the implementation of the rule of law are examined, such as the effect of the passage of time on reasonable expectations. While legal pathology is always a matter of degree, police states are shown to suffer seriously from it. Among the examples discussed are Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany, though it is granted that there are moral differences between them. Finally, a response is made to some contemporary critiques of the rule of law. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy has been concerned with race and racism since its inception for both historical and conceptual reasons. Historically, the struggle against sexism consistently followed in the footsteps of the struggle against slavery and racism, both in the nineteenth as well as the twentieth centuries. Women who resisted slavery and racism began to rethink common beliefs about women's role, and took inspiration from the abolitionist and civil rights struggles. Nineteenth‐century transcendentalist Margaret Fuller Ossoli made a conceptual analogy between slavery (...) as an unfair restriction on human freedom and the social and economic restrictions on white women. Simone de Beauvoir argued that slaves and white women had been infantilized in similar ways. Many early feminist accounts of sexism borrowed from analyses of slavery and racism, how these were justified through attributions of inferiority and dependence, and how these affected the subjectivity of the oppressed. (shrink)

Preface The status of sovereignty as a highly ambiguous concept is well established. Pointing out or deploring, the ambiguity of the idea has itself become a recurring motif in the literature on sovereignty. As the legal theorist and international lawyer Alf Ross put it, “there is hardly any domain in which the obscurity and confusion is as great as here.” 1 The concept of sovereignty is often seen as a downright obstacle to fruitful conceptual analysis, carried over from its proper (...) setting in history to “plague and befog contemporary thought.” 2 . . . So contested is the concept that, rather than pursuing the contestation, many political theorists think we should give up so protean a notion. Granting that the debate on the relevance of sovereignty frustratingly oscillates between claims that it will either continue to exist or that it is about to disappear, forgetting it altogether, and thereby escaping this seemingly endless argument, can easily appear as the most urgent task for political theory . The following argument makes a case that the “urgent task” is not the abandonment of the concept of sovereignty, but an understanding of its essential philosophical nature as an integrated and evolving expression of practical reason. Sovereignty is neither ambiguous nor obscure once its fundamental presuppositions are laid bare and its many philosophical and historical manifestations shown to be the product, in actuality, of a single, dialectally dynamic but integrated set of metaphysical elements. This is the first of three arguments describing the evolution of international law as a manifestation of practical reason through an application of philosophical method to the source , locus , and scope of the concept of sovereignty. It moves from a dialectic balance favoring utility to a balance dominated by legal right to a dialectic of duty to humanity and nature. All three arguments are meant to be a contribution to the new field of International Legal Philosophy as defined by Phillip Allott. 4 This field combines a sensitivity to legal practice with an effort to understand the underlying philosophical determinants of empirical choice and behavior. One purpose of international legal philosophy is to “remove” from the minds of those who study the law what Diderot defined as “the sophism of the ephemeral,” and what Allott calls “the disempowering idea that what xii Preface happens to exist now is inevitable and permanent.” 5 A core imperative is to “reunderstand what it is to be a thinking being” 6 and to rediscover the dialectic between the private and the public as it determines, and is redetermined by, legal practice. This requires a “revolution in the human mind” 7 so that we may transcend the current dependence on positivist methods and empirical fact as an end-in-itself, and try to understand the underlying and more constant and essential ideas and inherent dialectics that constitute the substructure or “metaphysics” of international law. I will approach this “revolution” with the use of R. G. Collingwood’s philosophical method 8 and the philosophy of David Hume, applied to international law as an expression of practical reason. The goal of philosophical method is the construction of a comprehensive policy argument (CPA) for a public policy or legal issue. In addition to the conventional use of empirical models and their logic of investigation in the study of policy and law, CPA requires that an underlying philosophical logic of concepts be deciphered to identify the ideas within the issue, and their definition, overlap, and systematic interdependence. Philosophical method is a means with which to interpret and understand competing systematic and complete conceptual logics, existing at the core of an issue and pertinent to policy change. Philosophical method is therefore not meant to be a replacement for the empirical investigation of a policy or legal issue, or the use of scientific method in social studies. Rather, it is a complimentary and prerequisite method that seeks to transcend the limitations of positivism and present a more complete understanding of the philosophical presuppositions of positivist ideas like power, interest, or strategic rationality. Philosophical method is meant to be used with the facts of the policy or legal issue to match an illuminating logic of concepts with a pertinent logic of investigation . Within the CPA, the use of philosophical method and the metaphysics of a policy or legal issue is assumed to be critical to the full understanding of the overlapping concepts, dialectics, and scale of forms that determine, and are determined by, the empirical context of the policy or legal topic. Specifically, instead of utilizing bits and pieces of various theoretical arguments to address narrowly focused empirical questions, as positivism prescribes, I will address the evolution of international law as practical reason in three phases. Each will be approached through a single integrated logic of philosophical concepts from a particular philosopher (i.e., David Hume, G. W. F. Hegel, Immanuel Kant). This philosophically holistic approach to the law is based on the assumption that only through the use of a single integrated argument in legal analysis can sovereignty, or any concept, be understood as a truly systematic and logical whole. A complete philosophical paradigm has a dialectic integrity and systematic logic that can more adequately describe the evolving essence of a concept like sovereignty. This approach also has the advantage of generating a number of distinct holistic descriptions of the law through the application of different philosophical systems, one at a time, to its factual structure. 9 Positivism does not seek Preface xiii holism, and rejects the idea that “theory” has such a characteristic. The essential or comprehensive substructure of any idea is therefore ignored in a method that recommends the observation of empirical problems through the use of whatever hodgepodge of theoretical elements is seen fit to frame its superstructure. This failure to deal with metaphysics has retarded both an essential understanding of international law as a species of legal system, and any holistic and dialectical conceptualization of its inherent concepts, like sovereignty. A second positivist convention expects modern theorists to create new theory rather than to refine and apply that of existing philosophy. This predisposition is driven by the positivist goal of discovery that ignores refinement as a possible purpose of philosophical analysis. Collingwood argues that philosophy must take that set of ideas already known and utilize existing systematic philosophical arguments to refine them so that they evolve closer to their essence as concepts. Considering this imperative, the idea of sovereignty can be assumed to have had valid usage for hundreds of years, over which time, the concept has evolved to mean different things, each a refinement of the definition that preceded it. Transcending positivism means that the scholar’s search is not for “new” material, but to decipher the metaphysical essence of a concept as it has been made manifest over time and context. These manifestations are rooted, and refined from, the known terms of that concept’s inherent idea(s). Rather than depending exclusively on positivism and its conventions, my work utilizes, in addition to Collingwood, the intact philosophical systems of Hume, Hegel, and Kant to trace the refinement of international law as a product of human practical reason. These paradigms, or integrated systems of logical concepts, will be applied to legal practice individually, so that each CPA can be deciphered separately. This provides a set of integrated and logically intact paradigms for the evolutionary stages of practical reason in international law. Because each argument is applied systematically, a deeper understanding of the source, locus, and scope in the development of law in general, and international law in particular, is possible where it is not with the application of various disconnected components of many theories. Each CPA based on Hume, Hegel, or Kant can then be used to describe a distinct context that its logic of concepts best illuminates; specifically, the (1) genesis, (2) contemporary dilemmas, and (3) future of the international legal system. By widening the perspective of international lawyers and policymakers, they can more easily perceive the dialectic of ideas that has created, and is refined by, the legal practice in which they participate. We also move toward Allott’s goal of “human self-perfecting.” 10 And, in addition, by providing a more complete knowledge of the origins of legal practice and its evolution, we illuminate the practical possibilities for what we might “choose to be” 11 in the future. To achieve this, the essential metaphysical elements of state sovereignty and its inherent evolutionary scale of forms will be deciphered and described. This will transform what appears to be a multitude of definitions and xiv Preface practical realizations of the concept of sovereignty into a set of interdependent manifestations of a single substructure, made of a single set of dialectic elements. The interpretation of international law through practical reason sorts and integrates a diverse and discordant literature and defines state sovereignty as a single concept evolving on a scale of forms that allows it to exhibit diverse character traits, all arising from different combinations of common and essential metaphysical elements. This approach, compared to positivist methods and legal realism, allows one to transcend current agreement that sovereignty is, at best, a narrowly focused set of empirical characteristics or, at worst, “organized hypocrisy.” 12 This method also encourages the scholar and practitioner to understand the predispositions and pitfalls of the concept of sovereignty, as well as its potential future paths, more effectively. The use of philosophical method to create policy paradigms out of preexisting philosophical systems and apply these to international law will be called Philosophical-Policy & Legal Design . This approach allows the use of preexisting and complete philosophical arguments that provide an adequate logic of concepts to chart the evolution of the idea of sovereignty along its scale of forms. An examination of the source of practical reason in human social convention with the employment of a philosophical-policy drawn from Hume’s logic of concepts about human nature will demonstrate this new approach. Why Hume? Because, up to now, without an adequate substructure we have arguments, like Brunne é’ s and Troope’s, 13 that may correctly identify international law as an “interactional” system, but cannot present any argument as to why it is, where this empirical reality comes from, or what its implications are for the future. Comparatively, Hume provides a logic of philosophical concepts that answers these concerns. First, he fulfills the requirements for a fuller understanding of the origin and evolution of law from social convention and the dependence of social convention on the human imperative for society. Second, he offers a more adequate delineation of the overlapping concepts of the law in terms of the ideas and institutions that deal with norms and justice (e.g., principle, process, practice, rule, power, interest). Third, he provides a fundamental understanding of the essential dialectics at the core of a conceptualization of the law with both unconscious and conscious human participation (i.e., passion. (shrink)

In this review essay, I offer reflections on three themes. I begin by exploring Alejandro Chehtman’s expressed methodological commitments. I argue that his views move him closer to Lon Fuller and away from the thin accounts offered by HLA Hart and Joseph Raz. Moreover, to make sense of his views, he must offer a more normatively robust theory of law. Second, I turn to his use of Raz’s theory of authority. I argue that Chehtman fails to distinguish between Raz’s (...) views and his own, but more importantly, I maintain that his discussion of Raz is superfluous: in the course of “unpacking” Raz’s views, he leads us back to his own core theses. Finally, I explore Chehtman’s ability to deal with perennial worries that plague any attempt to offer a justification for International Criminal Law in general, and the International Criminal Court in particular (i.e., “victor’s justice”, “show trials”, “peace vs. justice”). I argue that unless Chehtman is able to demonstrate that the enforcement of International Criminal Law is able to impart dignity and security on the most vulnerable, his account will be significantly weakened. (shrink)

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: what does it mean to be 'human' in the 21st century? As definitions between what is 'animal' and what is 'human' break down, and as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and nano- and bio- technologies develop, accepted notions of humanity are rapidly evolving. Humanity 2.0 is an ambitious and groundbreaking book, offering a sweeping overview of key historical, philosophical and theological moments that have shaped our understandings of humanity. (...) Tackling head on the twin taboos that have always hovered over the scientific study of humanity - race and religion - Steve Fuller argues thar far from disappearing, they are being reinvented. Fuller argues that these new developments will force us to decide which features of our current way of life - not least our bodies - are truly needed to remain human, and concludes with a consideration of these changes for ethical and social values more broadly. (shrink)

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: What does it mean to be human in the 21st century? This ambitious and groundbreaking book provides the first synthesis of historical, philosophical and sociological insights needed to address this question in a thoughtful and creative manner.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:WisCon 46Laurie Fuller, Jenna N. Hanchey, and E. OrnelasExistence as Resistance, WisCon 46, May 26–29, 2023, Madison, Wisconsin, United StatesIn a world that seems structured to kill most of its occupants, there is a utopian impulse in the act of existence itself. WisCon 46 represented a prefigurative utopian impulse through centering continued marginalized existence as resistance.1 Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha calls “prefigurative politics” the “fancy term for the (...) idea of imagining and building the world we want to see now,” particularly in terms of access needs.2 The structure as well as the content of the convention itself created a space in which to set the groundwork for utopia: the ways that we live and act to resist structures of oppression in order to prefigure a better world.Since WisCon’s founding in 1977, its intended audience has been fans, authors, and academics interested in the intersection between feminism and “science fiction, fantasy, and speculative literature of all sorts.”3 While neither feminism nor speculative fiction could be solely defined as utopian, both do explore utopian impulses that inspire change for the better. Therein lies the hope of Alessa Johns’s proposal that “the utopian imagination has been crucial for feminists.”4 Lisa Yaszek agrees: “for nearly 200 years writers have used speculative fiction consciously and collectively to dramatize the political issues most central to women living in a technocultural world and to create a sense of wonder about the interrelated possibilities of social and scientific change.”5 Envisioning a liberatory world is a feminist imperative, and speculative fiction offers a unique venue to do so. This imperative informed WisCon this year, as participants collectively worked to imagine and enact a better future for marginalized folks, in and beyond the space of the conference. [End Page 618]Enabling Existence through Con StructuresWisCon is unique in attuning its organizational structure to the creation of liberatory futures in the here and now. WisCon is strongly attentive to disability access of all kinds, COVID safety, antiracist/anti-oppression principles, and safety and anti-abuse support for all these areas. In the contemporary US context—where COVID-19 remains a major barrier to disabled people wishing to participate in conventions, where racist violence continues to threaten BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) life, where queer and trans folks are under exacerbated legal attacks—creating a convention space that protects and enables marginalized participation becomes a means of prefiguring utopian potential through embodied praxis. As mask, capacity, and vaccination mandates disappear (despite these ongoing pandemic times), and as bigotry of all forms continues relatively unabated, WisCon 46 remains steadfast in its commitment to safety. In short, the conference itself aims to become a utopian space.WisCon organizers are also keenly aware of the challenges that many different bodyminds might encounter in large group settings.6 Trained monitors oversee in-person and online programming in an effort to discourage harmful words and actions as well as ensure the fullest participation for those most impacted. Hence, disability justice lies at the center of the Con’s policies and practices. The event is made as accessible as possible through careful attention to venue selection, including the availability of gender-neutral bathrooms, scent-free spaces, and quiet rooms, as well as the use of color communication badges.This year’s event followed strict masking and testing protocols: individually packaged rapid COVID-19 tests were available without cost at registration, as were KN95 masks. The Con kept an anonymized record of self-reported positive COVID-19 tests, in case of possible exposure. This mutual responsibility reflects the kind of utopianism inherent to disability politics; that is, disability “allows for reformulation of in/dependence and community,” a way of rethinking how we share space and produce knowledge together.7The conference’s decidedly feminist approach “to creating a space for feminism and its consideration within the science fiction community” is applied at every level. The Con’s general organization and procedures are structured as nonhierarchically as possible. There is a board of directors as well as co-chairs, but these are rotating positions. This “commitment to feminism” is [End Page 619] reflected... (shrink)

All sorts of things may be described as 'inspired': a mathematical theorem, a work of art, a goal at football, a short-cut home from the shops. What lies behind all these? Where does 'inspiration' come from? Does it derive from a source external to the person inspired, or is it the end result of sheer hard work - or is it purely serendipitous? Within the fields of science and religion, the word 'inspiration' might be thought to carry very different connotations. (...) But is there a degree of overlap? If scientists and religious thinkers alike may acknowledge the power of inspiration, do we have here an important area of convergence between two important areas of human discourse which are all too often believed to be opposed to one another? These were some of the issues considered at the 2011 conference of the Science and Religion Forum, held at Cumberland Lodge near Windsor. This book presents papers from that conference, including contributions from such major thinkers as Lord Winston, Linda Woodhead and John Hedley Brooke, among other leading scientific and theological practitioners. Their wide-ranging studies - and very diverse conclusions - will be of interest to a wide readership. (shrink)

Healthcare ethics consultation is therefore one of the most consequential, institutionally accepted, and widespread forms of public philosophy in the United States. In this chapter, the authors begin with an overview of the development of healthcare ethics and its emergence as a concrete practice embedded in healthcare settings. They then describe the core ethical principles that inform the everyday practice of ethics consultations and the generally accepted steps involved in conducting a consultation. The authors discuss the role of clinical ethicists (...) in medical education and policy development. Finally, they conclude with some remarks on the distinctive contributions made by those with philosophical training to these endeavors and the importance of continued engagement by philosophers in this important public work. (shrink)

'Machiavelli's Legacy' situates Machiavelli in general and 'The Prince' in particular at the birth of modernity. Joining the conversation with established Machiavelli scholars are political theorists, Americanists, and international relations scholars, ensuring a diversity of viewpoints and approaches.

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value."--BOOK JACKET.

Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche's Second Untimely Meditation presents crucial elements for understanding Heidegger's thinking from 1936 to 1940. Heidegger offers a radically different reading of a text that he had read decades earlier, showing how his relationship with Nietzche's has changed, as well as how his understandings of the differences between animals and humans, temporality and history, and the Western philosophical tradition developed. With his new reading, Heidegger delineates three Nietzschean modes of history, which should be understood as grounded in (...) the structure of temporality or historicity and also offers a metaphysical determination of life and the essence of humankind. Ullrich Hasse and Mark Sinclair offer a clear and accessible translation despite the fragmentary and disjointed quality of the original lecture notes that comprise this text. (shrink)

Increasingly artists have become political activists. Their work has taken on the shape of a criminal investigator. Where does this turn toward forensics come from? How do we understand it as a aesthetic practice? The words investigative and aesthetics seem like an uneasy match. But this book claims that expanded aesthetic practices can powerfully reshape our approach to the question of truth. Shifts in technology and new ways of thinking together offer a means of searching for facts and understanding them (...) anew. This book proposes that the current period is defined by new forms of "aesthetic power" composed both by sensing, detection and prediction and the torrential proliferation of images and data. To evade and oppose this form of state-corporate domination we can learn to join the dots between traces within our interwoven digital, built and natural environments. Investigative aesthetics can also enable new collaborative forms of verification. Rather than rely on official expertise it calls for an open process that combines the perspectives of communities exposed to state or corporate violence with those of artists, activists and scientists. This new practice takes place equally in the field, the art studio as in the scientific laboratory, online and in the streets, as it strives towards the construction of a new "common sensing". (shrink)

(2013). Is scientific theory change similar to early cognitive development? Gopnik on science and childhood. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 109-128. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625114.

Race and nationality.--Ancients and moderns.--Liberty.--Ultimate facts in economics.--Auto-suggestion.--Nervous tri-unity.--The laws of the mind.--The brain as a laboratory.--Time and space.--Vocabulary and grammar.--Logic.--Motives and feelings.--Free will, trial, and choice.--The foundations of morality.--The development of art.--Amusement.

Vernon Sternberg of the S.I.U Press was responsible for bringing out the first edition of this collection of occasional pieces. In addition to the title piece, written in 1940, it includes other blank verses: “Machine Tools,” 1940; “The Historical Attempt by Man to Convert His Evolution from a Subjective to an Objective Process,” 1948; “Universal Requirements of a Dwelling Advantage,” 1917–62; “The Fuller Research Foundation,” 1946–51; A Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science,” 1956; and two prose essays with geometrical diagrams and (...) tables, “Introduction to Omnidirectional Halo,” 1959, and “omnidirectional Halo,” 1960. I once asked Fuller whether No More Secondhand God meant secondhand as in clothes or second hand as in watch? He seemed bemused by the question and answered with a casualness I found suspect—”Now that you mention it,” he said, “I suppose both.” Description by Ed Applewhite, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller. (shrink)

Are 'the people' too ignorant or stupid to rule? Commentators are beginning to seriously argue that the answer might be 'yes.' In this take-no-prisoners book, Roslyn Fuller shows how many thinkers have embraced the idea that there can be 'too much democracy,' and deftly unravels their attempts to end majority rule.

A long-standing theme in discussion of perception and thought has been that our primary cognitive contact with individual objects and events in the world derives from our perceptual contact with them. When I look at a duck in front of me, I am not merely presented with the fact that there is at least one duck in the area, rather I seem to be presented withthisthing (as one might put it from my perspective) in front of me, which looks to (...) me to be a duck. Furthermore, such a perception would seem to put me in a position not merely to make the existential judgment that there is some duck or other present, but rather to make a singular, demonstrative judgment, that that is a duck. My grounds for an existential judgment in this case derives from my apprehension of the demonstrative thought and not vice versa. (shrink)

Nietzschean Meditations takes its inspiration from the version of Nietzsche that was popular before the Second World War, which stressed the 'Zarathustrian' elements of his thought as the harbinger of a new sort of being - the Ubermensch. The book updates the image of this creature to present a version of 'transhumanism' that breaks with the more precautionary and pessimistic approaches of humanity's future in contemporary 'posthumanist' thought. Fuller follows Nietzsche in discussing deeply and frankly the challenging issues that (...) aspiring transhumanists face. They include their philosophical and especially theological roots, the implications of transhumanism for matters of life and death, and whether any traces of classical humanity will remain in the 'transhuman' being. (shrink)

Traces the impact of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on a diverse group of writers, abolitionists, and social reformers, including Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott, against a backdrop of growing tensions and transcendental idealism in 1860 America.

On Inception is a translation of Martin Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe 70. This work belongs to the crucial period, before and during WWII, when Heidegger was at work on a series of treatises that begins with "Contributions to Philosophy" and includes "The Event" and "The History of Beyng." These works are difficult, even hermetic, but represent a crucial development in Heidegger's thinking. On Inception deepens the investigation underway in the other volumes of the series and provides a unique perspective on Heidegger's (...) thinking of Being and of Event. Here, Heidegger asks, with a greater insistence than anywhere else in his work, what it might mean to think of being as event, and not as presence. Event cannot be thought without the sense of a beginning - an inception - and so, Heidegger insists, we must try to think of being as inception, as fundamentally inceptive. On Inception pursues rigorously the difficult and puzzling implications of this speculation. It does not merely extend work already undertaken but also opens doors onto wholly other pathways. (shrink)

Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence (AI) system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the last case, we find unresolved issues with (...) the particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

Developing directly from Fuller's recent book Humanity 2.0, this is the first book to seriously consider what a 'post-' or 'trans'-' human state of being might mean for who we think we are, how we live, what we believe and what we aim to be.

At a time where the relevance of the social sciences is under threat, this innovative book offers a speculative experimentation on the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences to rethink what 'relevance' is, and to cultivate a new ethos of knowledge-making for an eventful world. Engaging a diverse a range of thinkers including Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze and Isabelle Stengers, as well as the American pragmatists John Dewey and William James, Martin Savransky challenges longstanding assumptions in the (...) social sciences and argues that relevance is an event that is part and parcel of the immanent and situated processes by which things come to matter. He develops new conceptual tools for cultivating an empiricist ethos of inquiry that is attuned to the question of how things come to matter- an ethics that turns social inquiry into a veritable adventure. The result is an original and rigorous book that infuses knowledge-practices in the social sciences with new sensibilities, creative possibilities, and novel habits of thinking, knowing, and feeling. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Works of George Santayana, volume IX, Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion ed. by Martin A. Coleman, David E. Spiech, and Faedra Lazar WeissKrzysztof (Chris) Piotr SkowrońskiEdited by Martin A. Coleman, David E. Spiech, and Faedra Lazar WeissThe Works of George Santayana, volume IX, Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The MIT Press, 2023; 359 pp., incl.indexIt is (...) not merely a re-edition of Santayana’s book that is at stake here. This ninth volume of The MIT Critical Edition of The Works of George Santayana is a next step in showing us his vast output with extensive range, depth, and, most importantly, significant stimulation for our generation of scholars and non-scholars. Just to illustrate the scope of Santayana’s work: volume V of the present MIT Critical Edition, published in the years 2001–2008, consists of eight thick books with Santayana’s correspondence throughout seventy years of intellectual activity (around 3000 letters to roughly 350 recipients, William James, Josiah Royce, Bertrand Russell, Sidney Hook, Horace Kallen, B.A.G. Fuller, Hugo Münsterberg, among them), containing philosophical and cultural insights that substantially compliment the views he expressed in his published texts.The original idea of the MIT Critical Edition was to present the published and unpublished works, followed by an elaborate editorial apparatus. As we can read in the present volume, “The goal of the editors is to produce texts that accurately represent Santayana’s final intentions regarding his works while recording all evidence on which editorial decisions have been based” (p. 307). How complex and fascinating the whole project has been we can also learn from a recently published book by Herman Saatkamp, who edited the Santayana edition for twenty-six years (Charles Padrón and Chris Skowroński, eds., Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., A Life of Scholarship with George Santayana: [End Page 462] Essays and Reflections, Brill/Rodopi, 2021). As we can read in Saatkamp’s book (p. 139), the story goes back to 1976, when John Lachs, top Santayana expert, asked Saatkamp to write the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and put forward a proposal for The Works of George Santayana. As the latest of its results today, we have the ninth volume just published, while future volumes are still being prepared for publication (twenty volumes are currently projected).More specific answers to questions: Do we need a critical edition to do this? Is it not enough just to publish the original volume anew? depend largely on the target audience. For those who are unfamiliar with Santayana, having in hand Volume IX shows that it is just a part, although an important part, of a much larger project, and Paul Forster’s lengthy introduction would be very helpful. Forster competently outlines Santayana’s work and life, and subsequently analyzes the book, chapter by chapter, so that we have a penetrating insight into its whole substance. Also, further down in the volume (pp. 303–306), we find a “Chronology of the Life and Work of George Santayana” that is informative to those unfamiliar with Santayana.I suspect that those audiences who are familiar with Santayana have been waiting for this volume impatiently. The original 1913 publication, by Charles Scribner’s Son (New York)—which itself was a collection of rather independent texts in the form of chapters—has been expanded with Santayana’s preface to the second edition, of 1926. Most importantly, however, the whole text (these two editions: 1913 and 1926) have been re-edited, revised, and corrected according to the criteria of a critical edition. Some terms, phrases, names, as well as other issues are explained extensively in a 140-page part entitled “Notes to the Text” (pp. 159–302). Some of these notes are instructive indeed, not only because they explain passages in the text, but also because they refer to other works by Santayana where he explains the issue at hand into more detail or from a different viewpoint. From these notes we learn much more about the ideas discussed and the figures to which Santayana refers in his reflections than we would by reading... (shrink)

Over the past three decades, the philosophy of biology has emerged from the shadow of the philosophy of physics to become a respectable and thriving philosophical subdiscipline. The authors take a fresh look at the life sciences and the philosophy of biology from a strictly realist and emergentist-naturalist perspective. They outline a unified and science-oriented philosophical framework that enables the clarification of many foundational and philosophical issues in biology. This book will be of interest both to life scientists and philosophers.

We provide a battery of examples of delusions against which theoretical accounts can be tested. Then, we identify neuropsychological anomalies that could produce the unusual experiences that may lead, in turn, to the delusions in our battery. However, we argue against Maher’s view that delusions are false beliefs that arise as normal responses to anomalous experiences. We propose, instead, that a second factor is required to account for the transition from unusual experience to delusional belief. The second factor in the (...) aetiology of delusions can be described superficially as a loss of the ability to reject a candidate for belief on the grounds of its implausibility and its inconsistency with everything else that the patient knows. But we point out some problems that confront any attempt to say more about the nature of this second factor. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy reflects his famous philosophical "turning." In this work, Heidegger returns to the question of being from its inception in Being and Time to a new questioning of being as event.