Cet essai à teneur philosophique s'intéresse à la force d'évocation et d'invocation de la musique. à son charme magique dirait Nietzsche. Comment la musique me parle-t-elle '? Que suggère-t-elle? Pourquoi parle-t-elle de moi? Quelle fonction a-t-elle dans l'humanité '? L'argumentation de l'auteur utilise la philosophie et la psychologie musicales afin d'expliquer la scandaleuse disproportion entre la puissance à dire de la musique et l'inévidence foncière de ce qu'elle dit (pour reprendre les mots de Jankelé?itch). disproportion en laquelle réside selon l'auteur (...) tout son mystère, en laquelle réside tout son sens. Ce texte court mais dense s'adresse aux musicologues ainsi qu'à tout lecteur ou musicien éclairé voulant densifier son horizon de compréhension de la musique et de ses effets. Il puise ses exemples dans de nombreux corpus : musiques classique et romantique, avant-gardes, jazz, musiques de film."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Ce premier volume des Ontologies de la création en musique tente d'isoler quelques modes d'existence de l'acte en musique, sans prétention à l'exhaustivité. Envisagée tour à tour comme un acte politique, un acte compositionnel, un acte ou une action improvisée, une action physique sur l'instrument, la musique nous révèle l'une de ses précieuses facettes : elle est, en empruntant les mots à Bergson, un art qui permet d'agir en Homme de pensée et de penser en Homme d'action.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article highlights the continuing relevance of a classic bioethical text, “Bioethics as a Discipline,” published by the Hastings Center’s cofounder Daniel Callahan in 1973. Connecting the text’s programmatic recommendations with later reflections and interventions Callahan wrote about the development of bioethics illuminates how the vision Callahan established and the reality this vision helped create were interrelated—just not in the way Callahan had hoped for. Although this portrait relies on an individual perception of the development of bioethics, it might nevertheless, (...) through its unique linkage of different bioethical temporalities, contribute to a broader reassessment of what bioethics became and why. (shrink)

Mathias Frisch provides the first sustained philosophical discussion of conceptual problems in classical particle-field theories. Part of the book focuses on the problem of a satisfactory equation of motion for charged particles interacting with electromagnetic fields. As Frisch shows, the standard equation of motion results in a mathematically inconsistent theory, yet there is no fully consistent and conceptually unproblematic alternative theory. Frisch describes in detail how the search for a fundamental equation of motion is partly driven by pragmatic considerations (...) (like simplicity and mathematical tractability) that can override the aim for full consistency. The book also offers a comprehensive review and criticism of both the physical and philosophical literature on the temporal asymmetry exhibited by electromagnetic radiation fields, including Einstein's discussion of the asymmetry and Wheeler and Feynman's influential absorber theory of radiation. Frisch argues that attempts to derive the asymmetry from thermodynamic or cosmological considerations fail and proposes that we should understand the asymmetry as due to a fundamental causal constraint. The book's overarching philosophical thesis is that standard philosophical accounts that strictly identify scientific theories with a mathematical formalism and a mapping function specifying the theory's ontology are inadequate, since they permit neither inconsistent yet genuinely successful theories nor thick causal notions to be part of fundamental physics. (shrink)

We have benefited from conversations with Archon Fung, Brian Jacob, Todd Pittinsky, Peter Schuck, Ani Satz, Andrew Williams, and students in a joint class on statistics and ethics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in October 2002. We are also grateful to our audience at the conference “The Priority of Practice,” organized by Jonathan Wolff at University College London in September 2003, and to Arthur Applbaum, Miriam Avins, Frances Kamm, Simon Keller, Frederick Schauer, Alan Wertheimer, and the Editors (...) of Phi- losophy & Public Affairs for insightful comments. We have benefited from prepublication reading of Schauer’s work on profiling, Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003). We thank Avedis Koutoujian for research assistance. (shrink)

This essay defends an account of the duties to the global poor that is informed by the empirical question of what makes countries rich or poor, and that tends to be broadly in agreement with John Rawlss account in The Law of Peoples. I begin by introducing the debate about the sources of growth and explore its implications for duties towards the poor. Next I explore whether (and deny that) there are any further-reaching duties towards the poor. Finally, I ask (...) about the moral foundations for the duties to the poor of the sort that earlier parts argue there are. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” and “dystopic liberalism”. Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful (...) for comprehending what is and for contemplating what might be. Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking. (shrink)

On a postcard to Franz Overbeck from January 4, 1888, Nietzsche makes some illuminating remarks with respect to the three treatises in his book On the Genealogy of Morality.2 Nietzsche says that, ‘for the sake of clarity, it was necessary artificially to isolate the different roots of that complex structure that is called morality. Each of these three treatises expresses a single primum mobile; a fourth and fifth are missing, as is even the most essential (‘the herd instinct’) – for (...) the time being, the latter had to be ignored, as too comprehensive, and the same holds for the ultimate summation of all those different elements and thus a final account of morality.’ Nietzsche also points out that each treatise makes a contribution to the genesis of Christianity and rejects an explanation of Christianity in terms of only one psychological category. The topics of the treatises are ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (first treatise), the ‘bad conscience’ (second), and the ‘ascetic ideal’ (third). The postcard suggests that Nietzsche discusses these topics separately because a joint treatment is too complicated, but that in reality, these ideas are inextricably intertwined, both with each other and with others that Nietzsche omits. Therefore, the three treatises should be regarded as parts of a unified theory and critique of morality. Nietzsche’s remarks on that postcard are important because in the Genealogy itself, he makes little effort to show the unity among the treatises. We shall return to this postcard repeatedly.3 The first treatise has attracted most scholarly attention, but much less work has been done on the second treatise, ‘ “Debts”, “Bad Conscience”, and Related Matters’. This is unfortunate, since it seems that, in Nietzsche’s own view, the central notion of the second treatise, namely, the bad conscience as a feeling of guilt, is a key element of Christian morality. Therefore, understanding Nietzsche’s treatment of this notion is essential to understanding his views on Christianity and the impact of the Christian heritage on non-religious moral philosophy.. (shrink)

In diesem Buch werden die zwei Grundsäulen der "Kritischen Patriarchatstheorie" - die Matriarchale Naturphilosophie und die Patriarchatskritische Geschichtsphilosophie - vorgestellt und im Rahmen einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Naturphilosophie Giordano Brunos sowie der Geschichtsphilosophie Martin Heideggers erläutert.

Though much attention has been paid to different principles of justice, far less has been done reflecting on what the larger concern behind the notion is. In this work, Mathias Risse proposes that the perennial quest for justice is about ensuring that each individual has an appropriate place in what our uniquely human capacities permit us to build, produce, and maintain, and is appropriately respected for the capacity to hold such a place to begin with. Risse begins by investigating (...) the role of political philosophers and exploring how to think about the global context where philosophical inquiry occurs. Next, he offers a quasi-historical narrative about how the notion of distributive justice identifies a genuinely human concern that arises independently of cultural context and has developed into the one we should adopt now. Finally, he investigates the core terms of this view, including stringency, moral value, ground and duties of justice. (shrink)

With the rise of far-reaching technological innovation, from artificial intelligence to Big Data, human life is increasingly unfolding in digital lifeworlds. While such developments have made unprecedented changes to the ways we live, our political practices have failed to evolve at pace with these profound changes. In this path-breaking work, Mathias Risse establishes a foundation for the philosophy of technology, allowing us to investigate how the digital century might alter our most basic political practices and ideas. Risse engages major (...) concepts in political philosophy and extends them to account for problems that arise in digital lifeworlds including AI and democracy, synthetic media and surveillance capitalism and how AI might alter our thinking about the meaning of life. Proactive and profound, Political Theory of the Digital Age offers a systemic way of evaluating the effect of AI, allowing us to anticipate and understand how technological developments impact our political lives - before it's too late. Mathias Risse is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs, and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author of On Global Justice (2012), On Justice (2020), and Global Political Philosophy (2020), as well as the co-author of On Trade Justice (2019) and Holding Together: The Hijacking of Rights in America and How to Reclaim Them For Everyone (2022). (shrink)

Nash Equilibrium is a central concept ingame theory. It has been argued that playing NashEquilibrium strategies is rational advice for agentsinvolved in one-time strategic interactions capturedby non-cooperative game theory. This essaydiscusses arguments for that position: vonNeumann–Morgenstern's argument for their minimaxsolution, the argument from self-enforcingagreements, the argument from the absence ofprobabilities, the transparency-of-reasons argument,the argument from regret, and the argument fromcorrelated equilibrium. All of these argumentseither fail entirely or have a very limited scope.Whatever the use of Nash Equilibrium is, therefore,it is (...) not useful as a rational recommendation inone-time strategic interactions. This is good newsfor Bayesians: although this discussion does notargue directly for the Bayesian idea of rationalityas expected utility maximization, it argues againsta position that has been regarded as a contender insituations of strategic interaction. (shrink)

A central theme throughout Thomas Pogge's pathbreakingWorld Poverty and Human Rightsis that the global political and economic orderharmspeople in developing countries, and that our duty toward the global poor is therefore not to assist them but torectify injustice. But does the global orderharmthe poor? I argue elsewhere that there is a sense in which this is indeed so, at least if a certain empirical thesis is accepted. In this essay, however, I seek to show that the global order not only (...) does not harm the poor but can plausibly be credited with the considerable improvements in human well-being that have been achieved over the last 200 years. Much of what Pogge says about our duties toward developing countries is therefore false. (shrink)

Risse is concerned with humanity's common ownership of the earth, which has implications for a range of global problems. In particular, it helps illuminate the moral claims to international aid of small island nations whose existence is threatened by global climate change--such as Kiribati.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Nobody has offered such a comprehensive philosophical approach to trade. Nonetheless, James's approach does not succeed. First, we explore James's constructivist method, which does less work than he suggests. The second topic is James's take on the different ‘grounds’ of justice. We explore the shortcomings of approaches that focus exclusively on trade. Our third topic is why James thinks trade is such a ground. The fourth topic is how James argues for his proposed ‘structural equity.’ This proposal remains under-argued. Our (...) fifth topic is to explore why structural equity would generate several specific principles. Finally, we discuss James's notion of autarky. Autarky sets the benchmark for James's ideas about how to divide gains of trade. We doubt that it can do so. (shrink)

Much has been written on the role of causal notions and causal reasoning in the so-called 'special sciences' and in common sense. But does causal reasoning also play a role in physics? Mathias Frisch argues that, contrary to what influential philosophical arguments purport to show, the answer is yes. Time-asymmetric causal structures are as integral a part of the representational toolkit of physics as a theory's dynamical equations. Frisch develops his argument partly through a critique of anti-causal arguments and (...) partly through a detailed examination of actual examples of causal notions in physics, including causal principles invoked in linear response theory and in representations of radiation phenomena. Offering a new perspective on the nature of scientific theories and causal reasoning, this book will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students, and anyone interested in the role of causal thinking in science. (shrink)

Poly(ADP‐ribosyl)ation is a post‐translational modification occurring in the nucleus. The most abundant and best‐characterized enzyme catalyzing this reaction, poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1), participates in fundamental nuclear events. The enzyme functions as molecular “nick sensor”. It binds with high affinity to DNA single‐strand breaks resulting in the initiation of its catalytic activity. Activated PARP1 promotes base excision repair. In addition, PARP1 modifies several transcription factors and thereby precludes their binding to DNA. We propose that a major function of PARP1 includes the (...) silencing of transcription preventing expression of damaged genes. Concomitant stimulation of DNA repair suggests that PARP1 acts as a switch between transcription and DNA repair. Another PARP‐type enzyme, tankyrase, is involved in the regulation of telomere elongation. Tankyrase modifies a telomere‐associated protein and thereby prevents it masking telomeric repeats providing access of telomerase for telomere elongation. Therefore, poly(ADP‐ribosyl)ation reactions may act as molecular switches in DNA metabolism. BioEssays 23:543–548, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Priority setting in health care is ubiquitous and health authorities are increasingly recognising the need for priority setting guidelines to ensure efficient, fair, and equitable resource allocation. While cost-effectiveness concerns seem to dominate many policies, the tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns is salient to many, and various severity criteria appear to fill this gap. Severity, then, must be subjected to rigorous ethical and philosophical analysis. Here we first give a brief history of the path to today’s severity criteria in (...) Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian perspective on severity might be conducive to the international discussion, given its long-standing use as a priority setting criterion, despite having reached rather different conclusions so far. We then argue that severity can be viewed as a multidimensional concept, drawing on accounts of need, urgency, fairness, duty to save lives, and human dignity. Such concerns will often be relative to local mores, and the weighting placed on the various dimensions cannot be expected to be fixed. Thirdly, we present what we think are the most pertinent questions to answer about severity in order to facilitate decision making in the coming years of increased scarcity, and to further the understanding of underlying assumptions and values that go into these decisions. We conclude that severity is poorly understood, and that the topic needs substantial further inquiry; thus we hope this article may set a challenging and important research agenda. (shrink)

Phillips argues that blindsight is due to response criterion artefacts under degraded conscious vision. His view provides alternative explanations for some studies, but may not work well when one considers several key findings in conjunction. Empirically, not all criterion effects are decidedly non-perceptual. Awareness is not completely abolished for some stimuli, in some patients. But in other cases, it was clearly impaired relative to the corresponding visual sensitivity. This relative dissociation is what makes blindsight so important and interesting.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

The grounds of justice -- "Un pouvoir ordinaire": shared membership in a state as a ground of -- Justice -- Internationalism versus statism and globalism: contemporary debates -- What follows from our common humanity? : the institutional stance, human rights, and nonrelationism -- Hugo Grotius revisited : collective ownership of the Earth and global public reason -- "Our sole habitation" : a contemporary approach to collective ownership of the earth -- Toward a contingent derivation of human rights -- Proportionate use (...) : immigration and original ownership of the Earth -- "But the earth abideth for ever" : obligations to future generations -- Climate change and ownership of the atmosphere -- Human rights as membership rights in the global order -- Arguing for human rights : essential pharmaceuticals -- Arguing for human rights : labor rights as human rights -- Justice and trade -- The way we live now -- "Imagine there's no countries" : a reply to John Lennon -- Justice and accountability : the state -- Justice and accountability : the World Trade Organization. (shrink)

For its elliptical style, What is Philosophy? appears to be fragmentary and inscrutable, and its reception has been correspondingly contentious. Following an intimation by Gilles Deleuze himself, this article proposes that his final book, written in collaboration with Félix Guattari, contains a philosophy of nature. To address this proposition, the article begins by outlining the comprehensive system of nature set out in What is Philosophy?, defining it as an open system in motion that conjoins philosophy with the historical preconditions and (...) intersects it with science and art. The article then addresses the precise method whereby the philosopher as an individual subject, emerging from nature, can succeed in becoming creative – that is, in creating concepts to bring forth new events. Finally, the brain turns out to be the pivot between the system and this method. What is Philosophy? thus presents an account of the brain based on a theory of the three specific planes of philosophy, science and art, and uses it to expand upon the idea of assemblage for a philosophy of nature. (shrink)

The article presents and analyzes different approaches of U.S. bioethicists in comprehending the Nazi medical crimes after 1945. The account is divided into two sections: one dealing with discussions on research ethics and the Nuremberg Code up until the 1970s and the other ranging from the 1970s to the present and highlighting bioethics' engagement with Nazi analogies. The portrayal of different bioethical scholars, institutions, and documents—most notably Henry K. Beecher, Jay Katz, the Belmont Report, the Hastings Center, Arthur L. Caplan, (...) and Robert M. Veatch—provides a nuanced interpretation of the motives that bioethicists held and the strategies that they applied to establish an understanding of the Nazi medical crimes and their relation to contemporary bioethical issues. In this, the different approaches shared a common goal: To integrate the Nazi medical crimes into an ethical framework by means of selective acknowledgments and representation of their history. (shrink)

This essay makes a plea for the relevance of moral considerations in debates about immigration. It offers a standpoint that demonstrates why one should think of immigration as a moral problem that must be considered in the context of global justice.

The paper seeks to contribute to clarifying agnotology as an ‘epistemic strategy’, conceived as ‘epistemically damaging and hurt[ing] the production of knowledge’. My general claim is that the grammar of intentions ‘embedded’ in agnotological arguments is often not considered accurately. I use considerations from the philosophy of action as a theoretical framework to make more explicit what is implied in agnogenetic manoeuvres. Agnotology, as a ‘theory’ about epistemic states, in particular knowledge and ignorance, would be seriously incomplete without that component. (...) The following can thus be read as a contribution to an analysis of the presuppositions of the strategic variant of Agnotology. My first claim is that the more common objections to the introduction of intentions are in no way definitive. My second, more specific, claim is that we need a room, in our conceptual toolbox, for ‘anti-epistemic intentions’, which play a key role in agnotological arguments. (shrink)

The paper by Dupras and Bunnik is a useful addition to the literature on privacy in regards to datasets of human tissue/materials. In particular, the paper addresses import...

Biographical note: Mathias Denecke is a PhD student at the University of Konstanz, Germany.Anne Ganzert is a PhD student at the University of Konstanz, Germany.Isabell Otto (PhD) is junior professor for Media Studies at the University of Konstanz, Germany.Robert Stock (MA) coordinates the research initiative ”Media and Participation“ at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

Richard Matheson seeded several weird fish in the deep and dark waters of the American myth pool, not least as a prominent screenwriter for the legendary 1960s TV series The Twilight Zone. I Am Legend, a post-apocalyptic science fiction/horror novel, published in 1954 and set in 1976, remains one of his best known works.1 It shows up persistently on "Best of Horror" lists and is generally regarded as a milestone in modern Gothic fiction. What is it about this novel that (...) has invested it with canonical status? It tells a surpassingly bleak story, one that seems to encode very specific and largely outdated cultural anxieties. And as prophecy, it falls rather flat: Matheson depicts a vampire holocaust, and the .. (shrink)

This paper tries to elucidate phenomena relied to experiences actually made in Japanese gardens. By means of phenomenological description and analysis, it aims at clarifying, from the stance of aesthetics and philosophy, how those specific experiences should be understood, how exactly intuition and experience constitute themselves hereby. Besides discussing questions concerning the naturalness and strangeness of reality, this article mainly deals with basic ideas of phenomenology, such as horizon, affection, tonality, responsivity, genesis of phenomena, as well as temporality. This endeavour (...) narrowly intertwines concrete analysis of phenomena with critical reflection on how to do phenomenology, the author being convinced that thinking on conditions of phenomenality may become meaningful only when staying in close touch with the concrete experiencing of phenomena themselves. Thus, this paper aims at contributing to a phenomenological thinking rooted in aesthetic experience and the body. (shrink)

Occupying a seemingly minor role in the authorship of Kierkegaard, the concept of “the sublime” has not received much attention in the reception, compared to that of other more prominent concepts. This could essentially imply one of two things: either that the sublime is not an important theme for Kierkegaard, or that it is so pervasively present, that the reader does not know how to conceive it, let alone get a hold of a tangible definition of it. Proceeding from the (...) latter assumption, this article expounds in what sense the sublime occupies a pivotal role in Kierkegaard’s philosophy mediating between the aesthetic and the religious sphere. Using the Kantian conceptual framework of the sublime as my continual point of reference, I wish to show how Kierkegaard both remains loyal to certain aspects of this heritage, and at the same time transports the sublime to an entirely new plateau. Setting the stage for a modern discourse of the sublime will enable us to see in what sense the sublime enters a central position in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, being the feeling that awakens the individual from his social immurement and propels him into his path of self-realization. (shrink)

What has ethics got to do with my job? How can I take on ethical responsibility and help to make my company more successful at the same time? Although 'ethical responsibility' has become something of a catchphrase these days, most people only have a vague idea what it means and how it can be demonstrated in actual practice.Disasters like the Volkswagen's emission scandal, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima, the global financial crisis, and (...) countless lesser-known cases of damage to human beings and the environment are the result of unethically irresponsible business practices. Efforts to maximize profits frequently lead to reckless behavior, as those in charge focus on short-term benefits and ignore social and environmental risks. Their actions have negative consequences, not only for the victims but, in many cases, for the perpetrators themselves too. Aggrieved interest groups or disadvantaged stakeholders may react with strikes, public protests, or boycotts, jeopardizing their reputation and profitability.This textbook, Applied Business Ethics, is the result of many years of research work and lecturing, and is an attempt to present the most important principles and the latest approaches in business ethics to students, teachers, and business practitioners alike, and help them to make business decisions that everyone concerned will benefit from, rather than just a few fortunate stakeholders.The author illustrates his theoretical subject matter with practical examples of real-life situations and provides numerous exercises to help the reader grasp complex issues, moral dilemmas, and business risks better. In clear, accessible, and easily understandable terms, he demonstrates how ways of finding satisfactory solutions can be found in a systematic way thanks to interdisciplinary research and philosophical reflection. (shrink)

Using climate policy debates as a case study, I argue that a certain response to the argument from inductive risk, the hedging defense, runs afoul of a reasonable ethical principle: the no-passing-...

Deepfakes are a new form of synthetic media that broke upon the world in 2017. Bringing photoshopping to video, deepfakes replace people in existing videos with someone else’s likeness. Currently most of their reach is limited to pornography, and they are also used to discredit people. However, deepfake technology has many epistemic promises and perils, which concern how we fare as knowers. Our goal is to help set an agenda around these matters, to make sure this technology can help realize (...) epistemic rights and epistemic justice and unleash human creativity, rather than inflict epistemic wrongs of any sort. Our project is exploratory in nature, and we do not aim to offer conclusive answers at this early stage. There is a need to remain vigilant to make sure the downsides do not outweigh the upsides, and that will be a tall order. (shrink)

The two traditional ways of thinking about justice at the global level either limit the applicability of justice to states—the only distributions that can be just or unjust, strictly speaking, are within the state—or else extend it to all human beings. The view I defend in On Global Justice rejects both of these approaches. Instead, my view, and thus my attempt at meeting the aforementioned challenge, acknowledges the existence of multiple grounds of justice. My purpose here is to explain what (...) my view has to say about responsibility. First of all, I explain what my view implies about the responsibilities of the state for the realization of justice. Then I explain that in addition to obligations of justice, my view also gives rise to obligations of account-giving. I end by sketching what all this implies for institutional reform at the global level. (shrink)

The goal of this chapter is to contribute to ignorance studies by taking advantage of the pragmatist epistemology of Peirce and Dewey, which, in my view, would be an “unfinished” business without facing sundry problems raised by ignorance studies. Five typical pragmatist claims provide the framework for this chapter. They can be endorsed by other philosophies, but their conjunction is typical of pragmatism: (1) the first is Peirce’s pragmatist maxim for clarifying our ideas, where the reference to “practical bearings”, to (...) situations, conducts and contexts, is pivotal; (2) the second is pragmatism’s focus on inquiry as a norm-governed practice, rather than on mere knowledge; (3) the third idea is their “externalism”, the conviction that mind, reason and knowledge are not properties of atomic individuals but are distributed over community of inquirers or “publics” and their environment; (4) the fourth idea is that philosophy has condemned itself to skepticism when it was looking for absolute theoretical certainties; and (5) the last claim is their rejection of the fact-value dichotomy. My own general claim is that pragmatism has under-appreciated relevance for understanding the epistemology of ignorance and its social implications, and each section explores one possible dimension – semantic, epistemic, externalist, doxastic and normative – for this contribution. (shrink)

As the record-breaking heat of 2016 continues into 2017, making it likely that 2017 will be the second hottest year on record just behind the El Niño year 2016, and as Arctic heat waves pushing the sea ice extent to record lows are mirrored by large scale sheets of meltwater and even rain in Antarctica—the Trump administration is taking dramatic steps to undo the Obama administration’s climate legacy.In its final years, the Obama administration pursued two principal strategies toward climate policy. (...) First, by signing the Paris Accord it committed the U.S. to contribute to global efforts to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to... (shrink)