First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition of (...) Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

Ayn Rand's career as a writer of fiction, accordingly, was preceded and accompanied by her work on the system of philosophic thought she ultimately called Objectivism. This chapter introduces her writing by showing how the chosen actions of a life consciously devoted to a conscious purpose were integrated with the texts she crafted, in both fiction and non‐fiction. Ayn Rand's major project was The Fountainhead. The money from the movie rights to The Fountainhead bought Ayn Rand time to begin her (...) next novel, Atlas Shrugged. Whereas the theme of The Fountainhead was individualism versus collectivism, not in politics but in man's soul, The Strike (as Atlas Shrugged was initially called) was designed to dramatize the conflict between individualism and collectivism within the political/economic realm. Rand was active in the American Writers Association and the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. (shrink)

Artículo considerado un clásico en el ámbito de la psicología social, describe los resultados de la investigación realizada por su autor en los años sesenta del siglo pasado, los que muestran que una considerable mayoría de personas normales, en acatamiento a la autoridad, pueden realizar conductas éticamente reprobables que causan daño a otros. Estas conclusiones confirman, experimentalmente, la hipótesis de la Escuela de Frankfurt de que existe en todos nosotros una dimensión autoritaria de la personalidad, que en la mayoría de (...) las personas genera una obediencia incondicional a la autoridad. (shrink)

The Babylonian Talmud has reached us in multiple versions in medieval manu- scripts, early printed editions, and in citations in the works of medieval and early modern scholars. The field of Talmud criticism has developed criteria for working with these materials and the scholar E. S. Rosenthal famously theorized about the implications of textual variants for the history of the Talmud’s redaction. Tractate Temurah of the Babylonian Talmud received special attention due to the frequency and, at times, unique usage of (...) the term, lishana ’aḥarina, meaning “alternative textual reading,” found in it. In Temurah the term lishana ’aḥarina does not only signal a difference in formulation, as in other tractates of the Talmud, but some- times also seems to introduce a separately redacted text of the tractate that was integrated into a widespread and known base text. (shrink)

Dans le débat sur l'euthanasie, la passion l'emporte souvent sur la réflexion. Donner la mort, ou se donner la mort : voilà des actes qui sont loin d'être anodins. Le développement technologique des soins intensifs place aujourd'hui le médecin devant la possibilité, sinon l'obligation, de gérer la vie finissante. Au-delà des difficultés issues de cette situation nouvelle, le terme même d'" euthanasie " est lourd d'ambiguïtés. S'il désigne communément les procédés destinés à rendre la mort plus douce, diverses pratiques s'en (...) inspirent, qui peuvent être radicalement opposées d'un point de vue éthique. Geste de liberté individuelle, suicide, meurtre ou délivrance : la violence des arguments fait écho à celle de l'enjeu. Pour tenter d'y voir clair, une vingtaine de spécialistes d'horizons divers - médecins, psychologues, juristes, infirmières, psychiatres et représentants des religions - ont constitué pendant plusieurs années un groupe de travail collectif. Confrontant leurs convictions et leurs approches, parfois éloignées, souvent complémentaires, dans une volonté de dépassionner le débat, ils ont construit une réflexion approfondie sur la fin de vie, les soins palliatifs et l'accompagnement des mourants. Original et accessible à tous, cet ouvrage propose, face au désarroi des soignants et à la détresse des familles, une vision apaisée de la fin de vie, qui s'appuie sur la dignité de chaque personne. (shrink)

Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the (...) role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating. (shrink)

Embodied Care is the first work to argue for the body's centrality to care ethics, doing so by analyzing our corporeality at the phenomenological level.

We welcome the critical appraisal of the database used by the behavioral sciences, but we suggest that the authors' differentiation between variable and universal features is ill conceived and that their categorization of non-WEIRD populations is misleading. We propose a different approach to comparative research, which takes population variability seriously and recognizes the methodological difficulties it engenders.

This paper aims to investigate some important elements of the thought of George Bernard Shaw, more commonly known as one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century. Shaw’s philosophy dwells on the relationship between man and nature and especially the concept of freedom. Among all his works, it was decided here to analyse Saint Joan. In re-imagining the historical Joan as a heroine in a play of ideas, Shaw made use of the known facts about Joan of Arc (...) and Joan’s statements at her trial. Nonetheless, he made changes to emphasize her personal dignity and independence by contrast with the tyranny of institutions. Although he departed from the historical background, whitewashed her adversaries, and condensed episodes in Joan’s biography, he sought to be true to her confidence, courage, integrity, and common sense. His theatrical presentation is, in some respects, at odds with the Preface that accompanies the published play. (shrink)

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue , the first study in any language to provide a complete overview of Buber's thought, remains the definitive guide to the full range of his work and the starting point for all modern Buber scholarship. As well as summarizing Buber's early intellectual development and attitudes - his mysticism, his youthful existentialism, his philosophy of Judaism and religious socialism - it focuses on the two crucial issues of his mature thought: his dialogic or I-Thou philosophy, (...) and his probing of the nature and redemption of evil. As a sensitive, intuitive and perennially fascinating account of one of the twentieth century's great spiritual teachers, and as an influential classic in its own right, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue reveals the implications of Buber's thought for theory of knowledge, education, philosophy, myth, history and Judaic and Christian belief. This fully revised and expanded 4th edition includes a new preface from the author, an expanded bibliography incorporating new Buber scholarship, and two new appendices in the form of essays on Buber's influence on Emmanuel Levinas and Mikhail Bakhtin. (shrink)

Whereas Pasteur patented the biotechnological processes that he invented between 1857 and 1873 in the agro-food domain, he did not file any patents on the artificial vaccine preparation processes that he subsequently developed. This absence of patents can probably be explained by the 1844 patent law in France that established the non-patentable status of pharmaceutical preparations and remedies, including those for use in veterinary medicine. Despite the absence of patents, the commercial exploitation of the anthrax vaccine in the 1880s and (...) 1890s led to a technical and commercial monopoly by Pasteur’s laboratory as well as the founding of a commercial company to diffuse the vaccine abroad. Pasteur repeatedly refused to transfer his know-how and anthrax vaccine production methods to foreign laboratories, on the grounds that he wished to control the quality of the vaccines produced. Indeed, it was relatively difficult to transfer a method that was not yet perfectly stabilized in the early 1880s. Pasteur also wanted to maintain the monopoly of his commercial company and to increase the profits from vaccine sales so that the Institut Pasteur could be financially independent. The ‘Pasteur anthrax vaccine’ operating licences are described and analysed in detail in this article. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview on the concept of cardinal utility in its relations with the literature since the beginning of the XVIIIth century (Part I); an estimate of the cardinal utility function for its negative values, thus completing the estimate of this function for its positive values given in my 1984 Venice paper (Part II); and finally different applications to the theory of choices in the presence of risk and to the wealth transfer and tax questions (Part III).

In this article, we describe the influence of violations of community standards of fairness on subsequent ethical decision-making and emotions. Across two studies, we manipulated explanations for a common action, and we find that explanations that violate community standards of fairness lead to greater intentions to behave unethically than explanations that are consistent with community standards of fairness. We find that perceptions of justifiability mediate this relationship. We also find that individuals derive significant psychological benefits from engaging in unethical behavior (...) following perceived violations of fairness. (shrink)

I prefer to put this in a letter to you instead of writing an article that would lead one to believe that I have any authority to speak on the subject of what has, in a roundabout way, become the H. and H. affair . In other words, a cause of extreme seriousness, already discussed many times although certainly endless in nature, has been taken up by a storm of media attention, which has brought us to the lowest of passions, (...) intense emotions, and even violence. I understand why people are talking about Victor Farias, who has contributed some unpublished information—with a polemical intent, it is true, that does not help one to appreciate its true value. But how has it happened that Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s book, published in 1987, was greeted by a silence that I am perhaps the first to break?1 It is because he avoids anecdotal accounts, all the while citing and situating most of the facts mentioned by Farias. He is severe and rigorous. He lays essential questions before us. 1. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, La Fiction du politique: Heidegger, l’art et la politique . I also cite Lacoue-Labarthe’s book, La Poésie comme experience , devoted to Paul Celan. Maurice Blanchot, one of France’s preeminent writers, has written, among many other books, The Last Man, Death Sentence, The Madness of the Day, and The Gaze of Orpheus and Other Literary Essays. Paula Wissing, a free-lance translator and editor, has recently translated Paul Veyne’s Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? (shrink)

"This book tries to assess Galileo's work in its historical singularity. It is constructed around a precise question: How did Galileo create the modern science of motion? Starting from this question, I shall go on to determine as accurately as I can what concepts and methods helped classical mechanics to take shape." [Preface].

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003) 119-134 [Access article in PDF] The Constitution of Rhetoric's Tradition Maurice Charland Rhetoric is not a discipline. That is to say, as a domain of theoretical and practical knowledge, rhetoric is weakly institutionalized, lacking a centralized arbiter and standardized set of procedures for establishing truth claims. It also lacks the basic characteristics that Michel Foucault defines as disciplinary, for while we can identify (...) "groups of objects, methods, their corpus of properties considered to be true, the interplay of rules and definitions, of techniques and tools," these are neither universally admitted, nor do they "constitute a sort of anonymous system, freely available to whoever wishes, or whoever is able to make use of them, without their being any question of their meaning" (1972, 222). On the contrary, despite the fact that rhetoric is usually figured as offering practical and, indeed, positive knowledge, the meaning of its terms is always being questioned and at stake. While we might, by considering terms loosely, seek to identify rhetoric in terms of objects such as "persuasion," or "discourse," these are not exclusively its province. Furthermore, the ends of rhetoric are themselves unclear. Is rhetoric really the art of discovering the available means of persuasion? Or is it an art of citizenship? Or a method of enquiry? It has at times been defined as each. Consequently, none of these methods can fix its identity. At most, we can say that "rhetoric," as a domain of knowledge, signals a commitment to the idea of agency in discourse.Rhetoric, while not disciplinary, nevertheless "hangs together" as a domain of knowledge even though it does not cohere conceptually. It is, or comes close to being, a "discursive formation." That is to say, we can identify a field that produces statements concerning discourse and its operations, which is characterized by certain regularities that articulate with the term rhetoric itself. The first such regularity is the gesture of negation. Rhetoric refuses philosophy (or acts out having been refused by philosophy). [End Page 119] Rhetoric further is defined against other intellectual genres: rhetoric is not poetics, is not political science, is not ethics, though it may "speak" to them. Ultimately, though, this tells us very little about the nature of rhetoric's difference, for while refusal is effective in positing the existence of a boundary between rhetoric and other domains, the location of that boundary and what it contains remains unspecified. Rhetoric must also be attributed an at least provisional sense. This is accomplished by rhetoric's second gesture, which initially appears more substantial. Rhetoric is framed in terms of the positivity of a foundational "tradition." Indeed, the gesture toward tradition is ubiquitous. Consider, for example, both the title and principles of organization of Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg's (1990) anthology, George Kennedy's (1998) recursion to the idea of "tradition" even as he attempts to present rhetoric as a natural and cross-cultural phenomenon, recent feminist works that explicitly address "the tradition," 1 the routine citation of Classical authorities and examples, the recurrence of "new" rhetorics, including Burke's dramatism, Perelman's theory of argumentation, as well as Barthes' semiotics, which are offered as supplements to tradition's lacks, and, finally, the energy devoted to the study of the history of rhetoric. The rhetorical tradition, as something bequeathed or put in play by ancient teachers, appears to offer rhetoric a substance, a literature, and a set of problems, particularly through variants of two other principles of discursive formation identified by Foucault, commentary and the author-function. Even so, the gesture toward tradition does not imply the existence of a historically rooted and fixed corpus or model: "Tradition" is a vague term, there is no unproblematic canon of texts to be commented upon, and tradition itself, rather than Aristotle, Plato, or Cicero, stands as "author." What we debate is the meaning of the "tradition," the uneasy relationship between Socrates and Sophists, Plato and Aristotle, but as positions rather than personae. Furthermore, in the name of rhetoric, ancient and modern texts are often read against the grain, and what is... (shrink)

In the process of psychical transmission from one generation to the next, who asks what of whom? The evocative expression of an ‘errand’ suggests that a subject is sent on a mission, sent in error, wanders away, and returns home, adversely changed. A vocative imperative is at the heart of a mission. When there is a call from an anterior Other, there must be a response. Before, there was an experience of a call and its response, then, there would be (...) an errand. Precisely, the subject is preceded by the self-same subject’s constituted and appropriated mandate from an anterior object. To upend an aberrant errand, a subject must reconfigure a posted imperative, ever altering, again and again, the call and summons of an alien and unwelcome guest turned host. Otherwise, the dissonant and unwelcome guest turned host may transform the naïve subject into a ghost, a revenant that disappears and returns to haunt the subject. Thanks to the new and public space in the clinical setting, the entity that listens to the sub-ject will come to know that reception and perception of an errand is communalised in ways where there is a constant alteration, revision and co-creation of meanings of the received and perceived phenomenon through reciprocal connection and reciprocal correction. When subject’s experiential acquisitions enter that clinical setting, a resolute upending of a retrogressive descent toward death may occur. Hence, the meaning of staying alive for an Other who is otherwise dislocated, thrown, posted into a transgenerational spiral, toward death. A toxic errand is thus potentially aborted in that new space where a new relationship for resubjectivising and sublimating the unwanted mandate happens. Resubjectivising the injected errand becomes the exit strategy so that positive change is now conceivable. (shrink)

Cette lettre de 1904 que Maurice Ajam (1861-1944), député radical et disciple de Comte, adresse par voie de presse à son confrère, le positiviste allemand Heinrich Molenaar (1870-1965), traite de la question de l’Alsace-Lorraine. Le désaccord entre Molenaar et Ajam sur les solutions envisageables reflète un point de divergence entre une vision culturaliste et linguistique de la nation, et une conception volontariste. Les deux hommes surmontent leur désaccord à travers une volonté commune d’éviter la guerre et de résister aux (...) pressions nationalistes. Ajam félicite Molenaar pour son courage, puisque son projet de restitution à la France d’une partie de l’Alsace et de la Lorraine allait évidemment à contre-courant des idées du gouvernement allemand et de l’opinion. (shrink)