We make physical efforts when we swim, carry shopping bags, push heavy doors, or cycle up hills. A growing concern among philosophers and scientists in related fields is the absence of a well-defined concept for physical efforts. This paper addresses this issue by presenting a force-based definition of physical efforts. In Sect. 1, we explore the shortcomings of existing definitions of effort. Section 2 introduces the force-based account of efforts according to which making an effort consists in exerting a force (...) so as to make an object move or stay at rest. Section 3 introduces three central distinctions stemming from the account: failed vs. successful efforts; resisted vs. unresisted efforts; and efforts vs. effortful actions. Section 4 presents a key objection, to the effect that the force-based theory cannot account for the difficulty of efforts: efforts usually feel difficult, but effort’s difficulty is not always a function of the magnitude of force(s) exerted. Section 5 argues that the most in-depth account of difficulty so far, that developed by Bradford ( 2015 ), cannot account for the difficulty of efforts. Sections 6 & 7 develop a novel account of effort’s difficulty. (shrink)

Some generic generalizations have both a descriptive and a normative reading. The generic sentence “Philosophers care about the truth”, for instance, can be read as describing what philosophers in fact care about, but can also be read as prescribing philosophers to care about the truth. On Leslie’s account, this generic sentence has two readings due to the polysemy of the kind term “philosopher”. In this paper, I first argue against this polysemy account of descriptive/normative generics. In response, a contextualist semantic (...) theory for generic sentences is introduced. Based on this theory, I argue that descriptive/normative generics are contextually underspecified. (shrink)

Formalisms such as description logics (DL) are sometimes expected to help terminologies ensure compliance with sound ontological principles. The objective of this paper is to study the degree to which one DL-based biomedical terminology (SNOMED CT) complies with such principles. We defined seven ontological principles (for example: each class must have at least one parent, each class must differ from its parent) and examined the properties of SNOMED CT classes with respect to these principles. Our major results are: 31% of (...) the classes have a single child; 27% have multiple parents; 51% do not exhibit any differentiae between the description of the parent and that of the child. The applications of this study to quality assurance for ontologies are discussed and suggestions are made for dealing with multiple inheritance. (shrink)

This work aims to defines the question Is there a human nature? It argues that we know our nature only when it is recognized by our culture and that the liberal democratic idea of the state both celebrates and threatens the notion of fundamental human equality.

This paper defends hedonic intentionalism, the view that all pleasures, including bodily pleasures, are directed towards objects distinct from themselves. Brentano is the leading proponent of this view. My goal here is to disentangle his significant proposals from the more disputable ones so as to arrive at a hopefully promising version of hedonic intentionalism. I mainly focus on bodily pleasures, which constitute the main troublemakers for hedonic intentionalism. Section 1 introduces the problem raised by bodily pleasures for hedonic intentionalism and (...) some of the main reactions to it. Sections 2 and 3 rebut two main approaches equating bodily pleasures with non- intentional episodes. More precisely, section 2 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be purely non-intentional self-conscious feelings, by relying on Brentano’s objection to Hamilton’s theory of pleasure. Section 3 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be non-intentional sensory qualities by relying on Brentano’s objections to Stumpf’s theory of pleasure. Section 4 develops a brentanian view of the intentionality of bodily pleasures by claiming bodily pleasures are directed at a sui generis class of sensory qualities. Section 5 presents an objection to Brentano’s later theory of pleasure according to which all sensory pleasures are directed at sensing acts. (shrink)

Ingvar Johansson has argued that there are not only determinate universals, but also determinable ones. I here argue that this view is misguided by reviving a line of argument to the following effect: what makes determinates falling under a same determinable similar cannot be distinct from what makes them different. If true, some similarities — imperfect similarities between simple determinate properties — are not grounded in any kind of property-sharing. I suggest that determinables are better understood as maximal disjunctions of (...) brutely and imperfectly similar determinates. Such brute similarities have been thought to clash with realism about universals. I argue that this worry stems from the mistaken assumption that perfect and imperfect similarities are relations of a same kind. If exact and inexact resemblances are distinct and heterogeneous explananda, the realist about universals might explain the first thanks to property-sharing, while happily leaving imperfect similarities between properties unexplained. (shrink)

This chapter has three sections. The first introduces Brentano’s view of sensations by presenting the intentional features of sensations irreducible to features of the sensory objects. The second presents Brentano’s view of sensory objects —which include sensory qualities— and the features of sensations that such objects allow to explain, such as their intensity. The third section presents Brentano’s approach to sensory pleasures and pains, which combines both appeal to specific modes of reference and to specific sensory qualities.

If Christian theology is that enterprise whose essential purpose is to understand the faith of the Christian Church, then it must approach that faith from the perspective not only of its transcendent source, but also as a human achievement, a creative interpretation of those events in which transcendent reality discloses itself for appropriation. Few theologians would deny that theology has to do primarily with the ways in which ultimate reality becomes manifest in human beings' faithful responses, in belief and trust, (...) to its self-disclosures, preparatory and decisive. But the implications of such a view are not always confronted straightforwardly, especially for the suitable normative principles by which theology must assess the adequacy of the church's expressions of its faith. This essay seeks to probe how an account of the Christian faith could proceed whose norm derives not from the revelatory source of faith but from the dynamic of human creativity within which alone faith's source, in being interpreted, becomes clear, cogent, and decisive for conscious existence. (shrink)

We study shared intentions in what we call “loose groups”. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is, a condition on what the group members know and believe (...) about what the others intend, know, and believe. We propose an alternative, pooled knowledge, and argue that it allows formulating conditions on shared intentions that meet the two desiderata. (shrink)

Aboriginal peoples are forever explaining themselves to non-Aboriginal people: telling their stories, explaining their beliefs and ceremonies, and introducing ideas that have never crossed the non-Aboriginal mind. Western knowledge operates from a linear, singular view; it views the world from order beneath chaos; it is very noun oriented; knowledge is about oneself in relation to everything else in a relativistic sense. Aboriginal knowledge has a very different “coming to know.” It is holistic and cyclical; it views the world from chaos (...) underneath order; its languages are process and action oriented. Knowledge is about participation in and with the natural world. (shrink)

Nous partageons le problème de savoir comment faire face à autant d'humains si semblables et si différents. A autant d'êtres qui ne peuvent interpréter le fait d'exister sans se comparer les uns aux autres, sans se distinguer les uns des autres, et qui doivent néanmoins cohabiter. Et de savoir comment ces humains peuvent d'autant plus se distinguer qu'ils prennent la place successivement les uns les autres, qu'ils reprennent les mêmes traces et doivent les réinterpréter. La première formulation du problème est (...) plutôt celle de la problématologie, dans la mesure où elle place au centre de la condition humaine le langage ordinaire, l'incessante différence de la question et de la réponse. C'est par elle que les humains mesurent ce qui les éloigne ou les rapproche et qu'ils règlent leurs désaccords. La seconde formulation du problème est plutôt celle de l'herméneutique, dans la mesure où elle place au centre de la condition humaine la condition interprétative, où chaque génération doit réinterpréter le monde où elle se découvre, pour reprendre la conversation rompue par la mort. En exposant ces deux " gestes " élémentaires du questionnement, en construisant l'écart entre deux traditions philosophiques de styles aussi hétérogènes, sans chercher à les subordonner l'un à l'autre, il s'est agi de penser une éthique de l'interrogativité. Ce sens de l'interrogation peut seul orienter nos " éthiques de responsabilité " et nous remettre ensemble dans un monde où nous comparaissons d'autant plus heureux de nous distinguer que nous nous effaçons devant l'autre. Ces deux attitudes font notre civilité. (shrink)

The rise of blockchain as a techno-solution in the development sector underscores the critical imbalances of data power under ‘computational capitalism’. This article will consider the political economy of techno-solutionist and blockchain discourses in the developing world, using as its object of study blockchain projects in Pacific Island nations. Backed by US State Department soft power initiatives such as Tech Camp, these projects inculcate tech-driven notions of economic and political development, or ICT4D, while opening up new terrains for data accumulation (...) and platform control. Blockchain developers in search of proof of concept have found the development sector a fecund space for tech experimentation as they leverage a desire for tech-development and exploit regulatory weakness. The material implications of blockchain projects and discourse have been to create governance solutions which bypass the developing world state as a largely corrupting intermediary. In the Pacific, this has meant blockchain supply-chain management systems, proprietary financial innovation in humanitarian relief and an Asian Development Bank project to manage indigenous Fijian lands exclusively on the blockchain. In all these instances, discourses of solutionism, innovation and data empowerment have been deployed in aid of blockchain cartographies of control. (shrink)

An empirical exploration of the effects on legislative structure, distribution of influence, power, and decision outcomes, of recent changes in the Congress and state legislatures. The book focuses on changes in rules, parties, and committees and the impact or lack of impact of these changes on subsequent activity. Originally published in 1978 by D.C. Heath and Company. Co-published with the Policy Studies Organization.

Sur un sujet peu étudié, et si contemporain, à savoir la haine et les différentes passions qu'elle engendre et qui l'engendrent (indignation, colère, mépris, envie), une étude originale et pluridisciplinaire mobilisant approches philosophiques, politiques et historiques sur des événements passés et contemporains. Une analyse des haines du passé, de leurs effets individuels et collectifs pour mieux comprendre les haines actuelles, tel est l'enjeu de cet ouvrage. SOMMAIRE Préface -- Introduction Chap I -- De la haine 1 -- Définition 2 -- (...) Tempérance affective et connaissance adéquate 3 -- La haine ne peut jamais être bonne Chap II -- Exacerbation et généralisation de la haine 1 -- Imagination et vie affective 2 -- Illusion du libre arbitre et vie affective 3 -- Quelques mécanismes d'extension des affects Chap III -- De quelques passions réputées mineures 1 -- Brève histoire philosophique et politique de la colère : de l'"Ethique" à l'"Iliade" et retour 2 -- Critique de la raillerie, éloge du rire, éthique, religion et politique 3 -- Le mépris Chap IV -- " L'indignation est une haine..." 1 -- Mauvaise ou bonne indignation? 2 -- Indignation, tyrannie et terreur Chap V -- "L'envie est la haine..." 1 -- Des envies à l'Envie 2 -- De l'Envie 3 -- "Le sentiment démocratique de l'envie" A. de Tocqueville Index. (shrink)

Who is Daisaku Ikeda? At one level, he is the leader of a religious movement--Soka Gakkai--which began in Japan, where it still has its headquarters, but which now claims 12 million adherents around the world. At another level, he is a globetrotting figure whose formal conversations with diverse writers, thinkers and diplomats--including Arnold Toynbee, Joseph Rotblat and Mikhail Gorbachev--have garnered him an international profile, as well as academic recognition. Perhaps above all else, Daisaku Ikeda is viewed as a campaigner for (...) peace. And it is Ikeda's specific contribution to peacebuilding, notably through the central emphasis he has placed on the significance of dialogue, that this book explores: the first to do so in a concerted way. Olivier Urbain shows that while Soka Gakkai (the "value society") may stem from the medieval principles of Nichiren Buddhism, under Ikeda's leadership it has taken these classic wisdoms and transformed them. Now essentially classless and secularised, as well as adaptable and sensitive to modern challenges like resource shortages and climate change, this, argues the author, is a pragmatic approach to peace which has proved both popular and eminently transportable. (shrink)

This book presents the framework for a new, comprehensive approach to cognitive science. The proposed paradigm, enaction, offers an alternative to cognitive science's classical, first-generation Computational Theory of Mind. _Enaction_, first articulated by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in _The Embodied Mind_, breaks from CTM's formalisms of information processing and symbolic representations to view cognition as grounded in the sensorimotor dynamics of the interactions between a living organism and its environment. A living organism enacts the world it lives in; its embodied (...) action in the world constitutes its perception and thereby grounds its cognition. _Enaction_ offers a range of perspectives on this exciting new approach to embodied cognitive science. Some chapters offer manifestos for the enaction paradigm; others address specific areas of research, including artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, neuroscience, language, phenomenology, and culture and cognition. Three themes emerge as testimony to the originality and specificity of enaction as a paradigm: the relation between first-person lived experience and third-person natural science; the ambition to provide an encompassing framework applicable at levels from the cell to society; and the difficulties of reflexivity. Taken together, the chapters offer nothing less than the framework for a far-reaching renewal of cognitive science. Contributors: Renaud Barbaras, Didier Bottineau, Giovanna Colombetti, Diego Cosmelli, Hanne De Jaegher, Ezequiel A. Di Paolo. Andreas K. Engel, Olivier Gapenne, Véronique Havelange, Edwin Hutchins, Michel Le Van Quyen, Rafael E. Núñez, Marieke Rohde, Benny Shanon, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Adam Sheya, Linda B. Smith, John Stewart, Evan Thompson. (shrink)

Of all the things we do and say, most will never be repeated or reproduced. Once in a while, however, an idea or a practice generates a chain of transmission that covers more distance through space and time than any individual person ever could. What makes such transmission chains possible? For two centuries, the dominant view was that humans owe their cultural prosperity to their powers of imitation. In this view, modern cultures exist because the people who carry them are (...) gifted at remembering, storing and reproducing information. How Traditions Live and Die proposes an alternative to this standard view. What makes traditions live is not a general-purpose imitation capacity. Cultural transmission is partial, selective, often unfaithful. Some traditions live on in spite of this, because they tap into widespread and basic cognitive preferences. These attractive traditions spread, not by being better retained or more accurately transferred, but because they are transmitted over and over. This theory is used to shed light on various puzzles of cultural change and to explain the special relation that links the human species to its cultures. Morin combines recent work in cognitive anthropology with new advances in quantitative cultural history, to map and predict the diffusion of traditions. This book is both an introduction and an accessible alternative to contemporary theories of cultural evolution. (shrink)

Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone. It is generally thought that Johnson misses the point of Berkeley's immaterialism for a rather obvious reason: Berkeley never denied that the stone feels solid, but only that the stone could exist independently of any mind. I argue that Johnson was on the right track. On my interpretation, Johnson’s idea is that because the stone feels to resist our effort, the stone seems to have causal powers. But if appearances (...) are to be taken at face value, as Berkeley insists, then the stone has causal powers. I argue that such causal powers threaten not only Berkeley’s view that only minds are active, but also, and more fundamentally, his central claim that sensible things depend on perception. (shrink)

Tout au long des années 80, Derrida a exploré le thème de l’invention et étudié en particulier sa conception cartésienne. Derrida récuse avec force cette dernière pour montrer qu’elle dissimule une conception théologico-politique du sujet, accomplissant sur le plan politique la thèse métaphysique du logocentrisme. Mais, à partir de Psychè. Inventions de l’autre, cette vision est infléchie pour développer la signification positive de ce qu’il finit par appeler « l’invention du même » qui constitue l’un des courants majeurs de l’invention (...) techno-scientifique au sens moderne. Solidaire d’une certaine « politique de la recherche », Descartes voit l’une de ses inventions, la « langue universelle », être pour la première fois « contresignée » par Derrida. Cette reconnaissance ne doit pas toutefois cacher un désaccord où se révèle l’originalité de la pensée derridienne de l’invention : résolument anticartésienne, elle propose une inventio qui, en tant qu’elle confond avec le jeu même de la « différance », s’exclut de la cogitatio. Événement immanent à la res extensa qui, pour cette raison, ne saurait être entièrement rationalisé et qui, c’est significatif, en même temps qu’il s’ouvre à la chance, renvoie à une autre conception de l’être-ensemble. L’invention porte dans son excès, selon Derrida, l’annonce d’un temps nouveau. (shrink)

The proper sensible criterion of sensory individuation holds that senses are individuated by the special kind of sensibles on which they exclusively bear about (colors for sight, sounds for hearing, etc.). H. P. Grice objected to the proper sensibles criterion that it cannot account for the phenomenal difference between feeling and seeing shapes or other common sensibles. That paper advances a novel answer to Grice's objection. Admittedly, the upholder of the proper sensible criterion must bind the proper sensibles –i.e. colors– (...) to the common sensibles –i.e. shapes– so as to account for the visual phenomenal character of shapes. But, as Grice rightly objected, neither association, nor ontological dependence will do –I spend some time isolating why dependence is a bad answer here, basically because the dependence of shape on colors is generic, and that genericity is arguably not part of the phenomenal content of perception. -/- Grice is wrong, however, to think that once association and dependence have been rebutted, there is no other way to attach color to extension. The right way to connect proper and common sensibles is rather trivial, although it seems to have been widely neglected: proper sensibles FILL common ones. To see a shape, by contrast to feeling it, is to perceived as filled by some color. To feel a shape, is to perceive it as, say, filled by pressure. Filling in is the phenomenal connection between proper and common sensibles. -/- One important corollary of that proposal is that proper sensibles –color, pressure, noise, taste...– have to belong to the category of stuffs, in the sense of uncountable entities. Against the widespread view that colors are properties, which have countable instances, the last part of the paper argues that colors are phenomenal stuffs, which fill some visual area. One commits a category mistake in asking: "How many tropes/instances of this determinate redness is there on that ladybird". One should rather ask "How much of this determinate redness is there on that ladybird". (shrink)

This book is a long-term history of optics, from early Greek theories of vision to the nineteenth-century victory of the wave theory of light. It is a clear and richly illustrated synthesis of a large amount of literature, and a reliable and efficient guide for anyone who wishes to enter this domain.

The first of its kind, this book is an in-depth history of hydrodynamics from its eighteenth-century foundations to its first major successes in twentieth-century hydraulics and aeronautics. It documents the foundational role of fluid mechanics in developing a new mathematical physics. It gives full and clear accounts of the conceptual breakthroughs of physicists and engineers who tried to meet challenges in the practical worlds of hydraulics, navigation, blood circulation, meteorology, and aeronautics, and it shows how hydrodynamics at last began to (...) fulfill its early promise to unify the different worlds of flow. Richly illustrated, technically thorough, and sensitive to cross-cultural effects, this history should attract a broad range of historians, scientists, engineers, and philosophers and be a standard reference for anyone interested in fluid mechanics. (shrink)

Touch seems to enjoy some epistemic advantage over the other senses when it comes to attest to the reality of external objects. The question is not whether only what appears in tactile experiences is real. It is that only whether appears in tactile experiences feels real to the subject. In this chapter we first clarify how exactly the rather vague idea of an epistemic advantage of touch over the other senses should be interpreted. We then defend a “muscular thesis”, to (...) the effect that only the experience of resistance to our motor efforts, as it arises in effortful touch, presents us with the independent existence of some causally empowered object. We finally consider whether this muscular thesis applies to the perception of our own body. (shrink)

This book recounts a few ingenious attempts to derive physical theories by reason only, beginning with Descartes' geometric construction of the world, and finishing with recent derivations of quantum mechanics from natural axioms.

: In 1998, researchers discovered that embryonic stem cells could be derived from early human embryos. This discovery has raised a series of ethical and public-policy questions that are now being confronted by multiple international organizations, nations, cultures, and religious traditions. This essay surveys policies for human embryonic stem cell research in four regions of the world, reports on the recent debate at the United Nations about one type of such research, and reviews the positions that various religious traditions have (...) adopted regarding this novel type of research. In several instances the religious traditions seem to have influenced the public-policy debates. (shrink)