[Significantly updated in Chapter 6 of Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge] In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P (...) is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline a novel theory of the epistemic requirement on possession in terms of this more general state of non-accidental true representation. It is just as well placed to explain the motivations behind knowledge-centric views of possession, and it is also better placed to explain the extent of the reasons we possess in certain cases of deductive belief-updates and cases involving environmental luck. I conclude with three reflections. First, I indicate how my arguments generate a dilemma for Errol Lord’s view that possessing reasons is just a matter of being in a position to manifest one’s knowledge how to use them. Second, I explain how my view can simultaneously manage cases of environmental luck without falling prey to lottery cases. Finally, I sketch the direction for a further range of counterexamples to knowledge-centric theories of possession. (shrink)

Tout au long du XXe siècle, une série de théoriciens, plus ou moins minoritaires, introduisent un nouveau genre de questions, faisant directement communiquer la philosophie avec les sciences sociales, la psychologie et l'esthétique. Comment un individu se constitue-t-il par des activités possessives? Avec quelle intensité un être en possède-t-il un autre? Quelle est l'étendue spatiale et temporelle de ces possessions? Et quelles en sont les techniques? Ce livre tente, à partir d'une série des portraits – G. Tarde, W. James, (...) A. N. Whitehead, J. Dewey, C. Péguy, E. Souriau et G. Simondon –, de donner une nouvelle actualité à la question de la possession et, par là même, de mettre en évidence une autre scène de la philosophie contemporaine. (shrink)

The rationalist lover accepts that whom she ought to love is whom she has most reason to love. She also accepts that the qualities of a person are reasons to love them. This seems to suggest that if the rationalist lover encounters someone with better qualities than her beloved, then she is rationally required to trade up. In this paper, I argue that this need not be the case and the rationalist lover can have just about as normal if not (...) a better romantic life than anyone could hope for. This is because we often do possess most reason to love our beloveds. To see why this is so, we have to think more carefully about (i) how we come to possess reasons for love and (ii) the higher-order reasons that govern whether we should seek or refrain from possessing said reasons. Reflection on these issues leads to what I call the Possession-Commitment Account of Love’s Reasons. I use this account to address additional worries for love rationalism and highlight how being rational about love can potentially get us out of romantic messes. I conclude that if being a rationalist about love is plausible after all, then we have reason to hope that being rational about other areas of our practical lives is plausible as well. (shrink)

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with _dâshtan_ ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these _possessive experiencer complex predicates_ be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015 ; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016 ; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts, (...) Oxford University Press, 2017 ). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014 ), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992 ; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002 ). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a reasons-first view of epistemic justification, according to which the justification of our beliefs arises entirely in virtue of the epistemic reasons we possess. I remove three obstacles for this view, which result from its presupposition that epistemic reasons have to be possessed by the subject: the problem that reasons-first accounts of justification are necessarily circular; the problem that they cannot give special epistemic significance to perceptual experience; the problem that they have to say that (...) implicit biases provide epistemic. The first problem will be overcome by introducing presentational attitudes that are not in need of justification as basic ways of possessing epistemic reasons. The latter two problems will be solved by introducing epistemic rational capacities of two different kinds, which are exercised in mental states that are ways of possessing epistemic reasons, and by distinguishing these from mental states that are not exercises of epistemic rational capacities. (shrink)

This paper explores an understudied and poorly understood phenomenon of morphological syncretism in which a morpheme otherwise used to mark the head of a possessive NP appears on words naming property concept (PC) states (states named by adjectives in languages with that lexical category; Dixon, Where have all the adjectives gone? And other essays in Semantics and Syntax, 1982) in predicative and attributive contexts. This phenomenon is found across a variety of unrelated languages. We examine its manifestation in Ulwa, an (...) endangered Misumalpan language of Nicaragua, where diachronic evidence clearly shows that a single affix is involved. We propose an explanation for the syncretism based on an explicit syntactic and semantic analysis of the relevant constructions. On the proposed explanation, the syncretism arises out of a combination of semantic and morphosyntactic facts of Ulwa grammar. Specifically, we propose that the Ulwa pattern exemplifies a possessive strategy of predication. Intuitively, this strategy is a manifestation in grammar of the idiomatic equivalence between the property of being F and the property of having F-ness. (shrink)

This paper investigates the historiographical utility of psychoanalysis, focussing in particular on retrospective explanations of demonic possession and exorcism. It is argued that while 'full-blown' psychoanalytic explanations-those that impose Oedipus complexes, anal eroticism or other sophisticated theoretical structures on the historical actors-may be vulnerable to the charge of anachronism, a weaker form of retrospective psychoanalysis can be defended as a legitimate historical lens. The paper concludes, however, by urging historians to look at psychoanalysis as well as trying to look through (...) it. Full-blown psychoanalysis is a bad historical lens but it may, in some cases, be an excellent explanatory template: a thorough understanding of how psychoanalytic therapy functions in the modern world is, for example, a good theoretical preparation for historians seeking to understand the sixteenth-century's demonological universe. (shrink)

Aristotle argued that you need some wealth to live well. The Stoics argued that you could live well with or without wealth. But the Cynics argued that wealth is a hinderance. For the Cynics, a good life consists in self-sufficiency, or being able to rule and help yourself. You accomplish this by living simply and naturally, and by subjecting yourself to rigorous philosophical exercises. Cynics confronted people to get them to abandon extraneous possessions and positions of power to live better. (...) And while the Cynics were experts in living in this way, their ascetic lifestyles made their message curious to some audiences. This paper reflects on Cynic ascetic practices and the ways others perceived them. (shrink)

John Campbell; IX*—Possession of Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 149–170, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

This paper answers critical responses to the author’s “A Theory of Concepts and Concept Possession.” The paper begins with a discussion of candidate counterexamples to the proposed analysis of concept possession -- including, e.g., a discussion of its relationship to Frank Jackson’s Mary example. Second, questions concerning the author’s general methodological approach are considered. For instance, it is shown that -- contrary to the critics’ suggestions -- an analysis of concept possession cannot invoke belief alone, but must also invoke intuition. (...) Finally, a defense is given for the realist framework within which the theory of concepts, and of their possession conditions, is formulated. (shrink)

Moral discourse allows for speakers to disagree in many ways: about right and wrong acts, about moral theory, about the rational and conative significance of moral failings. Yet speakers’ eccentricities do not prevent them from engaging in moral conversation or from having (genuine, not equivocal) moral disagreement. Thus differences between speakers are compatible with possession of moral concepts. This paper examines various kinds of moral disagreements and argues that they provide evidence against conceptual-role and informational atomist approaches to understanding our (...) moral concepts. Conceptual role approaches fail because they cannot account for shared concepts among speakers with different commitments to the practical and conative ramifications of moral judgments. Informational atomist views fail because speakers need not be locked on to the same moral properties to share moral concepts. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about the nature of semantic reference have tended to focus on two competing approaches: theories which emphasize the importance of descriptive information associated with a referring term, and those which emphasize causal facts about the conditions under which the use of the term originated and was passed on. Recent empirical work by Machery and colleagues suggests that both causal and descriptive information can play a role in judgments about the reference of proper names, with findings of cross-cultural variation (...) in judgments that imply differences between individuals with respect to whether they favor causal or descriptive information in making reference judgments. We extend this theoretical and empirical line of inquiry to views of the reference of natural and nominal kind concepts, which face similar challenges to those concerning the reference of proper names. In two experiments, we find evidence that both descriptive and causal factors contribute to judgments of concept reference, with no reliable differences between natural and nominal kinds. Moreover, we find evidence that the same individuals’ judgments can rely on both descriptive and causal information, such that variation between individuals cannot be explained by appeal to a mixed population of “pure descriptive theorists” and “pure causal theorists.” These findings suggest that the contrast between descriptive and causal theories of reference may be inappropriate; intuitions may instead support a hybrid theory of reference that includes both causal and descriptive factors. We propose that future research should focus on the relationship between these factors, and describe several possible frameworks for pursuing these issues. Our findings have implications for theories of semantic reference, as well as for theories of conceptual structure. (shrink)

We focus on issues of learning assessment from the point of view of an investigation of philosophical elements in teaching. We contend that assessment of concept possession at school based on ordinary multiple-choice tests might be ineffective because it overlooks aspects of human rationality illuminated by Robert Brandom’s inferentialism––the view that conceptual content largely coincides with the inferential role of linguistic expressions used in public discourse. More particularly, we argue that multiple-choice tests at schools might fail to accurately assess the (...) possession of a concept or the lack of it, for they only check the written outputs of the pupils who take them, without detecting the inferences actually endorsed or used by them. We suggest that school tests would acquire reliability if they enabled pupils to make the reasons of their answers or the inferences they use explicit, so as to contribute to what Brandom calls the game of giving and asking for reasons. We explore the possibility to put this suggestion into practice by deploying two-tier multiple-choice tests. (shrink)

The concept of possessive power as it manifests in reproductions is the focus of criticism in this paper. The analysis utilizes both positive insights and illustrative mistakes from Beauvoir's account of maternity. An alternative notion of power is proposed to replace possessive power as proprietary control.

In this essay, I argue for an account of property possession as strict, numerical identity. According to this account, for an entity to possess a property is for that entity to be numerically identical to that property.

We begin with a puzzle: why do some know-how attributions entail ability attributions while others do not? After rejecting the tempting response that know-how attributions are ambiguous, we argue that a satisfactory answer to the puzzle must acknowledge the connection between know-how and concept possession (specifically, reasonable conceptual mastery, or understanding). This connection appears at first to be grounded solely in the cognitive nature of certain activities. However, we show that, contra anti-intellectualists, the connection between know-how and concept possession can (...) be generalized via reflection on the cognitive nature of intentional action and the potential of certain misunderstandings to undermine know-how even when the corresponding abilities and associated propositional knowledge are in place. Such considerations make explicit the intimate relation between know-how and understanding, motivating a general intellectualist analysis of the former in terms of the latter. (shrink)

챗봇 테이(Tay)는 딥러닝을 통해 스스로 학습하면서 사람들과 대화가 가능한 인공지능이다. 이러한 인공지능은 일상 언어를 잘 사용하는 듯 하지만 편향된 방식으로 학습할 경우 개념을 결여한 듯 보이는 발언을 하기도 한다. 이에 대해 필자는 약한 의미의 개념 소유와 강한 의미의 개념 소유를 구분한 다음, 테이가 약한 의미에서는 개념을 소유하지만 강한 의미에서는 개념을 소유하지 않음을 논증한다. 이는 생각하며 대화하는 인공지능이 가능한가에 대한 비판적 접근의 일환이다.

La posesión común de la tierra fue una idea prominente en la filosofía moderna del siglo xvii. En este artículo, sostendré que Kant no sólo propuso una versión secular de la posesión común de la tierra, sino que también se diferenció de forma radical de la concepción iusnaturalista de sus predecesores. Propongo que la revisión kantiana del derecho cosmopolita se dirige al mismo problema que el derecho de necesidad de Grocio, a saber, la implausibilidad de asumir derechos adquiridos absolutos cuando (...) esto contradice la razón por la que se introducen esos mismos derechos. Sin embargo, mientras que Grocio pretendió excusar violaciones de la propiedad privada en casos de necesidad, Kant limitó su discusión al derecho de rechazar la entrada de personas en un territorio. Muestro que para Kant, negar la ocupación del espacio que puede salvar la vida a otro ser humano que está, en principio, tan legitimado como cualquier otro a tener un derecho en la tierra está en contradicción con la justificación misma del derecho territorial de los Estados. Esto se debe a que el permiso para controlar el territorio y el derecho de los visitantes involuntarios a ser admitidos en una región están basados en el mismo fundamento legal o Rechtsgrund, a saber, la comunidad original de la tierra. (shrink)

Introduction. The roots of liberal-democratic theory -- Problems of interpretation -- Hobbe : the political obligation of the market. Philosophy and political theory -- Human nature and the state of nature -- Models of society -- Political obligation -- Penetration and limits of Hobbe's political theory -- The Levellers : franchise and freedom. The problem of franchise -- Types of franchise -- The record -- Theoretical implications -- Harrington : the opportunity state. Unexamined ambiguities -- The balance and the gentry (...) -- The bourgeois society -- The equal commonwealth and the equal agrarian -- The self-cancelling balance principle -- Harrington's stature --Locke : the political theory of appropriation. Interpretations -- The theory of property right -- Class differentials in natural rights and rationality -- The ambiguous state of nature -- The ambiguous civil society -- Unsettled problems reconsidered -- Possessive individualism and liberal democracy. The seventeenth-century foundations -- The twentieth-century dilemma -- Appendix : Social classes and franchise classes in England, circa 1648. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that “I am always on the same side of my body” if the body is understood as flesh? This question of sidedness, and specifically of perspectival unilaterality, in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology leads to a careful sorting of the various relational metaphors that he deploys across his oeuvre, including reversibility, intertwining, possession, encroachment, incorporation, promiscuity, and many others. Curiously, each of these notions implicates a different image of sidedness, from sides that are impermeable in themselves but (...) nonetheless interwoven with those of other bodies, to sides that are porous, interpenetrated, incorporable, and yielding. Ultimately, it is suggested with reference to Merleau-Ponty’s ontologically anticipatory concept of le schèma corporel that unilaterality is not a necessary feature of incarnate subjectivity after all, but is instead one of the last specters of modern metaphysics, haunting Merleau-Ponty’s thinking still. Insofar as perspectival individuation is a function of the dynamic operations of actual body schemas rather than a logical, topological, or ontological given, subjectivity will be essentially promiscuous rather than merely reversible, moving in and out of bodies, overflowing its own body, taking in the bodies of others, leaking into and absorbing the flesh of the world, at times to the point of indivision.Quel est le sens de cet énoncé : « Je suis toujours du même côté de mon corps » lorsque le corps est compris comme chair? Cette question de l’unilatéralité, en particulier celle de l’unilatéralité perspectivale, dans l’ontologie de Merleau-Ponty, conduit à une utilisation précise d’un ensemble de métaphores variées qu’il déploie dans son oeuvre, telles que la réversibilité, l’entrelacement, la possession, l’empiètement, l’incorporation, la promiscuité et bien d’autres encore. Curieusement, chaque notion implique une image d’unilatéralité différente, depuis les côtés qui sont imperméables en eux-mêmes mais néanmoins entrelacés avec ceux des autres corps, jusqu’aux côtés qui sont poreux, interpénétrés, incorporables, malléables. En définitive, il semble que la référence anticipée au concept de schéma corporel montre que l’unilatéralité n’est pas, après tout, un élément nécessaire de la subjectivité incarnée, mais plutôt un des derniers spectres de la métaphysique moderne qui hante le style de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty. Dans la mesure où l’individuation perspectivale est une fonction des opérations dynamiques des schémas corporels actuels et non un donné logique, topologique ou ontologique, la subjectivité sera essentiellement promiscuité plutôt que simplement réversible, entrant et sortant des corps, débordant son propre corps, prenant le corps des autres, laissant filtrer la chair du monde et l’absorbant, parfois jusqu’au point de l’indivision.Che cosa significa dire che “io mi trovo sempre dallo stesso lato del mio corpo” se il corpo è compreso come carne? Questa questione della lateralità e in particolare di una unilateralità nell’ontologia di Merleau-Ponty ci porta a discernere attentamente le diverse metafore relazionali che il filosofo impiega nel corso della sua opera, tra cui reversibilità, intreccio, sconfinamento, incorporazione, promiscuità, per citarne solo alcune. È interessante notare che ciascuna di queste nozioni implica una differente immagine della lateralità, da lati che sono impermeabili in se stessi e ciononostante intrecciati con quelli di altri corpi, fino a lati che sono invece porosi, interpenetrati gli uni con gli altri, incorporabili e cedevoli. In definitiva, la nozione merleau-pontiana – ontologicamente anticipatrice – di schema corporeo suggerisce che l’unilateralità non è un carattere necessario della soggettività incarnata, ma invece uno degli spettri residuali della metafisica moderna, che ancora incombono sul pensiero di Merleau-Ponty. Nella misura in cui l’individuazione prospettica è una funzione delle operazioni dinamiche di schemi corporei piuttosto che un dato logico, topologico o ontologico, la soggettività sarà essenzialmente promiscua e non semplicemente reversibile, muovendo verso l’interno e l’esterno dei corpi, sconfinando i limiti del corpo, lasciando entrare i corpi altrui, concedendo l’ingresso e assorbendo la carne del mondo, talvolta fino a raggiungere l’indiscernibilità. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 160-178.

Tristan Garcia’s Form and Object has been framed primarily as a contribution to object oriented metaphysics. In this article, I shall explicate and defend four claims that bring it closer to the modern critical tradition: 1) that Garcia’s Form and Object can be read, profitably, within the tradition of reflection upon the nature of possessions, self-possession and possessiveness; 2) that to read the book in this way is to see Garcia as the French heir to C. B. McPherson although it (...) will be argued that what this amounts to is that while McPherson was the anti-Locke, so to speak, Garcia is the anti-Rousseau; 3) that this framing has significant consequences for our reception of Form and Object in that it can be understood as a book that not only marks a moment in debates surrounding speculative realism and object oriented ontology but that it also, and primarily, marks an important moment in debates about the encroachment of things and the culture of possession that, in part, defines modernity; 4) that there is a novel ontological position within Form and Object, one that is neither relational nor individualist, that presents a challenging account of ‘the chance and the price’ of living after possession and how to overcome the deleterious effects of contemporary consumer societies. (shrink)

We need to understand, and on a philosophical level, our consumer mentality. For ours is a consumer society. Yet (pace environmental philosophers) philosophers have had almost nothing to say. This paper is a start toward a normative philosophy of consumption. It explores a distinction which, if viable, has far-reaching implications — the distinction between ownership and what I call “possession.” This distinction marks two different senses in which a good or service can be mine. I argue that an approach to (...) consumption oriented around possession rather than ownership would support the conclusion that there are prudential or self-interested, not only moral or environmental, limits to rational consumption. That would be a very desirable conclusion given that we often exceed these other limits of rational consumption. (shrink)

This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of the notion of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in what he calls its "possessive quality" - "its conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them." Under such a conception, (...) the essence of humanity becomes freedom from dependence on the wills of others; society is little more than a system of economic relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property. As the New Statesman declared: "It is rare for a book to change the intellectual landscape. It is even more unusual for this to happen when the subject is one that has been thoroughly investigated by generations of historians.... Until the appearance of Professor Macpherson's book, it seemed unlikely that anything radically new could be said about so well-worn a topic. The unexpected has happened, and the shock waves are still being absorbed." A new introduction by Frank Cunningham puts the work in a twenty-first-century context. (shrink)

Abstract.This article is written with a view to clarifying the following points: First, to understand the nature of possession, its origin must be kept in mind. Possession is not a legal invention, it is a pre‐legal fact. Second, possession whether in law or in common sense is a de facto control. There is no difference between possession in law and possession in fact. Third, different types of rules and policies of law to deal with possession, do not change the contents (...) of possession. They merely represent the situations in which possession is found under different circumstances. (shrink)

Men and women “possessed by unclean spirits” throng the pages of the Acta sanctorum, just as they had for centuries thronged the shrines of miracle-working saints. Around the turn of the thirteenth century, however, the literature of edification shows a sudden upsurge of interest in demoniacs. They begin to proliferate not only in saints' lives but also in the new genre of the exemplum, associated with the friars and the rise of vernacular preaching. At the same time that these sources (...) are directing heightened attention toward the possessed, the symptoms of possession itself conspicuously alter. Unlike the violent and self-destructive persons who had always qualified for saintly exorcism, the energumens of the new exemplum literature are lucid and articulate, inspiring responses more of curiosity and respect than of pity or horror. Speaking in persona diaboli, they were viewed as sources of supernatural authority, treated with circumspect awe by priests, and sometimes even allowed to preach. In their diabolically inspired, charismatic role, such demoniacs bear a startling, if superficial, resemblance to prophetic female saints, who gained their religious authority by speaking in persona Dei. (shrink)

The meaning of have is notoriously difficult to define; sometimes it seems to denote possession, but often, it seems to denote nothing, only to complicate composition. This paper focuses on the cases where have embeds a small clause, proposing that all it accomplishes is abstraction, turning the small clause into a predicate. This analysis is extended to the cases where have appears to embed DPs: These objects are interpreted as small clauses as well, with implicit predicates denoting possession or—with relational (...) nouns—nothing. (shrink)

The Evil God (EG) challenge alleges that because arguments used to support belief in a Good God (GG) can be mirrored by the EG hypothesis, then belief in the former is no more reasonable than belief in the latter. Thus, there is an epistemic symmetry between both hypotheses. This paper argues that one of the EG’s secondary traits, specifically his maximal possessiveness, would render it very likely, if not certain, that the EG would _not_ create anything at all. By contrast, (...) the GG would very likely create. Consequently, the existence of anything non-divine would generate a significant asymmetry between the hypotheses—one that favors the GG hypothesis. Moreover, strategies to overcome this argument fail, and as such, the EG challenge is severely undermined. (shrink)

Levinas aborde les questions de la chose et de la possession surtout dans le Carnet 4 dans sa théorie du besoin comme dans ses ébauches de romans. On voit dans ses ébauches un attachement humain aux choses qui semble absurde. La philosophie a désapprouvé presque toujours un tel attachement au nom de la liberté et de l’autonomie humaines. Quant à Levinas, il refuse le concept classique du sujet et commence dans les Carnets l’élaboration du sujet charnel. C’est dans un camp (...) de prisonniers qu’il développe sa théorie du besoin grâce à laquelle il crée la doctrine du sujet, qui n’est ni autosuffisance, ni le centre de lui-même. Son attitude principale envers le monde extérieur est de « manger ». Connaître et voir, c’est aussi « manger ». Dans ce contexte, les notions de l’il y a, d’intervalle et de lumière sont envisagées. Le sujet de la théorie du besoin transforme en « mangeant » l’extériorité en intériorité, et c’est pourquoi la solitude est son destin. Mais la théorie du besoin est suppléée dans les Carnets par la théorie de l’eros. Levinas écrit parfois l’eros, parfois l’amour. C’est dans sa théorie de l’amour qu’il parle du plaisir du plaisir de l’Autre et de la douleur de la douleur de l’Autre. On voit que dans une première ébauche de la philosophie lévinassienne Autrui est une personne aimée. (shrink)

Hermias of Alexandria wrote down the lectures given on the Phaedrus by his teacher Syrianus, Head of the Neoplatonic School of Athens. In the preserved text the Platonic distinction of madness is presented in a Neoplatonic way. In the first section of the article we discuss Hermias’ treatment of possession. The philosopher examines four topics in his effort to present a Neoplatonic doctrine concerning possession. As he holds that divine possession is evident in all parts of the soul, he first (...) argues that it is primarily applied to the one-in-the-soul. Secondly, he explains that possession is also applied to reason, opinion, imagination, thymos and desire, all the above being distinctive parts of the human soul, but not as important as the one-in-the-soul. The third issue he discusses is whether all causes of possession are identical to the divine. Then, Hermias examines the fact that possession is to be traced not only in the human soul but also in the statues. In the second section of the article Hermias’ analysis of the four kinds of Platonic madness is presented. The philosopher first analyzes the interdependence between all four divine kinds of madness and then describes their function on two levels, inside and outside the soul. The function within the soul is richer and is realized in four fields: the restoration of the soul after its fall, the restoration of the human being as a whole, the Pythagorean mathematical system and the logic processes. The function outside the soul deals with the manifestations of the soul in human society. Under this perspective, Hermias clearly proposes an original classification of the kinds of madness, on the basis of which we encounter poetic madness. After that follow the madness of the seer, the telestic madness, and the madness of love. The whole analysis incorporates Platonic, Aristotelian, Pythagorean and theurgic elements that cover the fields of psychology, logic and metaphysics. (shrink)

:In this essay I begin with Foucault's theorization of the convulsive body of the possessed as a site of struggle. Next, I amend this perspective with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's notion that “the concept is not object but territory” 101). That is, rather than looking at convulsive bodies as objects through which actors struggle, I approach convulsions as evidencing acts of territorialization. Instead of a corporeal object over which actors struggle for ownership, this perspective reframes convulsions as a process (...) of space-making that is constitutive of the space-makers. Amending Foucault's take on convulsions with Deleuze and Guattari's notion of territory allows for analysis of “techno-horror” popular entertainments as constitutive processes in the unfolding of new reproductive masculine subjectivities. (shrink)

Cet article propose d’examiner la question de l’exorcisme et des possessions démoniaques à partir d’une lecture du Malleus maleficarum. Conçu comme un manuel à l’usage des Inquisiteurs, le Malleus a développé une réflexion sur l’efficacité thérapeutique de l’exorcisme, en partant de l’épisode biblique, en 1 S 16,14-23, sur la possession du roi Saül et sa guérison par la cithare de David. L’hypothèse du Malleus affirme que le démon ne peut pas formellement modifier l’âme des sujets, mais seulement la plonger dans (...) l’illusion, ou l’altérer en agissant sur sa prédisposition passive à la démence. La fonction thérapeutique de l’exorcisme consiste donc à réduire le plus possible ce terrain affectif prédisposant. De la même manière que la cithare de David apaise l’âme tourmentée de Saül, de même la parole de l’exorciste convoque le démon, le contraint de cesser son action maléfique et le chasse hors du corps et de l’âme du possédé, « de telle manière qu’il ne revienne plus ». (shrink)

There are issues in the theory of concepts about which A Study of Concepts could have said more. There are also some issues about which it would have done well to say something different. The commentators in this symposium have successfully identified a series of issues of one or other of these two kinds, and I am very grateful for their thought and detailed attention. I have learned from reflection on their comments, and I take this opportunity to try to (...) carry the discussion forward by addressing a range issues underdeveloped in A Study of Concepts. Georges Rey raises global questions about the project of SoC. Answerability, Quinean challenges and the relations between my approach and covariation or ‘locking’ theories are amongst the problems he raises. The comments of David Papineau are at an intermediate level of generality. He poses questions about the subject-matter of a theory of concepts, and rejects my critique of teleological theories of content. He is also dissatisfied with my account of the relations between actual thought and the normative properties of concepts. I will consider that issue at some length. Jane Heal considers my elaboration of the approach for a specific concept, that of belief. I will take the topics in that order. (shrink)

One feature of the neo/liberal possessive self is the propertied character of certain beliefs: treated as belonging to those who hold them, recognized and supported in acting on the world, and protected. While an ownership paradigm predates anti-discrimination and human rights regimes, these regimes have consolidated and extended the propertied status of certain identity beliefs in ways that naturalize and siloize them. But if beliefs’ propertied character is politically problematic, can it be unsettled and reformed? This paper considers one possible (...) mode for doing so, namely play. Oftentimes, play works to secure and assert the propertied attachments people have to their beliefs; but some forms of play offer other possibilities. Focusing on the state as a complex site of play relations and encounters, this article explores how state play engages identity beliefs in a contemporary legal drama of colliding beliefs between conservative Christians and liberal gay equality advocates. (shrink)

Altered States of Consciousness is an umbrella term applied in the study of psychological, sociological and religious phenomena that are regularly encountered experientially in the study of trance, possession, and shamanism, all of which have complex and problematic links with music. Beginning with trance, and stressing the pervasive sexual imagery invoked, this paper reviews the role ofASC in these three areas in the anthropology of religion.

In “Economy,” Henry Thoreau argues against the common view that it is highly worthwhile for a human being to work hard in order to obtain material possessions. Thoreau’s objections are forceful, wide-ranging, and extraordinarily well written. Yet his readers, like almost everyone else, continue to desire, pursue, or acquire more and more material things as well as more and more money, the primary means to such things. Thoreau knew that this was true of the people of his own time, but (...) he didn’t know why. I think I know what Thoreau didn’t know. What Thoreau didn’t know is why material possessions are effective and alluring embodiments of a human being’s worth as a person. This is a particular kind of worth, which I call reputed worth. In the paper I show why reputed worth is so important to people, how material goods embody it, and, unfortunately, why reputed worth is deeply flawed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DESIRED POSSESSIONS: KARL POLANYI, RENÉ GIRARD, AND THE CRITIQUE OF THE MARKET ECONOMY Mark R. Anspach CREA, Paris! f '""phe most radical critique of liberal capitalism ever:" that is how JL Louis Dumont describes 7Ae Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi's classic work on the rise of the market system. But the French anthropologist goes on to observe that, when one confronts this same critique with the ethnography of tribal societies, (...) "one may ask whether Polanyi did not in fact come up short; having criticized the economy as an idea, he thought he could retain it as a thing..." (Dumont xiv, xvi). Is the economy indeed a "thing" that has always existed in some form everywhere, and if so, what manner of thing is it? In a word, what is an economyfor? Is there a particular aim that any economy must serve? A specific motive that it necessarily brings into play? We will begin by looking at Polanyi's answer to this question. "No human motive is per se economic," Polanyi tells us. "There is no such thing as a sui generis economic experience in the sense in which man may have a religious, aesthetic, or sexual experience." It is market society, with its dependence on a disembedded economic system, which fosters the illusion that the "economic" motives of hunger and gain necessarily underlie every economic system (1968, 63-4). In reality, however, "human beings will labor for a large variety of reasons as long as things are arranged accordingly." For example, "Monks traded for religious reasons... The KuIa trade ofthe Trobriand islanders... is mainly an aesthetic pursuit. Feudal economy was run on customary lines. With the Kwakiutl," industry appears to have been "a point of honor," and 1 82Mark R. Anspach so on (1968, 68). The trick, it seems, is to "arrange things accordingly." An economic system can be "run on noneconomic motives," Polanyi explains, without linking the process of production or distribution "to specific economic interests attached to the possession of goods," as long as "every single step in that process is geared to a number of social interests which eventually ensure that the required step be taken" (2001, 48). Now, there is a danger in this presentation. It could lead a reader to conclude that other societies arrange things cunningly so that all these social interests are harnessed to ensure the performance of the steps necessary to economic processes in a kind ofelaborate ruse—a ruse which the out-in-the-open operation ofthe economy in our society gives us the ability to see through. Very well, such a reader might acknowledge, the economy is an "instituted process," and, yes, the act of instituting it "shifts the place ofthe process in society" (Polanyi 1968, 148), but ifyou track it down to its hiding place and strip away the social contrivances in which it has been embedded, what you will find is still the economy as we know it—indeed, the economy which market society alone lays bare. In this reading, or rather misreading, the "real" economic aims that market society achieves directly are elsewhere accomplished only in the most cumbersomely indirect fashion. This kind of erroneous conclusion will likely be difficult to counter as long as one posits an opposition between multiple, variable and diffuse social interests, on the one hand, and the apparently straightforward individual interest in the possession of goods, on the other. Wherever the economy is submerged in social relationships, Polanyi says, a man "does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession ofmaterial goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets" (2001, 48). The problem with such an opposition between individual and social is that a market-minded theorist can overcome it simply by broadening the individual interest in the possession ofgoods to include the possession ofreified social goods. Once social interests are conceptualized as "social assets," to use Polanyi's own expression—or as "symbolic capital," to cite a more recent formulation—they lend themselves to "economizing" even in the formal sense, and Polanyi's carefully constructed distinction between the substantive and the formal collapses, apparently confirmingthe universality of the market... (shrink)

I argue here that first person speech on sexual violence remains an important dimension of the movement for social change in regard to sexual violence, and that the public speech of survivors faces at least three groups of obstacles: 1) the problem of epistemic injustice, that is, injustice in the sphere of knowledge 2) the problem of language and power, and 3) the problem of dominant discourses. I explain and develop these points and end with a final argument concerning the (...) critical importance of speaking publicly on these areas of human experience. (shrink)