This article explores contemporary biopolitics in the light of Michel Foucault's oft quoted suggestion that contemporary politics calls `life itself' into question. It suggests that recent developments in the life sciences, biomedicine and biotechnology can usefully be analysed along three dimensions. The first concerns logics of control - for contemporary biopolitics is risk politics. The second concerns the regime of truth in the life sciences - for contemporary biopolitics is molecular politics. The third concerns technologies of the self - for (...) contemporary biopolitics is ethopolitics. The article suggests that, in these events, human beings have become `somatic individuals': personhood is increasingly being defined in terms of corporeality, and new and direct relations are established between our biology and our conduct. At the same time, this somatic and corporeal individuality has become opened up to choice, prudence and responsibility, to experimentation, to contestation and so to a politics of `life itself'. (shrink)

Despite the enormous influence of Michel Foucault in gender studies, social theory, and cultural studies, his work has been relatively neglected in the study of politics. Although he never published a book on the state, in the late 1970s Foucault examined the technologies of power used to regulate society and the ingenious recasting of power and agency that he saw as both consequence and condition of their operation. These twelve essays provide a critical introduction to Foucault's work on politics, exploring (...) its relevance to past and current thinking about liberal and neo-liberal forms of government. Moving away from the great texts of liberal political philosophy, this book looks closely at the technical means with which the ideals of liberal political rationalities have been put into practice in such areas as schools, welfare, and the insurance industry. This fresh approach to one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century is essential reading for anyone interested in social and cultural theory, sociology, and politics. (shrink)

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

We live, according to some, in the century of biology, where we now understand ourselves in radically new ways as the insights of genomics and neuroscience have opened up the workings of our bodies and our minds to new kinds of knowledge and intervention. Is a new figure of the human, and of the social, taking shape in the 21st century? With what consequences for the politics of life today? And with what implications, if any, for the social, cultural and (...) human sciences? These are the issues that are discussed in this article, which argues that a new relation is requred with the life sciences, beyond commentary and critique, if the social and human sciences are to revitalize themselves for the 21st century. (shrink)

The human body was made legible long ago. But what of the human mind? Is it possible to ‘read’ the mind, for one human being to know what another is thinking or feeling, their beliefs and intentions. And if I can read your mind, how about others – could our authorities, in the criminal justice system or the security services? Some developments in contemporary neuroscience suggest the answer to this question is ‘yes’. While philosophers continue to debate the mind-brain problem, (...) a range of novel technologies of brain imaging have been used to argue that specific mental states, and even specific thoughts, can be identified by characteristic patterns of brain activation; this has led some to propose their use in practices ranging from lie detection and security screening to the assessment of brain activity in persons in persistent vegetative states. This article reviews the history of these developments, sketches their scientific and technical bases, considers some of the epistemological and ontological mutations involved, explores the ecological niches where they have found a hospitable environment, and considers some implications of this materialization of the readable, knowable, transparent mind. (shrink)

The aim of this article is (1) to investigate the ‘neurosciences’ as an object of study for historical and genealogical approaches and (2) to characterize what we identify as a particular ‘style of thought’ that consolidated with the birth of this new thought community and that we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’. This article argues that while there is a long history of research on the brain, the neurosciences formed in the 1960s, in a socio-historical context characterized by political change, faith (...) in scientific and technological progress, and the rise of a molecular gaze in the life sciences. They flourished in part because these epistemological and technological developments were accompanied by multiple projects of institution-building. An array of stakeholders was mobilized around the belief that breakthroughs in understanding the brain were not only crucial, they were possible by means of collaborative efforts, cross-disciplinary approaches and the use of a predominantly reductionist neuromolecular method. The first part of the article considers some of the different approaches that have been adopted to writing the history of the brain sciences. After a brief outline of our own approach, the second part of the article uses this in a preliminary exploration of the birth of the neurosciences in three contexts. We conclude by arguing that the 1960s constitute an important ‘break’ in the long path of the history of the brain sciences that needs further analysis. We believe this epistemological shift we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’ will shape the future intellectual development and social role of the neurosciences. (shrink)

Social theory has much to gain from taking up the challenges of conceptualizing ‘mental health’. Such an approach to the stunting of human mental life in conditions of adversity requires us to open up the black box of ‘environment’, and to develop a vitalist biosocial science, informed by and in conversation with the life sciences and the neurosciences. In this paper we draw on both classical and contemporary social theory to begin this task. We explore human inhabitation – how humans (...) inhabit their ‘ecological niches’ – and examine a number of conceptual developments that ‘deconstruct’ the binary distinction between organism and environment. We argue that we must understand the neurological, ecological and social pathways and mechanisms that shape human (mental) life if we are to address the central concerns of our discipline with inequity and injustice as these are inscribed into the bodies and souls of human beings. (shrink)

This article argues that a new diagram is emerging in the criminal justice system as it encounters developments in the neurosciences. This does not take the form that concerns many ‘neuroethicists’ — it does not entail a challenge to doctrines of free will and the notion of the autonomous legal subject — but is developing around the themes of susceptibility, risk, pre-emption and precaution. I term this diagram ‘screen and intervene’ and in this article I attempt to trace out this (...) new configuration and consider some of the consequences. (shrink)

Who is speaking in the history of social thought? The question of the authentic voice of social thought is typically posed in terms that tend to be either ambitiously theoretical or carefully methodological. Thus histories of social thought frequently offer either a résumé of general ideas about society (say from Montesquieu to Parsons) or a survey which gets bogged down in a rather tedious, nit-picking debate about empirical methodology. This paper is something of a preview of a pro jected attempt (...) on the part of the authors to capture the voice of social thought in rather different terms. Our three theses are: (1) that those who speak 'in the name of society' have just as frequently been doctors and bureaucrats as opposed to 'social philosophers' or professional sociologists; correlatively, (2) that the creative voice of social thought has more often been technical, problem-centred and tied up with par ticular rationalities of government as opposed to being either exclu sively theoretical or merely responsive to 'objective problems' in society; and, (3) that if sociology today struggles for a voice in which to speak this may be in some part due to the ways in which the past history of social thought has typically been conceived. (shrink)

Are we humans destined to become ‘posthuman’? In this paper, we question the claims of posthumanism, accepting some of its broader insights whilst proposing a more empirically and ethically appropriate ‘vitalist’ response. We argue that despite recent changes in styles of thought that question the uniqueness of ‘the human’, and despite novel technological developments for augmenting human bodies, we remain – fundamentally – persons. Humans, as persons, are constitutively embedded in and scaffolded by the material, social, semantic and cultural niches (...) they have constructed for themselves. An ‘ethopolitical’ response to our present that recognizes this fact not only requires us to engage with the consequences of making lives in the unequal niches that restrict and stunt the personhood of so many human beings at present, but also requires us to broaden the bandwidth of those who are recognized fully as persons. In our conclusion we briefly develop the theme that this emphasis on personhood can be seen as a vitalist – rather than a humanist – stance. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn the liberal democratic capitalist societies of “the West,” psychological know-how has made itself indispensable, not only in the regulation of domains from the factory to the family but also in the ethical systems according to which citizens live their lives. We cannot fully understand the role that psychology has come to play in terms of the application of science, the diffusion of ideas, or the entrepreneurial activities of a profession. Rather, we need to see psychology as making possible (...) forms of expertise that have a particular capacity to graft themselves onto the practices of all those concerned with the conduct of conduct. Psychology operates within these practices to make individuals who are calculable, to make intersubjective spaces that are manageable, to simplify the heterogeneous tasks of authorities and to underpin them with an ethico-therapeutic rationale. Psychology has also come to infuse contemporary “technologies of the self,” with its promises to restore persons to freedom and autonomy. These features of the “techne” of psychology are intrinsically linked to the problematics of liberal democracies, which seek to govern through privacy, rationality, and autonomy. And if the expert technologies of psychology have come to play such a significant role in the regulation of conduct in the West, we should not be surprised if psychological expertise is a beneficiary of current transformations of the societies of Eastern Europe. (shrink)

Este estudio revisa el desarrollo del análisis propuesto por Michel Foucault sobre el poder político en términos de gubernamentalidad, y esboza sus características principales. Se examina el despliegue de esta perspectiva, centrándose particularmente en cómo este enfoque genealógico del análisis de la conducta de todos y cada uno ha sido acogido y desarrollado en el mundo angloparlante. Se evalúan algunas de las críticas fundamentales que han sido planteadas a la analítica de la gubernamentalidad, y se arguye en favor de la (...) productividad continua y la creatividad de estas maneras de analizar la emergencia, naturaleza y consecuencias de las artes de gobierno. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Professor CorlessRose DrewDo We Go from Here? The Many Religions and the Next Step. Over the years, his works examined Buddhist teachings and practices, Christian teachings and practices, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and interreligious dialogue; more recently his focus had turned to queer dharma topics and same-sex issues.A memorial service, "We Are Life, Its Shining Gift," was held for Roger on March 10, 2007, in San Francisco. Friends and (...) colleagues spoke of Roger's life and accomplishments and his impact on their lives. There were Buddhist chanting and Christian hymns, with the service opening and closing with two musical pieces selected by Roger for that purpose: "The Swan of Tuonela" by Jean Sibelius and "The Lark Ascending" by Sir Ralph Vaughn William.Monetary memorial gifts are being received by the Society for Buddhist Christian Studies to be used in some fashion toward the 8th International Buddhist-Christian Dialogue to be held in 2009. Gifts should be sent to SBCS Corless Memorial Fund, CSSR Executive Office, Rice University MS 156, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892. To donate by credit card, call 713-348 5721.I was about six months into my current PhD research on Buddhist-Christian dual religious identity when I read a profile of Roger Corless in which he spoke about his own Buddhist-Christian identity (or "identities," because Roger saw his Buddhist "self " and his Christian "self " as two distinct identities). Roger immediately earned a place on my "most wanted" list, and when the time came to approach potential interviewees, I was delighted to find that Roger was eager, despite his failing health, to share with me the results of his "experiment" in dual belonging. So, last spring, I stayed with him for a few days and we talked at length about his religious thought and practice.That Roger was a remarkable man is clearly evident in his work: his wit and playful sense of humor, his sharp and inquisitive mind and vast knowledge of his subject, his intellectual integrity and concern for authenticity, and his insightful and innovative perspectives. Roger also possessed a healthy awareness of the potential for theology and "dharmology" to fail to do justice to the Christian's and the Buddhist's experience (which was what he considered to be crucial)—an awareness that was complemented by his remarkable ability to combine an intuitive, emotional response to truth and a sensitivity to the power of myth, symbolism, and poetry, with a thoroughgoing academic rigor. Sometimes he might start an essay with a song and, then, as he put it, "try to convert it into a philosophy," asking any readers who felt he had failed in the conversion to return again to the song, because, as far as he was concerned, the song would be true even if he himself had not correctly understood it. When I met Roger in person, I was delighted to find my sense of his intuitive spirituality, rich imagination, and shrewd intelligence confirmed, and was immediately struck also by his disarming honesty and humbling humility.It is a great privilege to have had the opportunity to meet Roger and talk [End Page 153] with him about his fascinating ideas. I was not always sure I fully understood them, and we certainly did not agree on everything: argue though we did about his notion that there could be more than one "Absolute," we never did come to share a perspective. But his ideas nevertheless continue to be a challenge to me and a reminder of the need for all of us engaged in dialogue to be respectful of the integrity of the religious traditions, and a warning to anyone who, like Roger, sees himself or herself as a person who, rather than simply being engaged in dialogue, is a dialogue, to be wary of quick-fix solutions to the questions and difficulties he or she inevitably faces. As far as Roger was concerned, it was better to live as an authentic Buddhist and as an authentic Christian and to accept what he took to be their conceptual irreconcilability than to accept any tidy reconciliation that might reduce both to the status of merely partial truths... (shrink)

I try to indicate this special quality of classical intelligibility by linking it with the notion of "dual structure," a notion which should not be flattened to mean any sort of intelligibility to those listeners deemed "competent," especially if the term "competence" is used without qualification. Dual structure in music, as I construe it, is an intrastructural system of reference between pairs of discrete semiotic constructs both members of which are in some sense wholly embodied in a given musical structure. (...) These constructs include a general ground of meaning and more particularized semiotic configurations derived from that ground; and because both are present in the musical structure, the relationship between them—the meaning of the music—can be retrieved directly, wholly, and on a general scale. No extrastructural mediating explanation or specialized information or training is needed; the interpreter need merely use the musical equivalent of reason. The archetype of such a system in music seems to be the relation of implication or self-generation that obtains between premise and conclusion within a pure system of logic, which, as described by Kant in his account of theoretical reason, would be universally intelligible. Rose Rosengard Subotnik, assistant professor of music at the University of Chicago, is the author of articles on nineteenth-century music. Her essay which prompted this exchange, "The Cultural Message of Musical Semiology: Some Thoughts on Music, Language, and Criticism since the Enlightenment," appeared in the Summer 1978 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

The absence of a clear distinction between notions of the individual and the social or general must, in fact, raise particularly strong reservations about any critical method as preoccupied as French structuralism is with comparisons between art and natural language. To be sure, this preoccupation has led to the isolation of many suggestive likenesses and differences between music and language. Among the likenesses, for example, is the assertion that both language and music constitute semiotic media within which the same techniques (...) for verifying competence and correctness of usage can be applied. Lévi-Strauss is insistent that musical as well as linguistic usage must be subject to verification through reference to some sort of "double articulation," or what will more generally be called here "dual structure," that is, through some method whereby, in effect, speakers and listeners can test each other's competence by altering the relationship between a more general and a more particularized level of a system and observing each other's responses.1 Nattiez essentially rejects this method of verifying competence, but he proposes two others which have analogues in the linguistic theory, respectively, of Zellig Harris and of Noam Chomsky ; interestingly these methods, which appear to be more "modern" than Lévi-Strauss', rely far more heavily on faith in fundamentally unexplainable judgments by single individuals, especially by individual "experts." · 1. Lévi-Strauss' somewhat obscure account of double articulation in Raw and Cooked differs from standard accounts such as André Martinet's and John Lyons' in Noam Chomsky , pp. 19-20. Lévi-Strauss appears to include both phonemes and morphemes in the code level, whereas it is more usual to oppose to the phonemic or sound level a level of meaning which is both semantic and morphemic. Rose Rosengard Subotnik is an assistant professor of music at the University of Chicago. She has written on Adorno's criticism of nineteenth-century music and is currently studying the relation between nineteenth-century German music and philosophy. She has contributed "Tonality, Autonomy, and Competence in Post-Classical Music" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

Dr. David K. Naugle is widely regarded as a leading thinker in the area of Christian worldview formation. As Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Dallas Baptist University, he has drawn accolades and admiration. -/- This collection in his honor demonstrates that intellectual pursuits are inherently spiritual, that no area of life is separate from the lordship of Christ, and that true Christian faith is in fact the deep fulfillment of the human experience. On topics ranging from linguistics to gardening (...) and everything in between, these essays represent the depth and breadth of the idea that all goodness is God's goodness, all truth is God's truth, and all beauty is God's beauty. (shrink)

Business ethics (BE) professors play a crucial role in sensitizing business students toward their future ethical responsibilities. Yet, there are few papers exploring the ethical challenges these professors themselves face while teaching BE. In this qualitative paper, we rely on the lenses of ethical sensemaking and dramaturgical performance, and draw from 29 semi-structured interview conducted with BE professors from various countries and field notes from 17 h of observation of BE classes. We identify four kinds of rationalities that professors rely (...) on for making sense of in-class ethical challenges, eventually leading them to engage in one of four corresponding types of performances. By juxtaposing high and low scores of two underlying dimensions (degree of expressivity and degree of imposition), we offer a framework of four emerging performances. Additionally, we show that professors can shift from one performance to another during the course of their interactions. We contribute to performance literature by demonstrating the plurality of performances and explaining their emergence. We also contribute to sensemaking literature by offering support to its recent turn from an episodic (crises or disruption-based) to a relational, interactional, and present-oriented understanding. Since professors’ performances have an impact not only on their own teaching experiences but also on students’ learning experiences, undermining these would result in compromising the efforts that business schools have been making toward sensitizing future managers to their ethical responsibilities. (shrink)

Three professors reflect on the experience of creating a learning community of 22 students by linking courses in Literature and Ethics. The project demonstrates practical strategies for incorporating feminist scholarship and pedagogy into the core curriculum and for integrating core courses from diverse disciplines.

O artigo socializa os resultados de uma pesquisa concluída em 2019 que teve como objetivo investigar a prática pedagógica de professores que ensinam Matemática para alunos surdos do Ensino Médio de uma Escola da Rede Estadual de Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brasil. Portanto foi necessário: identificar as concepções dos professores sobre a prática pedagógica; descrever a compreensão dos professores sobre a aprendizagem dos alunos surdos; evidenciar quais procedimentos metodológicos os docentes utilizavam para ensinar aos alunos surdos. Destacam- se, as contribuições de: (...) Dorziat, Libâneo, Sacristán e Pérez, Skliar, Bogdan e Biklen. A abordagem é qualitativa, e caracteriza-se como um estudo de caso do tipo exploratório, por ser descritiva- interpretativa, na qual utilizou-se: análise documental do Projeto Político Pedagógico, planejamento anual de Matemática e plano de aula, entrevista semiestruturada e observação participante. Os resultados indicam que, o desenvolvimento da prática pedagógica dos professores desses alunos surdos não possibilita a reflexão crítica e inserção dos mesmos na prática social e evidenciou a importância do desenvolvimento de uma Prática Pedagógica Bilíngue no ensino de Matemática para alunos surdos. (shrink)

Professor Copi provides us with the following example:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces that his hand contains an ace, what is the probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, (...) what is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (shrink)

Although authorship policies exist, researchers understand little about their impact on perceptions of authorship scenarios. Graduate students (N = 277) at a large university read 1 of 3 vignettes about a graduate student-faculty collaboration. One half of the surveys included the American Psychological Association's statement on authorship. Participants rated (a) the ethics of the professor as first author and (b) the likelihood of a dissatisfied student reporting the authorship result, as well as the effectiveness and negative consequences of reporting. (...) Work arrangements on the project had a consistent main effect. Also, an authorship policy impacted women's ratings of first authorship when the student contributed the idea for a project. For men, a policy impacted only ratings of the likelihood of reporting when a professor was first author on a student's dissertation. Apart from sex, no other demographic variables on participants were predictive. Discussion focuses on the policy's potential for making only some specific issues salient. (shrink)

O presente estudo teve como objetivo verificar a relação entre o estado nutricional e a autopercepção de saúde de professores que atuam em escolas da rede pública em um município da região norte do PR/Brasil. O estudo foi de natureza aplicada, analítica e transversal.O estado nutricional foi avaliado pelo índice de massa corporal e a obesidade abdominal pela circunferência da cintura. O Medical Outcomes Short-Form Health Survey-SF-36 determinou a autopercepção de saúde e o Beck Depression Inventory -BDI,a saúde mental. Participaram (...) do estudo 100 professores, desses 60% estavam acima do peso e 66% apresentaram obesidade abdominal. O domínio de SF – 36 que apresentou menor escore foi vitalidade (65,55) e estado geral de saúde (70,02), os domínios com maiores escores foram capacidade funcional (83,00) e aspectos sociais (78,50). Pode-se constatar que os educadores necessitam de estratégias e programas voltados para a promoção da saúde no local de trabalho. (shrink)

Professor D'Arcy W. Thompson has recently revived a conjecture of Lauth on Geoponica, XIII, 8, 1, which runs as follows: εις οκ σονται ν χωρ ν νθιονἢ ρτεμσιον ἢ βρτονον περ τν πα$$υλιν υτεσς. τος δ ντας λσεις ν . The conjecture is that ντας is the Egyptian hontasu, ‘lizard.’ That this would make sense is obvious; but the usage of the Geop. itself, to say nothing of other authors, indicates that the word is simply what it appears to (...) be, namely the pres. part, of εμ. Thus we find in X, 46 τ ςκα σκληκας ¿ π¿ισειν μλλων φυτεειν μπξς σκλλ τν κλδ¿ν, τ¿ς δ ντας ναιρες ν κ.τ.λ. Here the explanation ‘lizards’ would hardly be reasonable; still more cogent, however, is XII, 8, 2–3, ¿κ σονται … τς δ οσας κμπας διαθερς, where no such conjecture is possible. Not dissimilar is XII, 19, 9, τς τε γρ οσας ψλλας θερεικα λλας οκ γενσθαι. All these extracts are taken from authors of the second and third centuries A.D., though we have no means of knowing how closely their actual wording is followed; it is therefore in point to cite a passage of Galen, the opening paragraph of the tractate περ αρσεων Medicine, he says, has for its aim health, and a physician must know how to bring about health if absent and preserve it if present . καλεται δ, he continues, τ μν ργαζμενα τν μ οσαν γειατν τε καβοηθματα, τ δ φυλττοντα τν οσαν γιειν διαιτματα. In other words, ὢν can be used in much the same sense as παρν. This is no novelty of Roman times, for we may compare, for instance, Soph. Ant. 1109, ο ' ντες ο τ'πντες, and El, 305 τς οσας … κα τς ποσας λπδας. (shrink)

Professor Housman states that stella never is used to mean sidus, and for authors of the best age I believe he is right; at least I know of no examples except those which he convincingly explains away in the article quoted. There seem, however, to be instances of this usage perhaps as early as the age of the Antonines. Hyginus, fab. cxcv, says of Orion, ab Ioue in stellarum numenim est relatus, quam stellam Orionem uocant. Again, fab. ccxxiv, Crotos…in (...) stellam Sagittarium. Hyginus, it is true, was a fool, and his book is crammed with mistakes, including astronomical blunders; thus, just after the last-quoted passage, and also in fab. cxxx, he names the star Arcturus when he means the constellation Arctophylax, or Bootes. But I cannot think him quite so grossly ignorant, since he was interested in star-myths, as not to know that Orion and Sagittarius are constellations. It may be, however, that the use of stella in these passages is due, not to Hyginus himself, but to the epitomators whose extracts from the original work are all that has come down to us. Of these gentry I can believe almost anything that implies false Latin or general ignorance. (shrink)

Processes of adapting complex information for broad audiences became a pressing concern by the turn of the twentieth century. Channels of communication ranged from public lectures to printed books designed to serve a social class eager for self-improvement. Through analyzing a course of public lectures given by George Howard Darwin (1845–1912) for the Lowell Institute in Boston and the monograph he based on these, The Tides and Kindred Phenomena of the Solar System (1898), this article connects the important practices of (...) public lecturing and book production–two aspects of knowledge dissemination that tend to be studied as separate entities. Darwin, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and son of the famous naturalist, relied on a diverse material culture when lecturing and producing a book. Giving a new account of Darwin’s scientific work through exploring his adaption of it for broader audiences, this article connects the diverse material culture Darwin employed in talks to the practice of producing a published book. The content of objects demonstrated and the lantern slides projected during Darwin’s lectures evolved to form a book designed to engage broad sectors of society in Europe and the United States. Darwin’s lectures were attended at full capacity, while The Tides was soon printed in numerous English editions and translated into German, Italian, Hungarian, and Spanish. (shrink)

Arthur Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half century. As an art critic for The Nation for 25 years and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and (...) reviews which have been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. The book includes 16 pages of color art reproductions. Danto is the author dozens of books on art, philosophy, the philosophy of art, and art criticism. He is a rare philosopher who is also a public intellectual. (shrink)

“In the spirit of critical friendship” between the human and social sciences on the one hand, and the neurosciences on the other, Nikolas Rose and Joelle Abi-Rached trace a part historical, part sociological, and part philosophical analysis of contemporary brain science in Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind. Their valuable synthetic account surveys a wide range of primary scientific literature, as well as legal and policy debates. Neuro aims to consider what impact, if (...) any, neurobiological research has had on our conceptions of human nature, the relationship between brain and person, and how we govern ourselves. (shrink)

In a recent article published in Body & Society, Nikolas Rose considers what he takes to be possible historical–ontological implications of recent developments in brain-decoding technologies. He argues that such technologies embody the premise that the brain is the real locus of mental states and processes, hence that a new materialist ontology of thought may be in the process of emerging through technological demonstration rather than through philosophical resolution. In this reply, I offer some reasons for being sceptical (...) about such claims. I argue that the ontology in question hardly amounts to anything particularly new, that technologies cannot demonstrate anything in these matters independently of philosophical inclinations of some kind and that it is at least an open issue whether the ontology in question can secure its claim to be a materialist ontology of thought. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito, Bíos: Biopolitics and Philosophy, with an intro. and trans. Timothy Campbell. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008; Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-first Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.