This article explores the ethics of Samuel Beckett's humour. It takes issue with the dominant reading of Beckettian humour as the redemption of a negativity occasioned by humanity's finitude. The paradigmatic case in point is here taken to be Simon Critchley's account, wherein ethics is cast as a process of coming to terms with disappointment ensuing from the inaccessibility of the Kantian Thing-in-Itself. This article takes up a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective to recast Beckett's humour as, far from offering solace for (...) finitude, highlighting instead the excess or remainder that insists, and resists philosophy's attempts to sublate it into a version of the Good. As such, the ethical demand evoked by Beckettian humour is not the attenuation of the disappointing lack implied by finitude, but rather a coping with the egregious excess of inhuman infinitude. (shrink)

Across 13 essays "e; 12 of which were previously unavailable in English "e; Deleuze specialist Anne Sauvagnargues reveals the continuing potential of Deleuze, Guattari and Simondon to invent new concepts and new modes of creativity and existence. She redeploys their work, together with other key philosophers including Bergson, Lacan, Deligny and Ruyer, to create new concepts including geophilosophy, the artmachine, the ritornello, schizoanalysis and the machinic assemblage.

Presents the major issues in Aristotle's writings on Friendship.

How children go about learning the general regularities that govern language, as well as keeping track of the exceptions to them, remains one of the challenging open questions in the cognitive science of language. Computational modeling is an important methodology in research aimed at addressing this issue. We must determine appropriate learning mechanisms that can grasp generalizations from examples of specific usages, and that exhibit patterns of behavior over the course of learning similar to those in children. Early learning of (...) verb argument structure is an area of language acquisition that provides an interesting testbed for such approaches due to the complexity of verb usages. A range of linguistic factors interact in determining the felicitous use of a verb in various constructions—associations between syntactic forms and properties of meaning that form the basis for a number of linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of language. This article presents a computational model for the representation, acquisition, and use of verbs and constructions. The Bayesian framework is founded on a novel view of constructions as a probabilistic association between syntactic and semantic features. The computational experiments reported here demonstrate the feasibility of learning general constructions, and their exceptions, from individual usages of verbs. The behavior of the model over the timecourse of acquisition mimics, in relevant aspects, the stages of learning exhibited by children. Therefore, this proposal sheds light on the possible mechanisms at work in forming linguistic generalizations and maintaining knowledge of exceptions. (shrink)

: Genetics researchers often work with distinct communities. To take moral account of how their research affects these communities, they need a richer conception of justice and they need to make those communities equal participants in decision-making about how the research is conducted and what is produced and published out of it.

This book offers a long-overdue exploration of care at a pivotal moment in the history of health care.

Genetics researchers often work with distinct communities. To take moral account of how their research affects these communities, they need a richer conception of justice and they need to make those communities equal participants in decision‐making about how the research is conducted and what is produced and published out of it.

Orienting biases for speech may provide a foundation for language development. Although human infants show a bias for listening to speech from birth, the relation of a speech bias to later language development has not been established. Here, we examine whether infants' attention to speech directly predicts expressive vocabulary. Infants listened to speech or non-speech in a preferential listening procedure. Results show that infants' attention to speech at 12 months significantly predicted expressive vocabulary at 18 months, while indices of general (...) development did not. No predictive relationships were found for infants' attention to non-speech, or overall attention to sounds, suggesting that the relationship between speech and expressive vocabulary was not a function of infants' general attentiveness. Potentially ancient evolutionary perceptual capacities such as biases for conspecific vocalizations may provide a foundation for proficiency in formal systems such language, much like the approximate number sense may provide a foundation for formal mathematics. (shrink)

For the last 40 years or so the is/ought gap, the fact/value distinction and the naturalistic fallacy have figured prominently in ethical debates. This longevity, however, has had an adverse side effect. So familiar have they become that they—and their respective rationales—have tended to become blurred. It is the purpose of this paper to explain why they should be kept distinct.

Plato's "Ion," despite its frail frame and traditionally modest status in the corpus, has given rise to large exegetical claims. Thus some historians of aesthetics, reading it alongside page 205 of the Symposium, have sought to identify in it the seeds of the post-Kantian notion of 'art' as non-technical making, and to trace to it the Romantic conception of the poet as a creative genius. Others have argued that, in the "Ion," Plato has Socrates assume the existence of a technē (...) of poetry. In this article, these claims are challenged on exegetical and philosophical grounds. To this effect, Plato's use of poiētēs and poiēsis in the Symposium is analysed, the defining criteria of technē in the "Ion" and other dialogues are identified and discussed, and the 'Romantic' interpretation of the dialogue is traced to Shelley's tendentious translation of it. These critical developments lead to what is presented as a more faithful reading of the dialogue. In the "Ion," it is claimed, Plato seeks to subvert the traditional status of poetry by having Socrates argue that poetry is both non-rational and non-cognitive in nature. In the third part of the article, suggestions are offered as to the contribution made by the "Ion" to the evolution of Plato's reflections on poetic composition, and particularly as to the reasons which later induced Plato to substitute the concept of mimesis for that of inspiration in his account of poetry. (shrink)

" Nous avons tenté dans cet ouvrage de tracer le chemin qui va de la logique traditionnelle à la logique transcendantale [...] à la logique transcendantale qui n'est pas une seconde logique mais qui est seulement la logique elle-même, radicale et concrète, qui doit son développement à la méthode phénoménologique. En vérité, pour s'exprimer plus précisément, nous n'avons justement eu en vue, comme logique transcendantale, que la logique telle qu'elle est délimitée traditionnellement, la logique analytique qui sans contredit grâce à (...) sa généralité vide et formelle embrasse toutes les sphères d'êtres et d'objets, corrélativement toutes les sphères de connaissances. Toutefois, étant astreints à reconsidérer la caractérisation du sens et de l'ampleur de la recherche transcendantale, nous avons par avance acquis aussi du même coup le moyen de comprendre les " logiques " (qu'il reste à fonder) ayant un autre sens, conçues comme doctrines de la science, mais comme doctrines matérielles ; doctrines de la science parmi lesquelles la plus élevée et la plus étendue serait la logique de la science absolue, la logique de la philosophie phénoménologico-transcendantale elle-même ". E. Husserl. (shrink)

Plotinus’s theory of dual selfhood has ethical norms built into it, all of which derive from the ontological superiority of the higher (or undescended) soul in us overthe body-soul compound. The moral life, as it is presented in the Enneads, is a life of self-perfection, devoted to the care of the higher self. Such a conception of morality is prone to strike modern readers as either ‘egoistic’ or unduly austere. If there is no doubt that Plotinus’s ethics is exceptionally austere, (...) it will be argued below that it is not ‘egoistic.’ To that effect, the following questions will be addressed: Are the virtues, civic as well as purificatory, mere means to Plotinus’s metaphysically conceived ethical goal? To what extent must the lower self abnegate itself so as to enable the higher self to ascend to Intellect and beyond? And if self-perfection lies at the centre of the Plotinian moral life, is there any conceptual room left in it for other-regarding norms of conduct? A close reading of selected passages from Plotinus’s tractate I.2[19] On Virtues and tractate VI.8[39] On Free Will and the Will of the One will, it is claimed, bring elements of answer to these questions. (shrink)

Contrary to the assumptions of empiricist philosophies of science, the theory-laden character of data will not imply the inherent failure (subjectivity, circularity, or rationalization) of instruments to expose nature's secrets. The success of instruments is credited to scientists' capacity to create artificial technological analogs to familiar physical systems. The design of absorption spectrometers illustrates the point: Progress in designing many modern instruments is generated by analogically projecting theoretical insights from known physical systems to unknown terrain. An experimental realism is defended.

Increasing globalization of the nursing workforce and the desire for migrants to realize their full potential in their host country is an important public policy and management issue. Several studies have examined the challenges migrant nurses face as they seek licensure and access to international work. However, fewer studies examine the barriers and challenges internationally educated nurses (IEN) experience transitioning into the workforces after they achieve initial registration in their adopted country. In this article, the authors report findings from an (...) empirically grounded study that examines the experience of IENs who entered Ontario’s workforce between 2003 and 2005. We found that migrant nurses unanimously described nursing as ‘different’ from that in their country of origin. Specifically, IENs reported differences in the expectations of professional nursing practice and the role of patients and families in decision‐making. In addition, problems with English language fluency cause work‐related stress and cognitive fatigue. Finally, the experience of being the outsider is a reality for many IENs. This study provides important insights as policy and management decision‐makers balance the tension between increasing the IEN workforce and the delivery of safe patient care. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11.3 (2001) 219-220 [Access article in PDF] Introduction In the last couple of decades,commodification has become almost a buzz-word in bioethics. As we become technically more adept at detaching elements of human bodies and making use of them for others, it seems as if more and more things-from motherhood to gametes to kidneys to our very DNA-can be borrowed, rented, bought, and sold. Other (...) technology allows us unprecedented influence over the characteristics of our offspring (unprecedented, that is, if we ignore the many cultures in which children were and are routinely discarded because they are the wrong sex, disabled, or the product of multiple births). It is common, for example, for writers to worry that the availability of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis will seduce parents into thinking of their children as commodities, to be ordered in much the same way as automobiles, with the inevitable concomitant that they will want to "return" children who do not measure up to their specifications.Unfortunately, a great deal of the talk about "commodification" has been clumsy and sloppy. The term has been used as a magic bullet, as if saying "But that's commodification!" is the same as having made an argument. In fact, commodification of human persons, human bodies, human labor, human relationships, is a complex matter. In many human dealings, commodified and noncommodified understandings of the same thing, or the same transaction, exist more or less comfortably together. Most Westerners condemn commercial sex, for example, while at the same time knowing that in most times and places in the world, marriage was and is thought of as primarily an economic relationship. The common use of "cheap" in post-World War II American slang to describe a teenage woman who is more sexually available than her peers perfectly captures the market rhetoric inherent in respectable American sexual mores.Given this complexity, it is not surprising that many writers in bioethics have gravitated to the work of Margaret Jane Radin. In her two books, Contested Commodities (Harvard University Press, 1996) and Reinterpreting Property (University of Chicago Press, 1993), and many articles, [End Page 219] Radin has taken on the problem of commodification without falling into either sentimentality or cynicism. She is a careful thinker and a careful (and demanding!) writer. We have long valued her work as we have sought to grapple with the many ways in which the problem of commodification arises in bioethics. In this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, entitled "Who's Afraid of Commodification?," we have asked three colleagues to join us in reflecting on aspects of the problem of commodification in bioethics. We are especially delighted that Radin agreed to respond to our efforts in this direction.Lisa Sowle Cahill takes the discussion of commodification to a new level, as she focuses on global ethics, especially genetic research and the marketing and accessibility of pharmaceuticals. Dena S. Davis explores the debates over refusal of treatment and rational suicide and concludes that to put a value on particular pieces of one's lifespan does not necessarily lead to negative aspects of commodification. Ronald M. Green analyzes Radin's use of Kant. Suzanne Holland addresses commodification of body parts, from gametes to cadaveric tissue, and concludes with some specific recommendations. Thomas A. Shannon takes a fresh look at the problem of whether we should allow the sale of organs; he shares with Holland a special concern for the rhetoric of commodification. Finally, Margaret Jane Radin responds to the preceding essays, asking four "stubbornly difficult" questions, questions that show that the debate about commodification is only just begun. Dena S. Davis and Suzanne Holland... (shrink)

We do not know how much clinical physicians carrying out clinical trials in oncology and haematology struggle with ethical concerns. To our knowledge, no empirical research exists on these questions in a Nordic context. Therefore, this study aims to learn what kinds of ethical challenges physicians in Sweden, Denmark and Finland face when caring for patients in clinical trials; and what strategies, if any, they have developed to deal with them. The main findings were that clinical cancer trials pose ethical (...) challenges related to autonomy issues, unreasonable hope for benefits and the therapeutic misconception. Nevertheless, some physicians expressed that struggling with such challenges was not of great concern. This conveys a culture of hope where health care professionals and patients uphold hope and mutually support belief in clinical trials. This culture being implicit, physicians need opportunities to deliberately reflect over the characteristics that should constitute this culture. (shrink)

This is a stellar collection. The pieces are diversified, not a commemorative gesture but a critical engagement.

The status of beauty in Plotinus' metaphysics is unclear: is it a Form in Intellect, the Intelligible Principle itself, or the One? Basing themselves on a number of well-known passages in the "Enneads," and assuming that Plotinus' Forms are similar in function and status to Plato's, many scholars hold that Plotinus theorized beauty as a determinate entity in Intellect. Such assumptions, it is here argued, lead to difficulties over self-predication, the interpretation of Plotinus's rich and varied aesthetic terminology and, most (...) of all, the puzzling dearth of references, in the whole of the "Enneads," to a Form of Beauty. A detailed reading of VI.7.32 and 33 reveals that, in these two crucial passages at least, Plotinus adopts an aesthetic approach to the One and that, far from confining Beauty to Intellect, he equates the One, the Good and the Beautiful. This reading is here supported not only by an analysis of the text but also by a consideration of the semantic differences between μορφή and ε[unrepresentable symbol]δος, the inter-relatedness, in Plotinus' philosophy, of the concepts of love and value, and the exclusion of beauty from the πρ[unrepresentable symbol]τα γένη. In turn, the exegesis of VI.7.32 and 33 raises the issue of the significance for aesthetics understood in the narrow sense of the word, of Plotinus's ontology of beauty. It is here claimed that in so far as sensible beauty, both artistic and natural, can be nothing else than an effect of the shaping action of the Forms and a reflection of their radiance, singular or global, it should not be held that Plotinus had an aesthetics in the modern sense of this term. (shrink)

The status of beauty in Plotinus' metaphysics is unclear: is it a Form in Intellect, the Intelligible Principle itself, or the One? Basing themselves on a number of well-known passages in the "Enneads," and assuming that Plotinus' Forms are similar in function and status to Plato's, many scholars hold that Plotinus theorized beauty as a determinate entity in Intellect. Such assumptions, it is here argued, lead to difficulties over self-predication, the interpretation of Plotinus's rich and varied aesthetic terminology and, most (...) of all, the puzzling dearth of references, in the whole of the "Enneads," to a Form of Beauty. A detailed reading of VI.7.32 and 33 reveals that, in these two crucial passages at least, Plotinus adopts an aesthetic approach to the One and that, far from confining Beauty to Intellect, he equates the One, the Good and the Beautiful. This reading is here supported not only by an analysis of the text but also by a consideration of the semantic differences between μορφή and ε[unrepresentable symbol]δος, the inter-relatedness, in Plotinus' philosophy, of the concepts of love and value, and the exclusion of beauty from the πρ[unrepresentable symbol]τα γένη. In turn, the exegesis of VI.7.32 and 33 raises the issue of the significance for aesthetics understood in the narrow sense of the word, of Plotinus's ontology of beauty. It is here claimed that in so far as sensible beauty, both artistic and natural, can be nothing else than an effect of the shaping action of the Forms and a reflection of their radiance, singular or global, it should not be held that Plotinus had an aesthetics in the modern sense of this term. (shrink)

Plato's Hesiod is a neglected topic, scholars having long regarded Plato's Homer as a more promising field of inquiry. My aim in this chapter is to demonstrate that this particular bias of scholarly attention, although understandable, is unjustified. Of no other dialogue is this truer than of the Ion.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 43-44, June 2011.

_Charts the stages of the history of friendship as a philosophical concept in the Western world._.

Concepts of inter-personal relations are most elusive. They conceal assumptions, norms, beliefs and various associated notions, and become even more opaque and potent when they transcend the language in which they are used and come to reflect a culture or a tradition. Escaping the critical gaze of those “in” the tradition, these concepts and their theoretical baggage remain largely alien to those outside it. This gap fosters a sense of alienation, if not of exclusion, on the part of those living (...) outside what they often regard as a charmed circle. No doubt, friendship is unlikely to figure on the danger list of such concepts. Yet, the concept is not innocent. It reflects philosophical and social presuppositions accumulated in the course of its long history and bears the weight of the paradigm shifts it underwent. This essay identifies some of these presuppositions built into it, outlines major steps in its development, and offers reasons why this particulate inter-personal relation came to be conceived the way it is conceived in “the Western tradition”. (shrink)

The personality and the writings of Marsilio Ficino mark the turning point from the middleages to the Renaissance. In John Marenbon’s apt description, medieval philosophy is ‘the story of a complex tradition founded in Neoplatonism, but not simply as a continuation or development of Neoplatonism itself’. ‘Not simply’ because the Enneads, the first and finest flowering of that tradition, testify to Plotinus’ deep engagement, not only with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Middle Platonists, but also with (...) a variety of theologico-mystical writings of diverse middleeastern provenances, from Egypt to Persia. This complex tradition, Ficino transmitted to the West in the form of translations from Greek into Latin of the dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus as well as of several commentaries on those texts by later thinkers. In addition to such exegetical works, Ficino wrote several philosophical treatises of his own. Finally, as an ordained priest, he was also well acquainted with the writings of the Church Fathers, all of which had contributed to his belief that religion should not be separated from philosophy. To the completion of this ambitious scholarly programme and the fulfilment of his commitment to the Church, he brought the resources of his powerfully syncretistic mind. Rather than merely combining various texts and traditions, he made them speak to each other and, in the process, evolved a system that was both sui generis and attuned to the new ways of thinking that were then emerging in quattrocento Florence. His in-depth understanding of all these texts, together with his ability to spot similarities, analogies and correspondences between them, enabled him to fuse into a coherent system various elements which a modern historian of philosophy would regard as dissimilar if not incompatible. His philosophical acumen enabled him, when he thought it appropriate, to improve on the views of those he regarded as his masters and to fill whatever gaps he found in their arguments. The present essay is an attempt to unravel the nature of Ficino’s syncretism, in which three levels of widening scope will be distinguished: authorial, trans-authorial and trans-doctrinal. To achieve a desirable level of both precision and concision, a short text will then be analysed, namely Speech Five of his most widely read treatise, a Latin commentary on Plato’s Symposium, entitled Commentarium in Convivium Platonis De Amore. It will be shown how, through the fictional speech that he put in the mouth of Marsuppini, his chosen spokesperson of the Platonic Agathon, Ficino succeeded, not only in blending Platonic, Plotinian and Christian elements in the reconstruction of an argument that Plato had meant us to regard as flawed to the core, but he also composed an elegant and original speech that continues to intrigue and enchant its readers after a gap of over six centuries. (shrink)

The personality and the writings of Marsilio Ficino mark the turning point from the middleages to the Renaissance. In John Marenbon’s apt description, medieval philosophy is ‘the story of a complex tradition founded in Neoplatonism, but not simply as a continuation or development of Neoplatonism itself’. ‘Not simply’ because the Enneads, the first and finest flowering of that tradition, testify to Plotinus’ deep engagement, not only with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Middle Platonists, but also with (...) a variety of theologico-mystical writings of diverse middleeastern provenances, from Egypt to Persia. This complex tradition, Ficino transmitted to the West in the form of translations from Greek into Latin of the dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus as well as of several commentaries on those texts by later thinkers. In addition to such exegetical works, Ficino wrote several philosophical treatises of his own. Finally, as an ordained priest, he was also well acquainted with the writings of the Church Fathers, all of which had contributed to his belief that religion should not be separated from philosophy. To the completion of this ambitious scholarly programme and the fulfilment of his commitment to the Church, he brought the resources of his powerfully syncretistic mind. Rather than merely combining various texts and traditions, he made them speak to each other and, in the process, evolved a system that was both sui generis and attuned to the new ways of thinking that were then emerging in quattrocento Florence. His in-depth understanding of all these texts, together with his ability to spot similarities, analogies and correspondences between them, enabled him to fuse into a coherent system various elements which a modern historian of philosophy would regard as dissimilar if not incompatible. His philosophical acumen enabled him, when he thought it appropriate, to improve on the views of those he regarded as his masters and to fill whatever gaps he found in their arguments. The present essay is an attempt to unravel the nature of Ficino’s syncretism, in which three levels of widening scope will be distinguished: authorial, trans-authorial and trans-doctrinal. To achieve a desirable level of both precision and concision, a short text will then be analysed, namely Speech Five of his most widely read treatise, a Latin commentary on Plato’s Symposium, entitled Commentarium in Convivium Platonis De Amore. It will be shown how, through the fictional speech that he put in the mouth of Marsuppini, his chosen spokesperson of the Platonic Agathon, Ficino succeeded, not only in blending Platonic, Plotinian and Christian elements in the reconstruction of an argument that Plato had meant us to regard as flawed to the core, but he also composed an elegant and original speech that continues to intrigue and enchant its readers after a gap of over six centuries. (shrink)

The paper, although polemical for the most part, also presents a substantive thesis. The polemical part is directed at the claim that the Platonic Socrates held that philosophy as a practice is to be devoted to the care of self and others, and that the expression of emotion is an important aspect of the philosophic life. To undermine that claim, counter-examples from the autobiographical narrative in the Phaedo and the speeches of Diotima and Alcibiades in the Symposium are brought in. (...) Once analysed at the required depth, those passages show that, on the contrary, Plato’s Socrates remains consistently dispassionate both in his life, as he narrates it, and in the views he is made to express in the two dialogues. Rather than promoting self-expression, Socrates never ceased to warn us against misology. (shrink)

The paper, although polemical for the most part, also presents a substantive thesis. The polemical part is directed at the claim that the Platonic Socrates held that philosophy as a practice is to be devoted to the care of self and others, and that the expression of emotion is an important aspect of the philosophic life. To undermine that claim, counter-examples from the autobiographical narrative in the Phaedo and the speeches of Diotima and Alcibiades in the Symposium are brought in. (...) Once analysed at the required depth, those passages show that, on the contrary, Plato's Socrates remains consistently dispassionate both in his life, as he narrates it, and in the views he is made to express in the two dialogues. Rather than promoting self-expression, Socrates never ceased to warn us against misology. (shrink)

Is scientific reasoning the standard of rationality? Can historical explanation be reduced to the scientific mode of reasoning? R.G. Collingwood answered both questions negatively. He further attempted to show that the types of justification used to account for moral actions are closely similar to historical explanations. His ethics has thus a strong historicist and relativistio flavour. Hie aim of my paper is to state Collingwood's ethical views and to show that the "ethical judgment", which inevitably relies on rules, cannot be (...) equated with the "historical judgment". (shrink)