This chapter contains sections titled: The Bike as a Vehicle for Meaningful Suffering Suffering as the Hub of the Tour de France Share the Road! (And the Pain) Phil and Paul, and the Extension of Meaningful Suffering Of Suffering and Bicycles Notes.

This article will investigate the issue of accessing benxin 本心 (original mind), subsequent operation from Self and, in that process, union with the greater universe or benti 本体 (original substance)—a state expressed in the West as cosmic consciousness. It is proposed that this allows one to participate as a partner in the creative process of one’s own life and the surrounding world. The equally important question of how to gain contact with original mind will also be addressed, as well (...) as the consequences of doing so with regard to the human condition. The concept of original thought is introduced, being important here as it is held to be that thought which is generated in the pure condition of original mind, devoid of influence from finite physical existence. (shrink)

Frances Malino - The Abbe Gregoire and His World - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 266-267 Book Review The Abbé Grégoire and His World Jeremy D. Popkin and Richard H. Popkin, editors. The Abbé Grégoire and His World. International Archives of the History of Ideas. Dordrecht: Kluwer Publishers, 2000. Pp. xv + 191. Cloth, $97.00. The editors of this fine volume challenge an often-held truism, that collections of articles, especially those originating (...) as conference papers, will be uneven and suffer a lack of coherence. In a veritable tour de force, Popkin père et fils, along with seven other scholars, have successfully captured the rich, albeit controversial, life and legacy of the Abbé Henri Grégoire. Revolutionary and cleric, assimilationist and advocate for religious and racial minorities, universalist and cultural imperialist, Grégoire embodies the dreams,.. (shrink)

The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of (...) a person’s life. Studies 2a–b found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear. (shrink)

Higher levels of reliance on cognitive reappraisal to manage daily emotional events are commonly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. However, reappraisal is a cognitively demanding regulation strategy, and its efficacy may depend on how successfully an individual is able to employ it. Individual differences in the association between reappraisal use and depressive symptoms may be particularly evident during adolescence, when the cognitive skills required to implement this complex strategy are still in development. The current study sought to determine (...) whether the association between reappraisal use and subsequent depressive symptom development is contingent on perceived regulatory success when using reappraisal. At Wave 1, adolescents (n = 178, mean age = 13.92, 49.7% female) used an experience-sampling smartphone app to report on their reappraisal use and perceptions of regulatory success over the course of two weeks. Six, 12, and 18 months later, adolescents completed a self-report measure of their depressive symptoms. Results showed that a) reappraisal use was associated with both subsequent depressive symptoms and trajectories of depressive symptoms over time, b) these associations were moderated by perceptions of regulatory success. Higher levels of reappraisal use were associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms only for those who reported higher than average between-subject regulatory success when reappraisal was enacted. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs with social goals face various challenges; insights into how these entrepreneurs experience and appreciate their work remain a black box though. Drawing on identity, conservation of resources, and person–organization fit theories, this study examines how entrepreneurs’ social value creation beliefs relate to their work-related well-being (job satisfaction, work engagement, and lack of work burnout), as well as how this process might be influenced by social concerns with respect to the common good. Using data from the German Public Value Atlas (...) 2015 and 2019 and the Swiss Public Value Atlas 2017, a three-study design analyzes three samples of entrepreneurs in Germany and Switzerland. Study 1 reveals that entrepreneurs report higher job satisfaction when they believe their organization creates social value. Study 2 indicates that these beliefs relate negatively to work burnout; entrepreneurs’ perceptions of having meaningful work mediate this relationship. Study 3 affirms and extends these results by showing that a sense of work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between social value creation beliefs and work engagement and that this mediating role is more prominent among entrepreneurs with strong social concerns. This investigation thus identifies a critical pathway—the extent to which entrepreneurs experience their work activities as important and personally meaningful—that connects social value creation beliefs with enhanced work-related well-being, as well as how this process might vary with a personal orientation that embraces the common good. (shrink)

Many theorists have argued that the meaningfulness of a life is related in some way to the narrative or story that can be told about that life. Relationists claim that a life gains in meaning when a particular set of “narrative relations” obtain between the events that constitute it. Recountists claim that it is the telling of a story about those relations, not the relations themselves, that confers meaning. After identifying problems with existing versions of both of (...) these positions, this paper introduces a new and more satisfying variant of Recountism, centered on the old-fashioned idea that a meaningful life is, in part, an intelligible one. I argue that personal narration does play a role in a meaningful life and that my “Fitting Story” account provides the best explanation of how and why that is so. (shrink)

The intention of this work is to trace in the most archaic human condition the anthropological roots that justify the foundation of an ethics, as conceived by Paul Ricœur in his book Oneself as Another . To do this, first I will try to expose the route that the creative image follows from its genesis in drives to its full semantics in the symbol, according to the dialogue that the author engaged with Freud in his work Freud and Philosophy based (...) on his hermeneutic concerns. Second, considering a critical remark that Ricœur makes about Freud, I will explore the intentional orientation towards “the good life”, whose reflexive sense, “self-esteem”, integrates the symbolic dimension of action and sets the basis for the realization ( épanouissement ) of the human person. (shrink)

James of Viterbo OESA,, let us only one political treatise, the De regimine christiano,, writen during the climax of the conflict between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France,, in which, among other subjects, he also explained how must be the behavior of the king, under a religious-ethical perspective. The main theme of the XIV Congress of Medieval Philosophy: Continuity and discontinuities, allows to explain about this matter and to check that it well corresponds the whises of some societies (...) and peoples of our time. Thus, according the Doctor Gratiosus’ sight, we will discuss about the king’s duties to God, to himself and to his subjects. (shrink)

The disease of love appears in an unbroken chain of medical treatises stretching from sixth-century Byzantium through the Middle Ages to post-Renaissance Western Europe. Lovesickness, known variously as amor eros, amor heros, or amor hereos in medieval Latin medical texts, has attracted the attention of literary scholars because many of its symptoms correspond to conventional signs of love in medieval literature. According to George Lyman Kittredge, “What to the physician were symptoms … became, in the chivalric system, duties — ideals (...) of emotion which the true lover must live up to, and which the hypocrite takes pains to counterfeit.” In the late thirteenth century the Catalan physician Arnald of Villanova explicitly compared the disease of love and feudal service in his Tractatus de amore heroico. He claimed that this love “is called heroic as though lordly , not only because it befalls lords, but also either because it dominates, subjugating the soul and ruling a man's heart, or because the acts of such lovers toward the desired object are similar to the acts of servants toward their lords.”. (shrink)

New translations tracing decades of Beauvoir's leftist political engagement during the turbulent era of decolonization, from articles exposing conditions in fascist Spain and Portugal in 1945 and hard hitting attacks on right-wing intellectuals in the 1950s, to a 1962 defense of an Algerian freedom fighter, Djamila Boupacha, and a 1975 article calling for the 'two state solution' in Israel. The texts range from a surprising 1952 defense of the misogynistic 18th c. pornographer, the Marquis de Sade, to the transcription of (...) a co-written 1974 documentary film on the aged in France. (shrink)

Aristotle’s analysis of action as choice is discussed in this chapter. Choice implies the correct assessment of one’s own situation and of the means (deliberation). We are what we choose: to choose is to act. To know and to think are intentional and practical oriented. The ultimate end is the object of truth and a lifelong project in the light of which the choice is made. Choices have consequences for ourselves. Even if we do nothing about it. Most of the (...) time we act in the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The truth of acting lies beyond and out of reach of these immediate indications. How can we become transparent about what is going on in our lives? How can we refrain from pleasing and welcome pain? Struggling for truth means: “opening up” to what is good and bad for us and acting accordingly. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired (...) comparisons between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Background In the ethical and clinical literature, cases of parents who want treatment for their child to be withdrawn against the views of the medical team have not received much attention. Yet resolution of such conflicts demands much effort of both the medical team and parents. Objective To discuss who can best protect a child9s interests, which often becomes a central issue, putting considerable pressure on mutual trust and partnership. Methods We describe the case of a 3-year-old boy with acquired (...) brain damage due to autoimmune-mediated encephalitis whose parents wanted to stop treatment. By comparing this case with relevant literature, we systematically explored the pros and cons of sharing end-of-life decisions with parents in cases where treatment is considered futile by parents and not (yet) by physicians. Conclusions Sharing end-of-life decisions with parents is a more important duty for physicians than protecting parents from guilt or doubt. Moreover, a request from parents on behalf of their child to discontinue treatment is, and should be, hard to over-rule in cases with significant prognostic uncertainty and/or in cases with divergent opinions within the medical team. (shrink)

It has been argued that organizational structures (the way tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated) can influence moral agency in organizations. In particular, low values on different structural parameters (functional concentration, specialization, separation, and formalization) are said to foster an organizational context (allowing for relating to the goals and output of the organization, moral deliberation, and social connectedness) that is conducive to moral agency. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the organizational structure and moral agency in the case (...) of a.s.r. (a large Dutch insurance company). While our empirical results fit the thesis that low values on structural parameters positively relate to moral agency, they also refine our understanding of the influence of structural parameters. In particular, our data suggest that the influence of functional concentration not only depends on whether it is low, but also on the type of criterion used for identifying business units; they suggest that the specific organizational context may put a limit to lowering design parameters and points at several non-structural factors that have an influence on the relation between structure and moral agency. In all, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of the conditions conducive to moral agency in organizations. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

It is only within the human world of culture and as a member of a community of persons that the individual can realize his native potentialities and become a person. As a member of this community he must learn to play many roles. Some he plays successively as he passes through the stages of his life; others he plays alternately or simultaneously. The playing of each calls for the exercise of special abilities and powers. It makes use of only (...) a part of the native resources of his individual endowment. An individual may be better fitted by nature to play one role than another. But in the playing of any, he undergoes a specialized development which may help or hinder the development essential to the playing of others. Roles differ widely in the demands they make and the opportunities they offer for the exercise of native powers and the realization of capacities for intelligence and feeling. But however great may be the demands it makes or the opportunities it provides, no role is exhaustive of all that a person has the potentiality for becoming or of what he has become as the person he is. To be a person he must play more than one role and combine the playing of many. (shrink)

This article proffers a personhood-based conception of a meaningful life. I look into the ethical structure of the salient idea of personhood in African philosophy to develop an account of a meaningful life. In my view, the ethics of personhood is constituted by three components, namely (1) the fact of being human, which informs (2) a view of moral status qua the capacity for moral virtue, and (3) which specifies the final good of achieving or developing (...) a morally virtuous character. In light of the ethics of personhood, I will propose the view that a meaningful life is a function of achieving moral excellence or perfection. The moral perfection proposed here, to embody a meaningful life, is of a deontological and satisficing kind. The achievement of satisfactory levels of moral excellence, within sociopolitical and moral limits, captures the essence of a meaningful life. I conclude the article by considering objections against the view proposed here. (shrink)

Excerpt from L'Art de Sentir Et de Juger en Matière de Goût Nous 'zivons' employé trois especes de papier _à la réimpres'sion de ce livre; ce qui forme trois éditions. La premiere, de luxe et tirée àtrès petit nombre sur du papier Velin.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, (...) preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Since the Fall of 1993, at the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l'Apprentissage et le D/span>veloppement en /span>ducation of the Universit/span> du Qu/span>bec /span> Montr/span>al, two mathematicians and one philosopher have collaborated to design and develop a research project involving philosophy, mathematics and sciences. Previous observations in the classroom had led the researchers to realize that, within the school curriculum, children like some subject matters and dislike others. Most of them usually succeed in arts, physical education and language arts, but (...) many have difficulties in succeeding in mathematics. Why? On the one hand, as Matthew Lipman advocates, the school curricula are not sufficiently "meaningful" for children. On the other hand, some studies in the field of mathematics suggest that there are myths and prejudices about mathematics in primary schools and that the school system is partly responsible for this. Indeed, the school system does not invite children to express emotions in class about mathematics nor does it favor creativity. It does not allow dialogue among peers about mathematical concepts and problems, nor the construction of mathematical knowledge by the students themselves. (shrink)

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science. (...) The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year. (shrink)

When Barthes starts to conceptualize his courses at the Collège de France, he envisions a methodology which he actually considers to be an ‘anti-method’, that is to say, an ‘unscientific’ method which goes against the grain of traditional education. He pursues the method of his seminars at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, especially the seminar that ended up with the publication of A Lover's Discourse. In the conclusion to the seminar, Barthes turns to Nietzsche to ground this ‘anti-method’ (...) and to substantiate his claim that literature is a vital dimension of his research and teaching. In the introductory session of Comment vivre ensemble, Barthes labels this ‘anti-method’ – once more with the help of Nietzsche – ‘paideia’. This article aims to scrutinize the scope, the potentialities and the risks of this Greek word to Barthes's theory and ideas on life, criticism and literature. (shrink)

On the ethics of extending human life: healthy people have a right to carry on livingHumanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of a healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion—a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without. The prevailing pace of biotechnological progress is bringing ever closer the day when humanity will be (...) able to act on the latter view by rejecting a clear and present opportunity for much longer healthy lives. Indeed, some biogerontologists contend that that day has already arrived, to the extent that our hesitation in embarking on a vigorous “war on ageing” is already delaying the point at which a cure for ageing will be developed. Here I consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing ageing is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will receive in coming years as a result of these technical advances. I conclude that it will not, because of its irreconcilability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. I further conclude that all the major current reasons given for not curing ageing are mere crutches to help us cope with the immutability of ageing that we have been brought up to accept. Our failure to set aside such irrationality is already shortening potential longevity—quite probably of those already alive today—to a staggering degree. Once we realise this, our determination to consign human ageing to history will be second …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward the Materiality of Aesthetic ExperiencePeter de Bolla (bio)Over the last twenty years or so it has become a commonplace in discussions of "aesthetics" or of "art" in the most general sense to note that the term "aesthetics" was only very recently invented by Alexander Baumgarten in 1735, where it appears in his Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus [see Menke 40; Dickie; Eagleton]. But the force of (...) this observation in regard to the relative youth of the concept is rarely, if ever, commented upon. As many philosophers and critics have pointed out, Baumgarten's use of the term was not primarily angled at what today might be unproblematically called "artworks"—say, paintings in the European grand master tradition—since his new kind of investigation was to be a "science of sensual recognition," that is, a general inquiry into how we come to know the world from the evidence of our senses. But, as is also frequently remarked, early on in the tradition of speculation now associated with "aesthetics as the study of art" the mutual attraction (to put it in the most anodyne terms) of "art" and "aesthetics" seems to have been extremely strong. As Jonathan Ree remarks, "the real begetter of the philosophical doctrine connecting the arts with the empirical senses—what we might call the aesthetic theory of the arts—was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing" [58]. From this point on (for heuristic purposes it may be identified with the date of publication of Lessing's Laokoon in 1766), artworks, which heretofore had not required a specific branch of inquiry in order for them to make sense or be conceptually grounded as art, are almost universally assumed to require "aesthetic" contemplation or appreciation.1 It is curious, then, that before 1766 such a mode of experiencing artworks had not been felt to be lacking.One might understand this observation both historically and philosophically, and both approaches, it seems to me, are needed. In the case of the first, a number of material effects conspired across mid-eighteenth-century Europe to produce what was in essence the modern art market. These include the legal establishment of copyright, first in England in 1709 but only by the end of the century in France and Germany; the foundation of various institutions whose primary purpose was the promotion and establishment of the fine arts: academies of painting, sculpture, or letters either with or without royal patronage; the public exhibition of paintings (from 1737 in France and 1761 in England); the opening of royal collections to public view (during the second half of the century in London, Paris, Munich, Vienna and Rome); the development of public concerts of secular music (in small scale from the 1670s in England but only becoming fully integrated in fashionable social life by mid-century); the construction of purpose-built concert venues (the Gewandthaus in Leipzig, a former cloth merchant's hall, was remodeled in 1781 in order to accommodate a resident orchestra, in effect becoming the first dedicated concert hall in Europe); the foundation of literary periodicals and review media; the emergence of social spaces and rituals encompassing polite discussion of [End Page 19] literature (coffeehouses, the construction of dedicated library rooms in domestic settings); and the promotion of architecture to a fine art through various societies, competitions, and the public display of architectural drawings in exhibition contexts (the Royal Academy yearly show included both drawings and models). These and other material conditions helped define the fine arts and construct a market in and for them.2 By the 1770s the category of the "fine arts" was well established in Britain, Germany, and France: Charles Batteux's Les beaux arts reduit a un meme principe, first published in France in 1746, was quickly translated into English as The Polite Arts; or, a Dissertation on Poetry,Painting, Musick, Architecture, and Eloquence in 1749 and into German in 1751. By 1771 a four-volume General Theory of the Fine Arts had been published for the German public by J. G. Sulzer.All of this points to the fact that the concept of the "artwork" is subject to both historical and material pressures. Prior to the mid-eighteenth... (shrink)

Ethics and Logic in the Tractatus. Exploring an Analogy I explore an analogy between logic and ethics, as Wittgenstein understands them in the Tractatus. In the first section, I argue that Wittgenstein regards logic as a condition of the possibility of meaning, in the sense that logic makes meaningful language and thought possible. In section two, I ask why Wittgenstein calls both logic and ethics ‘transcendental’. I suggest that, while logic is a condition of the possibility of semantic meaning, (...) ethics is a condition of the possibility of existential meaning. Without ethics, life could not be meaningful. In section three, I show that harmony and agreement play a crucial role in Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be happy or unhappy, and both truth and happiness consist in some kind of harmony or agreement with reality. (shrink)

Este artigo homenageia a atualidade do curso A hermenêutica do sujeito, proferido por Foucault no Collège de France em 1982. Sabe-se que o tema central do curso é o cuidado de si como tekhné tou biou, examinado pelo filósofo nos momentos socrático-platônico, helenístico e cristão. Porém, tomaremos a questão da amizade, que atravessa as técnicas de si antigas analisadas por Foucault, para problematizar nosso presente. Após discutir a recepção que fazemos do curso quarenta anos depois, discutimos o atual momento (...) do neoliberalismo e as políticas de inimizade por ele engendradas, de modo a pensar a prática da amizade como contraconduta, como prática de resistência. A amizade anarquista como forma de associação é tomada como máquina de guerra possível contra as atuais políticas de inimizade neoliberais. Palavras-chave: amizade; técnicas de si; ética; política; anarquismo. In defense of friendship: life’s proofs in the subjecvity wars of the contemporary enmity policies Abstract: This article pays homage to the actuality of the course The hermeneutics of the subject, given by Foucault at the Collège de France in 1982. It is known that the central theme of the course is the care of the self as tekhné tou biou, examined by the philosopher in three moments: Socratic-Platonic, Hellenistic, and Christian. However, we will take the question of friendship, which crosses the ancient techniques of the self analyzed by Foucault, to problematize our present. After discussing our reception of the course forty years later, we discuss the current moment of neoliberalism and the enmity policies engendered by it, in order to think about the practice of friendship as a counter-conduct, as a practice of resistance. Anarchist friendship as a form of association is taken as a possible war machine against current neoliberal policies of enmity. Key words: friendship; techniques of the self; ethics; politics; anarchism. En defensa de la amistad: pruebas de vida en las guerras de subjetividad de las políticas de enemistad contemporáneas Resumen: En este artículo prestamos homenaje a la actualidad del curso La hermenéutica del sujeto, presentado por Foucault en 1982 en el Collège de France. Se sabe que el tema que es el centro del curso ha sido la inquietud de sí como tekhné tou biou, examinada por el filósofo en tres momentos de la antigüedad: el socrático-platónico, el helenístico y el cristiano. Aún así, tomamos la cuestión de la amistad, que es transversal a las técnicas de sí antiguas analizadas por Foucault, para problematizar nuestro tiempo presente. Después de discutir la recepción que nosotros hacemos del curso cuarenta años más tarde, ponemos en debate el momento actual del neoliberalismo y sus políticas de enemistad, de manera a pensar la práctica de la amistad como contra conducta, como práctica de resistencia. Tomamos la amistad anarquista como como forma de asociación como posible maquina de guerra contra las políticas de enemistad neoliberales actuales. Palabras clave: amistad; técnicas de sí; ética; política; anarquismo Data de registro: 10/07/2022 Data de aceite: 26/10/2022. (shrink)

This is a study of the effects of a number of background variables on ethical perceptions of Mexican and U.S. marketers. This research investigates how a marketer's personal religiousness, relativism, and the ethical values influence in perceptions of the degree of ethical problems in hypothetical marketing scenarios. It also examines differences between Mexican and U.S. marketers on these variables. The results show significant differences in perception between the countries, and we discuss the implications of these differences for cross-cultural business activities.

Since the early 1980’s, with the clinical advent of in vitro fertilization resulting in so-called “test tube babies,” a wide array of ethical considerations and concerns regarding artificial womb technology (AWT) have been described. Recent breakthroughs in the development of extracorporeal neonatal life support by means of AWT have reinitiated ethical interest about this topic with a sense of urgency. Most of the recent ethical literature on the topic, however, pertains not to the more imminent scenario of a physiologically (...) improved method of neonatal care through AWT, but instead to the remote scenario of “complete ectogenesis” that imagines human gestation occurring entirely outside of the womb. This scoping review of the ethical literature on AWT spans from more abstract concerns about complete ectogenesis to more immediate concerns about the soon-to-be-expected clinical life support of what we term the fetal neonate or fetonate. Within an organizing framework of different stages of human gestational development, from conception to the viable premature infant, we discuss both already identified and newly emerging ethical considerations and concerns regarding AWT and the care of the fetonate. (shrink)

This paper reports on comparative research on how textual representations of issues related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in corporate annual reports from Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands have changed over time. The results show a substantial increase on a number of topics that can be linked to the general CSR-discourse in the 2001 sample in comparison to the 1991 and 1981 samples. The rise in the CSR-discourse appears to be related to a drop in other discourses related to issues (...) of social responsibility regarding the social, economic and political development of a company’s native country. (shrink)

Offers a philosophical perspective on the nature and value of writing a memoir. Artful Truths offers a concise guide to the fundamental philosophical questions that arise when writing a literary work about your own life. Bringing a philosopher’s perspective to a general audience, Helena de Bres addresses what a memoir is, how the genre relates to fiction, memoirists’ responsibilities to their readers and subjects, and the question of why to write a memoir at all. Along the way, she delves (...) into a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of the self, the limits of knowledge, the idea of truth, the obligations of friendship, the relationship between morality and art, and the question of what makes a life meaningful. Written in a clear and conversational style, it offers a resource for those who write, teach, and study memoirs, as well as those who love to read them. With a combination of literary and philosophical knowledge, de Bres takes the many challenges directed at memoirists seriously, while ultimately standing in defense of a genre that, for all its perplexities—and maybe partly because of them—continually proves to be both beloved and valuable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 34.2 (2006) 3-13 [Access article in PDF] Biographical Illusion and Methodological Reality Leland De La Durantaye Pierre Bourdieu. Esquisse Pour Une Auto-Analyse. Paris: Raisons d'Agir, 2004. 1 Like his student and friend Nietzsche, Jacob Burckhardt often stressed the necessity for a scholar to work in solitude. Like Nietzsche, he also possessed a gift for acidic analogy and likened the world of academia to a group of dogs sniffing (...) one another.Few observers of the academic interactions of his time had such sharp senses as Pierre Bourdieu, and few have been as torn between solitary reflection and communal exchange. Trained by France's most elite academic institutions (such as the celebrated Parisian lycée Louis-le-Grand and the even more celebrated École Normale Supérieure), Bourdieu was grateful for the opportunities that this training afforded him. And he felt that this gratitude could best be repaid by submitting those elite academic institutions and their insular world to an unsparing critique, to unveiling the distance that separated their stated ideals from their real effects.Like Bergson and Jaurès, like Sartre and Aron, like Foucault and Derrida, Bourdieu studied that which was most difficult and most prestigious where it was most difficult and prestigious: philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure. Like those famous fellow alumni, he was a brilliant student, and like them, he longed to distinguish his personal vision from those around him. This led him to do something surprising, something that, despite their separate and significant dissatisfactions with the philosophy of their day, neither Bergson nor Sartre, neither Foucault nor Derrida ever did: he abandoned philosophy. He left what he saw as the intellectual royal road for the most pedestrian of paths—that of sociology.As he often reminded his readers, sociology was in a sorry state when he entered it. Both in academic appraisal and the popular imagination, it was considered dry and provincial. It was thought to have no true intellectual adventure in it—nothing of the ethnologist tramping through the rain forests of the Amazon, nothing of the lone philosopher working through the night on an opus to end metaphysics. It was laborious and abstract; it dealt in statistical generalities. Bourdieu repeatedly described sociology as "the pariah of disciplines."1 He had, however, a special mission for it in mind. [End Page 3]In Bourdieu's posthumous memoir Esquisse pour une auto-analyse, published in February 2004—two years after his death—by the small publishing house he helped found, Raisons d'Agir, he notes how, "a bit as a joke," he had often defined himself as "the leader of a liberation movement aiming to free the social sciences from philosophy's imperialism" [94].2 From early on in his career, he had wished to revolt against the "empire of the total philosopher"—an empire reigned over by, more than any other, Jean-Paul Sartre [cf. 25].3 Looking back upon this decisive period of his development, Bourdieu goes so far as to state that the shaping of his identity was done "against everything which the Sartrian enterprise represented for me" [37]. In historical accounts, Sartre is often given as counterfigure his friend and fellow normalien Raymond Aron. In his Esquisse, Bourdieu proposes a different, and less conventional, counterfigure for the imperial philosopher: the brilliant Austrian satirist and cultural critic Karl Kraus. Bourdieu notes the particular affection he had always felt for Kraus and attributes it to the latter's singular capacity for "critical reflectivenesss" [37]. Subtly, and appropriately, Bourdieu follows this remark with something that occurs nowhere else in his memoir: an epigram (the composing of which Kraus excelled in). Bourdieu writes: "there are a great many intellectuals who question the world, but there are very few intellectuals who question the intellectual world" [37]. The remark could not more compactly and precisely reflect what Bourdieu had aspired all his life to do: to excel in the art and science of questioning the intellectual world. 2 Leo Spitzer liked to cite Friedrich Gundolf's dictum "Methode ist Erlebnis" (method is lived experience). Nearing the end of his career... (shrink)

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

Revelatory insights into the early life and thought of the preeminent French feminist philosopher Dating from her years as a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, this is the 1926-27 diary of the teenager who would become the famous French philosopher, author, and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir. Written years before her first meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre, these diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and offer critical insights into her early philosophy and literary works. Presented here for the (...) first time in translation and fully annotated, the diary is completed by essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical and literary significance. The volume represents an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and influence on the world. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between women entrepreneurs’ job autonomy and work–life balance, with a particular focus on how this relationship might be augmented by environments that discriminate against women, whether socio-economically, institutionally, or culturally. Multisource data pertaining to 5334 women entrepreneurs from 37 countries indicate that their sense of job autonomy increases the likelihood that they feel satisfied with their ability to balance the needs of their work with those of their personal life. This process is particularly (...) prominent when they operate in countries characterized by discriminatory socio-economic and institutional conditions, though a mitigating instead of invigorating effect arises in culturally discriminatory settings. For business ethics scholars and practitioners, these findings indicate how the extent to which women entrepreneurs, seeking to combine professional and private responsibilities, derive benefits from initiatives aimed at enhancing their job-related freedom critically depends on whether they operate in adverse external environments. (shrink)

This book is our century’s most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. Unlike most writers on this topic, Crosby acknowledges many sources colluding to frame the culture of nihilism, including “the (...) death of God,” the objectification of nature, the meaninglessness of suffering in a mechanical universe, the ephemerality of time in a world where value does not accumulate, the arbitrariness of historicized reason, the reduction of value to will, and the alienation of the Cartesian ego. These sources are reviewed in the first two parts of the book with the result that the phenomenon of nihilism becomes understandable. In its third and fourth parts, Crosby provides a critical analysis of the religious and philosophical forces leading to nihilism by discussing authors from the early modern period through Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Russell, and Derrida. He shows that these forces are skewed and impoverished and should not be allowed to determine our situation. The comprehensive attention to detail and the multi-perspectival interpretation demonstrates as well as asserts the richness of the culture that puts nihilism in its place. Part Five, finally, rephrases the criticism of the sources of nihilism in positive ways. Part Four in particular is a tour de force of philosophical argument. Its richness of nuance, plurality of views examined, and adroitness of critical interpretation provide cumulatively a powerful, non-nihilistic reading of the philosophic tradition. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:418 Feminist Studies 43, no. 2. © 2017 by the estate of tatiana de la tierra. Ode to Unsavory Lesbians i love an ugly lesbian one who walks with a limp talks with a lisp leaves her dentures out overnight by the bathroom sink wears polyester pants and men’s cologne, the cheap kind has a beard so long she steps on it sprouts warts on her toes, all twelve (...) of them carries a spittoon in her breast pocket chortles at church people i dream of a lesbian who’s always broke she doesn’t own a car, walks streets barefoot, near and far washes all her clothes by hand steals from walmart scams the business-suited man lights matches on her wooden leg barbeques freshly plucked birds on her shopping cart seasons them with salt, that’s all licks her fingers in the moonlight i crave a lesbian who’s fat and fleshy so big she can’t fit through the door at starbucks and they set up an outdoor café just for her so fat she wears bangles on her fingers her belly is a boom box her stretch marks are hieroglyphic etchings she’s so heavy, tectonic plates shift beneath her feet so huge, lake erie is her bathtub tatiana de la tierra tatiana de la tierra   419 i lust after an unsavory lesbian she blows away my lackluster day leads me in a lambada, lights lantern between my legs lays my head down on lace pillows humps me like a lamppost lacerates me with leather lust lacquers my body with blue latex paint logs the forest for prime wood builds me lakeside throne sets me there and worships me —goddess in blue— lines my path with lady slippers ravishes me with sex words pets me like a little lamb wins me by a landslide To My Kidneys i had no inkling of your existence those summers when i swam in waters at the turkey point nuclear power plant a mile from home was proud of the organic salad tomatoes and the steaming peppermint tea that came from backyard garden a block from the rex chemicals plant life at 29822 SW 147th avenue in leisure city was anything but leisurely 420 tatiana de la tierra it was all screaming and fighting and cursing hijueputa this and hijueputa that poverty pissed me off i drank too much high fructose corn syrup not enough purified water snorted cocaine smoked dope lived all toughed out while you worked silently on my behalf filtering purifying regulating i was an angry girl but i blew up no buildings killed no one i was all hot air exploding inside letting carnage settle harden at twenty-nine something was wrong the damage was done your tubules were atrophying glomeruli were dead and dying you were inflamed and irate i had twenty-four grams of protein in the urine all swollen and freakishly feverish pouring my fluids into vials and beakers tried to recollect every sun burn those little red dots on my childhood skin tatiana de la tierra   421 i was a medical mystery for months until the day doctors made a diagnosis: lupus-mediated membranous glomerulonephritis now, eighteen years later you’re all i’ve got my future is in the capillaries of your glomeruli i’ve taken pills done prayers of all kinds even injected myself with german baby’s umbilical cord to keep you going yet you falter healers put the blame on all kinds of things deep-seated fears petrochemicals lead cadmium karma white flour self-hatred seriousness we’re in this together, you and i let’s go get sunshine drink green tea grow tall and strong wade in waters up to our knees like the cypress in the florida swamps gracing riverbanks and wetlands roots filtering flowing waters branches stretching to the skies with their durable and eternal woods 422 tatiana de la tierra Topanga Canyon i had forgotten trees how they claim earth and sky a herd of elephants standing in place reaching up with their trunks carrying torches of green leaves that breathe after death crushed at my feet trees splayed out like spent lovers legs open... (shrink)

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the (...) presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

The original contributions to this Royal Institute of Philosophy collection are centrally concerned with ethics, but from a wide variety of perspectives. The essays, written by authors of great distinction, range from the analytic and theoretical to the applied, touching such topical and hotly-debated issues as what constitutes morality in political life, the relation between education and ethical standards, and whether morality can indeed be defined. The volume will provide stimulating reading for scholars and students alike.

In a world described or experienced as unfair, what can philosophical practitioners propose in order to help individuals and communities strive for a meaningful life? One answer, empirically informed by the author’s practice as philosophical counselor in therapeutic, self-care and organizational contexts, is five principles for the cultivation of philosophical health, namely mental heroism, deep orientation, critical creativity, deep listening, and the “Creal” (the creative Real as ultimate possibility). In the light of Hadot’s rediscovery of philosophy as a (...) way of life and in dialogue with his reading of ancient philosophy, it is asserted that the embodied and socially embedded mind can, through these five principles or modalities, be prepared to maintain a pragmatic elevation of view and creative resilience in everyday events, especially in critical situations. This meta-analytic and meta-dialectic practice of philosophical health, termed “crealectics,” presupposes that we are of the same creative cosmological flesh (the Creal), and therefore we are bound to comprehend and care for each other philosophically. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to explore an analogy between logic and ethics, as Wittgenstein understands them in the Tractatus. First, I argue that Wittgenstein regards logic as a condition of the possibility of meaning, in the sense that logic makes meaningful language and thought possible. Second, I ask why Wittgenstein calls both logic and ethics ‘transcendental’. I suggest that, while logic is a condition of the possibility of semantic meaning, ethics is a condition of the possibility of (...) existential meaning. Without ethics, life could not be meaningful. Third, I show that harmony and agreement play a crucial role in Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be happy or unhappy, and both truth and happiness consist in some kind of harmony or agreement with reality. (shrink)

There are many real-world applications like healthcare systems, job monitoring, well-being and personal fitness tracking, monitoring of elderly and frail people, assessment of rehabilitation and follow-up treatments, affording Fall Detection (FD) and ADL (Activity of Daily Living) identification, separately or even at a time. However, the two main drawbacks of these solutions are that most of the times, the devices deployed are obtrusive (devices worn on not quite common parts of the body like neck, waist and ankle) and the poor (...) battery life. Thus, this work proposes a low-power classification algorithm based on an Ensemble of KNN and K-Means algorithms (EKMeans) to identify Falls and High-Intensity ADL events such as running, jogging and climbing up stairs. The input of EKMeans are triaxial accelerometer data gathered from wrist-wearable devices. The proposal will be validated on the Fall&ADL publicly available datasets UMAFall, UCIFall and FallAllD, considering two kinds of activity labelling: Two-Class and Multi-Class. An exhaustive comparative study between our proposal, and the baseline algorithms KNN and a feed-forward Neural Network (NN) is deployed, where EKMeans outperformed clearly the Specificity (ADL classification) of the KNN and NN for the three datasets. Finally, a comparative battery consumption study has been included deploying the analyzed algorithms in a WearOS smartwatch, where EKMeans drains the battery from 100% to 0% in 27.45 hours, saving 5% and 21% concerning KNN and NN, respectively. Keywords: Human Activity Recognition, ADL Identification, Fall Detection TS Clustering, TS Classification, Wearable Devices, Low-Power HAR. (shrink)

Neste artigo, o autor começa por discorrer sobre os últimos anos de vida do Doutor Subtil, marcados pelo célebre conflito em torno às relações de poder, ocorrido entre Filipe IV "O Belo", rei da França, e o papa Bonifácio viu, por causa das posições que ele assumiu e de sua relação com a questão da origem da propriedade e da autoridade secular. Para o Menorita escocês tanto a propriedade ou o domínio particular sobre os bens quanto a autoridade secular foram (...) instituídas pelos seres humanos, não por Deus, após a Queda Original, porque condiziam melhor com sua nova condição, influenciada por suas más inclinações. Por isso, foi necessário que houvesse uma autoridade política e leis por ela promulgadas, a fim de regular a convivência social. Os ensinamentos de Escoto sobre esses assuntos significam a via media entre as teses extremistas propostas, de um lado, pelos defensores da hierocracia pontifícia e, de outro, pelos assessores de Filipe IV. /// The author starts the article with a consideration of the last years of Duns Scotus' life, which was particularly marked by the famous conflict, around the relations of power, occurred between Philip IV, "The Fair", king of France, and Pope Boniface VIII, because of the positions which the scotch Friar assumed regarding the question about the origin of property and about the origin of the secular authority. As a matter of fact, for Duns Scotus, both the property and the political authority were established by men, after the Original Fall, not by God, because they are more in consonance with the new condition of humans, marked by their bad passions. Therefore, it was necessary to have a political authority able to promulgate laws in order to regulate the social life. The article shows that the teaching of Duns Scotus about these subjects constitutes a via media between the extremist doctrines professed, on the one hand, by the defenders of the hierocracy and, on the other, by the assessors of Philip IV. (shrink)

In this paper we defend that elective ventilation (EV), even if conceived as the instrument to maximise the chances of organ recovery, is mainly the means to provide the patient who is dying with a dignified death in several ways, one of them being the possibility of becoming an organ donor. Because EV does not harm the patient and permits the medical team a better assessment of the patient's clinical trajectory and a better management of the dying process by the (...) family, EV does not violate the principle of non-beneficence nor the principle of autonomy if we restrict the initiation of EV to those cases in which it is not known what the previous wishes of the patient were as regards to his or her care at the end of life. (shrink)

Il saggio muove da una ricostruzione storico-concettuale dell’interpretazione merleau-pontyana del manoscritto di Husserl Rovesciamento della dottrina copernicana nell’interpretazione della corrente visione del mondo, con cui Merleau-Ponty è in dialogo sin dalla Fenomenologia della percezione, per ripercorrere gli sviluppi del tema della Terra nell’avanzare della riflessione merleau-pontyana sul corpo-proprio, sull’organismo vivente, sulla dimensione carnale dell’essere. La proposta di un ritorno alla Terra, intesa come Boden irriducibile dell’esperienza, trova infatti il suo risvolto ontologico nell’idea di Spielraum, che già Husserl definiva come “ambito (...) di possibilità”, e che in Merleau-Ponty assume il senso di un margine di gioco sempre aperto nella carne. Boden e Spielraum, non a caso tematizzati da Merleau-Ponty in due corsi paralleli tenuti al Collège de France nell’anno 1959-1960, permettono una rivalutazione del vivente secondo un modello che, contro il riduzionismo meccanicista, privilegi la spontaneità e la contingenza, e aprono allo sviluppo dell’ontologia porosa che il filosofo andrà proponendo negli ultimi anni. Ricostruendo la funzione della riflessione sulla corporeità e sul rapporto del vivente al mondo-ambiente in questa maturazione, si argomenterà che la critica che Merleau-Ponty muove al dualismo empirismo-idealismo trovi nell’idea di Terra un momento chiave, che contribuisce ad orientarla in direzione di una filosofia della carne. Questo passaggio riconfigura la Natura stessa, pensata non già come un originario, ma in quanto ambito di possibilità processuale e transindividuale, come quel quasi-oggetto, come lo definiva, ancora, Husserl, che presenta un’irriducibile resistenza ad un pensiero di sorvolo, proprio in quanto è condizione del pensiero stesso e ancoraggio della vita tutta.This essay begins with a historico-conceptual reconstruction of the Merleau-Pontian interpretation of Husserl’s manuscript, “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature,” with which Merleau-Ponty is in dialogue from Phenomenology of Perception onward, and revisits the development of the theme of the Earth in the progression of Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on le corps propre, the living organism, and the carnal dimension of being. The proposal for a return to the Earth, taken as irreducible Boden of experience, indeed finds its ontological reverse side in the idea of Spielraum, which Husserl already defined as a “milieu of possibilities,” and which in Merleau-Ponty takes on the sense of a margin of play always open in the flesh. Boden and Spielraum, two notions that Merleau-Ponty does not thematize by chance in the two parallel courses given at the Collège de France over the years 1959-1960, enable a reassessment of the living being according to a model that, against mechanistic reductionism, privileges spontaneity and contingency, and opens to the development of the porous ontology that the philosopher would propose in his final years. Reconstructing the function of reflection on corporeality, and on the relationship of the living being with its milieu in the process, it will be argued that the criticism directed by Merleau-Ponty against the dualism of empiricism-idealism finds in the idea of the Earth a key moment that contributes to orienting him in the direction of a philosophy of the flesh. This passage reconfigures Nature itself, no longer conceived of as an originating, but as a milieu of processual and transindividual possibilities, like that quasi-object, as Husserl again defined it, that presents an irreducible resistance against high-altitude thinking, precisely as the condition of thought itself and the anchorage of all life.Cet essai commence avec une reconstruction historico-conceptuelle de l’interprétation merleau-pontienne du manuscrit de Husserl, Renversement de la doctrine copernicienne, avec lequel Merleau-Ponty est en dialogue depuis la Phénoménologie de la perception, et revisite les développement du thème de la Terre dans la progression de la réflexion merleau-pontienne sur le corps propre, sur l’organisme vivant, sur la dimension charnelle de l’être. La proposition d’un retour à la Terre, prise comme Boden irréductible de l’expérience, trouve en effet son envers ontologique dans l’idée de Spielraum, que Husserl déjà définissait comme « milieu de possibilités » et qui chez Merleau-Ponty prend le sens d’une marge de jeu toujours ouverte dans la chair. Boden et Spielraum, deux notions que Merleau-Ponty ne thématise pas par hasard dans les deux cours parallèles donnés au Collège de France au cours de l’année 1959-1960, permettent une réévaluation du vivant selon un modèle qui, contre le réductionnisme mécaniste, privilégie la spontanéité et la contingence, et ouvrent au développement de l’ontologie poreuse que le philosophe allait proposer dans les dernières années. Reconstruisant la fonction de la réflexion sur la corporéité et sur le rapport du vivant avec son milieu dans ce processus, on argumentera que la critique dirigée par Merleau-Ponty contre le dualisme empirisme-idéalisme trouve dans l’idée de la Terre un moment clé qui contribue à l’orienter en direction d’une philosophie de la chair. Ce passage reconfigure la Nature elle-même, pensée non pas déjà comme un originaire, mais en tant que milieu de possibilités processuelles et transindividuelles, en tant que quasi-objet, comme le définissait, encore, Husserl qui offrait une résistance irréductible contre une pensée de survol, précisément en tant que condition de la pensée elle-même et ancrage de toute la vie. (shrink)

"I define the Neutral as that which outplays the paradigm, or rather I call Neutral everything that baffles paradigm." With these words, Roland Barthes describes a concept that profoundly shaped his work and was the subject of a landmark series of lectures delivered in 1978 at the Collège de France, just two years before his death. Not published in France until 2002, and appearing in English for the first time, these creative and engaging lectures deepen our understanding of (...) Roland Barthes's intellectual itinerary and reveal his distinctive style as thinker and teacher. The Neutral (_le neutre_), as Barthes describes it, escapes or undoes the paradigmatic binary oppositions that structure and produce meaning in Western thought and discourse. These binaries are found in all aspects of human society ranging from language to sexuality to politics. For Barthes, the attempt to deconstruct or escape from these binaries has profound ethical, philosophical, and linguistic implications. _The Neutral_ is comprised of the prewritten texts from which Barthes lectured and centers around 23 "figures," also referred to as "traits" or "twinklings," that are possible embodiments of the Neutral (sleep, silence, tact, etc.) or of the anti-Neutral (anger, arrogance, conflict, etc.). His lectures draw on a diverse set of authors and intellectual traditions, including Lao-tzu, Tolstoy, German mysticism, classical philosophy, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, and John Cage. Barthes's idiosyncratic approach to his subjects gives the lectures a playful, personal, and even joyous quality that enhances his rich insights. In addition to his reflections on a variety of literary and scholarly works, Barthes's personal convictions and the events of his life shaped the course and content of the lectures. Most prominently, as Barthes admits, the recent death of his mother and the idea of mourning shape several of his lectures. (shrink)

Most writers working on simultaneous use and mention assume a distinction between mixed quotation and scare quoting. The consensus is that MQ affects truth-conditions. Hence, many writers regard MQ as a semantic phenomenon. There is no such consensus about ScQ. On the face of it, there is a clear difference between: Alice said that life “is difficult to understand”. Several ‘groupies' followed the band on their tour. The words quoted in are attributed to Alice, and would seem false (...) if Alice had not uttered them. No such intuition is available for. This induces Cappelen & Lepore, leading writers in the field, to regard as a blend of Direct and Indirect Discourse and to propose the following semantic analysis : there is an utterance u such that Alice said u and u samesays “Life is difficult to understand” and u sametokens “is difficult to understand”. As for, they regard the impact of the quotation in it as being entirely pragmatic. I show, however, that there is no principled distinction between MQ and ScQ. The main points are: speech attribution to Alice in is defeasible; there are cases of simultaneous use and mention without “say” which are semantically relevant ; there is apparent MQ with reporting verbs that pose a problem because they cannot govern Direct Speech reports. Hence, it is illegitimate to appeal to the sametokening predicate in logical form. These examples that ‘refuse' to fall neatly under MQ or ScQ seal the fate of Cappelen & Lepore's account. To conclude, I discuss Benbaji's fully semantic theory. Benbaji adopts Cappelen & Lepore's views on MQ. But he also proposes a semantic account of ScQ. One option for him is to give up the Cappelen & Lepore story and extend his views on ScQ to all instances of simultaneous use and mention. I show, however, that this too fails. Therefore, in the end, only a pragmatic account of simultaneous use and mention remains as a viable option. (shrink)