Des « libertés» proclamées en 1789 à la loi sur la librairie de 1810, les dynamiques qui traversent le monde de l'imprimé constituent encore un des objets les plus originaux pour renouveler l'histoire des savoirs d'une période révolutionnaire riche en bouleversements institutionnels et en mutations épistémologiques. Dans la perspective d'une histoire sociale des savoirs, l'analyse des actions construites par et dans l'imprimé permet de préciser la compréhension des transformations sociales, institutionnelles et théoriques qui caractérisent cette période. Alors que le chantier (...) reste encore largement ouvert, il s'agit de présenter ici quelques jalons d'une analyse visant à replacer l'imprimé au coeur des interrogations sur les mutations des sociabilités, des identités et des productions intellectuelles en Révolution. (shrink)

Wandering in Darkness reconciles the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God with suffering in the world. Eleanore Stump presents the moral psychology and value theory within which the theodicy of Thomas Aquinas is embedded. She explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons, and then argues that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. In the context of famous biblical stories and against the backdrop (...) of Aquinas's other views, Stump argues that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. This explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering. (shrink)

According to an influential research program in cognitive science, philosophy, and linguistics, there is a deep, special connection between generics and pernicious aspects of social cognition such as stereotyping. Specifically, generics are thought to exacerbate our propensity to essentialize, lead us to overgeneralize based on scarce evidence, and lead to other epistemically dubious patterns of inference. Recently, however, several studies have put empirical and theoretical pressure on some of the main tenets of this research program. The goal of this paper (...) is to bring these results together in a comprehensive narrative and systematically evaluate their impact on the hypothesis that generics have a uniquely problematic effect on our social and cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Few philosophers or theologians exerted as much influence on the shape of medieval thought as Thomas Aquinas. He ranks amongst the most famous of the Western philosophers and was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the philosophy of Aristotle into harmony with Christianity. He was also one of the first philosophers to argue that philosophy and theology could support each other. The shape of metaphysics, theology, and Aristotelian thought today still bears the imprint of Aquinas' work. In this extensive and deeply (...) researched study, Eleonore Stump examines Aquinas' major works, _Summa Theologiae _and _Summa Contra Gentiles, _and clearly assesses the vast range of Aquinas' thought. Philosophers, theologians, and students of the medieval period alike will find this unrivalled study an indispensable resource in researching and teaching Aquinas. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an essentialist model of the semantics of slurs. I defend the view that slurs are a species of kind terms: Slur concepts encode mini-theories which represent an essence-like element that is causally connected to a set of negatively-valenced stereotypical features of a social group. The truth-conditional contribution of slur nouns can then be captured by the following schema: For a given slur S of a social group G and a person P, S is true of (...) P iff P bears the “essence” of G—whatever this essence is—which is causally responsible for stereotypical negative features associated with G and predicted of P. Since there is no essence that is causally responsible for stereotypical negative features of a social group, slurs have null-extension, and consequently, many sentences containing them are either meaningless or false. After giving a detailed outline of my theory, I show that it receives strong linguistic support. In particular, it can account for a wide range of linguistic cases that are regarded as challenging, central data for any theory of slurs. Finally, I show that my theory also receives convergent support from cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

This work argues that Christ's atonement disarms human resistance to God's love and so brings about acceptance of divine forgiveness.

Psychological essentialism is the hypothesis that humans represent some categories as having an underlying essence that unifies members of a category and is causally responsible for their typical attributes and behaviors. Throughout the past several decades, psychological essentialism has emerged as an extremely active area of research in cognitive science. More recently, it has also attracted attention from philosophers, who put the empirical results to use in many different philosophical areas, ranging from philosophy of mind and cognitive science to social (...) philosophy. This article aims to give philosophers who are new to the topic an overview of the key empirical findings surrounding psychological essentialism, and some of the ways the hypothesis and its related findings have been discussed, extended, and applied in philosophical research. (shrink)

How feasible are conceptual engineering projects of social concepts that aim for the engineered concept to be deployed in people's ordinary conceptual practices? Predominant frameworks on the psychology of concepts that shape work on stereotyping, bias, and machine learning have grim implications for the prospects of conceptual engineers: conceptual engineering efforts are ineffective in promoting certain social‐conceptual changes. Since conceptual components that give rise to problematic social stereotypes are sensitive to statistical structures of the environment, purely conceptual change won't be (...) possible without corresponding world change. This tradition, however, tends to ignore that concepts don't only encode statistical, but also causal information. Paying attention to this feature of concepts, I argue, shows that conceptual engineering is not only possible. There is an imperative to conceptually‐engineer. (shrink)

In the event that a patient has lost their decision-making capacity due to illness or injury, a surrogate is often appointed to do so on their behalf. Research has shown that people take less risk when making treatment decisions for other people than they do for themselves. This has been discussed as surrogates employing greater caution for others given the accountability they are faced with. We tested the prediction that making accountability salient reduces risk- taking for others relative to the (...) self by manipulating the information shown to participants while they made treatment choices. One group was asked to focus on the consequences for the recipient’s family, another on the legal implications of their decisions, and another was not given additional information. Participants reduced their risk-taking for others compared to themselves, irrespective of the condition they were in. Although participants in each condition reported thinking about these factors to different extents, there were no clear differences in risk-taking between groups. However, we did find that, across all participants, thinking about legal consequences reduces risk-taking. We suggest that future research investigates how the effect of thinking about accountability on surrogate choices is mediated by feelings of accountability, in order to further examine the explanations suggested in the literature. (shrink)

Black feminist theory and theorizations by feminists of colour have identified and explored emotions linked to race and racism in feminist movements, especially in the US context. Building on this literature, this article explores the changes in feminist emotional dynamics linked to race which have been brought up by the relatively recent adoption of intersectionality in feminist movements’ discourses in two European countries, France and Switzerland, which are both often described as ‘colour-blind’ contexts. Drawing on Hochschild’s concept of feeling rules, (...) we argue that intersectionality has changed the ways feminists are legitimately expected to feel about race and racism within feminist movements in both contexts. As feeling rules vary according to the members’ positions within the movement, we contend that these changes in emotional dynamics contribute to redefine feminists’ relations and feminist membership along racial lines. Based on interviews with young feminist activists in France and Switzerland during mobilization processes characterized by a prominent use of intersectionality, we observe how intersectionality discourses bring about new feeling rules in relation to race and racism. These feeling rules differ for white and non-white feminists: while intersectionality has led young white feminists to self-education and self-critique, racialized feminists often expressed mixed feelings about intersectionality and its use, in particular by white feminists. Importantly, these changes in feeling rules have allowed racialized feminists to renegotiate their relations with white feminists and their emotional content, as well as their position within the movement. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to show that pornography dehumanizes women through essentialization. First, I argue that certain acts of subject-essentialization are acts of subject-dehumanization. Second, I demonstrate, by reviewing evidence about the linguistic material that we find in and around pornography, that pornography systematically deploys content that essentializes women in the ways identified as problematic. It follows that pornography dehumanizes women.

In two recent papers, Rose and Nichols present evidence in favor of the view that humans represent category essences in terms of a telos, such as honey-making, and not in terms of scientific essences, such as bee DNA. In this paper, I challenge their interpretation of the evidence, and show that it is directly predicted by the main theory they seek to undermine. I argue that their results can be explained as instances of diagnostic reasoning about scientific essences.

In this paper, I defend Non-Inferentialism about mental states, the view that we can perceive some mental states in a direct, non-inferential way. First, I discuss how the question of mental state perception is to be understood in light of recent debates in the philosophy of perception, and reconstruct Non-Inferentialism in a way that makes the question at hand—whether we can perceive mental states or not—scientifically tractable. Next, I motivate Non-Inferentialism by showing that under the assumption of the widely-accepted Principle (...) of Cognitive Economy, any account that treats mental state perception as an inferential process commits itself to an unrealistically inefficient picture of our cognitive architecture. Drawing on research in cognitive science, I will then show that my Non-Inferentialist view receives direct support by the available empirical evidence. I conclude that there is no psychologically relevant sense in which perception of mental states differs from paradigmatic cases of perception, such as the perception of ordinary objects. (shrink)

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT IS THE CENTRAL DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY, BUT IT HAS NOT RECEIVED MUCH ATTENTION IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, IN PART BECAUSE IT TENDS TO BE KNOWN ONLY IN AN UNREFLECTIVE VERSION FULL OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. I PRESENT AN ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF THE DOCTRINE, TAKEN FROM AQUINAS, ARGUE THAT IT IS A COGENT AND CONSISTENT ACCOUNT, AND SHOW THAT IT DOES NOT SUFFER FROM THE PROBLEMS OF THE UNREFLECTIVE VERSION.

Résumé On associe généralement la figure de Satan à une signification indigente ou mesquine. Dans la Philosophie de la révélation, Schelling tente au contraire d’en donner une interprétation différente, selon laquelle la « mauvaiseté positive » de Satan n’est pas seulement assumée, mais également revalorisée. Cependant, le rôle de Satan demeure ambigu, incarnant à la fois le tentateur universel et le maillon nécessaire à la révélation de Dieu lui-même. Dans cette étude, il s’agit donc de montrer à la fois la (...) nature amphibolique du Diable, et de rendre compte des multiples endossements qu’il recouvre. Une tâche qui implique précisément la mise en évidence du rôle incontournable de Satan dans la victoire finale du bien, et qui se manifeste, en termes schellingiens, par l’incompatibilité de l’homme avec le feu dévorant du principe de lumière, laquelle nécessite un principe obscur qui hâte la séparation, pressent le mal et le provoque. (shrink)

In this paper, the author argues that a second-person experience is an experience one has when one has conscious awareness of another consciously aware person. The author shows that there are some things we know in second-person experiences which are either difficult or impossible to put in propositional form at all but stories can capture them for us. An account of a second-person experience is what we typically find in narratives. The author argues that the second-person point of view has (...) a special place in some areas of philosophy, including philosophy of religion. It matters to many issues in philosophy of religion, perhaps especially to the problem of evil, that God is taken to be a person who has personal relations with created persons. The paper proceeds to show that philosophical attention to the second-person account in the biblical narrative of the book of Job illuminates the book in a new way and sheds light on the problem of evil. /// O presente artigo parte do princípio de que uma experiência na segunda-pessoa constitui a experiência que temos quando estamos conscientemente atentos à presença de outra pessoa conscientemente desperta. A autora demonstra a existência de algumas coisas que conhecemos mediante a experiência da segunda pessoa as quais são ou difíceis ou até mesmo impossíveis de colocar em forma proposicional, ainda que narrativas as possam perfeitamente captar para nós. O relato de uma experiência na segunda pessoa é precisamente aquilo que tipicamente encontramos em narrativas. A autora argumenta que o ponto de vista da segunda pessoa tem um lugar especial em algumas áreas da filosofia, incluindo a filosofia da religião. Na verdade, não deixa de ser relevante para o tratamento de muitas questões no âmbito da filosofia da religião, mas talvez de um modo muito especial no que se refere ao tratamento do problema do mal, partir do princípio de que Deus é pessoa e mantém relações de pessoa-a-pessoa com as suas criaturas pessoais. Posto isto, o artigo procede com a demonstração de que a atenção filosófica ao relato na segunda pessoa que se encontra no Livro de Job não deixa de iluminar este livro sapiencial bem como de projectar nova luz sobre o velho problema do mal. (shrink)

This dissertation defends the view that concepts encode causal information and, for the first time, applies this view to a range of topics in the philosophy of language and social philosophy. In my first chapter (“Cognitive Essentialism and the Structure of Concepts”), I survey the current empirical and theoretical literature on causal-essentialist theories of concepts. In my second chapter (“Meaning Externalism and Causal Model Theory”), I propose an account of natural kind concepts according to which they encode statistical information of (...) features of a natural kind, and represents these features as causally related to each other. I show that this internalist model of concepts correctly predicts intuitions about Putnam’s twin earth scenario and Kripke’s conceivability cases that historically motivated philosophers of language to accept externalist accounts of meaning. The defended theory of concepts also informs topics that go beyond traditional issues in philosophy of language. In my third chapter (“An Essentialist Theory of the Meaning of Slurs”), I defend the view that slurs are, too, a species of kind terms: slur concepts encode mini-theories which represent an essence-like element that is causally connected to a set of negatively-valenced stereotypical features of a social group. This explains both the peculiar linguistic behavior of slurs and slurs’ dehumanizing effects. In my fourth chapter, I build on this insight, showing that the explicit language in and around pornography depicts women as ‘kinds’ or ‘breeds’ that are naturally made to enjoy certain sexual acts, and argue that this deterministic picture of women dehumanizes them. (shrink)

The ways in which the decisions we make for others differ from the ones we make for ourselves has received much attention in the literature, although less is known about their relationship to our p...

In the series of essays collected in this book, Eleonore Stump offers reflections that illustrate the nature and importance of learning from the Christian heritage in its development over the ages of the Christian tradition and its continued development in interaction with contemporary philosophy, theology, and science. The essays show the power of this heritage in philosophical theology and in philosophical biblical exegesis. Central to the concerns they address is the Christian conviction that at the foundation of all reality is (...) a God, who is love in a welcoming personal relationship offered to all human beings. The essays explore the nature of God and some puzzles about God's interactions with human beings; they also examine the nature of human knowledge of God and argue that it can be achieved not only through propositional truths but also through knowledge of persons, and even through apprehension of beauty in nature or the arts. The book closes with an examination of what it is to will in accordance with the will of God for those who long for him. (shrink)

In paradigmatic cases of subtweeting, one Twitter user critically or mockingly tweets about another person without mentioning their username or their name. In this chapter, we give an account of the strategic aims of subtweeting and the mechanics through which it achieves them. We thereby hope to shed light on the distinctive communicative and moral texture of subtweeting while filling in a gap in the philosophical literature on strategic speech in social media. We first specify what subtweets are and identify (...) the central features that give rise to their strategic mechanics. Next, we draw attention to problematic aspects of subtweeting and consider conditions under which subtweeting can be justified on moral and prudential grounds. The chapter concludes by discussing practical upshots and noting avenues for future work. (shrink)

Car sickness is a major concern for car passengers, and with the development of autonomous vehicles, increasing numbers of car occupants are likely to be affected. Previous laboratory studies have used EEG measurements to better understand the cerebral changes linked to symptoms. However, the dynamics of motion in labs/simulators differ from those of a real car. This study sought to identify specific cerebral changes associated with the level of car sickness experienced in real driving conditions. Nine healthy volunteers participated as (...) front passengers in a slalom session inducing lateral movements at very low frequency. They were continuously monitored via EEG recordings and subjectively rated their level of symptoms after each slalom, using a 5-point likert scale. Car-sickness symptoms evolved concomitantly with changes in theta and alpha power in the occipital and parietal areas. These changes may reflect altered sensory integration, as well as a possible influence of sleepiness mitigating symptoms. (shrink)

This new Companion to Aquinas features entirely new chapters written by internationally recognized experts in the field. It shows the power of Aquinas's philosophical thought and transmits the worldview which he inherited, developed, altered, and argued for, while at the same time revealing to contemporary philosophers the strong connections which there are between Aquinas's interests and views and their own. Its five sections cover the life and works of Aquinas; his metaphysics, including his understanding of the ultimate foundations of reality; (...) his metaethics and ethics, including his virtue ethics; his account of human nature; his theory of the afterlife; his epistemology and his theory of the intellectual virtues; his view of the nature of free will and the relation of grace to free will; and finally some key components of his philosophical theology, including the incarnation and atonement, Christology, and the nature of original sin. (shrink)