This slender volume contains a rapid sketch of the development of the notions of conscience and synderesis in medieval thought. Its timeliness is vouched for by the fact that conscience, to which appeal is so often made today, has not been thus far a major theme of modern philosophy. Much of the book's information is quarried from O. Lottin's classic study, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, whose findings have been restated in terms that are meant to be (...) "psychologically" accessible to the modern mind. The Preface calls attention to the undue neglect of medieval philosophy on the part of twentieth-century thinkers, many of whom still cling to the view that philosophy died with Aristotle and came to life again only with Descartes. It also laments the "party spirit" that once tended to characterize the Neo-Scholastic movement, as well as the one-sided emphasis on Thomas Aquinas within that movement. Potts has accordingly sought to broaden the scope of his inquiry by taking into consideration five widely different authors through whose writings one begins to glimpse the subtlety of the medieval teaching on this important topic: Jerome, who introduced the word "synderesis" into the debate ; Peter Lombard, whose Sentences provided the mandatory point of departure for all subsequent discussions of the subject; Philip the Chancellor, the author of the first medieval treatise on conscience; and, finally, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, two of the writers who contributed most significantly to the further elaboration of the doctrine. By the author's own admission, numerous other theologians, whose names are listed in an appendix, could have been included in the roster or substituted for the ones that are included. The book is divided into two even parts, the first of which presents an analysis of the thought of each of the five theologians mentioned, and the second a selection of representative texts from their works. For the convenience of teachers, a "programme for a medieval-philosophy course on conscience" has been added under Appendix 2. (shrink)

This book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. H. Paul Grice first defined the concept. Since then his definition has seen much use and many redefinitions, but it has never enjoyed a stable place in linguistic theory. Christopher Potts returns to the original and uses it as a key into two presently under-studied areas of natural language: supplements and expressives. The account of both depends on a theory in which sentence meanings can be multidimensional. The theory (...) is logically and intuitively compositional, and it minimally extends a familiar kind of intensional logic, thereby providing an adaptable, highly useful tool for semantic analysis. The result is a linguistic theory that is accessible not only to linguists of all stripes, but also philosophers of language, logicians, and computer scientists who have linguistic applications in mind. (shrink)

Expressives like damn and bastard have, when uttered, an immediate and powerful impact on the context. They are performative, often destructively so. They are revealing of the perspective from which the utterance is made, and they can have a dramatic impact on how current and future utterances are perceived. This, despite the fact that speakers are invariably hard-pressed to articulate what they mean. I develop a general theory of these volatile, indispensable meanings. The theory is built around a class of (...) expressive indices. These determine the expressive setting of the context of interpretation. Expressives morphemes act on that context, actively changing its expressive setting. The theory is multidimensional in the sense that descriptives and expressives are fundamentally different but receive a unified logical treatment. (shrink)

We present diverse evidence for the claim of Pullum and Rawlins (2007) that expressives behave differently from descriptives in constructions that enforce a particular kind of semantic identity between elements. Our data are drawn from a wide variety of languages and construction types, and they point uniformly to a basic linguistic distinction between descriptive content and expressive content (Kaplan 1999; Potts 2007).

Grice coined the term ‘conventional implicature’ in a short passage in ‘Logic and conversation’. The description is intuitive and deeply intriguing. The range of phenomena that have since been assigned this label is large and diverse. I survey the central factual motivation, arguing that it is loosely uni- fied by the idea that conventional implicatures contribute a separate dimen- sion of meaning. I provide tests for distinguishing conventional implicatures from other kinds of meaning, and I briefly explore ways in which (...) one can incorporate multiple dimensions of meaning into a single theory. (shrink)

This paper extends an ongoing discussion about establishing a sharper way to conduct ethical investigations into managerial virtue. It does so by relying on Alasdair MacIntyre's moral philosophy in place of those more dominant approaches taken by scholars who make up the field of positive social science. A connection is drawn herein between a MacIntyrean “narrative approach” to investigating managerial virtue and the idea of “work as a calling.” Specifically, it will be argued that the MacIntyrean‐influenced idea of “work as (...) a calling” provides a substantive moral vision that supports an understanding of how virtuous managers ought to narrate their primary workplace motivations. Ultimately, virtuous managers fulfill a “political calling” to support and sustain (a) good work, (b) the good of individual lives, and (c) the common good of communities that their organization reaches. To do this, they must rely on the “shepherd virtue” of practical wisdom (phronesis). Practical wisdom aids virtuous managers’ thinking about achieving the ends of their “calling” as well as any necessary course‐corrections that ought to be made toward the better achievement of those good and worthy ends. (shrink)

This book presents in translation writings by six medieval philosophers which bear on the subject of conscience. Conscience, which can be considered both as a topic in the philosophy of mind and a topic in ethics, has been unduly neglected in modern philosophy, where a prevailing belief in the autonomy of ethics leaves it no natural place. It was, however, a standard subject for a treatise in medieval philosophy. Three introductory translations here, from Jerome, Augustine and Peter Lombard, present the (...) loci classici on which subsequent discussions drew; there follows the first complete treatise on conscience, by Philip the Chancellor, while the two remaining translations, from Bonaventure and Aquinas, have been chosen as outstanding examples of the two main approaches which crystallised during the thirteenth century. (shrink)

This article presents evidence that individual words and phrases can contribute multiple independent pieces of meaning simultaneously. Such multidimensionality is a unifying theme of the literature on conventional implicatures and expressives. I use phenomena from discourse, semantic composition, and morphosyntax to detect and explore various dimensions of meaning. I also argue that, while the meanings involved are semantically independent, they interact pragmatically to reduce underspecification and fuel pragmatic enrichment. In this article, the central case studies are appositives like Falk, the (...) CEO, and the taboo intensive damn, though discourse particles and connectives like but, even, and still play supporting roles. The primary evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, is drawn from large interview and product-review corpora, which harbor a wealth of information about the importance of these items to discourse. (shrink)

The “standard position” on organ donation is that the donor must be dead in order for vital organs to be removed, a position with which we agree. Recently, Robert Truog and Walter Robinson have argued that brain death is not death, and even though “brain dead” patients are not dead, it is morally acceptable to remove vital organs from those patients. We accept and defend their claim that brain death is not death, and we argue against both the US “whole (...) brain” criterion and the UK “brain stem” criterion. Then we answer their arguments in favour of removing vital organs from “brain dead” and other classes of comatose patients. We dispute their claim that the removal of vital organs is morally equivalent to “letting nature take its course”, arguing that, unlike “allowing to die”, it is the removal of vital organs that kills the patient, not his or her disease or injury. Then, we argue that removing vital organs from living patients is immoral and contrary to the nature of medical practice. Finally, we offer practical suggestions for changing public policy on organ transplantation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Institute of Medicine’s Report on Non-Heart-Beating Organ TransplantationRoger Herdman (bio), Tom L. Beauchamp (bio), and John T. Potts Jr. (bio)In December 1997, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report on medical and ethical issues in the procurement of non-heart-beating organ donors. This report had been requested in May 1997 by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). We will here describe the genesis of the IOM (...) report, the medical and moral concerns that led the DHHS to sponsor it, the process of producing it, and its conclusions. The analyses, findings, and recommendations of the report are also reviewed, in particular the central issues that led to suggestions for policy changes.Transplantation BackgroundAs a first step, some background in the relevant aspects of organ transplantation will prove useful. For the purposes of this analysis, “transplantation” involves the transfer of cells, tissues, or solid organs from one human to another to replace the structure or function of comparable body components that, through injury or disease, are defective or of inadequate function. The IOM report deals with solid organs, primarily kidneys and livers, whose blood supply is reconnected in the organ recipient, in contrast to cells, like bone marrow, and tissues, like corneas. A variety of donor types exists for organ transplantation, each with particular medical and scientific conditions.Living donors are healthy (and usually genetically related) individuals who volunteer to provide either a whole, paired organ such as a kidney or a section of an organ such as a liver. Cadaver donors are individuals who have died and from whom a full array of organs can be taken. “Heart-beating” cadaver donors are individuals who have suffered “brain death,” that is, irreversible cessation of function of the whole brain including the brain stem; and “non-heart-beating” donors (NHBDs) are individuals who are ill or injured, but not “brain dead,” and who have suffered cardiopulmonary death, that is, irreversible cessation of cardiac and respiratory function. NHBDs can be “controlled,” which means that [End Page 83] they can be sustained by artificial life support systems until a medical and family decision is made to terminate futile life support. This can be done at a scheduled time and in a controlled manner, and organs can then be recovered for transplantation. NHBDs can also be “uncontrolled,” which means that their hearts and breathing have stopped through disease or injury at an unexpected time or in an uncontrolled manner, and they cannot be resuscitated; the organs of some individuals of this description can be recovered for transplantation. The IOM report focused on both controlled and uncontrolled NHBDs and on problems specific to them.The questions that were asked and addressed in the IOM report became current and salient beginning in 1992 with the establishment of the University of Pittsburgh “Policy for the Management of Terminally Ill Patients Who May Become Organ Donors After Death.” This policy addressed controlled NHBDs and the ethical questions raised by their use; much of the discussion was reported in the June 1993 special issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. Public notice and anxiety about some of these concerns were sharpened and refocused by national and local media allegations of improper treatment of donors at the Cleveland Clinic in 1997, specifically premature—i.e., antemortem—recovery of organs and administration of drugs that allegedly might hasten donor death.The DHHS Request for StudyIt is not surprising that several federal actions would be taken in response to these events. Some, such as the results of a transplantation task force, remain largely internal to DHHS at this writing. Others are public, such as the IOM study of the NHBD situation. In May 1997, the DHHS initiated contacts with the IOM with the goal of exploring federal concerns about the medical and ethical treatment of NHBDs, in particular the allegations directed at the Cleveland Clinic.The DHHS response should be understood in at least three contexts. First, living donors and uncontrolled NHBDs were essentially the only donor types in the early days of transplantation in the United States. The technologies, ethics, and social acceptance of controlling and terminating life support for... (shrink)

In the 1950s, Chomsky and his colleagues began attempts to reduce the complexity of natural language phonology and syntax to a few general principles. It wasn’t long before philosophers, notably John Searle and H. Paul Grice, started looking for ways to do the same for rational communication (Chapman 2005). In his 1967 William James Lectures, Grice presented a loose optimization system based on his maxims of conversation. The resulting papers (especially Grice 1975) strike a fruitful balance between intuitive exploration and (...) formal development. Though the work is not particularly formal, it marks the birth of modern formal pragmatics. Pragmatics is central to the theory of linguistic meaning because, to paraphrase Levinson (2000), the encoded content of the sentences we utter is only the barest sketch of what we actually communicate with those utterances. Utterance interpretation involves complex interactions among (i) semantic content, (ii) the context of utterance, and (iii) general pragmatic pressures (of which Grice’s maxims are one conception). The starting point for a formal pragmatics is the observation that speakers agree to a remarkable extent on the interpretations of the utterances they hear, suggesting that there are deep regularities across speakers, utterance contexts, and sentence types in how (i)–(iii) interact. An overarching challenge for pragmatic theory is that semantic content and the context of utterance influence each other. It is common, for instance, to find that the meaning of a sentence is crucially incomplete without contextual information. Indexicals and demonstratives are paradigm cases: ‘I am here now’ doesn’t have a fully specified denotation without information about who the speaker is, when he is speaking, and where he is speaking. Similarly, modal auxiliaries like must admit of a wide range of interpretations.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION MICHAEL POTTS Methodist Callege Fayetteville, North Carolina I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW A. The Influence of Plato HE SPATIO-TEMPORAL theory of individuation has long history in the philosophical tradition. Its roots go ack to Aristotle's theory of individuation by matter,1 and ultimately back to Plato. In the Timaeus, Plato struggled with the problem of how forms are instantiated in the phenomenal world. Besides " a model (...) form (paradeigmatos eidos), intelligible and ever uniformly existent" and "the model's copy (mimeta paradeigmatos), subject to becoming and visible," Plato postulated a third thing, a " receptacle " (hupodochen), "the nurse of all becoming." 2 It is wholly indeterminate:... while it is always receiving all things, nowhere and in no wise does it assume any shape similar to any of the things that enter into it. For it is laid down by nature as a moulding-stuff for everything, being moved and marked by the entering figures, and because of them it appears different at different times. And the figures that enter and depart are copies of those that are always existent, being stamped from them...8 1 I recognize that this is a controversial claim. Since I am tracing the spatio-temporal theory of individuation from Aristotle through St. Thomas Aquinas, for the purposes of this paper I will follow St. Thomas's interpretation of Aristotle and accept the view that Aristotle took matter to be the principle of individuation. 2 Plato, Timaeus 49a. The version used is the Loeb edition by R. G. Bury (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966). a Timaeus 50b-c. 59 60 MICHAEL POTTS The receptacle, then, is like formless wax upon which the forms are stamped. It is " apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning (logismo tini notho), barely an object of belief." 4 B. Aristotle It may seem on the surface unusual that the idea of the receptable would later be modified and used to explain individuation. Plato himself was concerned with the universal, the form. The instantiations of the forms in the phenomenal world do not even deserve to be called "this " or " that." 5 With Aristotle, however, the individual gains new importance, since for him forms have their reality only in individuals and individuals are primarily called "substance." If this is the case, then Aristotle has to explain how " humanity " can be the same while " Socrates" and " Callias" are two different individuals. Since form is universal, it cannot individuate, so the source of individuation must be matter-two individuals are different human beings, for example, because they have different lumps of matter.... and when the whole has been generated, such a form in this flesh and these bones, this is Callias or Socrates, and this is distinct from that which generated it because the matter is distinct (hulen, hetera gar), but it is the same in species since the species is indivisible.6 This view raises problems. Matter is indeterminate; it is Aristotle 's modification of Plato's receptacle. How can anything indeterminate itself determine individual substances? More needed to be done to.bring out the meaning of individuation by matter, and St. Thomas Aquinas developed a more detailed and satisfactory position. 4 Timaeus 52b. 5 Timaeus 49d-50a. 6 Aristotle, Metaphyscis 28 (1034a5-8). The Greek text used is Metaphysica, ed. by Werner Jaeger (Oxonii : E Typographaeo Clarendoniano, 1957). The English translation is by Hippocrates G. Apostle (Grinnell, Iowa: Peripatetic Press, 1979). THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION 61 C. St. Thomas Aquinas Aquinas, recognizing that prime matter is indeterminate and therefore not something that can individuate, argues that the principle of individuation is " signate" or " designated" matter. "Materia signata" is defined as matter as " sub determinatis dimensionibus consideratur," " considered under determinate dimensions." 7 While the exact meaning of this is unclear, it seems to refer to matter under determinate spatial dimensions or coordinates. While the form determines what sort of thing an entity is, what determines it to be this individual is this matter with a particular set of spatial coordinates. Henry Veatch puts Aquinas's view into more modern terms: In fact, matter as determined by dimensive quantity guarantees ontologically nothing more nor less than the... (shrink)

The current practice of organ transplantation has been criticized on several fronts. The philosophical and scientific foundations for brain death criteria have been crumbling. In addition, donation after cardiac death, or non-heartbeating-organ donation (NHBD) has been attacked on grounds that it mistreats the dying patient and uses that patient only as a means to an end for someone else's benefit.

_A deeply researched and poignant reflection on the practice of forgiveness in an unforgiving world__ “Broad in its philosophical sweep and fine in its literary analysis, this work redefines forgiveness as the modest yet heroic ability to hold pain and anger together with hope and nonviolence.”—Joie Szu-Chiao Chen, _Lion’s Roar__ Matthew Ichihashi Potts explores the complex moral terrain of forgiveness, which he claims has too often served as a salve to the conscience of power rather than as an instrument of (...) healing or justice. Though forgiveness is often linked with reconciliation or the abatement of anger, Potts resists these associations, asserting instead that forgiveness is simply the refusal of retaliatory violence through practices of penitence and grief. It is an act of mourning irrevocable wrong, of refusing the false promises of violent redemption, and of living in and with the losses we cannot recover. Drawing on novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, Louise Erdrich, and Toni Morrison, and on texts from the early Christian to the postmodern, Potts diagnoses the real dangers of forgiveness yet insists upon its enduring promise. Sensitive to the twenty-first-century realities of economic inequality, colonial devastation, and racial strife, and considering the role of forgiveness in the New Testament, the Christian tradition, philosophy, and contemporary literature, this book heralds the arrival of a new and creative theological voice. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish a distinction and relationship between two types of noise – active noise and passive noise – while giving emphasis to the latter. Active noise is the discourse of negativity and violence that some theorists associate with noise’s materiality, an association particularly pronounced in engagements with Japanoise. The problem with this discourse is that it relies on a culturally normative understanding of noise as well as novelty. This narrative inevitably leads to a dead end. Noise, and (...) artistic practices like Japanoise that draw on noise sounds, have a short lifespan if their entire purpose is one of shock and disturbance. However, Japanoise is not dead: it persists both as a genre and as a sonic idea/gesture. This article suggests that noise persists, and Japanoise remains relevant, because it comes from a region not exhausted by categories of negativity and violence. This article will show how underneath active noise there resounds a deeper, more profound a-cultural noise. Drawing on Maurice Blanchot’s account of passivity, which names the anarchic region of absence in his thought, this noise will be described as passive noise. In this context, passivity must be understood differently from the conventional sense as something opposed to activity. Likewise, passive noise does not refer to background noise. Instead, passive noise will be described as the interiority of excess that manifests as a breach in the closure of active noise. This breach will be shown to be consistent with Blanchot’s view of the inexhaustibility of art and will be described, specifically in the context of Japanoise, as the intimacy of excess that is the lifeblood of maximalist forms of noise-making. This will also amount to a reconsideration of the idea of transgression by reframing Japanoise in terms of inertia. (shrink)

Human beings, like chimpanzees, deliberately kill their own species in order to expand their territory. For a self-aware social animal to attack its own kind, it would need to evolve a mechanism to dehumanize, or “dechimpanzee-ize” those it attacks. It is suggested that cruelty reflects such an evolved predisposition. The implications for violence prevention are discussed.

This paper argues that debating the relative possibility and desirability of past reconstruction and present interpretation cannot furnish an adequate response to questions about the character and value of history. It is also necessary to debate whether or not to acknowledge, and therefore engage with, the social and political consequences of historical enquiry, which includes taking responsibility for a relationship with its audience.

This 1994 book develops a way of representing the meanings of linguistic expressions which is independent of any particular language, allowing the expressions to be manipulated in accordance with rules related to their meanings which could be implemented on a computer. It begins with a survey of the contributions of linguistics, logic and computer science to the problem of representation, linking each with a particular type of formal grammar. A system of graphs is then presented, organized by scope relations in (...) which linguistic constituents are sub-graphs whose configuration is determined by their categories. In developing this system, the author extends the notion of scope and argues that anaphoric and relative pronouns are structural signs not linguistic constituents. Certain count nouns are made the basis of this system and an account of proper names relating the count nouns, is given. (shrink)

How is it possible for Foucault to present the body at the same time as the foundation and the result of history, as condition and horizon of the theory that takes hold of it ? One has to pay attention to the various registers in which Foucault distributes the acceptations ordinarily confused with the general notion of the body : from "my body" (as it appears in Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology) to "the body' (as it is understood by modern medicine) ; from (...) this body as an object for positive explanation and disciplinary, to the speaking and spoken body described in The Will of Knowledge ; and from those acceptations, which take place in an history of the individual body, to the plurality of bodies that intervene, as a background, in Foucault's ethics. (shrink)

Based on themes in Aquinas, this paper adds to the defense of the doctrine of an eternal hell, focusing on the state of those in hell after the resurrection. I first summarize the Thomistic doctrine of the human person as a body-soul unity, showing why existence as a separated soul is truncated and unnatural. Next, I discuss the soul-body reunion at the resurrection, which restores an essential aspect of human nature, even for the damned. This reveals the love of God (...) since He gives the damned the best human existence they can possibly have given their disordered wills. Finally, I defend this position against three important objections. (shrink)

Governments of Australia have, at least since the 1960s, desired the control of tertiary education. From the mid-1960s to 1988 Australia had a binary system of higher education comprised of universities and colleges of advanced education. The latter were subject to much stricter government regulation. One of the main intentions was to have a system of tertiary education which was more attuned to the economic needs of the nation and less expensive than traditional universities. Colleges of advanced education were supposed (...) to be ‘equal but different’. Historians of education have been criticised for concentrating on facts and acts and for ignoring the human and social dimensions of institutional history. This paper redresses some of these shortcomings. The paper focuses on the individual working lives of a group of academic staff in one of Australia's oldest colleges of advanced education. It examines the influence of government regulations at the individual level. The paper investigates how system-wide restraints were reflected in the institutions they were supposed to influence. The issues covered include academic recruitment, induction programmes, institutional history, the use of sanctions and rewards and controls on teaching. (shrink)

For anyone even passingly familiar with Maurice Blanchot, it might initially seem surprising to encounter a collection dedicated to exploring sonic encounters with and resonances of or from his wor...

The most conceptually drastic change in natural language syntactic theory in recent years is the introduction of economy conditions (ECs). Although there is not a unified formal notion of economy, the intuition is that natural languages are governed by a general “less is more” principle. Those who take this seriously, and regard it not just as principle guiding the researcher but as something to be implemented directly in grammars, are often led to comparative economy conditions (comparative ECs), which select from (...) a set of structures the most economical among them according to some criterion. Such conditions are associated with the Minimalist Program (MP), but they are found also in Optimality Theory (OT) and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG).1 The following is a sample of the prominent works mentioning ‘economy’. (shrink)

This paper considers the possibility of a disembodied conscious soul, arguing that a great deal of current research converges in a direction that denies the possibility of a bodiless consciousness for human beings. Contemporary attacks on Cartesianism also serve as attacks on the view of some hylomorphist Catholics, such as Thomas Aquinas, that there can be a disembodied consciousness between death and resurrection, a view that violates the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, there may be a way out for (...) the Catholic hylomorphist which was suggested by Dante—the possibility of a temporary body. The first section of the paper will summarize the contemporary attack against both the Cartesian soul and physicalist systems that reduce the mind to the brain. The alternative position proposed is that the human being is a psychosomatic unity at the level of the organism as a whole, and that both mind-body and brain-body dualism should be avoided. Such a position, I will argue, supports the notion that a disembodied soul, including a disembodied consciousness, is not possible for human beings. Finally, I will discuss Dante’s views on temporary bodies and explore three ways of understanding a temporary body, any of which can preserve a conscious intermediate state between death and resurrection. (shrink)

Ethical issues relating to the use of the injectable contraceptive in developed and developing countries alike involve public policy decisions concerning both criteria for testing a new drug and individual choices about using a specific form of contraception approved for national distribution. Drug testing consists of an important but still evolving set of procedures. Depo-Provera is not qualitatively different from any other drug and some unpredictable risks are inevitable, even after extensive animal experiments and clinical trials. In assessing the risks (...) and benefits of Depo-Provera use, epidemiological data from large-scale human use is now beginning to become more important than data from animal experiments and clinical trials. The consumer's best interest is central to any ethically responsible system of drug distribution. Systems of informed choice are needed, even in societies where illiteracy remains common and medical services are weak. In the case of a contraceptive, the risks of non-use leading to unintended pregnancy, which can result in high mortality, are relevant as well as the side-effects of the method. An attempt, therefore, is made here to categorise those issues which are universal and those which are country-specific. (shrink)

_Inclusion in the City_ explores inclusion and exclusion in the context of policy and practice in one English city - Birmingham. Here, a commitment to redressing the inequalities experienced by many learners has been inhibited by difficulty in securing agreement to a definite policy for inclusion and, consequently, in sustaining initiatives for strengthening participation in community comprehensive education. Grounded in an understanding of inclusion as a political and moral project, the book presents a range of perspectives from policymakers and practitioners. (...) Detailed case studies, based on research specially undertaken for this book, relate inclusion to key issues in contemporary education such as; the effects of selection by attainment; faith schools and their communities; single sex education and inclusive schools; participation in further education; and social mobility. Insightful, thought provoking and original, _Inclusion in the City_ detaches processes of inclusion and exclusion from the language of educational reform. In so doing it highlights links between participation in education and poverty, gender and cultural background, as well as the absence of a link between urban and educational renewal. (shrink)

Individuality has posed difficult problems throughout the history of philosophy. Not only is there the metaphysical difficulty of determining the principle of individuation, but, since our concepts and linguistic structure are based on universals, there is a gap in our knowledge of individuals and in our ability to express knowledge of individuals. God, who in Classical Theism is an individual, poses especially difficult problems. This dissertation proposes one way which may partially close the gap: metaphor. ;I argue that the principle (...) of individuation is what Duns Scotus called haecceitas, which uniquely delimits this particular individual. It is not opposed to form or to universality, but is the ultimate reality of form. I follow Scotus further in holding that the individual qua individual is intrinsically intelligible; our difficulty in understanding individuals is due to the weakness of our intellect, since our thought is through universal concepts. ;Next I defend the interaction theory of metaphor, which holds that the terms of a metaphor interact to form a new meaning which cannot be entirely reduced to the meanings of the terms. I argue further that metaphor can not only give us richer linguistic access to entities, but also give us cognitive insight which cannot be gained in any other way. ;I then defend a form of non-propositional knowing and argue that metaphor is a particularly appropriate way to express this knowledge. I argue that Scotus' theory of individuality, which holds that the individual is intrinsically intelligible, leaves open the possibility of some form of metaphoric cognition of the individual. I present a case study: the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins attempted to use metaphor and other devices in his poetry to illuminate individual beings. ;Finally I discuss God, the ultimate instance of the correlation of universality and individuality. God, being the ultimate individual, presents epistemological and linguistic problems similar in some ways to those which accrue to finite individuality. I defend the thesis that metaphorical and modelling language can help us gain insight into God. (shrink)

Emotions are ”feelings of bodily changes’, according to William James. This definition was the starting point of a debate that has been going on for more than a century now. James’ approach soon seemed empirically falsified by experimental psychologists and it was seriously undermined by philosophers who called his views untenable, because he seemed to reduce emotions to non-cognitive sensations. But time and again James rose from his grave. Today we witness his revival in the work of ”neo-Jamesians’ like Jesse (...) Prinz and ”neo-phenomenologists’ like Matthew Ratcliffe. In this article the main reactions to James’ ”feelings of bodily changes’ are examined. My conclusion is that both his critics and his supporters have started from an incomplete interpretation of the theory. James’ pragmatically embedded psychology of emotion as the experience of a dynamic, bodily self has until today received insufficient philosophical attention. (shrink)

Quel statut conférer chez Michel Foucault à l’invocation du corps, si ce dernier apparaît à la fois comme foyer d’expérience et comme objet d’analyse, comme l’effet et comme le support d’une construction historique, discursive ou sociale, comme rétif à toute définition d’essence et comme point d’appui de la résistance? Sous cette circularité apparente, dont les analyses de Foucault tirent une part de leur fécondité, s’articulent en réalité divers registres d’appréhension du corps : ceux-ci visent à mettre en question tant l’approche (...) phénoménologique du corps propre que la naturalité du corps individuel, au profit d’une affirmation « des corps » dans leur irréductible pluralité, en excès sur toute tentative de caractériser le corps en vérité. (shrink)

The analysis of meat and its place in Western culture has been central to Human-Animal Studies as a field. _Meat Culture_ brings into focus urgent critiques of hegemonic ‘meat culture’, animal farming and the wider animal industrial complex.

Avançant par bifurcations et ruptures, la pensée de Foucault renouvelle sans arrêt ses méthodes et ses concepts. Sous cette ligne brisée se laisse lire l'unité, non d'un système, mais d'un souci : articuler l'analyse positive des normes historiques au repérage de leurs crises ; se défaire de toute référence au sujet constituant mais rouvrir l'interstice d'un soi, où penser autrement deviendrait possible. Ce livre propose l'étude de deux moments précis de l'oeuvre : la description, dans l'Histoire de la folie, de (...) la naissance de l'asile; l'examen de la subjectivation grecque, dans L'Usage des plaisirs. S'y laisse voir l'invention d'une nouvelle figure de la critique : critique sans surplomb qui, au lieu d'en appeler à la raison et aux principes, s'autorise des failles singulières ouvertes dans le jeu du savoir et du pouvoir. De cette position exposée et précaire, chaque livre tire sa puissance d'intervention : morale de l'inconfort, la pensée de Foucault est aussi une politique de l'incertitude. (shrink)

Christopher Dawson identified with sociology, wrote extensively for the original Sociological Review, was a stalwart of the Sociological Society in the interwar years, achieved international recognition as a sociologist, engaged with Karl Mannheim and the Moot, and in the postwar period defended meta-history and the sociologically oriented historical work of people like Marc Bloch. He ultimately became regarded as the greatest Catholic historian of the twentieth century, and became a Harvard Professor and a cult figure for American and European Catholics. (...) This paper describes this remarkable trajectory, his absence from the later self-understanding of British sociology, and his key ideas, including his Bellah-like account of the axial age and his extensive response to Weber’s Protestant Ethic and to the extension of these ideas in Ernst Troetlsch. (shrink)

Économiquement, l'heure est dit-on à la reprise, gouverner consisterait à remettre le pays sur ses rails et s'opposer à ce que l'air du temps peut présenter d'intolérable exigerait dans l'instant de repartir au combat. Mais que peuvent bien signifier ces verbes, reprendre, remettre, ou repartir? À quelles complications et à quelles hantises s'affrontent nos tentatives intimes ou politiques pour surmonter déceptions et défaites, doutes et empêchements, jusqu'à trouver la force d'agir à nouveau? Les philosophes se sont souvent penchés sur les (...) premiers commencements de toutes choses; on voudrait ici, en compagnie de penseurs et d'écrivains, interroger plutôt les deuxièmes coups, les nouvelles fois, sonder leurs pièges et leurs promesses, et explorer l'expérience individuelle ou collective du recommencement comme on se recoudrait une éthique en guettant le retour des beaux jours."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Police use force in high-stakes situations: as state agents, they are obligated to balance the suspect’s right to security against the community members’ right to safety. Currently, the doctrine of qualified immunity (DQI) overprotects police officers, which facilitates the use of illegitimate force. In section I, I survey the theoretical concerns motivating my inquiry into police authority. Section II develops these moral concerns by analyzing two deleterious effects of the DQI. Then, in section III, I show a proper conception of (...) authority to be essential to balancing the two aforementioned rights and argue that the doctrine breeds excessive use of force because it fails to ensure police legitimacy. I finish by suggesting how we should restrict police immunity. (shrink)

It seems unlikely that there will ever be consensus about the extent to which we can reliably distinguish semantic phenomena from pragmatic phenomena. But there is now broad agreement that a sentence's meaning can be given in full only when it is studied in its natural habitat: as part of an utterance by an agent who intends it to communicate a message. Here, we document some of the interactions that such study has uncovered. In every case, to achieve even a (...) basic description, it is necessary to pool semantic information, contextual information, speaker intentions, and general pragmatic pressures. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish a distinction and relationship between two types of noise – active noise and passive noise – while giving emphasis to the latter. Active noise is the discourse of negativity and violence that some theorists associate with noise’s materiality, an association particularly pronounced in engagements with Japanoise. The problem with this discourse is that it relies on a culturally normative understanding of noise as well as novelty. This narrative inevitably leads to a dead end. Noise, and (...) artistic practices like Japanoise that draw on noise sounds, have a short lifespan if their entire purpose is one of shock and disturbance. However, Japanoise is not dead: it persists both as a genre and as a sonic idea/gesture. This article suggests that noise persists, and Japanoise remains relevant, because it comes from a region not exhausted by categories of negativity and violence. This article will show how underneath active noise there resounds a deeper, more profound a-cultural noise. Drawing on Maurice Blanchot’s account of passivity, which names the anarchic region of absence in his thought, this noise will be described as passive noise. In this context, passivity must be understood differently from the conventional sense as something opposed to activity. Likewise, passive noise does not refer to background noise. Instead, passive noise will be described as the interiority of excess that manifests as a breach in the closure of active noise. This breach will be shown to be consistent with Blanchot’s view of the inexhaustibility of art and will be described, specifically in the context of Japanoise, as the intimacy of excess that is the lifeblood of maximalist forms of noise-making. This will also amount to a reconsideration of the idea of transgression by reframing Japanoise in terms of inertia. (shrink)

This paper attempts to listen to Scott Walker and Sunn O)))’s respective music, and their collaboration Soused, by way of Maurice Blanchot’s notion of disaster which is framed in relation to the ‘a...

Recently, several articles in the scholarly literature on medical ethics proclaim the need for “responsible scholarship” in the debate over the proper criteria for death, in which “responsible scholarship” is defined in terms of support for current neurological criteria for death. In a recent article, James M. DuBois is concerned that academic critiques of current death criteria create unnecessary doubt about the moral acceptability of organ donation, which may affect the public’s willingness to donate. Thus he calls for a closing (...) of the debate on current death criteria and for journal editors to publish only critiques that “substantially engage and advance the debate.” We argue that such positions as DuBois’ are a threat to responsible scholarship in medical ethics, especially scholarship that opposes popular stances, because it erodes academic freedom and the necessity of debate on an issue that is literally a matter of life and death, no matter what side a person defends. (shrink)

In this lecture, I want to convey some ideas about linguistic communication which will probably be found not only unfamiliar, but also difficult to grasp at a first encounter. Perhaps I am being too ambitious in so short a compass. At any rate, my only hope of success is to work within closely defined limits, to concentrate more upon expounding these suggestions than upon detailed justification of them, and to say as little as possible about the shortcomings of alternative proposals (...) which are current. The references which I cite have also been rather narrowly selected. As to the limits of this discussion, it will be confined to linguistic communication, as effected by the use of sentences. This is not to deny that there are non-linguistic forms of communication, both between men and between other animals, nor that there are other units of linguistic communication than the sentence; I have taken only what seems most typical of human communication, in order to make the task manageable. (shrink)

William James’s reputation in the field of emotion research is based on his early psychological writings where he defines emotions as ‘feelings of bodily changes’. In his later work, particularly in his study of mystic emotion, James comes up with what looks like a completely different approach. Here his focus is on positive feelings of inspiration and joy, but also on downbeat moods like melancholy and depression. He examines how these feeling states give meaning to an individual’s life. Theorists often (...) speculate about a gap between James’s early writings and his later work, and assume that the later James turned from an evolutionary-minded natural scientist into a metaphysical philosopher. In my paper, I follow Ratcliffe in his view that a sharply drawn line between the early and the late work is implausible and that James’s later study of mysticism fits nicely with his early psychology. Drawing on James, I show how in his later work, James develops a theory of embodied emotions that anticipates the role ascribed by twentieth century phenomenology to anxiety and other ‘bad moods’, as possibilities for philosophical reflection and self-understanding. (shrink)

This note describes an unexpected interaction between the Negative Polarity Item (NPI) need and the determiner no. Unlike its Germanic brethren kein and geen, no does not normally allow its negation to "split" from it, taking scope over another operator and leaving an indefinite behind. However, when a no DP is the object of an NPI need-clause, determiner no happily divides.

The author asks to what extent a knowledge of the concepts of yoga may prepare the way to a better understanding of Indian archaeology. The yoga at the basis of this study is that which forms the core of the Tantras. In the first chapter the author surveys the system of Tantrik yoga. He then continues with a discussion of the various forms of yantras, that is all the means employed by yogis in their meditational exercises as aids to the (...) concentration of thought. The author provides in-depth studies of ritual objects of the Lamaistic cult in Tibet and Nepal, the sacred cemeteries of Nepal, and pantheons in Java and Bali. (shrink)

Harmonic Grammar (HG) is a model of linguistic constraint interaction in which well-formedness is calculated as the sum of weighted constraint violations. We show how linear programming algorithms can be used to determine whether there is a weighting for a set of constraints that fits a set of linguistic data. The associated software package OT-Help provides a practical tool for studying large and complex linguistic systems in the HG framework and comparing the results with those of OT. We describe the (...) translation from Harmonic Grammars to systems solvable by linear programming, and we illustrate the usefulness of OT-Help with a set of studies of the predictions HG makes for phonological typology. (shrink)

In recent years a number of books have been published that offer short autobiographical essays of academics, focusing on their research and how their life history affected their scholarly development. These could be labeled as "intellectual journey narratives." Some volumes focus on philosophers and their religious faith or lack thereof (e.g., Clark, 1997, Antony, 2007). Psychology has its own version of the intellectual journey narrative, in T. S. Krawiec's (1972, 1974, 1978) multivolume set of autobiographical essays by contemporary psychologists. In (...) 1987, Rosemary Pilkington edited her first volume of essays entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 1. It contains autobiographical essays by Jule Eisenbud, Montague Ullman, Jan Ehrenwald, Eileen Coly, Joseph H. Rush, Gertrude R. Schmeidler, Emilio Servadio, Renée Haynes, Hans Bender, Karlis Osis, George Zorab and Bernard Grad. The second (2013) volume contains autobiographical essays by Mary Rose Barrington, Eberhard Bauer, William Braud (now deceased), Stephen Braude, Richard S. Broughton, Larry Dossey, Sally Rhine Feather, Erlendur Haraldsson, Arthur Hastings, Stanley Krippner, Lawrence LeShan, Roger Nelson, John Palmer, Guy Leon Playfair, William G. Roll (now deceased), Serena Roney-Dougal, Stephan A. Schwartz, Rex G. Stanford, Russell Targ, Charles T. Tart, and Walter von Lucadou. Between the two volumes almost every significant contemporary parapsychologist is represented, with the major exceptions being the late John Beloff and the late Ian Stevenson. (shrink)

Research evidencing the consequences of the experience of ‘calling’ have multiplied in recent years. At the same time, concerns have been expressed about the conceptual coherence of the notion as studies have posited a wide variety of senses in which both workers and scholars understand what it means for workers to be called, what they are called to do and who is doing the ‘calling’. This paper makes both conceptual and empirical contributions to the field. We argue that Bellah et (...) al.’s (Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life, University of California Press, 1996) contrast between tradition-based and expressivist understandings of ‘calling’ highlights a fundamental but neglected fissure in the literature. Expressivist accounts amongst both scholars and research participants require only that ‘calling’ be deeply felt by those who experience it. However, tradition-based accounts require an external caller. Exemplifying this, workers who attest to a divine call and scholars who write about ‘calling’ in the context of particular Christian traditions understand ‘calling’ in terms of a relationship with God. These accounts cannot but be in radical tension. We suggest that this conceptual confusion can be understood in terms of MacIntyre’s notion of ‘tradition-constituted rationality.’ The implications of this argument for practice are evidenced in our report of a study of adherents to one such tradition, workers at a Christian organization that supports people in poverty. Through in-depth interviews with long-term volunteers, we seek to assess if tradition-based ‘calling’ can be evidenced in unpaid work for the lack of pay and career progression opportunities strongly suggest the presence of ‘calling.’ This study demonstrates that even in the context of work that exhibits duty and altruism associated with expressivist accounts of ‘calling,’ these workers’ understanding of the relationships between themselves, their clients and Jesus Christ dominate their work choices. It is the meaning derived from a divine caller, understood in terms of Christian tradition, that accounts for their decision to begin and to continue this work. (shrink)

In this paper, I supplement T. A. Cavanaugh’s arguments against physician-assisted suicide in his book, Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake, by focusing more specifically on the dangers of the misuse of physician power and on the virtues essential to restrain such power. Since Cavanaugh’s starting point is similar to Edmund Pellegrino’s views on the fundamental ends of medicine, I start with the question of the proper ends of medicine. Cavanaugh’s interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath as the limitation of physician power (...) to heal and to kill raises the issue of the proper use of physician power over the patient. In order to support and strengthen Cavanaugh’s case, I use Richard Zaner’s discussion of physician power over the patient and the attendant duty to use such power in a responsible way. Finally, I supplement Cavanaugh’s discussion with a fuller account of physician virtues as they relate to physician-assisted suicide. I first discuss the ends of medicine, medical power, and physician-assisted suicide. Second, I discuss the relationship between virtue and physician-assisted suicide. Third, I draw some final conclusions. (shrink)

Two studies explore the frequently reported finding that affective forecasts are too extreme. In the first study, driving test candidates forecast the emotional consequences of failing. Test failers overestimated the duration of their disappointment. Greater previous experience of this emotional event did not lead to any greater accuracy of the forecasts, suggesting that learning about one's own emotions is difficult. Failers' self-assessed chances of passing were lower a week after the test than immediately prior to the test; this difference correlated (...) with the magnitude of individual immediate disappointments, suggesting the presence of a cognitive strategy for recovering from disappointments. A second study investigated the theory that undue focus on the differences between present and future biases affective forecasts. “Defocusing” that induced low-level construals of the future reduced the extremeness of affective forecasts but a higher-level construal did not. We conclude that a focusing effect may bias affective forecasts. (shrink)

Since the introduction of the concept of brain death by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death in 1968, the validity of this concept has been challenged by medical scientists, as well as by legal, philosophical, and religious scholars. In light of increased criticism of the concept of brain death, Stephen Napier, a staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, set out to prove that the whole-brain death criterion serves as (...) good evidence for death in the Catholic bioethical framework, on the grounds that when whole-brain death has occurred the soul has already departed from the body. Opponents have argued that (1) brain death does not disrupt the somatic integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism and (2) clinical tests outlined in the practice guidelines for determining brain death lack sufficient power to exclude persisting function and fail to detect elements of the brain that, although currently functionless, may retain potential for recovery under conditions of optimal medical care. It is therefore possible that heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of active euthanasia and physician-assisted death, both of which, either concealed or overt, the Catholic Church opposes. (shrink)

Paul Grice seems to have led a quintessentially academic life — a life spent jotting notes, giving lectures, reading, talking, and arguing with his past self and with others. In virtue of his age and station, he remained largely at the fringes of the great battles of his day — World War II and the clash of the positivists with the ordinary language group. There are no grand family tensions `a la Russell, nor any deep psychoses `a la Wittgenstein. Just (...) obstinacy, unfashionable dress, cricket, and periods of gluttony. It is not the usual stuff of high drama. But Siobhan Chapman’s biography Paul Grice: Philosopher and Linguist tells a compelling story. It’s a story of surprising influences and gradual intellectual evolution. And it is well timed from the linguist’s perspective. Now more than ever, the boundaries of conversational implicatures, Grice’s most important designation, are being redrawn. It is illuminating to return to their sources and track their development. (shrink)

The idea of the spherical world, poised in space, and encircled at different distances by the celestial bodies, was introduced by the early Greek cosmologists. With some modifications, it is still our Western world-picture. It differs fundamentally from that of other cultures, which all accept, in one version or another, the idea of a flat earth with the dome of the celestial vault above it. The Greek conception, however, entails the problem of falling. How to account for the earth's stability? (...) Why is it that the earth does not fall? This anxious question has already bothered the Presocratics. Aristotle provided the solution that was satisfying for many hundred of years. Falling, according to Aristotle, is not the problem, but the answer, as the earth, consisting of the heaviest of the elements, finds its natural place in the centre of the spherical universe. For the same reason the earth itself, according to Aristotle, has to be spherical. Thus, his main line of argumentation was what we now would call 'metaphysical'. Recently, some scholars have argued that the early Greek idea of a spherical earth was developed as a protoscientifie hypothesis, based on empirical reasoning and observation. In this article, we show this to be an example of the 'anachronistic fallacy' that seriously obscures our understanding of the ancient Greek philosophers. Aristotle's conception held for two millennia, until the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Thomas Digges overthrew it. Consequently, Newton had to cope with the fear of falling again — a fear that still haunts our modern world-picture and that was brilliantly articulated by Blaise Pascal, in his Pensées. (shrink)