Is logic masculine? Is women's lack of interest in the "hard core" philosophical disciplines of formal logic and semantics symptomatic of an inadequacy linked to sex? Is the failure of women to excel in pure mathematics and mathematical science a function of their inability to think rationally? Andrea Nye undermines the assumptions that inform these questions, assumptions such as: logic is unitary, logic is independenet of concrete human relations, and logic transcends historical circumstances as well as gender. In a (...) series of studies of the logics of historical figures--Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Abelard, Ockham, and Frege--she traces the changing interrelationships between logical innovation and oppressive speech strategies, showing that logic is not transcendent truth but abstract forms of language spoken by men, whether Greek ruling citizens, or scientists. (shrink)

There seems to be a minimal core that every theory wishing to accommodate the intuition that the future is open must contain: a denial of physical determinism (i.e. the thesis that what future states the universe will be in is implied by what states it has been in), and a denial of strong fatalism (i.e. the thesis that, at every time, what will subsequently be the case is metaphysically necessary).1 Those two requirements are often associated with the idea of an (...) objective temporal flow and the non-reality of the future. However, at least certain ways to frame the “openness” intuition do not rely on any of these. Branching Time Theory (BTT) is one such: it is compatible with the denial that time flow is objective and it is couched in a language with a (prima facie) commitment to an eternalist ontology. BTT, though, urges us to resist certain intuitions about the determinacy of future claims, which arguably do not lead either to physical determinism or to fatalism. Against BTT, supporters of the Thin Red Line Theory (TRL) argue that their position avoids determinism and fatalism, while also representing the fact that there is a future which is “special” because it is the one that will be the case. But starting with Belnap and Green 1994, some have objected to the tenability of TRL, mainly on metaphysical grounds. In particular, those argue that “positing a thin red line amounts to giving up objective indeterminism,”2 and that “has unacceptable consequences, ranging from a mistreatment of actuality to an inability to talk coherently about what would have happened had what is going to happen not taken place.”3 In this paper, we wish to reframe the.. (shrink)

Name any valued human trait—intelligence, wit, charm, grace, strength—and you will find an inexhaustible variety and complexity in its expression among individuals. Yet we insist that such diversity does not provide grounds for differential treatment at the most basic level. Whatever merit, blame, praise, love, or hate we receive as beings with a particular past and a particular constitution, we are always and everywhere due equal respect merely as persons. -/- But why? Most who attempt to answer this question appeal (...) to the idea that all human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and worth—grounded in our capacities, for example, to reason, reflect, or love—that raises us up in the order of nature. Andrea Sangiovanni rejects this predominant view and offers a radical alternative. -/- To understand our commitment to basic equality, Humanity without Dignity argues that we must begin with a consideration not of equality but of inequality. Rather than search for a chimerical value-bestowing capacity possessed to an equal extent by each one of us, we ought to ask: Why and when is it wrong to treat others as inferior? Sangiovanni comes to the conclusion that our commitment to moral equality is best explained by a rejection of cruelty rather than a celebration of rational capacity. He traces the impact of this fundamental shift for our understanding of human rights and the norms of anti-discrimination that underlie it. (shrink)

This paper employs some outcomes (for the most part due to David Lewis) of the contemporary debate on the metaphysics of dispositions to evaluate those dispositional analyses of meaning that make use of the concept of a disposition in ideal conditions. The first section of the paper explains why one may find appealing the notion of an ideal-condition dispositional analysis of meaning and argues that Saul Kripke’s well-known argument against such analyses is wanting. The second section focuses on Lewis’ work (...) in the metaphysics of dispositions in order to call attention to some intuitions about the nature of dispositions that we all seem to share. In particular, I stress the role of what I call "Actuality Constraint". The third section of the paper maintains that the Actuality Constraint can be used to show that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist (in so doing, I develop a suggestion put forward by Paul Boghossian). This immediately implies that ideal-condition dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work. The last section discusses a possible objection to my argument. The point of the objection is that the argument depends on an illicit assumption. I show (1) that, in fact, the assumption in question is far from illicit and (2) that even without this assumption it is possible to argue that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist. (shrink)

"How can human beings, who are liable to error, possess knowledge, since the grounds on which we believe do not rule out that we are wrong? Andrea Kern argues that we can disarm this skeptical doubt by conceiving knowledge as an act of a rational capacity. In this book, she develops a metaphysics of the mind as existing through knowledge of itself."--Provided by publisher.

This paper argues that most of the alleged straight solutions to the sceptical paradox which Kripke ascribed to Wittgenstein can be regarded as the first horn of a dilemma whose second horn is the paradox itself. The dilemma is proved to be a by‐product of a foundationalist assumption on the notion of justification, as applied to linguistic behaviour. It is maintained that the assumption is unnecessary and that the dilemma is therefore spurious. To this end, an alternative conception of the (...) justification of linguistic behaviour is outlined, a conception that vindicates some of the insights behind Kripke's Wittgenstein's sceptical solution of the paradox. This alternative conception is defended against two objections (both familiar from McDowell's works): (1) that it would imply that for the linguistic community there is no authority, no standard to meet and, therefore, no possibility of error and (2) that it would lead to a kind of idealism. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s fundamental concept of “attitude”. I first explore Husserl’s account with respect to the three faculties of intellect, will, and emotivity [Gemüt], which also define the three basic kinds of attitude. The attitude assumed by the subject plays at this level the important role of articulating and unifying, according to an overall direction, various underlying moments of a complex act. I then focus on the specific intellectual, viz. cognitive attitudes and highlight (...) the difference between the naturalistic attitude (which characterizes the natural sciences) and the personalistic attitude (which characterizes the human sciences). I then consider the notion of the natural attitude and argue that the personalistic attitude represents the systematic core of it. The natural attitude may be defined as the human attitude, i.e., as the attitude in which subjects posit themselves exclusively as human subjects belonging to the world , which is itself unceasingly posited as being. In the final part of the paper I explore the function of the phenomenological reduction insofar as it opens up a possibility of self-understanding that breaks with the natural, human self-apprehension and discloses subjectivity in its transcendental dimension. This opens up a radically new attitude, the phenomenological, which should not be confused with a first-person perspective within the framework of the natural attitude. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and (...) human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Masked priming experiments occasionally revealed surprising effects: Participants responded slower for congruent compared to incongruent primes. This negative congruency effect was ascribed to inhibition of prime-induced activation [Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. . Response faciliation and inhibition in subliminal priming. Biological Psychology, 64, 7–26.] that sets in if the prime activation is sufficiently strong. The current study tests this assumption by implementing manipulations designed to vary the amount of prime-induced activation in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 3, NCEs were (...) observed despite reduced prime-induced activation. Experiment 2 revealed no NCE with at least similar prime strength. Thus, the amount of prime activation did not predict whether or not NCEs occurred. The findings are discussed with regard to the inhibition account and the recently proposed account of mask-induced activation [cf. Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. . Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 475–493; Verleger, R., Jaskowski, P., Aydemir, A., van der Lubbe, R. H. J., & Groen, M. . Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 494–515]. (shrink)

Many arguments are affected by context sensitivity, because they include sentences that have different truth conditions in different contexts. Therefore, it is natural to think that a general criterion for evaluating arguments must take context sensitivity into account. One way to give substance to that thought is provided by the definition of validity offered by David Kaplan within his theory of indexicals. However, the route indicated by Kaplan is hindered by a problem whose importance is often underestimated. This paper explores (...) a different route, and outlines a definition of validity that does not run into that problem. Its moral is that Kaplan's definition is not the only plausible definition. This is not to say that the definition outlined is the only plausible definition or that it is correct in some absolute sense. There might be equally important problems with it that the paper does not take into account. But until such problems are found and brought up, the departure from Kaplan's route remains a viable option. (shrink)

Pretendo defender a compatibilidade da concepção de objeto desenvolvida na Dedução Transcendental das categorias do entendimento da primeira edição da Crítica da Razão Pura com as demandas da filosofia crítica, ainda que pese em contrário o uso da expressão “objeto transcendental” por parte de Kant. Sugiro que o uso de tal expressão guarde justamente uma transição entre o conceito de objeto como coisa em si e o novo conceito de objeto do conhecimento em sentido crítico.

Cancer registries are an important part of the public health infrastructure, since they allow to monitor the temporal trends of this illness as well as facilitate epidemiological research. In order to effectively set up such registries, it is necessary to create a system of data collection that permits to record health-related information from patients who are diagnosed with cancer. Given the sensitive nature of such data, it is debated whether their recording should be based on consent or whether alternative arrangements (...) are possible (eg, opt-out systems where information is automatically collected but patients can later withdraw). In the recent reform of the Swiss cancer registration legislation, the lawmaker set out to implement rules about the recording of data in cancer registries that would allegedly go beyond a consent-based model, in order to balance accurate registration with respect of patient rights. However, by analysing the operational norms of the new legislation and comparing them with those of other systems, it emerges that the Swiss rules de facto closely resemble a system of registration based on informed consent—in partial contradiction with the objective pursued by the lawmaker. In this paper, we show how the details of a policy are crucial to determine its true nature and we highlight some critical elements—from an ethical standpoint—of the recently reformed Swiss policy on cancer registration. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 6 Seiten: 975-998.

This paper examines how behavioral integration of top management teams may contribute to our understanding of how stakeholder initiatives become a part of a firm’s strategy. Multiple case design was used by conducting a series of interviews with the executive teams at three firms in the U.S. telecommunications industry.

Philosophia brings together, for the first time, the work of three major women thinkers of this century, producing a developing commentary on the human condition as an alternative to the mainstream, masculine, philosophical tradition.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The AftermathAndrea EisenbergThe cantor begins, humming softly, gently strumming her guitar. Soon the rabbi starts reading, his voice somber as he recites the traditional prayer on Yom Kippur."How many will pass away from this world, how many will be born into it;Who will live and who will die."I feel my eyes tearing up. I look down and take a breath, but I can't seem to stop the speeding train (...) of memories."I'm sorry, we did everything we could….." My head was spinning. No, no, no, this can't be … this can't be really happening …I looked up at my patient. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Her eyes searching the eyes staring back at her. The nurses, the neonatologist, her husband all surrounded her, reflecting back her shock and incomprehension.I stopped breathing. My hands felt cold. My fingers were tingling. No one was looking at me. It felt like there was no air in the room … I just needed air. Embarrassingly, I walked out of the room."Who will reach the ripeness of age, who will be taken before their time."It all began on an early spring night, the air fresh with new growth and possibilities. Heralding the warmer days ahead, the purple crocuses were just peeking out of the grass. As I walked to my car to make my way to the hospital, the crisp coolness of the melting winter brushed across my face, wiping away the warm touch of my baby's cheek moments earlier. Driving off, my heart tugged me home; my brain tugged me to work.The dusky sky accompanied me along the drive to work—the gradually fading light behind me, the darkness ahead. My mind began shifting from home to the woman in labor, starting her own motherhood journey. I imagined her excitement as well as her weariness of labor.The bright lights and the hustle and bustle of a busy labor and delivery department greeted me as I entered the unit. I found comfort in the dimly lit room of my patient. I could make out her blond hair flowing over the pillow and blankets overlaying her body. Her husband, sitting on the bench next to her, was lit up by the brightness of the phone screen he was intently looking at. The quiet beat of her baby's heart on the monitor was soothing in its cadence and reassuring to me.The rabbi then walks to the center of the bima with the cantor as the choir continues to sing. He begins to hit his chest gently with each line."Avinu Malkeninu1, sh'ma koleinu, chus v'racheim aleinu.Avinu Malkeinu, hear our voice, treat us with tender compassion."The cantor and choir respond back, their soulful voices splay open my heart even more.She was an incredibly strong pusher. But it was her first baby and the trail had not been blazed before. The baby was rocking back and forth in her pelvis, trying to get under the pubic bone and out. With time and effort, I began seeing the top of the baby's head with each push, but then it disappeared in between. [End Page E8]Without looking at the monitor, I could hear the baby's heart rate slow with each push, the heart responding to the head being compressed in the birth canal. "Stay strong," I told her as I saw her begin to tire. But the baby was tiring too, its heart not returning to its regular rate in between contractions."Avinu Malkeinu, Avinu Malkeinu" the choir chanted.Avinu Malkeinu, have compassion on us," the rabbi responded.After a few more pushes, I knew I couldn't watch this much longer, I knew the baby was really struggling, it's heart rate becoming more alarming. "I need you to stay strong and really push hard. I may need to help you if the baby isn't out soon," I told her."No, I can do this!" I could see the determination on her face.And there we were, my patient, pushing her heart out, wanting to do this "on her own," and me... (shrink)

This article addresses a strange investment within ‘continental' philosophy, in asserting the impotence of a Derridean approach when it comes to addressing practical (juridical, political, ethical, economic) issues. Such assertions of impotence regularly stand as the foil for whatever is proposed as a more complex, and therefore powerful, means to make sense of concrete phenomena. Invariably, however, the criticism of a Derridean approach is based on reductive misconceptions of its complex logic, and the proposed correctives repeat the very pattern of (...) thinking that Derrida has consistently adopted throughout his writing. A case in point is Zizek's criticism of what he calls ‘Derrida's operation.' While Zizek's critique is more nuanced and contemporary than the hackneyed charge of ‘textualism,' his reductive conception of the logical structure of Derridean thinking remains open to challenge. Further, his Lacanian corrective, whose logic is represented by the figure of a ‘Borromean knot,' precisely matches the ‘plural logic of the aporia' that underpins a Derridean approach to concrete phenomena. Accordingly, what follows is an attempt to show how Lacanian and Derridean discourses can be brought into alliance as a consequence of their isomorphic logical structure. This attempt is motivated by the conviction that one can do well without the pseudo-antagonism generated by the unjust criticism directed at one another by like-minded thinkers, which, moreover, provides such thinkers with a far too facile excuse for dismissing one another, even before opening texts. I also have a hidden agenda of sorts, which is to outline and, indeed, promote the ‘complexity-thinking' characteristic of both Derridean and Lacanian discourses, as the most viable and appropriate approach to practical issues. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 (1) 2008 pp. 10-26. (shrink)

This paper outlines a truth-conditional view of logical form, that is, a view according to which logical form is essentially a matter of truth-conditions. The main motivation for the view is a fact that seems crucial to logic. As _§_1 suggests, fundamental logical relations such as entailment or contradiction can formally be explained only if truth-conditions are formally represented.§2 spells out the view. _§_3 dwells on its anity with a conception of logical form that has been defended in the past. (...) _§§_4-6 draw attention to its impact on three major issues that concern, respectively, the extension of the domain of formal explanation, the semantics of tensed discourse, and the analysis of quantication. (shrink)

Human genetic research databases cast a new light on the controversial issue of which uses of the human body are morally permissible. More specifically, banking human tissue raises issues relating to the ownership of the samples that the participants have donated, to the ownership of the data that are derived through processing the donated samples, and to the management arrangements that better balance the interest of genetic research with the protection of participants' rights. Winickoff & Winickoff suggest that the charitable-trust (...) model is a superior legal arrangement for biobanking compared with private biobanking. This paper critically assesses Winickoff & Winickoff's claim by highlighting some areas of implementation where such a model could be problematic. The charitable trust is certainly an advantageous arrangement because (1) it favors the separation between control and use of the samples, (2) it provides a procedural mechanism that facilitates the participation donor groups in the biobank management and (3) it mediates the different interests that are affected. On the other hand, the charitable-trust model leaves unresolved several issues--among them the ownership of the sample, the right of withdrawal, access and funding mechanism. I conclude that further theoretical and empirical analysis is required in the area. (shrink)

Does the recent publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks require a re-evaluation of his thought? In the present text we will deal with this question and reach the conclusion that a change of theoretical perspective on Heidegger’s work is indeed justified. The franker and less cautious style of the Black Notebooks puts in the foreground stances that were already known, but were previously relegated to the background: it becomes possible thereby to establish that Heidegger’s philosophical views host a significant lot of (...) unwarranted prejudices, which are incorporated in his picture of the ‘history of being’. We argue that in his process of radical questioning Heidegger progressively drops all available rational methods and epistemic criteria, and that this paves the way to the unwitting reception of personal prejudices in his theoretical frame: Heidegger knowingly abandons all the theoretical instruments that could enable him to discriminate between deeply felt prejudices and proper philosophical intuitions. We conclude our analysis by proposing some criticisms that should be acceptable also to scholars sympathetic with Heidegger’s thought. Heidegger’s vindication of an ‘erratic’ way of thinking, where the journey is more qualifying than the result, turns out to be incompatible with the assertiveness of the many unjustified claims disseminated across the Black Notebooks. Moreover, Heidegger wants to show the narrowness of an overwhelmingly dialectical and argumentative attitude, while his late style of thinking unwittingly discredits an alternative philosophical style, that widely appeals to a ‘principle of charity’ in the collaboration between author and reader. (shrink)

Recent feminist accounts of autonomy have focused both on autonomous agents’ relationships to others and on their self-regarding attitudes or self-relations. This chapter focuses on the attitude of practical self-care, arguing that autonomous agents must care about themselves in a sense that amounts to caring about their practical reasons. While self-care is primarily a self-relation, it also implies a form of interpersonal relationality. Caring about one’s reasons requires caring about intersubjective assessments thereof, and the relation of self-care thus implies openness (...) to the reasons of others and a disposition to hold oneself answerable for one’s identity-constituting concerns. (shrink)

The relationship between self-consciousness, Aristotelian ontology, and Cartesian duality is far closer than it has been thought to be. There is no valid inference either from considerations of Aristotle's hylomorphism or from the phenomenological distinction between body and living body, to the undermining of Cartesian dualism. Descartes' conception of the self as both a reasoning and willing being informs his conception of personhood; a person for Descartes is an unanalysable, integrated, self-conscious and autonomous human being. The claims that Descartes introspectively (...) encounters the self and that the Cartesian extent of inner space is self-contained are profound errors, distortions through the lenses of modern theories. (shrink)

Relying heavily on Thomas Dunfee's work, this article conducts an in-depth analysis of the relationship between law and business ethics in the context of corporate information security. It debunks the two dominant arguments against corporate investment in information security and explains why socially responsible corporate conduct necessitates strong information security practices. This article argues that companies have ethical obligations to improve information security arising out of a duty to avoid knowingly causing harm to others and, potentially, a duty to exercise (...) unique capabilities for the greater social good and to buttress stable functioning of social institutions. (shrink)

The book's aim is to give a working representation of what metaphysics is today. The historical contributions reveal the roots of metaphysical themes and how today's methods are linked to their Aristotelian and Leibnizian past. The volume also touches on the relationships between ontological and linguistic analysis, the questions of realism and ontological commitment, the nature of abstract objects, the existential meaning of particular quantification, the primitiveness of identity, the question of epistemic versus ontological vagueness, the necessity of origin, the (...) nature of natural necessity, the possibility of intermittent existence, the notion of a temporal part and its place in an account of persistence, the question of identity and change across time and possible worlds, and many more. Readership: A toolbox for any researcher in metaphysics and an essential source for any PhD student with ontological interests. (shrink)

The question of how to allocate scarce medical resources has become an important public policy issue in recent decades. Cost-Utility Analysis is the most commonly used method for determining the allocation of these resources, but this book counters the argument that overcoming its inherent imbalances is simply a question of implementing methodological changes. The Economics of Resource-Allocation in Healthcare represents the first comprehensive analysis of equity weighting in health care resource allocation that offers a fundamental critique of its basic framework. (...) It offers a heterodox account of health economics, putting the discourse on economic evaluation into it broader socio-political context. Such an approach broadens the debate on fairness in health economics and ties it in with deeper rooted problems in moral philosophy. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary study calls for the adoption of a fundamentally different paradigm to address the distribution of scarce medical resources. This book will be of interest to policy makers, health care professionals or Post-Graduate students looking to broaden their understanding of the economics of the healthcare system. (shrink)

Pretendemos neste texto analisar as interfaces entre a ontologia do cinema do filósofo Stanley Cavell e as reflexões centrais apresentadas no filme Retrato de uma Jovem em Chamas, em especial no que se refere à relação entre o estatuto da representação no cinema e uma determinada forma de se conceber a subjetividade. Com base sobretudo nas reflexões realizadas por Cavell acerca das consequências solipsistas do que seria o “ceticismo moderno” e sobre o percurso de que resultariam a fotografia e o (...) cinema como linguagens fundamentais da sociedade contemporânea, partimos de uma discussão acerca do escopo do processo antiteatral nas artes, argumentando que a natureza do cinema consolida uma forma particular de se conceber o olhar, forma essa que materializa o anseio de vermos sem sermos vistos. Dado esse entendimento, concernente ao atrelamento entre o processo antiteatral e desenvolvimento da imagem cinematográfica, procuramos mostrar como o filme de Céline Sciamma busca oferecer na tela a evidência de que a posição dessa invulnerabilidade do olhar decorre daquilo que Cavell qualifica como a evitação de amor ou a recusa de reconhecimento. Nesse sentido, faz parte da nossa investigação indicar que a forma de olhar criada em Retrato de uma Jovem em Chamas, a partir do amor que se constitui entre as suas personagens principais, é também uma maneira de sustentar a possibilidade de vermos e sermos vistas, e, portanto, um debate sobre a desteatralização da subjetividade e a ruptura com as implicações solipsistas do ceticismo filosófico. (shrink)