Not long ago, under the influence of Michel Foucault, one spoke of the conjunction of knowledge and power, but in this post-truth era power appears singularly uninterested in knowledge, even as the supporters of Donald Trump claim that he alone of all politicians speaks the truth. This essay proposes to examine the relations of power and knowledge under the present populist assault. This analysis begins in the work of Claude Lefort, who spoke of the separation of knowledge and power in (...) democracy’s symbolic regime, and is then counterposed to Ernesto Laclau’s understanding of ‘populist reason’ in order to explore the present torsion of this relation to the point where power can appear not just separated from, but opposed to knowledge. It will be argued that it is less a question of post-truth than of different forms of truth with different truth claims, borne by different imperatives, and tied to different forms of representation – truth claims that can, in relation to each other, be indifferent, complementary, or conflictual. With this in mind, the essay asks: what is the relation of the people to truth? Do those who claim to represent the people seek possession of a different kind of truth? What is the relation of populism to ideology? And what is populism’s relation to ‘post-modernism’? (shrink)

Recently, scholars have looked more closely at the philosophical importance of the imaginative and literary aspects of Plato's writing, and have begun to appreciate the methods of ancient philosophers and commentators who studied Plato. This study brings together leading philosophical and literary scholars to investigate these new-old approaches.

A biresiduation algebra is a 〈/,\,1〉-subreduct of an integral residuated lattice. These algebras arise as algebraic models of the implicational fragment of the Full Lambek Calculus with weakening. We axiomatize the quasi-variety B of biresiduation algebras using a construction for integral residuated lattices. We define a filter of a biresiduation algebra and show that the lattice of filters is isomorphic to the lattice of B-congruences and that these lattices are distributive. We give a finite basis of terms for generating filters (...) and use this to characterize the subvarieties of B with EDPC and also the discriminator varieties. A variety generated by a finite biresiduation algebra is shown to be a subvariety of B. The lattice of subvarieties of B is investigated; we show that there are precisely three finitely generated covers of the atom. (shrink)

The logics considered here are the propositional Linear Logic and propositional Intuitionistic Linear Logic extended by a knotted structural rule: γ, xn → y / γ, xm → y. It is proved that the class of algebraic models for such a logic has the finite embeddability property, meaning that every finite partial subalgebra of an algebra in the class can be embedded into a finite full algebra in the class. It follows that each such logic has the finite model property (...) with respect to its algebraic semantics and hence that the logic is decidable. (shrink)

I Suppose that most believers in God, if asked what is the relation of God to the world, would reply that he is its Creator and its Lord. But, like all the language in which we express our religious convictions, the language of this reply is plainly metaphorical. It calls up the picture of a human artificer or artist, the image of a human ruler or proprietor. And yet it needs but little reflection to perceive that there must be essential (...) differences between a human artificer or artist, who has a material to work in ready to his hand, and One who makes all things, as it is said, “ out of nothing “; between a human ruler or proprietor. (shrink)

This year is being celebrated by a large number of our fellow-countrymen as the centenary of a movement, associated with the name of the University of Oxford, of which, although in its first stage it might easily be mistaken—and has often been mistaken—for a mere wave of theological and ecclesiastical reaction within the Established Church of England, the attentive historian of the nineteenth century must take account as in fact a very powerful influence in the religious and, no less really (...) though to a less degree, in the social and political life of the whole nation. Considerable, however, as is the importance which may justly be attributed in other respects to what is known as the Oxford Movement, the professed student of philosophy may be excused if he is chiefly struck by the apparent remoteness of its original leaders from the currents of speculative thought characteristic of the period in which it began its course. There were perhaps among them only two who can be named as contributors to philosophical literature in the technical sense now commonly borne by the term “philosophical”; and the contributions even of these two can scarcely be said to have taken their place among the works to which an ordinary teacher of philosophy would be likely to direct the attention of his pupils. To these two, however, John Henry Newman and William George Ward, I propose to devote here a few pages which may be found not without interest to readers of Philosophy. (shrink)

Illegitimacy in a historic, single community at Penrith, Cumbria (1557–1812), has been studied using aggregative analysis, family reconstitution and time series analysis. This population was living under extreme conditions of hardship. Long, medium and short wavelength cycles in the rate of illegitimacy have been identified by time series analysis; each represents a different response to social and economic pressures. In a complex interaction of events, the peaks of the cycles in wheat prices were associated with rises in adult mortality which (...) promoted an influx of migrants and a concomitant rise in illegitimacy. The association between immigration and illegitimacy was particularly noticeable after the mortality crises of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Children of immigrant families also tended to produce illegitimate offspring. Native and immigrant families responded differently to extrinsic fluctuations, and variations in their reproductive behaviour were probably related to access to resources. (shrink)

Marcel Gauchet spoke of the “eclipse of the political” during the neo-liberal era, but with the rise of populism he is now forced to speak of a “revenge of the political”. As the eclipse was discussed in terms of a new era of individualization, understood as the culmination of the “disenchantment of the world”, one has a right to ask what is the place of individualization in the era of the political’s revenge, particularly as, in the face of Covid 19, (...) the refusal to wear masks is couched in terms of the defense of individual liberties? In what is an immanent critique of Gauchet’s claims, individualization is considered under four rubrics: abstract individualization vs. concrete socialization; the dilemmas of recognition; rejection of alterity; and the loss of the sense of the social. The paper concludes that the “revenge” should be understood as a revenge of an “anti-political” politics. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)