L’interpellation plébéienne est un concept visant à nommer la force politique des soulèvements populaires et des actions directes spontanées. En modifiant le concept althussérien d’ interpellation et en le combinant à celui d’ expérience plébéienne (Breaugh, 2007), il s’agit de rendre compte de l’auto-interpellation des « sans-part » (Rancière, 1990) par laquelle ils se donnent leurs propres conditions de possibilité dans des actions collectives. Le propre de ces actions est précisément de surgir en dehors des formes ritualisées de constitution de (...) l’espace public. Elles sont intraitables dans ce qu’elles refusent toute catégorisation mais également dans ce qu’elles débordent toute représentation de « vivre-ensemble » de l’ordre politique. Cette forme « sauvage » d’interpellation se manifeste dans des moments de révolte ou de « sécession », d’interruption du cours normal de la reproduction du social. La plèbe doit être saisie pour ce qu’elle est, dans le tumulte vif de sa manifestation. (shrink)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 21381 "Conversational Agent as Trustworthy Autonomous System ". First, we present the abstracts of the talks delivered by the Seminar’s attendees. Then we report on the origin and process of our six breakout groups. For each group, we describe its contributors, goals and key questions, key insights, and future research. The themes of the groups were derived from a pre-Seminar survey, which also led to a list of suggested readings (...) for the topic of trust in conversational agents. The list is included in this report for references. (shrink)

John Rawls is one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Contemporary political philosophy has been reshaped by his seminal ideas and most current work in the discipline is a response to them. This book introduces his central ideas and examines their contribution to contemporary political thought. In the first part of the book Catherine Audard focuses on Rawls' conception of political and social justice and its justification as presented in his groundbreaking A Theory of Justice. This (...) includes sustained examination of Rawls' moral philosophy and its core thesis, the primacy of justice, the complex relation between Rawls' views and utilitarianism, and his most famous concept, the Original Position Device. In the second half of the book, Audard explores Rawls' more practical concerns for stability and political consensus, citizenship and international justice, and shows the continuity between these concerns and his earlier work. Throughout, Audard contextualizes Rawls' ideas by giving a sense of their historical development, which underlines the intellectual cohesion of his thought. The move between ethics and politics so characteristic of Rawls' work, and which makes for the richness of his philosophy, is shown to also create for it significant problems. John Rawls combines clear exposition with insightful analysis and provides an interpretative and critical framework that will help shape ongoing debates surrounding Rawls' work. (shrink)

A collection of essays covering a range of topics related to Leibniz. The monads and the pre-established harmony make numerous appearances, and so do Leibniz's discussions of causality, relations, individuation, nature, freedom, consciousness, and divinity. In addition to sections on Leibniz's physics and his theory of substance, a number of papers are included on his philosophy of mind that draw heavily on the New Essays, along with several articles on metaphysical and theological issues, and a section on Leibniz's relationships with (...) his contemporaries and predecessors. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Start Line Lap One, Where Cycling Practice Meets Feminist Ethics Lap Two, Words from Our Teammates or The Dirt Documentaries Lap Three, Different Lines, Same Course Last Lap, How Women Cyclists Transform Cycling.

Imaginative and creative capacities seem to be at the heart of both games of make-believe and figurative uses of language. But how exactly might cases of metaphor or idiom involve make-believe? In this paper, I argue against the pretense-based accounts of Walton (1990, 1993), Hills (1997), and Egan (this journal, 2008) that pretense plays no role in the interpretation of metaphor or idiom; instead, more general capacities for manipulating concepts (which are also called on within the use of pretense) do (...) the real explanatory work. This result has consequences for both our understanding of metaphor and idiom as well as for the use of figurative language by fictionalists in ontology. (shrink)

This paper details a “metadisciplinary” applied ethics course jointly taught and pioneered by a biologist, psychologist, and ethicist on the subject of Assisted Reproduction. Contrasted with a transdisciplinary approach (whose content involves themes or issues that span traditional disciplinary lines) and a multidisciplinary approach (which involves experts from several disciplines working side by side), a metadisciplinary approach involves both of these former characteristics while incorporating a continuous, critical appreciation for the strengths and weaknesses of the contrasting methods and scopes of (...) each discipline’s methods of inquiry. This paper details the kinds of subjects that lend themselves to metadisciplinary approaches (e.g. applied ethics subjects which are real-world, complex, and studied by various disciplines), staffing guidelines for a smoothly functioning core team, how to plan and prepare the day-to-day of such a course to prevent a diffuse lesson structure, assignment and evaluation guidelines, and an appraisal of the value of such a class. The authors argue that while fundamental research may be conducted along traditional disciplinary lines, solutions to the complex problems of contemporary society require people who are equipped with problem-solving skills whose relevance spans disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

This brief response cannot adequately address all of the challenging issues raised by Robert Meister in his reply, so I hope only to clarify our main points of contention that will likely continue beyond this exchange.

My interest is in the application of Rawls’ principles of distributive justice to the allocation of health care. In developing an interpretation of those principles I encountered the problem I present below. Although this issue is problematic for Rawlsian theories, it also has implications for any distributive theory that measures the impact of health care distribution via the mechanism of incremental movements in health or its absence.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Socrates and Thrasymachus Become FriendsCatherine ZuckertIn the Platonic dialogues Socrates is shown talking to two, and only two, famous teachers of rhetoric, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon and Gorgias of Leontini.1 At first glance relations between Socrates and Gorgias appear to be much more courteous—they might even be described as cordial—than relations between Socrates and Thrasymachus. In the Gorgias Socrates explicitly and intentionally seeks an opportunity to talk to Gorgias (...) and treats him with great respect. Socrates shows that Gorgias’s claims concerning the power of his art are contradictory, but the philosopher does not press his advantage or embarrass the rhetorician (Stauffer 2006, 34). Although Gorgias indicates his interest in hearing what Socrates has to say by urging his young friends Polus and Callicles to continue the conversation, Gorgias never says that he is convinced by Socrates. And Socrates never announces that Gorgias has become his friend.2In the Republic Socrates reports that Thrasymachus burst into the conversation like a lion. Socrates even claims that he and his interlocutor (Polemarchus) were frightened. The initial exchange between Socrates and Thrasymachus thus appears to be hostile. In the argument that follows, Socrates embarrasses Thrasymachus; the famous teacher of rhetoric blushes. Nevertheless, Socrates declares later in the conversation (1900, 498d) that he and Thrasymachus have become friends.3 [End Page 163]The difference in the relations Socrates had—or at least thought that he could have—with the two teachers of rhetoric is important, because it indicates what sort of rhetoric Socrates thought was compatible not only with his philosophy but also with a just political order and what was not. The differences between the claims and arguments of the two teachers of rhetoric are not easy to pinpoint, however. Many of the charges that Gorgias’s associates Polus and Callicles make against Socrates, at least partly in defense of Gorgias, sound very much like charges Thrasymachus makes against Socrates. In order to discover the grounds of the difference in the relation between the philosopher and the two teachers of rhetoric, it thus becomes necessary to review and compare the claims Gorgias and his students make with those Thrasymachus levels against Socrates at the beginning of the Republic.Socrates’ Encounter with GorgiasAt the beginning of the Gorgias the famous rhetorician’s Athenian host Callicles expresses surprise that Socrates has come to hear Gorgias declaim. But Socrates is not interested in witnessing a demonstration of Gorgias’s prowess as a speaker; he wants to ask the rhetorician what the power of his art is and what he teaches. Since Gorgias had previously offered to answer any questions after his speech, he agrees to respond to Socrates’ queries.In order for them to converse, Socrates emphasizes, Gorgias will have to keep his responses short. Although Gorgias sensibly observes that all questions cannot be answered adequately with brief replies, his first responses to Socrates’ questions are very short. Since Gorgias claims to be a knower and practitioner of an art, Socrates asks what he does and makes others capable of doing. Gorgias replies that he gives speeches and teaches others how to orate. Socrates asks what the speeches are about. “The greatest of human affairs, and the best” (1998, 451d), Gorgias vaguely and rather evasively responds. Pressed to be more specific, he finally declares that his art provides “the greatest good and cause both of freedom for human beings themselves and rule over others in each man’s own city” by enabling them to make speeches that “persuade judges in the law court, councilors in the council, assemblymen in the assembly, and in every other... political gathering” (1998, 452d–e, translation slightly modified).The Grounds of Gorgias’s ClaimsIf Gorgias had not been restricted to brief replies by his agreement with Socrates, he might have explained the reasons for his vast claims with [End Page 164] arguments like those to be found in two of his remaining fragments. In his “Encomium to Helen” he explains the overwhelming power of speech, and in “On the Nonexistent” he demonstrates the reason or basis of this power by arguing that there is no form of “being” that exists independent of our... (shrink)

Can animals, and especially cattle, be the subject ofmoral concern? Should we care about their well-being?Two competing ethical theories have addressed suchissues so far. A utilitarian theory which, inBentham's wake, extends moral consideration to everysentient being, and a theory of the rights orinterests of animals which follows Feinberg'sconceptions. This includes various positions rangingfrom the most radical (about animal liberation) tomore moderate ones (concerned with the well-being ofanimals). Notwithstanding their diversity, theseconceptions share some common flaws. First, as anextension of primarily anthropocentric (...) theories (aboututility or rights) they still participate in the flawsof the original setting. Second, extending them tonon-human beings raises the problem of the borderwhich is to be drawn between what can be included inthe purview of moral consideration and what is leftoutside. Third, such theories are not able to distinguishbetween an ethics of wildlife and an ethics ofdomestic life, which too often leads to preposterousstatements. We would like to argue (i) that we should distinguishbetween environmental ethics (concerned withpopulations, species, biotic communities) and animalethics (where animals are taken into consideration individually);(ii) that individualist animal ethics are not relevantfor animal rearing; (iii) that animal rearing is a hierarchicalrelationship which rules are to be found in the fiction of a domesticcontract.Hence, we would like to construct a new conception ofthe ethics of the relation between men and the cattlethey breed based on the idea of a domestic contract.Our main assumption is Mary Midgleys's anthropologicalassumption, according to which human communities,since the Neolithic age, have always included variousanimals, so that relations of sociability have alwaysexisted between human beings and animals within thedomestic community (a mixed community). In order tospecify the hierarchical and non-egalitarian, butinclusive reciprocal obligations and relations insidesuch a community, we will elaborate on the notion ofa ``domestic contract'', an implicitly assumedidea traced back to Lucretius and whichwe will follow up to the physiocrats and Adam Smith.We will show that such an idea relies upon theassumption of communication between cattle farmer andanimals, of shared experience and exchanges betweenthe two parties. We will then show how modern factory,or battery animal farming, can be seen as unilaterallybreaking this domestic contract, forsaking ourduties towards domestic animals. (shrink)

Parmenides believed that he had found the most reliable way of theorizing about ultimate reality. While natural philosophers conceptualized phenomenal differences to explain cosmic change, Parmenides used the least meaningful but most versatile verb in Ancient Greek to engage in a purely intellectual exploration of reality – one that transcended synchronous and asynchronous differences. In this article I explain how the verb εἰμί was useful to Parmenides in his attempt to overcome natural philosophy. First, I argue that the Eleatic philosopher (...) regarded νοεῖν and εἶναι as equivalent because εἰμί-clauses enabled him to express arguably any conceivable content without providing significant additional meaning. I then show that Parmenides’ concept of being implies the present tense and the imperfective aspect but is grounded in the lexical content of the verb εἰμί, which entails no inherent temporal limits. This explains why ἔστι, ἐόν, and εἶναι could be used to indicate unbounded actuality, regardless of whether these forms represented lexical predicates or auxiliaries for predication. Finally, I maintain that the suitability of εἰμί for talking about all kinds of things without introducing temporal limits allowed Parmenides to avoid what he saw as two mistakes made by natural philosophers: identifying ultimate reality with something that cannot cover the full extent of thought and confusing actuality with present occurrence. (shrink)

This text is an answer to Professor MacLeod's critique of my article "One Life. Political Resistance, Biological Resistance".

In this paper I argue that we can better understand Plato’s Phaedo, if we don’t concentrate solely on the hints of Pythagoreanism among the characters and their doctrines, as though that were the principal key to the dialogue’s dialec- tical targets. I suggest that the dialogue is intended to make us think of the meta-physics of at least one other Presocratic predecessor, besides any Pythagorean influence (which may be much less than has been thought). Not least among the thinkers of (...) whom we are reminded is Heraclitus. In the Phaedo, Plato invites us to explore the limitations of these earlier metaphysical views, and to consider how far they can or cannot make space for the capacity of the soul to direct the body, to make decisions, to grasp eternal truths and potentially to survive in perpetuity beyond the decay of the body. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article discusses Nietzsche's interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and the basis for his rejection of the major elements of Darwin's overall scheme on observational grounds. Nietzsche's further opposition to the attempt of Darwin and many of his followers to reconcile the “struggle for existence” with Christian ethics is the subject of the second half of the essay.

Hume's theory of mind is often interpreted in associationist terms, portraying the mind as psychological and social. It is also argued that in his most famous philosophical works Hume has an irreligious agenda. These views are problematic because they overlook the issue of social obedience to political authority. By contrast, I examine the connections between Hume's works and those of Bayle and Montaigne. I argue that the French context of Hume's social theory sheds a new light on the dual mind. (...) Indebted to a French Pyrrhonian heritage, Hume invokes custom as an explanatory concept in psychology and in the natural history of society. He also introduces religious analogies as he adopts a historical perspective in social and political theory. Along with custom, faith is crucial in his theory of government. The double nature of the mind thus corresponds to two distinct approaches: the customary mind engaging in profane, habitual activities; and the faithful mind participating in the sacred. Hume's analogy between society and secular religion is comparable to Durkheim's anthropology of rituals. Hume's affinity with Montaigne, Bayle, and Durkheim concerning to the duality of the mind, as customary and faithful, emphasises his role in the history of the French humanities. (shrink)

_Using the thought of Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas and Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi, explores how to exercise and limit authority._.

For approximately a quarter of a century, moral reflection has turned to a new object: the environment. Environmental ethics has emerged primarily in the United States out of considerations on Nature in the wild state - the wilderness - and the duty to preserve it. As such, it divides into two trends. The first seeks to develop a general theory of moral value, an abstract, universal principle qualifying individual entities, such that the intrinsic value of living entities deserves our respect. (...) The second, first formulated by an American forester, Aldo Leopold, is an ethics of the biotic community: how Nature can be a community of which we are members, and in within which it is possible for us to conduct ourselves well. (shrink)

Quelle est l'intention de Platon lorsqu'il fait de Socrate un virtuose de l'étymologie dans le Cratyle? Préciser les rapports entre la " science des lettres " qui se constitue en son siècle et la nouvelle théorie des Idées qu'il élabore. Socrate s'entretient avec le jeune Hermogène puis avec l'énigmatique Cratyle des rapports entre les mots et les choses. La rectitude des noms est-elle affaire de convention, ainsi que le soutient Hermogène? Ou s'agit-il d'un accord " naturel ", comme le prétend (...) Cratyle? Découvre-t-on cet accord par science ou par inspiration? Au terme du débat, après avoir mis à l'épreuve toutes les ressources de la " science des lettres ", Socrate propose une nouvelle théorie du nom, instrument faillible construit pour faire voir la réalité en la minant. Il dessine aussi un ordre des priorités : il faut d'abord connaître les êtres, puis les noms. " Savoir comment il faut apprendre ou découvrir les êtres, peut-être est-ce là trop lourde tâche pour toi et moi! C'est déjà beau de reconnaître qu'il ne faut pas partir des noms. ". (shrink)

Este artículo intenta leer la obra del pintor Lucian Freud desde el marco conceptual abierto por el pensamiento estético de Gilles Deleuze. Se parte de lo expresado en las pinturas y de la reflexión de los críticos para alcanzar los conceptos filosóficos que permitan responder a los problemas del presente.

Dans son dernier ouvrage, Des Femmes en littérature, Martine Reid mène une enquête riche et passionnante, très bien théorisée et solidement documentée, sur la place des femmes écrivains dans l’histoire littéraire française et « dans la mémoire collective depuis des siècles » (p. 5). Si les exemples retenus couvrent surtout les auteures (le plus souvent leurs productions romanesques) du XVIIIe siècle au début du xxe siècle, la réflexion met en lumière non seulement la conception « résolument m...

I start by asking what Aristotle knew (or thought) about Heraclitus: what were the key features of Heraclitus's philosophy as far as Aristotle was concerned? In this section of the paper I suggest that there are some patterns to Aristotle's references to Heraclitus: besides the classic doctrines (flux, ekpyrosis and the unity of opposites) on the one hand, and the opening of Heraclitus's book on the other, Aristotle knows and reports a few slightly less obvious sayings, one of which is (...) in my title. Secondly, I ask some further questions. Is there any systematic connection between the bits that Aristotle reports? Do they hang together? Ought we to see here some relic of an Aristotelian understanding of what made Heraclitus tick? If we juxtapose these themes and Aristotle's comments on them, I suggest, we can generate some suggestive motifs, in particular a rather curious fascination with smoking, and the pleasures of inhaling. Finally, I suggest that smells (and the way the world would be if smells were the only differences to be discerned) are important in understanding what Heraclitus was doing. (shrink)

A volunteer effort by Artificial Intelligence researchers has shown it can deliver significant research outcomes rapidly to help tackle COVID-19. Within two months, CLAIRE’s self-organising volunteers delivered the World’s first comprehensive curated repository of COVID-19-related datasets useful for drug-repurposing, drafted review papers on the role CT/x-ray scan analysis and robotics could play, and progressed research in other areas. Given the pace required and nature of voluntary efforts, the teams faced a number of challenges. These offer insights in how better to (...) prepare for future volunteer scientific efforts and large scale, data-dependent AI collaborations in general. We offer seven recommendations on how to best leverage such efforts and collaborations in the context of managing future crises. (shrink)