Cet article s’appuie sur les résultats d’une étude menée en partenariat entre une équipe pluridisciplinaire de cliniciens en santé mentale de Montréal, spécialisés en intervention auprès de personnes attirées par ou engagées dans l’extrémisme violent, et une équipe de recherche qui documente et étudie les interventions de l’équipe. L’étude documente l’émergence de systèmes de croyances de plus en plus dystopiques, hétérogènes et violents, particulièrement chez les jeunes. La perte de confiance dans les institutions et un malaise autour des représentations et (...) rôles de genre sont des thématiques récurrentes. Une analyse des dynamiques familiales et sociales dans les trajectoires de patients attirés par l’extrémisme violent suggère l’existence de processus traumatiques de quête de sens et d’appartenance qui font écho à des mécanismes de perte, de régression et de deuil. Les auteurs proposent de concevoir ce mécanisme comme un « deuil épistémique » qui pourrait aider à expliquer l’émergence d’idéologies hybrides dans le paysage de l’extrémisme violent. (shrink)

Information theory presupposes the notion of an epistemic agent, such as a scientist or an idealized human. Despite that, information theory is increasingly invoked by physicists concerned with fundamental physics, physics at very high energies, or generally with the physics of situations in which even idealized epistemic agents cannot exist. In this paper, I shall try to determine the extent to which the application of information theory in those contexts is legitimate. I will illustrate my considerations using the case of (...) black hole thermodynamics and Bekenstein's celebrated argument for his formula for the entropy of black holes. This example is particularly pertinent to the theme of the present collection because it is widely accepted as `empirical data' in notoriously empirically deprived quantum gravity, even though the laws of black hole thermodynamics have so far evaded direct empirical confirmation. (shrink)

In quantity discrimination tasks, adults, infants and animals have been sometimes observed to process number only after all continuous variables, such as area or density, have been controlled for. This has been taken as evidence that processing number may be more cognitively demanding than processing continuous variables. We tested this hypothesis by training mosquitofish to discriminate two items from three in three different conditions. In one condition, continuous variables were controlled while numerical information was available; in another, the number was (...) kept constant and information relating to continuous variables was available; in the third condition, stimuli differed for both number and continuous quantities. Fish learned to discriminate more quickly when both number and continuous information were available compared to when they could use continuous information only or number only; there was no difference in the learning rate between the two latter conditions. Our results do not support the hypothesis that processing numbers imposes a higher cognitive load than processing continuous variables. Rather, they suggest that availability of multiple information sources may facilitate discrimination learning. (shrink)

There exists a growing literature on the so-called physical Church-Turing thesis in a relativistic spacetime setting. The physical Church-Turing thesis is the conjecture that no computing device that is physically realizable can exceed the computational barriers of a Turing machine. By suggesting a concrete implementation of a beyond-Turing computer in a spacetime setting, Istvan Nemeti and Gyula David have shown how an appreciation of the physical Church-Turing thesis necessitates the confluence of mathematical, computational, physical, and indeed cosmological ideas. In this (...) essay, I will honour Istvan's seventieth birthday, as well as his longstanding interest in, and his seminal contributions to, this field going back to as early as 1987 by modestly proposing how the concrete implementation in Nemeti and D\'avid might be complemented by a quantum-information-theoretic communication protocol between the computing device and the logician who sets the beyond-Turing computer a task such as determining the consistency of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. This suggests that even the foundations of quantum theory and, ultimately, quantum gravity may play an important role in determining the validity of the physical Church-Turing thesis. (shrink)

This is my contribution to a book symposium on Professor Geoffrey Claussen’s book, Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar. I focus on just two topics that figure prominently in Professor Claussen’s book: human nature and the virtue of love.

Gillies introduced a propensity interpretation of probability which is linked to experience by a falsifying rule for probability statements. The present paper argues that general statistical tests should qualify as falsification rules. The ‘goodness-of-fit paradox’ is introduced: the confirmation of a probability model by a test refutes the model's validity. An example is given in which an independence test introduces dependence. Several possibilities to interpret the paradox and to deal with it are discussed. It is concluded that the propensity interpretation (...) properly reflects statistical practice, but it is not as objective as some adherents claim. (shrink)

In _An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics_, Christian Wenzel discusses and demystifies Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, guiding the reader each step of the way and placing key points of discussion in the context of Kant’s other work. Explains difficult concepts in plain language, using numerous examples and a helpful glossary. Proceeds in the same order as Kant’s text for ease of reference and comprehension. Includes an illuminating foreword by Henry E. Allison. Offers twenty-six further-reading sections, commenting briefly (...) on books and articles from the English, German, and French, that are relevant for each topic Provides an extensive bibliography and a chapter summarizing Kant's main points. (shrink)

_Niklas Luhmann _offers an accessible introduction to one of the most important sociologists of our time. It presents the key concepts within Luhmann’s multifaceted theory of modern society, and compares them with the work of other key social theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, and Zygmunt Bauman. The book pays particular attention to introducing and discussing Luhmann’s original sociological systems theory. It presents a thorough investigation into the different phases of his oeuvre, through which both the shifting emphases as (...) well as the continuities in his thinking are shown. The primary focus of this text is Luhmann’s theory of modern society as being differentiated into a plethora of ‘function systems’ – such as politics, law, and economy – which operate according to their own distinct logics and which cannot interfere with one another. For Luhmann, this functional differentiation works as a bulwark against totalitarian rule, and as such is a key foundation of modern democracy. Furthermore, the book critically examines the implications of this functional differentiation for inclusion and exclusion dynamics, as well as for the understanding of power and politics. This is a key text for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of areas including contemporary social theory, political sociology, and sociology. (shrink)

Ellen Furlong and Laurie Santos helpfully summarize a number of fascinating studies of certain influences on both human and monkey behavior. As someone who works primarily in philosophy, I am not in a position to dispute the details of the studies themselves. But in this brief commentary I do want to raise some questions about the inferences Furlong and Santos make on the basis of those studies. In general, I worry that they may be overreaching beyond what their own data (...) suggests. (shrink)

ʻDurch Dein Wort ward jegliches Ding!ʼ / ʻThrough Thy Word All Things Were Made!ʼ: 2. Mandäistische und samaritanistische Tagung. Edited by Rainer Voigt. Mandäistische Forschungen, vol. 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013. Pp. x + 393, illus. €98.

In Epistles 3,7, Pliny the Younger gives a short account of the life of Silius Italicus, who had recently committed suicide at his Neapolitan villa. Scholarship has not only considered this letter as a rather critical and unsympathetic description of the epic poet’s vita, but has also read some of its information (for example Silius’ veneration of Vergil and his passion for antiquities) to Silius’ poetics in general. In this paper, I shall highlight one specific intertextual connection - not proposed (...) to date - between this epistle and the Capua episode in Book 11 of Silius’ „Punica“. I shall show that Pliny the Younger, concurring with Martial’s similar representation of Silius (Epigr. 4,14), has to some extent modelled Silius’ retirement in Campania upon Hannibal’s enervating winter in the luxurious city of Capua. (shrink)

This book presents adaptive logics as an intuitive and powerful framework for modeling defeasible reasoning. It examines various contexts in which defeasible reasoning is useful and offers a compact introduction into adaptive logics. The author first familiarizes readers with defeasible reasoning, the adaptive logics framework, combinations of adaptive logics, and a range of useful meta-theoretic properties. He then offers a systematic study of adaptive logics based on various applications. The book presents formal models for defeasible reasoning stemming from different contexts, (...) such as default reasoning, argumentation, and normative reasoning. It highlights various meta-theoretic advantages of adaptive logics over other logics or logical frameworks that model defeasible reasoning. In this way the book substantiates the status of adaptive logics as a generic formal framework for defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

A considerable body of research supports the link between Machiavellianism and antisocial forms of behavior at work. Yet, meta-analytic findings and existing theory allude to a more complex story, whereby Machiavellian employees’ engagement in antisocial acts is likely to be simultaneously influenced by countervailing situational forces. To promote more nuanced, contextualized knowledge of high Machs’ antisocial tendencies at work, we developed and tested a social context model that describes how multiple situational factors may, at once, provoke _and_ constrain the tendency (...) of such individuals to engage in one notable form of antisocial behavior at work: social undermining. Specifically, we argue that Machiavellian employees likely experience competing motivations to undermine their colleagues as a result of two countervailing situational factors that are relevant to their self-interests: anticipated organizational change and perceptions of coworkers’ exchange quality. To develop our predictions, we draw on trait activation theory’s core assertion that employees’ behavior is multiply determined, such that trait–behavior relations stem from a complex interplay among diverse and potentially competing trait-relevant situational cues. The results of a three-wave, time-lagged survey supported our predictions that anticipated change would strengthen the positive relation between Machiavellianism and undermining, while perceptions of coworkers’ exchange quality would attenuate it. Additionally, the results supported our three-way interaction hypothesis that perceived coworker exchange quality would weaken the two-way interaction effect of Machiavellianism and anticipated organizational change on social undermining. We discuss the implications of our findings, as well as avenues for future research. (shrink)

D'un sommet à l'autre, quelle continuité ? C'est une question qui se pose encore en 2004, dix-huit ans après le premier Sommet de 1986. Faute de n'avoir pas su, dès les premiers sommets, en définissant les grandes priorités, déterminer dans le temps et dans l'espace une programmation resserrée et cohérente, mettre en oeuvre les moyens correspondants, faute de n'avoir pas respecté le principe de continuité, comme il est de règle lorsqu'on agit sur le long terme, on s'est lancé dans des (...) opérations tout azimuts, éparpillant des crédits insuffisants. Le sommet de Cotonou en 1995 a incontestablement envoyé un signe fort, en dégageant les constantes de la Francophonie avec cinq domaines mobilisateurs reliés entre eux par la langue française, ciment de la Francophonie. A la suite du sommet de Moncton , celui de Beyrouth affirme ses priorités: elles sont politiques ; elles sont linguistiques ; elles sont éducatives ; elles sont économiques . Cette programmation recentrée et cohérente devra se réaliser dans un cadre régional multilatéral et sur une période de dix ans rythmée par des périodes de quatre ans sur un financement pluri-annuel. Il est temps de repenser la programmation pour une Francophonie, humanisme de différence à l'échelle mondiale, alternative à cette uniformisation du monde qui est en train de se faire.From One Summit to Another: What Continuity is there? This question comes up again in 2004, eighteen years after the first summit in 1986. When the main priorities were defined at the earliest summits, we were unable to determine a tight, coherent schedule and programme for initiatives, to put into action the corresponding means and to respect the principal of continuity which is essential when working on long-term basis. Thus initiatives were launched in a scattergun fashion thus spreading insufficient funding too thinly in too many directions. The 1995 Cotonou Summit indisputably sent a strong signal by defining Francophony’s constant factors in five fields that rally support and are linked to each other by the French language, the cement of Francophony. Following the Summit at Moncton in 1999, the Beyrouth Summit affirmed the movement’s priorities as political , linguistic , educational and economic . This re-defined and coherent programme should be achieved within a regional, multilateral framework over a period of ten years involving four-year intervals with pluriannual financing plans. The francophone programming should principally take into consideration the development of human resources. It is time to rethink the roadmap for Francophony, a form of humanism with a difference on the world scale, an alternative to the uniform standardization prevalent worldwide. (shrink)

Die Untersuchung zielt auf eine systematische Begründung der von Frege und Wittgenstein initiierten sprachphilosophischen Wende. Ihr zentrales Thema ist das Verhältnis zwischen Gedanken und ihrem Ausdruck. Entwickelt wird eine neuartige Begründung dafür, dass wir im Denken nicht zufällig auf den Gebrauch von Ausdrücken angewiesen sind. Vielmehr sind Gedanken notwendig an Ausdruck gekoppelt, ohne sich mit diesem gleichsetzen zu lassen. Dabei wird die logisch-philosophische Wende zur Sprache zu einer Wende zum Ausdruck verallgemeinert: Dem sprachlich artikulierten Denken muss ein vorsprachliches Denken vorangehen, (...) dessen Ausdruck etwa gestisch-mimischer Art sein kann. Allerdings weist das vorsprachliche Denken aufgrund seiner eigenen Beschränktheit über sich hinaus. Die Untersuchung erweist die Sprache so als Leistung der Vernunft statt als bloss naturhafte Voraussetzung von deren Ausübung. (shrink)

Hegels Kritik an Kants praktischer Philosophie wurde in der Rezeptionsgeschichte zumeist anhand des Begriffspaares "Moralit t und Sittlichkeit" er rtert. Die Frage, welche Auswirkungen diese Kritik auf die einzelnen Kategorien der Rechtsmetaphysik hat, wurde demgegen ber kaum gestellt. Bestehen Unterschiede zwischen den Ausf hrungen beider Philosophen hinsichtlich der einzelnen Rechtsbegriffe? Lassen sich etwaige Differenzen auf die Verschiedenartigkeit der Freiheitskonzeptionen zur ckf hren? Und l sst sich Hegels allgemein gehaltene Kritik an Kant auf dessen Einzelausf hrungen in den "Metaphysischen Anfangsgr nden (...) der Rechtslehre" bertragen? Das Buch untersucht diese Fragen mit Blick auf die f r Kant wie Hegel zentrale Rechtskategorie des Eigentums. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Question and its Problems Facts and Evidence Euripides' Socrates A Paradox and its Solution.

This article questions whether enmity is always bad and trust always good. In the borderlands between Ikland in northern Uganda and Turkanaland in Kenya, sometimes violent enmity combines with friendly barter relations between the Ik, a subsistence agricultural people that also hunts, and their goat-and-cattle herding neighbors, the Turkana and Dodoth peoples. “Half-trust,” as some of the Ik call it, works to prevent the escalation of conflict. While the Ugandan groups have been disarmed by their government, the Kenyan Turkana, armed (...) with AK-47s, are allowed into Ugandan territory for pasture during drought, and some Turkana take violent advantage of this power imbalance as they leave. Paradoxically, intervention by Ugandan state institutions that, in the name of peaceful coexistence, welcome the Turkana in Uganda has led to the escalation of conflict, while tribal “half-trust” has kept it relatively limited. (shrink)

For non-additive set functions, the independent product, in general, is not unique and the Fubini theorem is restricted to slice-comonotonic functions. In this paper, we use the representation theorem of Gilboa and Schmeidler (Math Oper Res 20:197–212, 1995) to extend the Möbius product for non-additive set functions to non-finite spaces. We extend the uniqueness result of Ghirardato (J Econ Theory 73:261–291, 1997) for products of two belief functions and weaken the requirements on the marginals necessary to obtain the Fubini property (...) in the product. More importantly, we show that for the Möbius product one side of the Fubini theorem holds for all integrable functions if one of the marginals either is a probability or a convex combination of a chain of unanimity games, i.e., we relax the requirement of slice-comonotonicity and enrich the set of possible applications. (shrink)

Cette contribution se propose d’étudier l’anthropologie philosophique de Karl Löwith en partant de sa thèse d’habilitation, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen (1928). L’étude de cet ouvrage, dont Löwith nous dit qu’il est « pensé de manière anthropologique », permettra de poser le cadre initial de son anthropologie dont nous montrerons que la visée est éthique. C’est là sans doute, comme nous le montrerons en passant par la lecture de Löwith par Gadamer, que se joue la véritable distanciation avec (...) l’ontologie heideggérienne, même lorsque la pensée de Löwith cherchera à expurger son anthropologie de tout anthropocentrisme. (shrink)

Si l’on peut définir l’homme comme un animal qui interprète tant la réalité que lui-même, c’est que l’on pense qu’il a au monde, aux autres et à lui-même un rapport qui passe essentiellement par la compréhension. Ce n’est cependant pas sur ce niveau fondamental que nous avons pris le parti de faire porter la réflexion dans ce numéro. Il ne s’agissait pas, ou du moins pas principalement, de s’interroger sur ce qu’il en est de l’être de l’homme qui interprète ou (...) de faire ressortir toutes les di. (shrink)