Although complex hallucinations are extremely vivid, painful symptoms in schizophrenia, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of multisensory integration in such a phenomenon. We investigated the neural basis of these altered states of consciousness in a patient with schizophrenia, by combining state of the art neuroscientific exploratory methods like functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, cortical thickness analysis, electrical source reconstruction and trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. The results shed light on the functional architecture of the hallucinatory processes, in which unimodal information (...) from different modalities is strongly functionally connected to higher-order integrative areas. (shrink)

The stigmatisation of the gecekondu in post-1945 Turkey is a common theme in the literature. However, these studies have drawn little connection with health issues, even though these are known to be important in the mechanisms of stigmatisation. Policies for tuberculosis (TB) control—then Turkey's “number one health issue”—have tended to focus on individual and biological factors, to the detriment of social or environmental ones that could contribute to making TB a matter of politics and not only of policies. A close (...) study of the practices of the numerous TB-control actors nevertheless reveals an entanglement of the social, the environmental, and the medical questions. Through the emblematic but unknown case study of the TB-control pilot area created in Zeytinburnu in 1961, this article studies discourses, but also graphic representations, portraying the gecekondu as unhealthy, revealing an underlying environmental conception of TB among Turkish public health actors. The choice of Istanbul's biggest gecekondu neighbourhood to be a pilot area originated from a common conception of the gecekondu areas as pathogenic, but also contributed to reinforcing this vision and adding it to the very definition of the gecekondu. It thus participated in the stigmatisation of these areas and their inhabitants, even if some of the study's conclusions undermined the common vision of the gecekondu as populated by poor, rural migrants. However, the pilot project was also conceived as a way to integrate the inhabitants into the modern city. The “pilot” character of the area, if characteristic of the vocabulary of the 1960s, which were also the time of the attempt to “socialise the health services” in Turkey, is questionable. The project displayed a desire to know and control this specific territory rather than a genuine promotion of broader environmental changes to be replicated on a national scale. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard has become one of the leading interpreters of Kant's moral philosophy. She is identified with a small group of philosophers who are intent on producing a version of Kant's moral philosophy that is at once sensitive to its historical roots while revealing its particular relevance to contemporary problems. She rejects the traditional picture of Kant's ethics as a cold vision of the moral life which emphasises duty at the expense of love and value. Rather, Kant's work is (...) seen as providing a resource for addressing not only the metaphysics of morals, but also for tackling practical questions about personal relations, politics, and everyday human interaction. This collection contains some of the finest current work on Kant's ethics and will command the attention of all those involved in teaching and studying moral theory. (shrink)

Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing (...) how each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard. (shrink)

Christine M. Korsgaard is one of today's leading moral philosophers: this volume collects ten influential papers by her on practical reason and moral psychology ...

Many forms of virtue ethics, like certain forms of utilitarianism, suffer from the problem of indirection. In those forms, the criterion for status of a trait as a virtue is not the same as the criterion for the status of an act as right. Furthermore, if the virtues for example are meant to promote the nourishing of the agent, the virtuous agent is not standardly supposed to be motivated by concern for her own flourishing in her activity. In this paper, (...) I propose a virtue ethics which does not suffer from the problem. Traits are not virtues because their cultivation and manifestation promote a value such as agent flourishing. They are virtues in so far as they are habits of appropriate response to various relevant values. This means that there is a direct connection between the rationale of a virtue and what makes an action virtuous or right. (shrink)

The emotions we experience are crucial to who we are, to what we think, and to what we do. But what are emotions, exactly, and how do they relate to agency? The aim of this book is to spell out an account of emotions, which is grounded on analogies between emotions and sensory experiences, and to explore the implications of this account for our understanding of human agency. The central claim is that emotions consist in perceptual experiences of values, such (...) as the fearsome, the disgusting or the admirable. A virtue of this account is that it affords a better grasp of a variety of interconnected phenomena, such as motivation, values, responsibility and reason-responsiveness. In the process of exploring the implications of the Perceptual Theory of emotions, several claims are proposed. First, emotions normally involve desires that set goals, but they can be contemplative in that they can occur without any motivation. Second, evaluative judgements can be understood in terms of appropriate emotions in so far as appropriateness is taken to consist in correct representation. Third, by contrast with what Strawsonian theories hold, the concept of moral responsibility is not response-dependent, but the relationship between emotions and moral responsibility is mediated by values. Finally, in so far as emotions are perceptions of values, they can be considered to be perceptions of practical reasons, so that on certain conditions, acting on the basis of one's emotions can consist in responding to one's reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I set an aspect of what it is to live a flourishing life against the backdrop of neo liberal trends that continue to influence educational policy across the globe. The view I set out is in sharp contrast to any narrow assumption that education’s main task is the measurement of high performing individuals who will thus contribute to an economically viable society. Instead, I explore and argue for a conception of what constitutes a flourishing life that is (...) embedded in a more pragmatist analysis of what education may be. The argument begins with developing the centrality of embodiment to aesthetic sensibility and goes on to suggest how collective understanding of this within a community could constitute a sense of performance and thus contribute to the educational aim of developing a full and flourishing life. The argument is that this way of seeing life could have implications for educational practice, the role of the teacher and could help to reconfigure how education is experienced by the young. (shrink)

Christine Swanton presents a new target centred virtue ethics, which is opposed to orthodox virtue ethics in two major ways. She rejects the 'natural goodness' metaphysics of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics in favour of a 'hermeneutic ontology' of ethics, and she offers a new target centred framework for assessing rightness of acts.

... View (i) The Thesis of Essential Contestedness The view that freedom and other ideals such as justice are essentially contested is important, ...

Content skepticism about practical reason is doubt about the bearing of rational considerations on the activities of deliberation and choice. Motivational skepticism is doubt about the scope of reason as a motive. Some people think that motivational considerations alone provide grounds for skepticism about the project of founding ethics on practical reason. I will argue, against this view, that motivational skepticism must always be based on content skepticism. I will not address the question of whether or not content skepticism is (...) justified. I want only to establish the fact that motivational skepticism has no independent force. (shrink)

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals. She offers challenging answers to such questions as: Are people superior to animals, and does it matter morally if we are? Is it all right for us to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets?

In his seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Isaiah Berlin categorized freedom into positive or negative liberty: “freedom to” or “freedom from.” He provided a powerful critique against the metaphysical nature of positive liberty, arguing that it is oppressive, in contrast to the conception of negative freedom, defined as lack of interference. Meanwhile, conversations around the concept of freedom in Daoist philosophy often hover around categorizing it as either positive liberty in its spiritual form—what Berlin calls the “retreat to the (...) inner citadel”—or a type of negative liberty, being free from society’s interference. In this work, I argue that it may instead be more fruitful to explore the Chinese commentarial tradition for two reasons: (1) the problem of Berlin’s liberalist framework is problematic due to its inherently Anglo-European context, and concurrently, (2) there have been rich discussions of the sociopolitical aspects of the _Zhuangzi_ 莊子, especially by its leading Chinese commentator G uo Xiang 郭象, which have not been accounted for. Drawing from G uo Xiang, I render a reading of the concept of “free and easy wandering” (_xiaoyao_ 逍遙) in the _Zhuangzi_ as it directly relates to self-realization (_zide_ 自得) and having no heart-mind (_wuxin_ 無心), which makes for a more holistic understanding of freedom as self-determination. In particular, I argue that freedom in the philosophy of the _Zhuangzi_ can be more aptly understood as “freedom in,” which is more viable and just than both “freedom to” and “freedom from.”. (shrink)

Pour contrer le scepticisme au sujet de la connaissance des valeurs, la plupart soutiennent avec John Rawls qu’une croyance comme celle qu’une action est bonne est justifiée dans la mesure où elle appartient à un ensemble de croyances cohérent, ayant atteint un équilibre réfléchi. Christine Tappolet s’inspire des travaux de Max Scheler et d’Alexius von Meinong pour défendre une conception opposée au cohérentisme. La connaissance des valeurs est affirmée dépendre de nos émotions, ces dernières étant conçues comme des perceptions (...) des valeurs. (shrink)

Christine M. Korsgaard is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She was educated at the University of Illinois and received a Ph.D. from Harvard. She has held positions at Yale, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago, and visiting positions at Berkeley and UCLA. She is a member of the American Philosophical Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published extensively on Kant, and about (...) moral philosophy and its history, the theory of practical reason, the philosophy of action, and personal identity. Her two published books are The Sources of Normativity (1992) and Creating the King- dom of Ends (1996). (shrink)

The classical liberal argument that each human being has equal moral value and is deserving of equal concern and respect has had an enormous impact on our understanding both of equality and of individuals. Using this as a foundation, liberals have formulated theories of what is required for treating individuals with equal concern and respect that have provided ever more substantive interpretations of what individuals need to flourish in social relations marred by a legacy of discrimination and inequality. Yet the (...) view that relationships are of primary significance in the lives of individuals and that individuals are essentially interdependent and dependent beings has played a limited role in equality theory. If anything, these features of selves have been perceived to be inimical to equality, aspects of human lives that need to be transcended or left behind in the political community of fully participating members. ;This essay argues that insights into the relational features of language and of selves in communities provide what is needed to make up for the shortcomings of liberal conceptions of equality. Through a critique of Nozick's libertarianism, Rawls's liberal substantive theory, and communitarianism, a relational conception of the self and a relational theory of equality begin to emerge. I use Gilligan's inadequate account of relationships as a springboard for developing the idea that the interactive relationships between the oppressed and the oppressor, the disadvantaged and the advantaged, the powerless and the powerful have important implications for what should count as full equality and even for political action to eliminate inequalities. ;The essay closes by applying relational insights to a practical policy issue, the issue of affirmative action. Here we begin to see in concrete detail how relational theory can expand an understanding of the conditions needed for treating all individuals with equal concern and respect. (shrink)

In this theoretical paper, motives for CSR are considered. An underlying assumption is that the commercial imperative is not the sole driver of CSR decision-making in private sector companies, but that the formal adoption and implementation of CSR by corporations could be associated with the changing personal values of individual managers. These values may find expression through the opportunity to exercise discretion, which may arise in various ways. It is suggested that in so far as CSR initiatives represent individuals' values, (...) so the responsibility in evidence is less obviously corporate. Our emphasis on personal initiative is intended to counter a tendency to view the corporation as the agent, and may serve to remind us that individuals can, indeed, make a difference. (shrink)

This article considers film as a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This non-anthropocentric hypothesis was first formulated in 1946 by filmmaker and theorist Jean Epstein and regards film as the thinking performance of a technical apparatus, the cinematograph, which is a manifestation of machine thinking based on the holistic entanglement of thought and world, film and philosophy. The article pursues an enquiry into ‘thinking’: one of the most prominent and oldest topics considered in philosophy, and also essential to art and (...) film. Thinking is not only characterised as a sense (like sight or taste) but as a creative and, ultimately, intra-active act. The possibility of film as AI is approached not only from a Deleuzian angle, long appraised by film-philosophy, but also through questions recently raised by theories of artistic research and the speculative-materialist turn in contemporary philosophy. The latter have as a common denominator a strong critique of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy; the article enquires into this criticism from different angles and applies it to the main hypothesis of this analysis – to regard film as a form of AI. (shrink)

A cell contains many copies of mitochondrial DNA. The distribution of a mitochondrial gene mutation in a cell culture is governed by the way in which the mtDNA molecules of a cell are replicated and partitioned between the two daughter cells during mitosis. Assuming that this partition process is random, we describe the evolution of the mitochondrial genetic state of a cell culture. The mutated mtDNA is ultimately segregated and the rate of the trend to segregation is relatively slow. It (...) is nevertheless greatly accelerated if the model takes into account the spatial mtDNA partition by the mitochondrial compartments. (shrink)

In contemporary Western society, people are more often called upon to justify the choice not to have children than they are to supply reasons for having them. In this book, Christine Overall maintains that the burden of proof should be reversed: that the choice to have children calls for more careful justification and reasoning than the choice not to. Arguing that the choice to have children is not just a prudential or pragmatic decision but one with ethical repercussions, Overall (...) offers a wide-ranging exploration of how we might think systematically and deeply about this fundamental aspect of human life. Writing from a feminist perspective, she also acknowledges the inevitably gendered nature of the decision; the choice has different meanings, implications, and risks for women than it has for men. After considering a series of ethical approaches to procreation, and finding them inadequate or incomplete, Overall offers instead a novel argument. Exploring the nature of the biological parent-child relationship -- which is not only genetic but also psychological, physical, intellectual, and moral -- she argues that the formation of that relationship is the best possible reason for choosing to have a child. (shrink)

One of the great difficulties with Kant’s moral philosophy is that it seems to imply that our moral obligations leave us powerless in the face of evil. Kant’s theory sets a high ideal of conduct and tells us to live up to that ideal regardless of what other persons are doing. The results may be very bad. But Kant says that the law "remains in full force, because it commands categorically" (G, 438-39/57).* The most weI1—known example of...

Comme son titre l’indique, cet ouvrage collectif renouvelle réflexions et analyses autour des mouvements et figures féministes du Japon dans différents domaines. L’introduction nous donne un aperçu historique et synthétique très utile pour resituer les chapitres qui suivent. Elle souligne l’apparition de figures féministes (Kishida Toshiko, Fukuda Hideko) dès le début de la construction de l’État moderne japonais. Leur combat pour accéder à l’espace politique resta minoritaire alors que le pr...

The way in which one understands information and concepts, and the way a student works to develop this, is an individual aspect of learning that cannot be universally defined as (at least manifested) the same for everyone. ‘Understanding’ is a broad term, and the way one achieves understanding is dependent on the way that material is presented. In this article, we argue that the philosophy of science can be important to nursing education—in particular, by showing that the way we imbue (...) understanding might depend on the meaning of ‘understanding’. Diagrams and concept maps are meant to guide newly formed knowledge and connections to develop proper thinking (e.g., the order in which nursing students must prioritize data) that a student requires in the field. We argue that whether or not an image/diagram/concept map confers understanding will depend on both what the object is and what we mean by ‘understanding’. (shrink)

This paper consists in a critical review of Peter Goldie's book, The Emotion. A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Goldie is right to distinguish between long-term emotions and emotional experiences. And he is also right to reject the view that emotions are reducible to 'feelingless' states plus some extra feelings. However, Goldie's own account in terms of "feeling towards" is problematic. Goldie would have been better advised to claim that emotional experiences are necessarily emotional representations of something as (...) being F (disgusting, attractive, admirable, etc.), that is, that emotional experiences are apprehensions or representations of evaluative features. (shrink)

In The Seven Stages of an Enlightened Teacher, Dr. Christine Jax presents a path to great teaching that shows how and why teaching is "a calling" in the true sense of the words.

Ich vergesse - Diese erschreckende Feststellung wird innerhalb der Geschichte der Philosophie in unterschiedlicher Weise begleitet von einem philosophischen Staunen; einem Staunen über die eindrückliche und gleichzeitig rätselhafte Fähigkeit des Menschen, an sich selbst Vergessen zu bemerken. Die Untersuchung der Formen individuellen Vergessens führt vor Augen, inwiefern der Mensch seinem Denken selbstbestimmt eine Richtung geben kann und auch, inwieweit dies nicht gelingt. Sie liefert damit einen Beitrag zu einer aktuellen Theorie des Gedächtnisses aus geisteswissenschaftlicher, insbesondere philosophischer Perspektive.

Abstract“Chemistry of Concepts” and “Historical Sense”. On Philosophical Concept Formation. The question concerning concepts and their relations to objects and words has had a long and controversial history. Recently, it is challenged by an anew turn towards objects and an emphasized object‐oriented ontology. The article argues that one reason for this is the reduction of concepts towards pure rational constructions and offers arguments for alternative understandings. In this context, the article proposes a re‐reading of Nietzsche’s particular approach and shows that (...) Nietzsche’s thought is decisively shaped by the sciences of his time, especially physiology and chemistry. Before the background of the recent increase in research interest on Nietzsche and the sciences the article examines place and function of the sciences related to the genealogy and justification of concepts. Opposing a strong naturalist reading it makes a plea for understanding Nietzsche’s epistemological critique concerning concepts systematically as a triple one: philological, physiological, and historical. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex presents phenomenolog¬ical analyses that are intertwined and political proposals that posit that the individual ought to acknowledge the ambiguity of her own experience as human as well as the ambiguity of her relations with the Other and enact this ambiguous encounter. This is possible only with the rejection of the patriarchal system of values and meaning which negates ambiguity through its determinations of the feminine and the mascu¬line. A radical transformation of the social imaginaries (...) permeating our lives is needed. The Second Sex functions as a call to its readers to undertake this transformation. My claim is that in addition to putting forward a concept of political subjectivity as fundamentally ambiguous, Beauvoir also addresses us, the readers, as such subjects. I explain that this work is an instance of what Beauvoir defines as metaphysical literature that performs an appeal to ambiguous agents. (shrink)

L’Angleterre du xviie siècle connut un intense bouillonnement politique et religieux dont le paroxysme se situe au milieu du siècle, lors de la première révolution anglaise. De profondes aspirations égalitaires s’exprimèrent au sein de certains groupes. Les sectes dissidentes qui émergèrent alors offrirent à des individus, jusque-là condamnés au silence par leur position sociale, la possibilité de prendre la parole et la plume pour s’exprimer publiquement. Les femmes furent nombreuses à se sa...

James Tully's Strange Multiplicity uses the example of indigenous minorities in the white settler colonies of North America to develop a remarkably powerful critique of liberal constitutionalism's rule of uniformity. In proclaiming the identity of all persons before the law, he insists, liberal constitutional arrangements commonly discriminate against indigenous and other minorities. While the force of this critique is undeniable, it nevertheless takes at face value one of the central claims of liberal consitutionalism, namely, its claim to be based on (...) the rule of uniformity. Examination of liberal reflections on the government of subject peoples, most of whom were regarded as being, in Mill's words, “not sufficiently advanced for representative government“, suggests a rather different picture. In place of the rule of uniformity we find a variety of alternatives but, most commonly, an insistence, first, that the government of such peoples should focus on their welfare and eventual improvement rather than on their liberty and, second, that they should be governed as far as possible through their own institutions and structures of authority. The result was a highly differentiated form of rule in which what were believed to be indigenous arrangements were adapted to the joint requirements of improvement and administrative convenience. Thus, what seems to be a powerful commitment to individual liberty on the part of liberal political reason should be seen as simply one element in a broader liberal perspective on the government of populations. At least as important in this perspective as the rule of uniformity is the presumption that some cultures are more advanced than others and a corresponding view of many cultural differences in historical and developmental terms. (shrink)