Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 161-179.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 5-11.

Progress -- Loss -- Return -- Amenability -- Citation tactics -- Affective subjects.

The paper presents a metaphysical characterization of spatiotemporal backgrounds from a realist perspective. The conceptual analysis is based on a heuristic sketch that encompasses the common formal traits of the major spacetime theories, such as Newtonian mechanics and general relativity. It is shown how this framework can be interpreted in a fully realist fashion, and what is the role of background structures in such a picture. In the end it is argued that, although backgrounds are a source of metaphysical discomfort, (...) still they make a spacetime theory easy to interpret. It is also suggested that this conclusion partially explains why the notion of background independence carries a lot of conceptual difficulties. (shrink)

We present a new metaphysical framework for physics that is conceptually clear, ontologically parsimonious, and empirically adequate. This framework relies on the notion of self-subsisting structure, that is, a set of fundamental physical elements whose individuation and behavior are described in purely relational terms, without any need for a background spacetime. Although the specification of the fundamental elements of the ontology depends on the particular physical domain considered---and is thus susceptible to scientific progress---, the empirically successful structural features of the (...) framework are preserved through theory change. The kinematics and dynamics of these self-subsisting structures are technically implemented using the theoretical framework of Pure Shape Dynamics, which provides a completely relational physical description of a system in terms of the intrinsic geometry of a suitably defined space called shape space. (shrink)

This paper discusses George Boole’s two distinct approaches to the explanatory relationship between logical and psychological theory. It is argued that, whereas in his first book he attributes a substantive role to psychology in the foundation of logical theory, in his second work he abandons that position in favour of a linguistically conceived foundation. The early Boole espoused a type of psychologism and later came to adopt a type of anti-psychologism. To appreciate this invites a far-reaching reassessment of his philosophy (...) of logic. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum physics.

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing. We assess two strategies to combine this ontology with physics, using classical mechanics as example: the Humean strategy adopts the standard, non-relationalist physical theories as they stand and interprets their formal apparatus as the means of bookkeeping of the change of the distance relations (...) instead of committing us to additional elements of the ontology. The alternative theory strategy seeks to combine the relationalist ontology with a relationalist physical theory that reproduces the predictions of the standard theory in the domain where these are empirically tested. We show that, as things stand, this strategy cannot be accomplished without compromising a minimalist relationalist ontology. (shrink)

This paper considers what olfactory experience can tell us about the controversy over qualia and, in particular, the debate that focuses on the alleged transparency of experience. The appeal to transparency is supposed to show that there are no qualia—intrinsic, non-intentional and directly accessible properties of experience that determine phenomenal character. It is most commonly used to motivate intentionalism—namely, the view that the phenomenal character of an experience is exhausted by its representational content. Although some philosophers claim that transparency holds (...) for all of the sense modalities, any detailed discussion of it focuses on vision. But transparency seems unintuitive for olfactory experience. This paper argues that olfactory experience is indeed transparent and that explanations of what transparency is have been obscured by a reliance on the visual model. In this way, the paper clarifies and advances the debate about transparency. (shrink)

In _Considering Emma Goldman_ Clare Hemmings examines the significance of the anarchist activist and thinker for contemporary feminist politics. Rather than attempting to resolve the tensions and problems that Goldman's thinking about race, gender, and sexuality pose for feminist thought, Hemmings embraces them, finding them to be helpful in formulating a new queer feminist praxis. Mining three overlapping archives—Goldman's own writings, her historical and theoretical legacy, and an imaginative archive that responds creatively to gaps in those archives —Hemmings shows (...) how serious engagement with Goldman's political ambivalences opens up larger questions surrounding feminist historiography, affect, fantasy, and knowledge production. Moreover, she explores her personal affinity for Goldman to illuminate the role that affective investment plays in shaping feminist storytelling. By considering Goldman in all her contradictions and complexity, Hemmings presents a queer feminist response to the ambivalences that also saturate contemporary queer feminist race theories. (shrink)

The paper discusses from a metaphysical standpoint the nature of the dependence relation underpinning the talk of mutual action between material and spatiotemporal structures in general relativity. It is shown that the standard analyses of dependence in terms of causation or grounding are ill-suited for the general relativistic context. Instead, a non-standard analytical framework in terms of structural equation modeling is exploited, which leads to the conclusion that the kind of dependence encoded in the Einstein field equations is a novel (...) one. (shrink)

An ontology of Leibnizian relationalism, consisting in distance relations among sparse matter points and their change only, is well recognized as a serious option in the context of classical mechanics. In this paper, we investigate how this ontology fares when it comes to general relativistic physics. Using a Humean strategy, we regard the gravitational field as a means to represent the overall change in the distance relations among point particles in a way that achieves the best combination of being simple (...) and being informative. (shrink)

Together, DNA repair and checkpoint responses ensure the integrity of the genome. Coordination of cell cycle checkpoints and DNA repair are especially important following genotoxic radiation or chemotherapy, during which unusually high loads of DNA damage are sustained. In mammalian cells, the checkpoint kinase, Cds1 (also known as Chk2) is activated by ATM in response to DNA damage. The role of Cds1 as a checkpoint kinase depends on its ability to phosphorylate cell cycle regulators such p53, Cdc25 and Brca1. A (...) role for Cds1 in repair is suggested by the finding that it interacts with the Holliday junction resolving activity Mus81. This review focuses on the many questions generated by recent progress in understanding the function and regulation of human Cds1. BioEssays 24:502–511, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Il volume fornisce una nuova traduzione italiana, con introduzione storico-filosofica e commento del trattato plotiniano Sulla bellezza intelligibile (Enn. V 8 [31]). In Enn. V 8 [31] Plotino cerca di indagare il complesso rapporto tra il carattere “ideale” e quello “reale” della bellezza e delle sue diverse forme di manifestazione nel mondo. Tra queste, che la tradizione precedente aveva recluso negli spazi angusti dell’arte imitativa, il filosofo neoplatonico prende spunto dall’opera dello scultore, per poi ampliare lo sguardo verso altri aspetti (...) della bellezza: in particolare, quello del suo essere (ontologia) e quello del suo valore (etica). Lungi dall’essere una semplice testimonianza della corrente mistica del pensiero antico, il trattato Sulla bellezza intelligibile è anche (forse soprattutto) un invito all’azione e un comando a rendere oggetto del proprio agire innanzitutto sé stessi. Come Fidia dimostrò, grazie al suo Zeus Olimpio, che un grande artista non può limitarsi a concepire l’ideale, ma deve anche realizzarlo concretamente nella realtà; così ogni uomo, se vero uomo, sa ergersi sulla materia che lo circonda e farsi tempio della Luce intelligibile. *** Der vorliegende Band bietet eine neue italienische Übersetzung samt einer philosophiegeschichtlichen Einleitung und Kommentar zur Abhandlung Plotins Über die intelligible Schönheit (Enn. V 8 [31]). In Enn. V 8 [31] untersucht Plotin die komplizierte Beziehung zwischen dem ‚ideellen‘ und dem ‚realistischen‘ Charakter der Schönheit und ihren verschiedenen Erscheinungsformen in der Welt, die von der früheren Tradition als künstliche Nachahmungen kritisiert wurden. Als Beispiel zieht der neuplatonische Philosoph das Werk des Bildhauers heran und erweitert daraufhin seine Untersuchung im Hinblick auf andere Aspekte der Schönheit, insbesondere ihr ‚Sein‘ (Ontologie) und ihren ‚Wert‘ (Ethik). Weit davon entfernt ein Beweis für den mystischen Teil des antiken Denkens zu sein, ist die Abhandlung Über die intelligible Schönheit auch im Besonderen ein Aufruf zum Handeln und ein Befehl an jeden Menschen, sich selbst zum Objekt seines Handelns zu machen. Wie Phidias anhand seines Zeus bewies, ist es für einen großen Künstler nicht möglich, nur das Ideale zu denken, er muss es auch in der Realität verwirklichen. Auf dieselbe Art und Weise muss jeder (wahre) Mensch über der Materie stehen und sich selbst zum Tempel des intelligiblen Lichtes erheben, das überall sein Leben beleuchtet. (shrink)

Particular ethical tensions and dilemmas emerge when conducting qualitative educational research. This is further compounded where the predominant approach to research ethics is underscored by a dominant principalism which construes ethical rules as both universal and absolute. This article focuses on the ‘perfect ethical storm’ which is arguably created when ethnographic design, covert observation and practitioner research collide. Drawing on a doctoral study into therapeutic education, this analysis shows how such research may be ethically feasible when the qualitative researcher adopts (...) a more flexible approach to research ethics based on Aristotelian notions of virtue. In this article, I also demonstrate how the field diary can be a valuable tool in enabling the qualitative researcher to develop certain dispositions, notably reflexivity, which are central to becoming a virtuous researcher. (shrink)

The paper considers the "GR-desideratum", that is, the way general relativity implements general covariance, diffeomorphism invariance, and background independence. Two cases are discussed where 5-dimensional generalizations of general relativity run into interpretational troubles when the GR-desideratum is forced upon them. It is shown how the conceptual problems dissolve when such a desideratum is relaxed. In the end, it is suggested that a similar strategy might mitigate some major issues such as the problem of time or the embedding of quantum non-locality (...) into relativistic spacetimes. (shrink)

Contextualism in philosophy of language and in epistemology are two distinct but closely entangled projects. The epistemological thesis is grounded in a semantic claim concerning the context-sensitivity of the predicate “know”: we gain insight into epistemological problems by investigating our linguistic intuitions concerning knowledge attribution sentences. Our aim here is to evaluate the plausibility of a project that takes the opposite starting point: the general idea is to establish the semantic contextualist thesis on the epistemological one. According to semantic contextualism, (...) virtually no sentences of a natural language express complete propositions – meaning underdetermines truth conditions. In our paper, instead of assuming the traditional view of meaning in terms of truth conditions, we suggest that a theory of meaning as justification may shed new light on the contextualist approach. We thus show how the notion of justification can be contextualized, arguing that our attempt provides an interesting and quite straightforward way of contextualizing meaning. (shrink)

Any attempt to evaluate a naturalistic feminist philosophy of cognition and knowledge must acknowledge that there are two distinct core approaches to naturalism. Classical feminist naturalizations of epistemology have drawn inspiration from the Quinean naturalization, they have inherited its defects – the major one: being compelled to renounce doing real epistemology in favor of a merely scientific enterprise. Notwithstanding, the merits of these feminist naturalizations are more than one: they embrace the idea that epistemology needs contributions and help from the (...) sciences, they raise serious doubts about the best science to involve in feminist epistemologies, they contrast our “local feminist philosophy” not only in its scorn for every science and its technological applications, but also in its conviction that there are essential differences between female/women and male/men about knowledge and cognition. I wish to propose a naturalized feminist epistemology which draws inspiration from the more moderate Goldmanian approach. Much work would be needed in order to combine those feminist approaches which believe in the individualism of the knowing subject with those that are anti–individualist. But, at least, taking inspiration from Goldman and his reliabilism, we may achieve a type of naturalism in feminist epistemologies, in which it would be feasible to understand the reliability of the cognitive faculties of the knowing subject and to understand scientifically whether or not there are differences between female and male faculties – avoiding any essentialist temptations. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that because animals feel pain we should not make them suffer gratuitously. Some ethical theories go even further: because of the capacities that they possess, animals have the right not to be harmed or killed. These views concern what not to do to animals, but we also face questions about when we should, and should not, assist animals that are hungry or distressed. Should we feed a starving stray kitten? And if so, does this commit us, (...) if we are to be consistent, to feeding wild animals during a hard winter? In this controversial book, Clare Palmer advances a theory that claims, with respect to assisting animals, that what is owed to one is not necessarily owed to all, even if animals share similar psychological capacities. Context, history, and relation can be critical ethical factors. If animals live independently in the wild, their fate is not any of our moral business. Yet if humans create dependent animals, or destroy their habitats, we may have a responsibility to assist them. Such arguments are familiar in human cases-we think that parents have special obligations to their children, for example, or that some groups owe reparations to others. Palmer develops such relational concerns in the context of wild animals, domesticated animals, and urban scavengers, arguing that different contexts can create different moral relationships. (shrink)

This article draws on the free‐text commentaries from trans‐Tasman studies that used the MISSCARE questionnaire to explore the reasons why nurses miss care. In this paper, we examine the idea that nurses perpetuate a self‐effacing approach to care, at the expense of patient care and professional accountability, using what they describe as the art of nursing to frame their claims of both nursing care and missed nursing care. We use historical dialogue alongside a paradigmatic analysis to examine why nurses allow (...) themselves to continue working within settings that put their professional/personal selves aside in an attempt to deliver care within constraints that make completing care an impossible task. The findings suggest an ambivalence and conflict confront nurses attempting to provide care within the New Public Management environment. This can be seen in the tensions that draw a line between care as an art, and care as a financial target, juxtaposed with the inherent clash of values arising from the way nursing care is conceptualised within two contradictory paradigms. (shrink)

The following text is the de-identified and edited transcript of an invited presentation by Professor Clare Delany on the topic of ‘How clinical ethics discussions can be a model for accommodating and incorporating plural values in paediatric and adult healthcare settings.’ Professor Delany’s presentation formed part of the Conference on Accommodating Plural Values in Healthcare and Healthcare Policy, which was held in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday, October 30, 2023. This conference was a key output of the Australian Research Council (...) Discovery Project grant DP190101597, ‘Religion, pluralism, and healthcare practice: A philosophical assessment’. Professor Delany’s presentation was introduced by Doctor Lauren Notini, Research Fellow and Lecturer at Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University. (shrink)

The paper discusses the possible implications of the relational framework of Pure Shape Dynamics for the metaphysics of time. The starting point of the analysis is an interpretation of shapes in ontic structural realist terms, which gives rise to the notion of self-subsisting structure. The relational version of a Newtonian-particle toy model is introduced and discussed as a concrete example.

Seattle rain smelled different from New Orleans rain…. New Orleans rain smelled of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder, and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smelled of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and silence and minnow breath.— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug PerfumeMuch of the philosophical literature on perception has focused on vision. This is not surprising, given that vision holds for us a certain prestige. Our visual experience is incredibly rich, offering up a mosaic (...) of apparent three-dimensional objects. For this reason, it is commonplace to suppose that visual experience is world-directed, with the view taking its most popular form in the representational, or content, view. World-directed views contrast with what we might call subjectivist views — views according to which experiences are raw feels or mere sensations. (shrink)

The paper investigates the kind of dependence relation that best portrays Machian frame-dragging in general relativity. The question is tricky because frame-dragging relates local inertial frames to distant distributions of matter in a time-independent way, thus establishing some sort of non-local link between the two. For this reason, a plain causal interpretation of frame-dragging faces huge challenges. The paper will shed light on the issue by using a generalized structural equation model analysis in terms of manipulationist counterfactuals recently applied in (...) the context of metaphysical enquiry by Schaffer (2016) and Wilson (2017). The verdict of the analysis will be that frame-dragging is best understood in terms of a novel type of dependence relation that is half-way between causation and grounding. (shrink)

Real Language Series General Editors:Jennifer Coates, Jenny Cheshire, Euan Reid This is a sociolinguistics series about the relationships between language, society and social change. Books in the series draw on natural language data from a wide range of social contexts. The series takes a critical approach to the subject, challenging current orthodoxies, and dealing with familiar topics in new ways. Gender and Discourse offers a critical new approach to the study of language and gender studies. Women moving into the public (...) domains of power traditionally monopolised by men are creating new identities for themselves, and the language that is used by them and about them offers an insight into gender roles. Clare Walsh reviews the current dominance/difference debates, and proposes a new analytical framework which combines the insights of critical discourse and feminist perspectives on discourse to provide a new perspective on the role of women in public life. A superbly accessible book designed for students and researchers in the field, the book features: - topical case studies from the arenas of politics, religion and activism- a new analytical framework, also summarised in chart form so the reader can apply their own critical analyses of texts. - written and visual text types for the reader's own linguistic and semiotic analysis. 'This important book takes up a neglected question in the study of language and gender - what difference women make to the discourse of historically male-dominated institutions - and brings to bear on it both the insights of feminist scholarship and evidence from women's own testimony. Clare Walsh's analysis of the dilemmas women face is both subtle and incisive, taking us beyond popular 'Mars and Venus' stereotypes and posing some hard questions for fashionable theories of language, identity and performance. (shrink)

In clinical ethics consultations, clinical ethicists bring moral reasoning to bear on concrete and complex clinical ethical problems by undertaking ethical deliberation in collaboration with others. The reasoning process involves identifying and clarifying ethical values which are at stake or contested, and guiding clinicians, and sometimes patients and families, to think through ethically justifiable and available courses of action in clinical situations. There is, however, ongoing discussion about the various methods ethicists use to do this ethical deliberation work. In this (...) paper, we make visible and accessible seven steps of facilitation used in the critical dialogue method of ethics consultation.We describe how the facilitation techniques serve two overall purposes. First, to identify ethically justified responses to ethical questions. Second, to assist participants to gain greater moral clarity, understanding and confidence to respond to ethical challenges as independent moral agents.By describing in detail facilitation steps for clinical ethics consultation, we aim to advance the scholarship of ‘clinical ethics facilitation methods’ and to demystify the ethical deliberation work undertaken by clinical ethicists. (shrink)

The decision making process is an important aspect of the managerial function that is becoming increasingly complex due to technological and global impacts. It is essential, therefore, to understand why various managers approach the decision making process differently. One area that is related to how managers perceive and process the information that is associated with decision making, is that of decision style.It is not enough, however, to explore decision style in isolation, as some of the decisions that managers make often (...) entail ethical components concerning the ability to balance the interests of diverse groups. Moral reasoning is therefore important for every manager, and could impact the decision style that is employed by such managers. The relationship between managerial decision style and moral development is one that could provide unique insights into the area of decision making, yet it is an area that has remained relatively unexplored. (shrink)

La discussione generale sulla filosofia della scienza contemporanea è complicata dal numero e dall’eterogeneità delle scienze, mentre lo studio di temi specifici porta inevitabilmente a dissertazioni specialistiche che mancano nel dare ragione della trama di senso sottostante. Questo Piccolo trattato di epistemologia intende occupare uno spazio vuoto, proponendo alcuni temi chiave per la comprensione dei meccanismi alla base della conoscenza scientifica: i rapporti tra filosofia e scienze, siano esse naturali o umane; la complessa relazione tra fatti e valori; la distinzione (...) tra scoperta e giustificazione; la necessità di un discorso etico sulla ricerca, che chiami in causa categorie come fiducia, empatia, altruismo ed egoismo. Con un approccio chiaro e rigoroso, il volume intende rivolgersi a quell’ampia fascia di pubblico interessata alle tematiche centrali dell’epistemologia, della filosofia e delle scienze. (shrink)

Liberals like choice.1 Human flourishing, they believe, is to some degree dependent on individuals’ ability to choose their ends and actions. However, liberals sometimes fail to note that this principle does not always work in reverse: it does not follow that an individual acting according to her own choices will flourish, or that she will necessarily have the freedom and autonomy which are crucial to flourishing. In this paper, I shall show that even outcomes which result from the choices of (...) the individuals concerned may be unjust, if two conditions hold. I call these conditions the disadvantage and influence factors. Together, they express the idea that if an individual is encouraged to make choices which disadvantage her, then the ensuing inequality is unjust – particularly if the disadvantage is significant and enduring, and if the encouragement comes from those who make different choices and so end up better off. Egalitarian liberals, I argue, should be particularly worried about such outcomes, despite a temptation to rely on choice as the determinant of justice. (shrink)

This paper examines the temporality of agency in Judith Butler's and Saba Mahmood's writing. I argue that Mahmood moves away from a performative understanding of agency, which focuses on relations of signification, to a corporeal understanding, which focuses on desire and sensation. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's reading of Henri Bergson, I show how this move involves a changed model of becoming: whereas Butler imagines movement as a series of discontinuous beings, in Mahmood's case, we get an understanding of becoming.

"What is the pervasive character of the world? The answer is force." But, as Heidegger asks next: "What is force?" Connors sets out to answer this question, tracing a genealogy of the idea of force through the writings of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida. These thinkers try to pin down what force is, but know too that it is something which cannot be neutrally described. Their vigorously literary writings must therefore be read as much for the stylistic and rhetorical ways (...) in which they render force's powerful elusiveness as for the content of their arguments. And it is perhaps literature, rather than philosophy, which best engages with force. Certainly, for Connors, these philosophical positions are foreshadowed in remarkable detail by Shakespeare's Henry V - a play shot through with forces, imaginary, military, rhetorical and bodily. (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to the theory of knowledge, this work explores what it is to be a rational, sentient human being.

It is generally accepted that women have the right to participate in the workplace, although only if replicating the traditional male mode of working. To this extent, the right to formal equality with men is generally agreed to be a legitimate goal for legislation. However, where the limitations of such assimilation to a male norm come into sharp focus, as they do in the context of pregnancy, the restrictions placed on improving the position of women are evident. The courts seek (...) to accept the arguments of employers that some limitation on the rights of women to participate fully in the workplace is necessary, with the unarticulated assumption that pregnancy constitutes a real difference between the sexes, incompatible with their notion of (formal) equality. Thus, it is argued, that the advances so far gained in the relation to pregnancy dismissals do not represent a cultural shift in attitudes towards accommodating pregnant women and women with children into the workplace. They have been adopted only reluctantly by the UK courts and legislature, with limitations still being placed on their effect particularly in respect of dismissals on account of pregnancy-related illness. The rights of women not to be discriminated against solely on the basis of their biological ability to give birth must continue to be advocated and given attention; complacency will likely see those rights progressively restricted. (shrink)

I rapporti tra epistemologia, logica e psicologia sono notoriamente problematici. Una riflessione su di essi acquista rilevanza anche in virtu' di alcuni sviluppi contemporanei per cui la psicologia e l'intelligenza artificiale paiono investire settori considerati tradizionalmente dominio dell'epistemologia e della logica. In gioco e' soprattutto lo studio delle necessita' conoscitive e raziocinative dell'essere umano. Che epistemologia e logica abbiano ormai poco da dire al proposito e' ancora da mostrare.