This article traces the competing meanings of "master narrative" in current theoretical debates over history and culture. The phrase "master or meta narrative" has grown popular for describing stories which seem to assimilate different cultures into a single course of history dominated by the West. Master narrative, like its predecessors Universal History and speculative philosophy of history, has become something to avoid. But our increasingly global situations demand stories that can describe and explain the worldwide interactions of diverse cultures and (...) communities. From this convergence--a growing wariness of global stories coupled with situations which seem to demand them--has emerged a popular new double plot of world history in which cultural differentiation and cultural homogenization go hand in hand. The development has led to some surprising homologies and contrasts among the new histories created by thinkers from Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jean-François Lyotard to James Clifford and Francis Fukuyama. But our new "postmodern" distinctions between master and local narratives have carried over the venerable antinomy of people with and without history, and the search for timeless formal principles differentiating "historical" and "nonhistorical" modes of discourse and ways of being threatens to create new varieties of essentialism. (shrink)

Die Abwesenheit des Unbekannten bleibt unbemerkt -- Historische Einbildungen : zu Olivier Rolins "Tigre en papier" -- Leben und denken wie die Schweine : Kleine Dialektik des Poststrukturalismus (von Gilles Châtelet zu Michel Houellebecq) -- Das Verschwinden der leerlaufenden Gegenwart aus der Geschichte : zu Maurice Dantecs Trivialroman "La sirène rouge" -- Tartuffe desakralisiert : zur Krise des frazösischen Bildungssystems -- "Les princes sont des dieux" : zum Religionsbegriff des französischen Staates -- Die Demokratie gegen ihre Liebhaber verteidigt : zum (...) Denken Claude Leforts -- Totale Marktwirtschaft : zu Alain Supiots Kritik am Ultraliberalismus -- Warum Gesetze? : zu Pierre Legendres "Abhnadlung über den Vater" -- Wem gehören die Töchter? : zum sexuellen Machtanspruch der Konsumgesellschaften -- Kleine Illusionen : Anmerkungen zu den deutsch-französischen Kulturbeziehungen. (shrink)

I argue that our current practice of ascribing the term “ memory ” to mental states and processes lacks epistemic warrant. Memory, according to the “received view”, is any state or process that results from the sequential stages of encoding, storage and retrieval. By these criteria, memory, or its footprint, can be seen in virtually every mental state we are capable of having. This, I argue, stretches the term to the breaking point. I draw on phenomenological, historical and conceptual considerations (...) to make the case that an act of memory entails a direct, non-inferential feeling of re-acquaintance with one’s past. It does so by linking content retrieved from storage with autonoetic awareness during retrieval. On this view, memory is not the content of experience, but the manner in which that content is experienced. I discuss some theoretical and practical implications and advantages of adopting this more nuanced view of memory. -/-. (shrink)

Following the seminal work of Ingvar (1985. “Memory for the future”: An essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Human Neurobiology, 4, 127–136), Suddendorf (1994. The discovery of the fourth dimension: Mental time travel and human evolution. Master’s thesis. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand), and Tulving (1985. Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 26, 1–12), exploration of the ability to anticipate and prepare for future contingencies that cannot be known with certainty has grown into a thriving research enterprise. (...) A fundamental tenet of this line of inquiry is that future-oriented mental time travel, in most of its presentations, is underwritten by a property or an extension of episodic recollection. However, a careful conceptual analysis of exactly how episodic memory functions in this capacity has yet to be undertaken. In this paper I conduct such an analysis. Based on conceptual, phenomenological, and empirical considerations,I conclude that the autonoetic component of episodic memory, not episodic memory per se, is the causally determinative factor enabling an individual to project him or herself into a personal future. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of what the self is by reviewing neuropsychological research,which converges on the idea that the self may be more complex and differentiated than previous treatments of the topic have suggested. Although some aspects of self-knowledge such as episodic recollection may be compromised in individuals, other aspects—for instance, semantic trait summaries—appear largely intact. Taken together, these findings support the idea that the self is not a single, unified entity. Rather, it is a set of interrelated, functionally (...) independent systems. Implications for understanding the self in various areas of psychological research—e.g., neuroimaging, autism, amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and mirror self-recognition—are discussed in brief. (shrink)

Memory evolved to supply useful, timely information to the organism’s decision-making systems. Therefore, decision rules, multiple memory systems, and the search engines that link them should have coevolved to mesh in a coadapted, functionally interlocking way. This adaptationist perspective suggested the scope hypothesis: When a generalization is retrieved from semantic memory, episodic memories that are inconsistent with it should be retrieved in tandem to place boundary conditions on the scope of the generalization. Using a priming paradigm and a decision task (...) involving person memory, the authors tested and confirmed this hypothesis. The results support the view that priming is an evolved adaptation. They further show that dissociations between memory systems are not—and should not be—absolute: Independence exists for some tasks but not others. (shrink)

This book casts new light on the traditional disagreement between those who hold that we cannot be morally responsible for our actions if they are causally determined, and those who deny this. Klein suggests that reflection on the relation between justice and deprivation offers a way out of this perplexity.

In this paper I examine the concept of cross-temporal personal identity (diachronicity). This particular form of identity has vexed theorists for centuries -- e.g.,how can a person maintain a belief in the sameness of self over time in the face of continual psychological and physical change? I first discuss various forms of the sameness relation and the criteria that justify their application. I then examine philosophical and psychological treatments of personal diachronicity(for example,Locke's psychological connectedness theory; the role of episodic memory) (...) and find each lacking on logical grounds, empirical grounds, or both. I conclude that to achieve a successful resolution of the issue of the self as a temporal continuant we need to draw a sharp distinction between the feeling of the sameness of one's self and the evidence marshaled in support of that feeling. (shrink)

In Ethics 4, Spinoza argues that “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death” (E4p67). Spinoza’s argument for this claim depends on his view of imagination, reason, and scientia intuitiva and on his notion of conatus. I explicate Spinoza’s view of life in terms of power (potentia) and show that Spinozan death amounts to reconfiguration rather than absolute annihilation. I then show that E4p67 reflects Spinoza’s well-known account (...) of the three kinds of knowing. Thinking of death is quintessentially imaginative and passive. The free person of E4p67 is in contrast a rational person. To reason, and as becomes especially clear E5, to experience scientia intuitiva, moreover is to think of things “without any relation to time, but [rather] sub specie aeternatitis”(E2p44c2) and to experience activity To the extent, then, that we are rational, free, and active, death is a non-issue. Indeed, to the extent that we are able to meditate on life sub specie aeternitatis, we actually experience joy, love (E5p20s, p32c), eternity (Sp23s), and “the greatest satisfaction of the Mind” (E5p27). (shrink)

L’estiu de 1947, tres joves amics, Yves Klein, Claude Pascal i Armand Fernandez, s’asseuen a la platja de Niça. Encara no són artistes, no fan res i perden el temps omplint-lo de projectes i paraules. Prenen el sol, miren el mar i el cel de la Mediterrània, fan declaracions entusiastes sobre el Gran Art del futur i comparteixen la natura, com uns nens que es divideixen un regne imaginari. Klein pren el blau del cel que abasta amb (...) la mirada, com el color absolut i ideal de la pintura. -/- Yves le Monochrome dirà diverses vegades que, aquell matí d’estiu, va fer un viatge fantàstic, com si fos un astronauta conquerint l’espai, i va signar, com si es tractés d’un llenç pintat de blau, l’altre costat d’aquest bell cel sense núvols: la més bella i la més gran de les seves obres. Aquest cel blau pintat de blau és una obra immaterial i impossible, no feta per les mans de l’artista, amb colors, pinzells i teles, sinó explicada amb les seves paraules, mites i llegendes. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the importance of treating mental experience on its own terms. In defense of “experiential realism” I offer a critique of modern psychology’s all-too-frequent attempts to effect an objectification and quantification of personal subjectivity. The question is “What can we learn about experiential reality from indices that, in the service of scientific objectification, transform the qualitative properties of experience into quantitative indices?” I conclude that such treatment is neither necessary for realizing, nor sufficient for capturing, (...) subjectively given states (such as perception, pain, imagery, fear, thought, memory) – that is, for understanding many of the principle objects of psychological inquiry. A “science of mind” that approaches its subject matter from a third-person perspective should, I contend, be treated with a healthy amount of informed skepticism. (shrink)

Brain–Computer Interface research is an interdisciplinary area of study within Neural Engineering. Recent interest in end-user perspectives has led to an intersection with user-centered design. The goal of user-centered design is to reduce the translational gap between researchers and potential end users. However, while qualitative studies have been conducted with end users of BCI technology, little is known about individual BCI researchers’ experience with and attitudes towards UCD. Given the scientific, financial, and ethical imperatives of UCD, we sought to gain (...) a better understanding of practical and principled considerations for researchers who engage with end users. We conducted a qualitative interview case study with neural engineering researchers at a center dedicated to the creation of BCIs. Our analysis generated five themes common across interviews. The thematic analysis shows that participants identify multiple beneficiaries of their work, including other researchers, clinicians working with devices, device end users, and families and caregivers of device users. Participants value experience with device end users, and personal experience is the most meaningful type of interaction. They welcome end-user input, but are skeptical of limited focus groups and case studies. They also recognize a tension between creating sophisticated devices and developing technology that will meet user needs. Finally, interviewees espouse functional, assistive goals for their technology, but describe uncertainty in what degree of function is “good enough” for individual end users. Based on these results, we offer preliminary recommendations for conducting future UCD studies in BCI and neural engineering. (shrink)

Active cultural transmission of fitness-enhancing behavior can be seen as a costly strategy: one for which its evolutionary stability poses a Darwinian puzzle. In this article, we offer a biological market model of cultural transmission that substitutes or complements existing kin selection-based proposals for the evolution of cultural capacities. We demonstrate how a biological market can account for the evolution of teaching when individual learners are the exclusive focus of social learning. We also show how this biological market can affect (...) the dynamics of cumulative culture. The model works best when it is difficult to have access to the observation of the behavior without the help of the actor. However, in contrast to previous non-mathematical hypotheses for the evolution of teaching, we show how teaching evolves, even when innovations are insufficiently opaque and therefore vulnerable to acquisition by emulators via inadvertent transmission. Furthermore, teaching in a biological market is an important precondition for enhancing individual learning abilities. (shrink)

I describe the general structure of most infinite regress arguments; introduce some basic vocabulary; present a working hypothesis of the nature and derivation of an infinite regress; apply this working hypothesis to various infinite regress arguments to explain why they fail to entail an infinite regress; describe a common mistake in attempting to derive certain infinite regresses; and examine how infinite regresses function as a premise.

A argumentação desenvolvida no presente artigo se propõe a defender a interpretação austera do construtivismo em Kant das objeções a ela levantadas por Jeremy Schwartz (2017) em seu artigo _Was Kant a ‘Kantian Constructivist’?_. Tendo isso em vista, primeiramente, procede-se à reconstrução da interpretação de Schwartz para a distinção analítico-sintética na esfera prática a partir da caracterização por contradição e à indicação de objeções para sua aceitação. Na sequência, apresenta-se a caracterização de analiticidade por continência e como esta pode ser (...) transposta para o caso dos imperativos sem resultar em conflitos com a interpretação austera do construtivismo. Por fim, delineiam-se considerações quanto à formalidade dos princípios constitutivos da razão prática e seu escopo, chegando à conclusão de que não se pode estabelecer uma identidade entre construtivismo austero e logicismo prático. (shrink)

The unconscious-thought effect occurs when distraction improves complex decision making. Recent studies suggest that this effect is more likely to occur with low- than high-demanding distraction tasks. We discuss implications of these findings for Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) claim that evidence is lacking for the intervention of unconscious processes in complex decision making.

Frédérique de Vignemont argues on the basis of several empirical counterexamples that Bain and Klein are wrong about the relationship between pain and bodily care. I argue that the force of the putative counterexamples is weak. Properly understood, the association between pain and care is preserved in a way that is consistent with both de Vignemont's own views and the empirical facts.

Spinoza is often conceived as a highly intellectualist philosopher, and it is tempting to read human freedom without attention to its material basis. In this paper, I study Spinoza's claim that the more the body can undergo, the more the mind can know in order to establish Spinoza's view of freedom under the attribute of extension.

In a questionnaire study on organ allocation 348 students of medicine (102) and economics (246) at the universities of Halle (114 students) and Hannover (234 students) responded to questions concerning their basic attitudes toward alternative criteria of organ allocation. Medical criteria were widely accepted by the respondents. Considerations concerning the patient's value to society were seen as being of minor importance. With respect to reciprocity, we could detect a high share of respondents who would favor former living donors and discriminate (...) against murderers. Among considerations of fairness, the criterion of waiting time gained the highest support. Furthermore, majorities favored the view that health-compromising behavior and differences in age should play a role. Economic considerations were strongly rejected as criteria of organ allocation. (shrink)

This is the third draft of a paper that aims to clarify the apparent contradictions in the views presented in certain standards and other specifications of health informatics systems, contradictions which come to light when the latter are evaluated from the perspective of realist philosophy. One of the origins of this document was Klein’s discussion paper of 2005-07-02 entitled “Conceptology vs Reality” and the responses from Smith, as well as the several hours of discussions during the 2005 MIE meeting (...) in Geneva. (shrink)

We establish completeness and the finite model property for logics featuring the pooling modalities that were introduced in Van De Putte and Klein. The definition of our canonical models combines standard techniques with a so-called “puzzle piece construction”, which we first illustrate informally. After that, we apply it to the weakest classical logics with pooling modalities and investigate the technique’s potential for the axiomatization of stronger logics, obtained by imposing well-known frame conditions on the models.

Analyzes the dynamics involved in the act of communication in order to highlight its context of production, reception, and effects, providing a framework for an analysis of selected theorists on the concept of communication.

En quel sens l’expérience esthétique peut-elle être subjective et profondément individuelle sans pour autant être arbitraire ? Le texte suivant essaie de répondre à cette question en tentant de considérer l’expérience esthétique comme le lieu d’une reconduction de la subjectivité individuelle aux éléments symboliques déterminants qui composent la substance de notre vie comme existence finie. C’est en suivant les réflexions de Valéry sur le pouvoir d’émission de la sensibilité formelle que nous visons cette problématique et tentons de dégager les aspects (...) de sa pensée poïétique contribuant à une herméneutique de l’expérience esthétique individuelle pour laquelle la subjectivité se sent irréductiblement concernée en elle-même comme finitude.In what sense can aesthetic experience be subjective and profoundly individual without being arbitrary ? The following paper tries to respond to this question by considering the aesthetic experience as the place where the individual subject is confronted with the symbolic elements composing the substance of his life as finitude. We want to develop this problematic by following the reflections of Valéry on what he calls the formal sensibility and their aesthetic solicitations. Our objective is to present how different aspects of his poetic conception can contribute to the elaboration of a hermeneutic of the aesthetic experience in which the individual subject feels itself to be concerned as a finite being. (shrink)

En el verano de 1947, Yves Klein, Claude Pascal, Armand Fernández, sentados en la playa de Niza: contemplan el mar y el cielo azul, no hacen nada, y hacen declaraciones sobre el arte que llegará, sobre el Arte y el Gran Estilo del Futuro. A partir de ese momento, y de esas palabras, cada una de sus vidas cambia radicalmente: se convertirá en una vida nueva, una vida de artista sin obras, hecha solo de palabras, narraciones, gestos. En (...) ese episodio, nace el Nouveau Realisme y la voluntad artística de la superación del problema del arte según el Modernismo y la Action Painting. En ese episodio y en su narración, hecha sucesivamente por los tres jóvenes artistas, se puede localizar el nacimiento del propio y auténtico mito del artista contemporáneo. (shrink)

This paper contributes to a special issue on methodology in the history of philosophy. I consider contemporary contextualism and reflect on prospects for an increasingly pluralistic, global, and decolonial historical scholarly practice.

The work that Maurice Merleau-Ponty planned to call _The Prose of the World,_ or _Introduction to the Prose of the World,_ was unfinished at the time of his death. The book was to constitute the first section of a two-part work whose aim was to offer, as an extension of his Phenomenology of Perception, a theory of truth. This edition's editor, Claude Lefort, has interpreted and transcribed the surviving typescript, reproducing Merleau-Ponty's own notes and adding documentation and commentary.

This essay reviews the place and role of Public Service Media (PSM) in promoting social justice in the changing digital media landscape through the ethos of diversity. Media diversity – the value and practice of including varied viewpoints, social groups, voices, and channels or outlets in media – has long been a declared pillar of PSM organizations worldwide. However, current changes in the digital media landscape and the growing extension of PSM organizations to digital platforms require re-reading the premise of (...) promoting media diversity as a tool for social justice. This essay identifies a paradox. On one hand, online media appear to accommodate a greater range of diverse voices and players, particularly in the PSM ecosystem. At the same time, these very same online spaces jeopardize diversity, as the increasing practices of personalization, algorithmic curation, and platformization often reduce diversity of representations, voices, and exposure to content, thereby hindering opportunities for social justice and equality. This essay shines a spotlight on this nexus of conflicting mechanisms. The essay begins with in-depth definitions of the two somewhat convoluted terms diversity and social justice. This section includes a review of global perspectives on PSM organizations, and the long-standing value of diversity promoted through them for decades. We then review the impact and changes identified in PSM platforms worldwide in light of the digital turn in the media field. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of the inherent tension between mechanisms that promote and hinder diversity online. Throughout this discussion, we raise questions about the practical dimensions of using online media to promote social justice through diversity. It provides a useful starting point for considering the intersection of Public Service Media, online platforms, diversity, and social justice. Thus, the essay will serve academic scholars studying social justice on a conceptual level as well as practitioners and stakeholders in the media industry at large, and PSM in particular, seeking to practically promote social justice. (shrink)

More than perhaps anybody else in the world, the Swedish social scientist Björn Wittrock has contributed - both on the intellectual and institutional level - to making a truly global science possible. This book is devoted to an appreciation of his contributions.