L’auteur s’est attachée à l’écriture singulière de G. Duby dans le domaine de l’histoire des femmes, et tout particulièrement dans les trois volumes des Dames du XIIe siècle. G. Duby y témoigne en effet d’une vigilance toute particulière à l’égard de l’expression, en centrant son discours sur un « JE » qui assume les risques d’affronter des documents toujours masculins, pour y débusquer ce qu’il appelle « des ombres insaisissables », les femmes de l’époque féodale. Parfaite maîtrise des ressources de (...) la langue, syntaxe souple et inventive, mais aussi forte conscience des effets de la voix : cette langue est bien celle de l’affect tout comme celle d’un imagier. L’historiographe du féminin use d’une écriture subjective et dramatisée, où le point de vue de la narration désigne toujours la relation passionnée du locuteur avec les témoignages qu’il interroge. À quoi contribuent les alternances des perspectives temporelles et la constance de champs métaphoriques : capture, rapt, butin, girons périlleux ou fertiles... Martèlements et ellipses font de cette écriture un discours véhément et convaincant, le plus personnel que l’historien ait jamais mis en oeuvre. (shrink)

In much of the literature on Hobbes, he is considered a proto-liberal, that is, he is seen as setting up the apparatus that leads to liberalism but his own authoritarian streak makes it impossible for liberals to completely claim him as one of their own. In this paper, I argue that, far from being a precursor to liberalism, Hobbes offers a political theory that is implicitly anti-liberal. I do not mean this in the conventional sense that Hobbes was too conservative (...) for liberalism. On the contrary, I will argue that in his writing, Hobbes evinces a concept of collective interpretation, theories of individualism and the nature and possibilities for democratic politics, that is radical and offers a completely developed alternative to liberalism even as it eschews conservative and reactionary models as well. I focus in particular on the idea of individualism and how the model offered by liberals and conservatives offers far less in terms of individual choice and justice than Hobbes’s own theory does, however paradoxical this may seem. (shrink)

The use of AI algorithms in criminal trials has been the subject of very lively ethical and legal debates recently. While there are concerns over the lack of accuracy and the harmful biases that certain algorithms display, new algorithms seem more promising and might lead to more accurate legal decisions. Algorithms seem especially relevant for bail decisions, because such decisions involve statistical data to which human reasoners struggle to give adequate weight. While getting the right legal outcome is a strong (...) desideratum of criminal trials, advocates of the relational theory of procedural justice give us good reason to think that fairness and perceived fairness of legal procedures have a value that is independent from the outcome. According to this literature, one key aspect of fairness is trustworthiness. In this paper, I argue that using certain algorithms to assist bail decisions could increase three diferent aspects of judges’ trustworthiness: (1) actual trustworthiness, (2) rich trustworthiness, and (3) perceived trustworthiness. (shrink)

It is one thing for two or more persons to perceive the same object, and it is quite another for two or more persons to perceive the same object together. The latter phenomenon is called joint attention and has recently garnered considerable interest from psychologists. However, contemporary psychological research has not succeeded in clarifying how persons can share perception of an object. Joint attention thus stands in need of phenomenological clarification. Surprisingly, this has yet to be offered. Phenomenologists have provided (...) thoroughgoing analyses of perceptual experience, but have overlooked the perceptual experiences of co-perceivers; and, while a number of well-known phenomenologists have offered accounts of how one encounters other persons, they have neglected the phenomenon of perceptually attending to an object with other persons. This paper addresses a shortcoming of both contemporary psychological research and the phenomenological tradition by providing a phenomenological analysis of joint attention. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 10, Edition 2, October 2010: 33-42. (shrink)

In _Anarchist Prophets_ James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics. He shows how archism—a centralized and hierarchical political form that is a secularization of ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions—dominates contemporary politics through a prophet’s promises of peace and prosperity or the threat of violence. Archism is met by anarchism, in which a community shares a collective form of judgment and vision. Martel focuses on the figure (...) of the anarchist prophet, who leads efforts to regain the authority for the community that archism has stolen. The goal of anarchist prophets is to render themselves obsolete and to cede power back to the collective so as to not become archist themselves. Martel locates anarchist prophets in a range of philosophical, literary, and historical examples, from Hobbes and Nietzsche to Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler to Kurdish resistance in Syria and the Spanish Revolution. In so doing, Martel highlights how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can provide the means to overthrow archist authority. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that archism, a form of political power that is ubiquitous in the world and is based on hierarchy and violence, effectively denies us a future. Archism in invested in continuing the current power dynamics. Accordingly, it projects a false sense of the future which is actually only a continuation of the present on and on forever. I look at two thinkers, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt, who try to take the future back from archism (my (...) word, not theirs). In doing so, they do not seek to determine the future but on the contrary, to allow it to actually occur in all of its infinite complexity and unpredictability, that is to say, to submit it to anarchist forms of temporality. (shrink)

Although Haitian revolutionaries were not the intended audience for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, they heeded its call, demanding rights that were not meant for them. This failure of the French state to address only its desired subjects is an example of the phenomenon James R. Martel labels "misinterpellation." Complicating Althusser's famous theory, Martel explores the ways that such failures hold the potential for radical and anarchist action. In addition to the Haitian Revolution, Martel shows how the revolutionary (...) responses by activists and anticolonial leaders to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech and the Arab Spring sprang from misinterpellation. He also takes up misinterpellated subjects in philosophy, film, literature, and nonfiction, analyzing works by Nietzsche, Kafka, Woolf, Fanon, Ellison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others to demonstrate how characters who exist on the margins offer a generally unrecognized anarchist form of power and resistance. Timely and broad in scope, _The Misinterpellated Subject_ reveals how calls by authority are inherently vulnerable to radical possibilities, thereby suggesting that all people at all times are filled with revolutionary potential. (shrink)

The basic idea of the particular way of understanding mental phenomena that has inspired the "cognitive revolution" is that, as a result of certain relatively recent intellectual and technological innovations, informed theorists now possess a more powerfully insightful comparison or model for mind than was available to any thinkers in the past. The model in question is that of software, or the list of rules for input, output, and internal transformations by which we determine and control the workings of a (...) computing machine's hardware. Although this comparison and its many implications have dominated work in the philosophy, psychology, and neurobiology of mind since the end of the Second World War, it now shows increasing signs of losing its once virtually unquestioned preeminence. Thus we now face the question of whether it is possible to repair and save this model by means of relatively inessential "tinkering", or whether we must reconceive it fundamentally and replace it with something different. In this book, twenty-eight leading scholars from diverse fields of "cognitive science"-linguistics, psychology, neurophysiology, and philosophy- present their latest, carefully considered judgements about what they think will be the future course of this intellectual movement, that in many respects has been a watershed in our contemporary struggles to comprehend that which is crucially significant about human beings. Jerome Bruner, Noam Chomsky, Margaret Boden, Ulric Neisser, Rom Harre, Merlin Donald, among others, have all written chapters in a non-technical style that can be enjoyed and understood by an inter-disciplinary audience of psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, and cognitive scientists alike. (shrink)

In _Leviathan_, Thomas Hobbes's landmark work on political philosophy, James Martel argues that although Hobbes pays lip service to the superior interpretive authority of the sovereign, he consistently subverts this authority throughout the book by returning it to the reader. Martel demonstrates that Hobbes's radical method of reading not only undermines his own authority in the text, but, by extension, the authority of the sovereign as well. To make his point, Martel looks closely at Hobbes's understanding of religious and rhetorical (...) representation. In _Leviathan_, idolatry is not just a matter of worshipping images but also a consequence of bad reading. Hobbes speaks of the "error of separated essences," in which a sign takes precedence over the idea or object it represents, and warns that when the sign is given such agency, it becomes a disembodied fantasy leading to a "kingdom of darkness." To combat such idolatry, Hobbes offers a method of reading in which one resists the rhetorical manipulation of figures and tropes and recognizes the codes and structures of language for what they are-the only way to convey a fundamental inability to ever know "the thing itself." Making the leap to politics, Martel suggests that following Hobbes's argument, the sovereign can also be seen as idolatrous—a separated essence—a figure who supplants the people it purportedly represents, and that learning to be better readers enables us to challenge, if not defeat, the authority of the sovereign. (shrink)

We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and internalization. Compliance occurs when individuals are coerced to join by powerful influence agents. Internalization occurs when individuals join due to a perceived convergence between the self and the group. We searched for evidence of each of these pathways in field investigations of former members of two renowned terrorist organizations: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Islamist radical groups. Results indicated that ex-fighters joined LTTE for reasons (...) associated with both compliance and internalization but that ex-fighters joined Islamist radical groups primarily for reasons associated with internalization. When compliance occurred, it often took the form of coercion within LTTE but involved charismatic persuasion agents within Islamist groups. This evidence of systematic differences in the reasons why fighters enter violent groups suggests that strategies for preventing radicalization and fostering de-radicalization should be tailored to particular groups. (shrink)

Introduction : a slight adjustment -- The one and only law -- The law of the break with law : Badiou and legal ethics -- Raving with reason : Kant and the moral law -- A "useful illusion" : H. L. A. Hart and legal positivism -- The Haitian revolution : one law in action -- Conclusion : how lawful is one law?.

Beginning right at the start of the recently published volume II of Donner le temps, at its ‘bord’ or ‘boarding’ upon or out of a calmy oceanic surface, this essay examines the functions and movements of distinct surfaces in between Heidegger and Derrida. Confronting thus the tradition of the ‘Grund’, ‘Abgrund’, ‘Urgrund’, ‘Ungrund’, with the khôra-like surface of archi-writing and dissemination, the essay proposes an investigation of the philosophical and writerly space of Derrida/Heidegger not through their marks and letters, but (...) instead through the different surfaces of inscription and – simultaneous – effacement as the ‘proper places’ of thought and experience, of Destruktion and deconstruction. (shrink)

If the word ‘devastated’ feels most appropriate when thinking of the passing of a beloved one, it also undergirds, through the waste of its desert, two essential notions of Western philosophy and literature: chaos and khōra. Looking at our world twenty years after Derrida’s passing, and at how for more than five decades he thought and wrote on the notion of world, this essay examines the radicality of Derrida’s deconstruction for our past and future conceptions of a world, of ourselves, (...) and of each and any threshold between these terms. (shrink)

Although critical of what she calls the `antipolitical' forces of love and sovereignty, Arendt reluctantly embraces these aspects as the basis of politics itself. I explain this paradox by arguing that Arendt seeks to balance Greek and Roman notions of freedom with modern conceptions of the will. The solipsistic will poses a threat to politics (it is the source of sovereignty itself). Yet the will is a fact of modern life and cannot be ignored. I argue that despite her embrace (...) of classical understandings of freedom as contingency, Arendt seeks to limit contingency and even freedom itself. She does this to accommodate the will which must have some sense of agency and continuity in order to be able to function at all. Arendt argues that sovereignty can, if properly constrained, produce a `certain limited reality' and can (along with love) serve as a basis for politics. I claim that Arendt sacrifices her classical ideals, allowing for the possibility of a modern, lesser version of freedom (which in her view is better than no freedom at all). (shrink)

En 1994, Sue Rodriguez se suicide avec l’aide d’un médecin après une intense bataille judiciaire en Cour suprême du Canada dont l’objet était la décriminalisation du suicide assisté. À la suite de ce suicide, aucune accusation criminelle ne fut portée contre la ou les personnes ayant présumément aidé Sue Rodrigues à mettre fin à ses jours, et ce malgré le fait que le suicide assisté est un acte criminel au Canada. Cette non-intervention du droit pénal est examinée en fonction du (...) rôle que l’affaire Rodriguez a pu jouer dans la transformation des moralités au Canada. Dans ce livre, le suicide assisté de Sue Rodriguez est envisagé comme un « crime » utile (au sens durkheimien du terme), car il met en évidence une inconsistance entre les moralités dominantes inscrites dans le droit pénal et les conditions sociales qui ont rendu ce « crime » possible. Apparenté au crime de Socrate, le « crime » de Sue Rodriguez est analysé comme un héraut annonciateur de nouvelles moralités, comme un prélude préparant directement la voie à des changements dans le poids accordé aux moralités dominantes. Dans ce contexte, le rôle du droit pénal comme mode privilégié de régulation morale est remis en question. (shrink)

Gender inequity is a persistent problem in the United States. While the high school social studies classroom should be an important space for addressing gender inequity, there is significant underrepresentation of women in the curriculum. Thus, it is crucial that we understand how self-described feminist social studies teachers present women and gender-equity in their classrooms. In this mixed-methods study, the researchers examined the beliefs and practices of six feminist-identifying teachers. The results reveal commonalities across teachers related to classroom discourses, curricular (...) modifications, and professional practice, yet there were compelling differences based on whether or not the teacher subscribed to a critical feminist perspective or a liberal feminist perspective. While all the teachers in the study saw themselves as change agents, teachers who operated from a critical feminist lens focused more on structural gender inequity as a means to eliminate sexism, whereas teachers who operated from a liberal lens focused more on individual acts of sexism and greater inclusion of women—often individual women—in the curriculum. This study contributes to the scarce research on feminism in social studies and provides tools for practitioners who want practices that are more inclusive. (shrink)

Abstract Is it plausible to claim (some) non?human animals have beliefs, on the (non?behaviourist) assumption that believing is or involves subjects? engaging in practical reasoning which takes account of meanings? Some answer Yes, on the ground that evolutionary continuities linking humans with other animals must include psychological ones. But (1) evolution does not operate?even primarily?by means of continuities. Thus species, no matter how closely related (in fact, sometimes even conspecifics) operate with very different adaptive ?tricks'; and it is plausible to (...) think these, rather than the physiological ?groundings? underlying them, are the best means of (analogies for) explaining beliefs. Also (2) it is reasonable to assimilate most cases ?down? to creatures (e.g. flies) that obviously lack beliefs rather than ?up? to others (chimpanzees) that apparently possess belief?like states (proto?beliefs), because observation shows the internal workings of such middle animals? ?beliefs? differ markedly from the corresponding things humans do. For example, ducks do not have beliefs about the numbers of objects, because although they estimate numerically, they do it in a way that is much more firmly connected to perceiving than would be the case either with counting or a counting?like process. (shrink)

In this essay, I comment on Andrew Benjamin’s recent book, Working with Walter Benjamin. I claim that in this book, Professor Benjamin has done a great deal to illuminate certain complicated aspects of Walter Benjamin’s philosophy. In particular, I focus on his distinction between theology and religion, his treatment of divine violence and the ways that it differs from any human actions, and the nature of what Professor Benjamin calls counter-measures, that is measures which not only challenge but actually unmake (...) certain aspects of our contemporary sense of reality and temporality. (shrink)

I look at what Walter Benjamin calls the “magic of matter,” a silent form of communication between material objects, including our bodies. This communion exists even when bodies are separated as they are during the pandemic and becomes especially sensible to us when the physical presence of others is removed.

In a footnote of Monolingualism of the Other Derrida describes the plot of a ‘Japanese film whose name [he does] not know,’ but which presents a familial history of incest, violence and tattoos, and which relates to the dream of his style, his ‘ductus,’ what he wants to make arrive to language. By analysing this film together with other instances of tattooing in Derrida's body of work, this essay will show how, if Derrida's dreamt style is a colourful tattoo, this (...) is because his texts are an undecidable inscription, a violent penetration and loving transfusion, between images and words. (shrink)

Although Arendt rejects all manifestations of what she calls “the absolute,” the way that theology trumps politics, she yet overlooks the theological basis of one of her most cherished models of political origins, the story of the Mayflower Compact. Arendt sees the Mayflower Compact as affording a basis for a community that is joined only through mutual promising, allowing a maximal amount of individualism and struggle within a collectively determined entity. Yet she downplays the role that theology serves in supporting (...) this compact. In overlooking the connection between the Pilgrim’s ideology and Rousseau’s concept of the general will which has its own Calvinist origins, Arendt evinces a tendency to forgive a basis for politics in America which she vehemently rejects in the European context. Insofar as liberalism is itself redolent of this Calvinist form of pseudo-individualism, Arendt demonstrates an alternative model even as it remains tangled with its theological origins. (shrink)

Dans cet essai, nous voulons contribuer à poser les bases épistémologiques et ontologiques d’une approche composite de la théorie de l’interprétation que nous désignerons sous le nom d’« interprétationnisme pluraliste ». À l’encontre de l’intentionnalisme hypothétique, mais à l’instar de la théorie du patchwork dont il s’inspire, l’interprétationnisme pluraliste admet une variété de modes d’interprétations sans concéder de statut privilégié à aucun. Cette approche s’accorde avec la thèse de l’interprétation imputationnelle que l’on justifie sur la base d’une analyse de la (...) nature et de la formation des concepts interprétatifs. Elle est aussi compatible avec un modèle tripartite de l’ontologie de l’oeuvre littéraire qui permet d’éviter les critiques habituelles soulevées contre l’interprétation imputationnelle, à savoir le singularisme et l’objection de la dissolution de l’oeuvre.In this essay, we want to contribute to lay down some epistemological and ontological bases for a composite view of the theory of interpretation that we are calling “pluralist interpretationism”. Contrary to hypothetical intentionalism, but like the patchwork theory from which it is derived, pluralist interpretationism recognizes a variety of modes of interpretation without conceding to any a privileged status. This view agrees with the thesis of imputationalist interpretation which can be justified by an analysis of the nature and formation of interpretive concepts. It is also compatible with a tridimensional model of the ontology of literary works that avoids the usual criticisms raised against interpretative imputationalist such as singularism and the reductio ad absurdum. (shrink)

Se estudian los orígenes de la radiodifusión en España con la creación de Radio Ibérica que comienza a emitir en 1924 y cesa su actividad en 1927 con su adquisición por su rival Unión Radio, que tras la guerra civil y hasta nuestros días pasaría a denominarse Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión (SER). La participación de las mujeres en las tareas de la radio se describe cronológicamente, comenzando con la labor de la escritora y periodista Teresa de Escoriaza y siguiendo con (...) locutoras como María Sabater, la técnica de sonido María Ángeles García, la actriz Carmen Seco, loas escritoras y periodistas Josefina Carabias, Matilde Muñoz, Concha Espina y Luisa Alberca. El trabajo finaliza con un resumen del inicio de la actividad de revistas consultorios femeninos con la participación de María del Patrocinio Alba, Mercedes Fortuna, Julita Calleja, Petrita Tamayo y Mercedes Lastra. (shrink)

The relationship between psychological research and the development of social policy is controversial, as is any discussion of the role of values and morals within science. Three particular instances of this controversy are evident in psychological research conducted on affirmative action, child abuse, and abortion. The American Psychological Association (APA) in fact takes a particular organizational stance on these issues. APA's Ethics Code provides some guidelines for dealing with issues of personal values as they impact psychological research and the development (...) of social policy. An important distinction can be made between the issues psychological research can reasonably address using empirical data and the issues about which psychologists should take a stand. Ethical guidelines can help psychologists make this distinction as well as inform their subsequent actions. One pertinent recommendation is that psychologists, when serving in their professional role, should be clear regarding whether empiricism or personal belief is guiding their public statements. (shrink)

Understanding the neuromechanical responses to perturbations in humans may help to explain the reported improvements in stability performance and muscle strength after perturbation-based training. In this study, we investigated the effects of perturbations, induced by unstable surfaces, on the mechanical loading and the modular organization of motor control in the lower limb muscles during lunging forward and backward. Fifteen healthy adults performed 50 forward and 50 backward lunges on stable and unstable ground. Ground reaction forces, joint kinematics, and the electromyogram (...) of 13 lower limb muscles were recorded. We calculated the resultant joint moments and extracted muscle synergies from the stepping limb. We found sparse alterations in the resultant joint moments and EMG activity, indicating a little if any effect of perturbations on muscle mechanical loading. The time-dependent structure of the muscle synergy responsible for the stabilization of the body was modified in the perturbed lunges by a shift in the center of activity and a widening. Moreover, in the perturbed backward lunge, the synergy related to the body weight acceptance was not present. The found modulation of the modular organization of motor control in the unstable condition and related minor alteration in joint kinetics indicates increased control robustness that allowed the participants to maintain functionality in postural challenging settings. Triggering specific modulations in motor control to regulate robustness in the presence of perturbations may be associated with the reported benefits of perturbation-based training. (shrink)

This study investigates the variations in the quality and comprehensiveness of 104 corporate social responsibility reports published by the world’s largest financial institutions in 2012. Using a novel measure of CSR report quality, we examine the impact of certain national, legal, and firm-level factors that might explain differences in the overall quality and extent of coverage of various issues in these reports. Our findings show that legal factors and CSR environment in a firm’s country of headquarters play an important role (...) in firms’ CSR reporting quality. Common law countries exhibit systematically higher overall CSR reporting quality than code law countries. Countries with higher CSR standards, policies, and regulations in place also produce significantly higher quality CSR reports. Firm size, on the other hand, has no major impact on the overall quality of CSR reports. In further analysis of the individual aspects of CSR disclosures, namely environment, philanthropy, bribery and corruption, and integrity assurance, we document that larger firms report at a higher quality on philanthropy and bribery and corruption. Bribery and corruption is reported at a higher quality in countries with common law tradition, high-quality legal regimes, and high CSR standards and regulations in place. We also observe higher quality integrity assurance in common law countries. CSR-minded countries and countries with low-quality legal environment also report on philanthropy at a higher quality. Finally, we offer guidelines for companies toward improving the quality of their reports, and suggestions for scholars and researchers for further avenues of research. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility reporting by large corporations has witnessed phenomenal growth over the last two decades. The voluntary nature of these disclosures, however, has led to inconsistencies in reporting formats, treatment, and inclusion of various contextual elements, and a lack of robust measures pertaining to the quality and accuracy of the reports’ content. Efforts to address these drawbacks such as Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 26000 have proven unsatisfactory due to their primary emphasis on process for creating CSR reports without (...) similar attention on measurement criteria to ensure robust implementation, or verify accuracy of information. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. It uses a new framework—called the CSR-Sustainability Monitor®—of analyzing and evaluating the contents of CSR reports in a manner that allows for a single report to be compared with any other single group, and groups of reports based on industry, country-of-origin, and similar other groupings. Using data from the CSR reports of 614 large corporations worldwide, this study analyzes the character and scope of integrity assurance contained in these CSR reports. The analysis is further extended to explore some external factors that would explain variations in the assurance decision and the quality of integrity assurance in these reports. (shrink)

In this essay, I will describe the way that Peter Fitzpatrick takes a deep dive into law in its most abstract and mythopoetic form. I will argue that in doing so, Fitzpatrick reveals the way that an intangible and ethereal non thing can and does shape laws in all of their authority and violence. By looking at this strata of legal formation, Fitzpatrick demonstrates the way that law bridges the gap between its own non-being and its power in the world. (...) He shows us not only how this works but also how in some ways this process can be resisted and diverted, how the violence of law can sometimes be mitigated by its own mythopoetic sources. In doing so, Fitzpatrick reveals the inner logics, the determining myths and abstractions that suggest, not only the foundations of law, but also the possibility of other laws, other forms of engagement and authority. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize a common misinterpretation of Hans Reichenbach’s argument that indeterminism is both necessary and sufficient for temporal becoming. I show that Reichenbach’s argument rests on the assumption of a particular variety of verificationism (which I call ‘Weak Probabilistic Verificationism’) and that Reichenbach’s critics have failed to notice this premise. The purpose of the paper is not to defend Reichenbach’s thesis—I offer no argument in support of this verificationist premise. My aim is simply to set the historical (...) record straight by correcting a prevalent misinterpretation of Reichenbach’s argument. The argument, as I reconstruct it, is not only valid but also far more ingenious than is commonly allowed. Correct or not, I believe it remains worthy of study. (shrink)

In this short response to Balibar’s article, I discuss what I consider to be some of the most radical implications of Balibar’s notion of transindividualism. Specifically, I argue that in his reading of Marx, Spinoza and Freud, Balibar complicates not only the categories of the individual and the mass but also even the way that these two concepts are connected, along with a more general subversion of the most fundamental building blocks of capitalism. Balibar shows that communism is already present (...) and active within the heart of alienation, materiality and dialectical relationality and in this way can neither be rooted out nor denied its aleatory presence and possibility. (shrink)

In his parable “Abraham,” Franz Kafka offers us a narrative wherein the call that motivates Abraham to attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac is not perceived by Abraham alone but has many other, unintended interlocutors as well. Kafka tells us that besides the “real Abraham”—that is, the one that we all know about, someone who “already had everything, and yet was to be raised still higher” —there is “another Abraham” or possibly even several other Abrahams. One other Abraham, Kafka tells (...) us, “was prepared to satisfy the demand for a sacrifice immediately, with the promptness of a waiter, but was unable to bring it off because he could not get away, being indispensable; the.. (shrink)

Philosophers in the tradition of Berkeley say that the first step in gaining knowledge from perception is to report or describe one's perceptual data, or that which one sees ‘immediately'. Further, perceptual data are existing things of some sort, and always are exactly as they appear to be since, as H. H. Price says, “in the sphere of the given … what seems, is”. However, these two claims about perceptual data are sometimes incompatible, as the following case shows. Suppose a (...) man looking at a speckled hen reports that it has many speckles but is not able to report the exact number of speckles it has. If above is correct, the man's perceptual datum, as opposed to the physical hen itself which he sees—according to Berkeleians—in a merely indirect sense, would have to be indeterminate in character. Yet we assume that everything which exists ) is and has to be completely determinate. A person's knowledge is indeterminate if he knows that the planet Mars has either two or three satellites and doesn't know which. But Mars itself at any moment has to have some definite number of satellites. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that atheism is different from secularism. Secularism is based on a faux elimination of theology which effectively preserves that theology in the guise of overcoming it. To achieve atheism (a term that I draw from the work of Maria Aristodemou), I argue that one needs to directly confront the theological element in order to come to terms with it. In this essay I look at how two political theological thinkers, Nietzsche and Benjamin, accomplish this. Nie-tzsche (...) accomplishes atheism via his thesis of the “death of God,” a death that is not always literal but which creates a space for human life that is not determined by theological terms. Benjamin does the same thing with his idea that God vacates divine powers of judgment and determination in order to allow an atheistic space where human beings can engage in their own self-determination (even as the notion of God remains to challenge any would be human spokespersons for that role). I ultimately argue that atheism and anarchism are related concepts based not just on a rejection of certain forms of theology and all forms of archism, but also in terms of the way they allow a posi-tive and undetermined human response. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the distinction between neoliberalism and the Westphalian order that is said to precede it are all facets of one and the same phenomenon: archism. Archism is a style of politics based on rule and division. Looking at the work of Derrida, Foucault and Benjamin, I examine the inner workings of archism and how it can be resisted. Above all, I consider the notion of the ‘archeon’; that privileged perch from which the state or law (...) can judge without itself being subject to that judgment. The archeon, I argue is the central node of archism that allows itself to insinuate into any number of myriad forms without appearing to be the same phenomenon. By looking at the way Benjamin subverts the theological origins of the archeon with the idea of a God who abandons the position of judgment, I show a model for how to think differently about archism such that we do not seem eternally fated to choose between the same false dichotomies over and over again. (shrink)

This paper creates a dialogue between Ernst Cassirer, one of the last prominent representatives of Neo-Kantian thought, and Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. In Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer criticizes Husserl’s distinction between hylē and morphē. His criticism is based in part on the work of several figures belonging to the early phase of the phenomenological movement, including Wilhelm Schapp. By developing Cassirer’s criticism and considering the responses that Husserl could have offered, the dialogue helps to clarify the complex (...) relationship between Cassirer’s philosophy and Husserl’s phenomenology. It also reveals some of the ways in which early phenomenology influenced other philosophical movements. But dialogue between Cassirer and Husserl is of more than historical interest. I argue that Husserl would not have had an adequate response to Cassirer’s objections. Cassirer’s criticism of Husserl thus remains relevant for present day research in phenomenology. (shrink)

What is a society? What is political power? John Searle claims that previous political philosophers not only neglected these fundamental questions but also lacked the means to effectively address them. Good answers, he thinks, depend on theories of speech acts, intentionality, and constitutive rules first developed by analytic philosophers. But Searle is mistaken. Early phenomenologists had already developed the requisite theories. Reinach’s philosophy of law includes a theory of speech acts. This theory is based on Husserl’s account of intentionality. Edith (...) Stein extended that account by offering a detailed description of collective intentionality. And it was Stein who brought these strands of early phenomenological research together to address the very questions of political philosophy Searle regards as both fundamental and neglected. In this paper, I recount Stein’s answers to these questions and argue that they compare favourably withthose of Searle. (shrink)

Over the past two decades many social studies educators have called for history to be taught as interpretation, which has included arguments for the teaching of history through inquiry. This case study examined four secondary social studies teachers and their development of beliefs and practices related to teaching history as interpretation. The data were collected longitudinally from their student teaching through the completion of their first year in the classroom. Corroborating arguments found in the pre-existing research, this study found that (...) classroom control and a limited understanding of history content were major barriers preventing teachers from teaching history as interpretation. However, the results also revealed that teachers desired a better development of their own practical “toolkit” and they believed this would have helped them overcome many of the barriers to teaching history as interpretation. (shrink)

As a new field, cognitivism began with the total rejection of the old, traditional views of language acquisition and of learning ─ individual and collective alike. Chomsky was one of the pioneers in this respect, yet he clouds issues by excessive claims for his originality and by not allowing the beginner in the art of the acquisition of language the use of learning by making hypotheses and testing them, though he acknowledges that researchers, himself included, do use this method. The (...) most important novelty of Chomsky's work is his idealization of the field by postulating the existence of the ideal speaker-hearer and his suggestion that the hidden structure of sentences is revealed by studying together all sentences that are logically equivalent to each other. This is progress, but his tests of equivalence are insufficient, as they all are within classical logic. This limitation rests on the greatest shortcoming of Chomsky's view, his idea that every sentence has one subject or subject-part, contrary to the claim of Frege and Russell that assertions involving relations (with two-place predicates) are structurally different from those involving properties (with one-place predicates). (See the Appendix below.). (shrink)

Nancy Cartwright believes that we live in a Dappled World– a world in which theories, principles, and methods applicable in one domain may be inapplicable in others; in which there are no universal principles. One of the targets of Cartwright’s arguments for this conclusion is the Causal Markov condition, a condition which has been proposed as a universal condition on causal structures.1 The Causal Markov condition, Cartwright argues, is applicable only in a limited domain of special cases, and thus cannot (...) be used as a universal principle in causal discovery. I have no dispute with any of these claims here. Rather, I wish to argue for a very limited thesis: that the Causal Markov condition is applicable in the specific domain of microscopic quantum mechanical systems; further, that the condition can fruitfully be applied to the much discussed EPR setup. This is perhaps a surprising conclusion, for it is precisely in this domain that Cartwright’s arguments against the Causal Markov condition have been considered to be the most successful. (shrink)

Explains how each word carries an energy that increases or decreases our energy level and how our choice of words creates our reality. Offers tables for converting the negative to the positive and shows which words to use to change our lives for the better. Shares healing words in mantras, guided relaxation, and chants as well as a writing technique that brings emotional healing.

This title presents a collection of critical essays investigating the complex encounter between Beckett's works and the discourse of philosophy.

Many theorists promote a decentralized politics but very few of them practice this decentralization textually. In this essay, I engage with three techniques Benjamin employs to decenter his authority in the text: allegory, montage and the production of text as “pure means.” Taken together, these practices amount to what I am calling Benjamin’s use of a “black flashlight.” Rather than illuminate his text with his own knowledge, seeking to win the reader over by persuasion and textual authority, Benjamin seeks to (...) obscure and complicate any meaning. He attempts to have his text fail to deliver a final verdict to the reader. The obscure, pitch black light Benjamin sheds on his own and other texts leaves us as readers to our own devices, deprived as we are of the usual guidance of the author. In this way, Benjamin not only encourages but requires the reader’s own intervention, a model for the anarchist politics he also describes in the text. (shrink)

En este artículo se trata de explicar la influencia de algunos novelistas rusos en la vida y obra de Gabriela Mistral, ya que en su existencia artística son nombrados con cierta frecuencia, además de recomendarlos como lectura obligatoria, citándolos para referirse a ellos como ejemplo para la educación y el cambio social. En un primer momento, se describe y analiza la influencia de estos autores, a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX en Chile, a través de hitos significativos (...) como: el primer encuentro que, gracias a la biblioteca de Bernardo Ossandón, Mistral tuvo con estos en 1904; la recomendación que Mistral hizo a Neruda sobre su lectura en 1920; y algunos escritos posteriores en prosa, entrevista y diarios íntimos donde se refiere a ellos. En un segundo momento, se intenta mostrar cómo algunos novelistas rusos no son solo inspiración literaria para Mistral, sino personas con las que se identifica plenamente, por las coincidencias que observa entre estos y ella misma, en el ámbito de los sufrimientos, dificultades y carencias, que se dan a lo largo de sus vidas. (shrink)

A presença de sintomas depressivos em pacientes crônicos é comum e está associada com a redução da qualidade de vida. Esse estudo em questão, objetivou levantar a sintomatologia depressiva em pacientes fibromiálgicos crônicos e identificar sua relação com características de personalidade. Trata-se de um estudo transversal, descritivo e correlacional. A amostra consistiu de 20 indivíduos, homens e mulheres, com idades entre 32 a 62 anos, com diagnóstico de fibromialgia e em processo de tratamento clínico. Para a coleta de dados utilizou-se (...) o Inventário de Depressão Beck (BDI-II) e a Bateria Fatorial de Personalidade (BFP) e as análises foram descritivas e correlacionais. Identificou-se sintomas depressivos moderados a graves na maioria dos pesquisados e houve associação entre Neuroticismo, Extroversão, Realização e Abertura, indicando que pacientes com fibromialgia se mostram em sofrimento psicológico, com possível dificuldades na tomada de iniciativa, na abertura a novas experiências e na automotivação. (shrink)

Draws on examples ranging from prehistoric cave art to modern pop music to discuss the nature and purpose of art and its use by powerful social and cultural forces.

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)