Elias Baumgarten taught philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1972 to 2018. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in California, and went to schools in Boston and Chicago. He was one of the first recipients of the campus’s “Distinguished Teaching Award.” He taught a wide variety of courses including Medical Ethics, Ethics of War and Peace, Ethics of Nationalism, and Darwinism and Philosophy. Most of his publications are in ethics, including “Zionism, Nationalism, and Morality” and “Curiosity as (...) a Moral Virtue.” Dr. Baumgarten also served for over 30 years on hospital ethics committees at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. A child of immigrants, Prof. Baumgarten was passionate, both as teacher and citizen, in celebrating multicultural diversity both on our campus and in our country. He sees travel as a form of education and traveled to over 70 countries. (shrink)

Confidentiality is a central bioethical principle governing the provider–patient relationship. Dating back to Hippocrates, new laws have interpreted it for the age of precision medicine and electronic medical records. This is where the discussion of privacy and technology often ends in the scientific health literature when Internet-related technologies have made privacy a much more complex challenge with broad psychological and clinical implications. Beyond the recognised moral duty to protect patients’ health information, clinicians should now advocate a basic right to privacy (...) as a means to safeguard psychological health. The article reviews empirical research into the functions of privacy, the implications for psychological development and the resigned sentiment taking hold regarding the ability to control personal data. The article concludes with a call for legislative, educational and research steps to readjust the equilibrium between the individual and ‘Big Data’. (shrink)

Elias wrote in both English and German, and in all his work runs to 14 books and around 90 other essays, along with poems and numerous interviews. The 18 volumes of the collected works contain many writings not previously published in English, and a small number never published before. All of the texts have thoroughly checked and revised, by editors who have a deep knowledge of Elia's thinking; they have inserted many clarifications, cross-references and explanatory notes.

The information loss paradox is often presented as an unavoidable consequence of well-established physics. However, in order for a genuine paradox to ensue, not-trivial assumptions about, e.g., quantum effects on spacetime, are necessary. In this work we will be explicit about these additional, speculative assumptions required. We will also sketch a map of the available routes to tackle the issue, highlighting the, often overlooked, commitments demanded of each alternative. Finally, we will display the strong link between black holes, the issue (...) of information loss and the measurement problem. (shrink)

This article argues that errors in audio data processing should be examined to explore and expose the underlying components that enable linguistic communication and cross-cultural understanding. Examples of errors in the transcription of a Mexican social network’s conversations are analyzed to demonstrate the potential of such data in the development of sociocognitive language-processing theories. It is suggested that researchers working with audio-recorded data should expand the scope of what is considered useful data for the sake of both methodological reflexivity and (...) identifying the underlying cognitive processes enabling linguistic understanding. (shrink)

I argue that curiosity about the world deserves attention as a moral virtue, even apart from the role it may play in (the more generally praised) love of wisdom. First, close relationships and caring are reasonably considered part of a well-lived life, and curiosity is important for caring both about people and about things in the world. Second, curiosity helps us to define an appropriate way for persons to be affected by certain situations. Perhaps most important, curiosity can help one (...) to live well because it addresses the most fundamental existential task humans face, the need to see their lives as meaningful. I argue that curiosity is a distinctive virtue but suggest that related virtues (e.g., receptivity, reverence) may contribute to different kinds of worthy engagement with the world. (shrink)

Some apparently valid arguments crucially rely on context change. To take a kind of example first discussed by Frege, ‘Tomorrow, it’ll be sunny’ taken on a day seems to entail ‘Today, it’s sunny’ taken on the next day, but the first sentence taken on a day sadly does not seem to entail the second sentence taken on the second next day. Mid-argument context change has not been accounted for by the tradition that has extensively studied the distinctive logical properties of (...) context-dependent languages, for that tradition has focussed on arguments whose premises and conclusions are taken at the same context. I first argue for the desiderability of having a logic that accounts for mid-argument context change and I explain how one can informally understand such context change in a standard framework in which the relation of logical consequence holds among sentences. I then propose a family of simple temporal “intercontextual” logics that adequately model the validity of certain arguments in which the context changes. In particular, such logics validate the apparently valid argument in the Fregean example. The logics lack many traditional structural properties (reflexivity, contraction, commutativity etc.) as a consequence of the logical significance acquired by the sequence structure of premises and conclusions. The logics are however strong enough to capture in the form of logical truths all the valid arguments of both classical logic and Kaplan-style “intracontextual” logic. Finally, I extend the framework by introducing new operations into the object language, such as intercontextual conjunction, disjunction and implication, which, contrary to intracontextual conjunction, disjunction and implication, perfectly match the metalinguistic, intercontextual notions of premise combination, conclusion combination and logical consequence by representing their respective two operands as taken at different contexts. (shrink)

Supervenience is one of the 'hot discoveries' of analytic philosophy, and this collection of essays on the topic represents an examination of it and its application to major areas of philosophy. The interest in supervenience has much to do with the flexibility of the concept. To say that x supervenes on y indicates a degree of dependence without committing one to the view that x can be reduced to y. Thus supervenience is a relationship that has the potential of replacing (...) the traditional notion of dependence, while performing at least part of the function reductive relationships were supposed to fulfil. Moreover, since it is a topic-neutral concept, supervenience has a wide range of applicability. (shrink)

According to the naive theory of vagueness, the vagueness of an expression consists in the existence of both positive and negative cases of application of the expression and in the non- existence of a sharp cut-off point between them. The sorites paradox shows the naive theory to be inconsistent in most logics proposed for a vague language. The paper explores the prospects of saving the naive theory by revising the logic in a novel way, placing principled restrictions on the transitivity (...) of the consequence relation. A lattice-theoretical framework for a whole family of “tolerant logics” is proposed and developed. Particular care is devoted to the relation between the salient features of the formal apparatus and the informal logical and semantic notions they are supposed to model. A suitable non-transitive counterpart to classical logic is defined. Some of its properties are studied, and it is eventually shown how an appropriate regimentation of the naive theory of vagueness is consistent in such a logic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Patchwork of Non-Integrated OthersMichael Elias (bio)It has been a long time since I first presented a paper at a Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R) conference, in 1994 in Wiesbaden, entitled "Neck Riddles in Mimetic Theory." It discusses riddle stories in which a man sentenced to death saves his life by propounding to the judge a riddle that he cannot possibly solve, because it is based on (...) bizarre experiences, unique to the condemned person. This was somewhat similar to what I did in my lecture, because I hid the fact that my research, which I would later base my doctorate on, was inspired by the eccentric experiences from psychoses that overtook me between 1979 and 1983 and landed me in a psychiatric hospital. Moreover, the motif of a condemned person saving his life is related for me to the experiences of my father, who spent weeks on death row at Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II—and miraculously escaped death. As the eldest in the family, I was definitely "the boy who had to make everything right."I am convinced that a lot of research is related to a researcher's own experiences. Our maître à penser, René Girard, tells his interviewer Michel Treguer, in answer to a question about the last chapter of Mensonge romantique, "You're [End Page 121] right, of course, about there being a personal experience behind what I say. I ended up understanding that I was going through an experience of the kind that I was describing."1 In his overview of Girard's work, Wolfgang Palaver wrote, "He began to turn away from his own pride and to see himself as a puppet of his own mimetic desire."2 But Girard adds a caveat in 1994: There is the danger of narcissism.3I also experience that when I do not stick to the theory, but try to clarify parts of my life story from the moment I started reading Girard's Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde, which offered me a new opening to my Christian background. It stimulated me to start learning Hebrew to investigate the roots of Christianity.My learning still continues, in a study group: what Jews do in a beth hamidrash. The Torah is too great to be owned by any of us, so the mimetic rivalry that is always there becomes a fruitful mimesis: Lernen leads to freedom. The last ten years we have been studying the book of Exodus, with midrashim from the long rabbinic tradition. It's a book of liberation that finally gave me the courage to write about that profound period in the psychiatric hospital.From the third part of Des choses cachées, I learned a lot about interdividuality, and also from J.-M. Oughourlian's The Mimetic Brain, in which he distinguishes between the rational, emotional, and mimetic brain. And from Henri Grivois, who published on incipient psychosis. Initially I steered toward a kind of psycho-philosophical self-analysis using insights from mimetic theory. However, in the end I decided: What I learned will not be put in a scientific treatise, but a novel. For several reasons:1. I learned from Mensonge romantique that real knowledge can be conveyed very well through a novel.2. Hungarian writer and Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész, explaining why he was unable to describe his real-life concentration camp experiences, gave me the freedom to paradoxically tell my "real story" in fiction.3. I could by no means always remember exactly what had happened, and therefore had to resort to fiction, even though I had preserved material from those years.4. I wanted to make people in my immediate surroundings unrecognizable by literary means. The American writer David Vann once said (according to a Dutch writer), "You must sacrifice your family on the altar of fiction." I didn't want that, especially with regard to my mother. [End Page 122]5. Finally, I was inspired by a Jewish sage from the eighteenth century in Lithuania (the maggid of Doubno). He explains why the truth of the Torah is not presented as a philosophy or code of law... (shrink)

The paper is concerned with a logical difficulty which Lionel Shapiro’s deflationist theory of logical consequence (as well as the author’s favoured, non-deflationist theory) gives rise to. It is argued that Shapiro’s non-contractive approach to solving the difficulty, although correct in its broad outlines, is nevertheless extremely problematic in some of its specifics, in particular in its failure to validate certain intuitive rules and laws associated with the principle of modus ponens. An alternative non-contractive theory is offered which does not (...) suffer from the same problem. (shrink)

What is Sociology? presents in concise and provocative form the major ideas of a seminal thinker whose work--spanning more than four decades--is only now gaining the recognition here it has long had in Germany and France. Unlike other post-war sociologists, Norbert Elias has always held the concept of historical development among his central concerns; his dynamic theories of the evolution of modern man have remedied the historical and epistemological shortcomings of structualism and ethno-methodology. What is Sociology? refines the arguments (...) that were first found in Elias' massive work on the civilizing process, in which he formulated his major assertions about the interdependence of the making of modern man and modern society. It is Elias' contention that changes in personality structure--embodied in phenomena ranging from table manners and hygiene habits to rites of punishment and courtly love--inevitably reflect and mould patterns of control generated by new political and social instututions. Elias' rejection of a dichotomy between individual and society, and his use of psychoanalysis, political theory, and social history, help restore a fullness of resource to sociology. (shrink)

A Associação Brasileira de Famílias Homotransafetivas (Abrafh) é uma entidade que luta pelo reconhecimento das populações cujo núcleo é formado por sujeitos LGBTQIA+. A instituição busca representar os anseios e expectativas dessas famílias em diferentes âmbitos sociais, assim como combater os desrespeitos e preconceitos advindos de um sistema heterossexista. Este trabalho busca compreender como a Abrafh mobiliza as dimensões do afeto e da solidariedade na luta política. Para isso, entrevistamos quatro representantes do primeiro conselho diretor. Por meio de uma análise (...) qualitativa de conteúdo discursivo, pudemos compreender que a Abrafh, segundo os diretores, surge para acolher, defender e representar as famílias homoafetivas no sentido de tornar estes cidadãos emancipados e com direitos reconhecidos. Conclui-se que a instituição atua principalmente a partir da possibilidade de responder satisfatoriamente à necessidade que os sujeitos têm de desenvolverem conexões baseadas na confiança afetiva na continuidade da dedicação mútua. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo es analizar las formas de articulación entre el presupuesto participativo y las instituciones político-representativas locales (gobierno y partidos) en las experiencias de las ciudades de Córdoba, Gualeguaychú, Paysandú y Montevideo. En primera instancia, se presenta un modelo teórico de análisis con tipos ideales, que expresan formas posibles de relacionamiento. Seguidamente, utilizando el modelo planteado, se analizan los cuatro casos, en dos momentos diferentes, separados por una elección de gobierno local. Finalmente, se señala, en función de los (...) casos estudiados, cómo en escenarios de participación plural y alcance restringido la mayor institucionalización generaría un estímulo para ir paulatinamente ampliando el alcance.The aim of the article is to analyze the forms of articulation between the participatory budget and the local political-representative institutions (government and parties) in the experiences of the cities of Córdoba, Gualeguaychú, Paysandú and Montevideo. A theoretical analysis model with ideal types expressing possible forms of articulation is presented in the first instance. Then, using the model presented, the four cases are analyzed in two moments of time separated by a local government election. Finally, it is pointed out how in scenarios of plural participation and restricted scope greater institutionalization could generate an incentive to gradually expand the scope. (shrink)

Moses Mendelssohn is often described as the founder of modern Jewish thought and as a leading philosopher of the late Enlightenment. One of Mendelssohn's main concerns was how to conceive of the relationship between Judaism, philosophy, and the civic life of a modern state. Elias Sacks explores Mendelssohn's landmark account of Jewish practice--Judaism's "living script," to use his famous phrase--to present a broader reading of Mendelssohn's writings and extend inquiry into conversations about modernity and religion. By studying Mendelssohn's thought (...) in these dimensions, Sacks suggests that he shows a deep concern with history. Sacks affords a view of a foundational moment in Jewish modernity and forwards new ways of thinking about ritual practice, the development of traditions, and the role of religion in society. (shrink)

Dense pairs of geometric topological fields have tame open core, that is, every definable open subset in the pair is already definable in the reduct. We fix a minor gap in the published version of van den Dries's seminal work on dense pairs of o-minimal groups, and show that every definable unary function in a dense pair of geometric topological fields agrees with a definable function in the reduct, off a small definable subset, that is, a definable set internal to (...) the predicate. For certain dense pairs of geometric topological fields without the independence property, whenever the underlying set of a definable group is contained in the dense-codense predicate, the group law is locally definable in the reduct as a geometric topological field. If the reduct has elimination of imaginaries, we extend this result, up to interdefinability, to all groups internal to the predicate. (shrink)

In 1817, in the preface to his Rein analytischer Beweis, Bernard Bolzano revealed that he had decided to postpone the publication of any subsequent instalment of his Beyträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik because of the few and ‘superficial’ reviews of its first instalment, published in 1810. Bolzano’s transcriptions of the only two known reviews of this book are conserved at the Literární archiv Památníku národního písemnictví / Muzea literatury, in Prague, together with another manuscript on his Beyträge, the (...) provenance of which was unknown to Bolzano’s scholars until recently. In this paper it is shown that this latter manuscript is a draft of an announcement that was published at the time and that was indeed written at least to some extent by Bolzano himself. This hitherto unknown announcement of Bolzano’s Beyträge not only solves the mystery surrounding that manuscript, but also helps to date the publication of this book more precisely and provides an unusual insight into what we must take Bolzano himself to have considered most noteworthy about his work, namely his study on logic. The paper includes a transcription of the manuscript and an English translation of the announcement. (shrink)

The themes of this volume represent major extensions of and reflections upon the ideas first advanced in Elias' The Civilizing Process.

In a series of works, Pablo Cobreros, Paul Égré, David Ripley and Robert van Rooij have proposed a nontransitive system (call it ‘_K__3__L__P_’) as a basis for a solution to the semantic paradoxes. I critically consider that proposal at three levels. At the level of the background logic, I present a conception of classical logic on which _K__3__L__P_ fails to vindicate classical logic not only in terms of structural principles, but also in terms of operational ones. At the level of (...) the theory of truth, I raise a cluster of philosophical difficulties for a _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive truth, all variously related to the fact that such a system proves things that would seem already by themselves repugnant, even in the absence of transitivity. At the level of the theory of validity, I consider an extension of the _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive validity that is supposed to certify that validity in that system does not fall short of naive validity, argue that such an extension is untenable in that its nontriviality depends on the inadmissibility of a certain irresistible instance of transitivity (whence the advertised “final cut”) and conclude on this basis that the _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive validity cannot coherently be adopted either. At all these levels, a crucial role is played by certain metaentailments and by the extra strength they afford over the corresponding entailments: on the one hand, such strength derives from considerations that would seem just as compelling in a general nontransitive framework, but, on the other hand, such strength wreaks havoc in the particular setting of _K__3__L__P_. (shrink)

We put forward a proposal that combines objective collapse models, developed in connection with quantum-foundational questions, with the so-called Weyl curvature hypothesis, introduced by Roger Penrose as an attempt to account for the very special initial state of the universe. In particular, we explain how a curvature dependence of the collapse rate in such models, an idea already shown to help in the context of black holes and information loss, could also offer a dynamical justification for Penrose's conjecture.

Some of Wilber’s “holoarchies” are gradations of being, which he views as truth itself; however, being is delusion, and its gradations are gradations of delusion. Wilber’s supposedly universal ontogenetic holoarchy contradicts all Buddhist Paths, whereas his view of phylogeny contradicts Buddhist Tantra and Dzogchen, which claim delusion/being increase throughout the aeon to finally achieve reductio ad absurdum. Wilber presents spiritual healing as ascent; Grof and Washburn represent it as descent—yet they are all equally off the mark. Phenomenologically speaking, the Dzogchen (...) Path is “descending,” but not in Washburn’s or Grof’s sense—and “transpersonal” is not a synonym of “sanity.” A synthesis of Wilber, Grof, Washburn, Jung, Laing, Cooper and non-transpersonal authors in the framework of Wisdom traditions is imperative. (shrink)

Resumo O cenário religioso mutável e plural do nosso tempo implica na teologia cristã, particularmente aquela produzida nas universidades, espaços catalisadores de questões mundiais, sendo a religiosa uma das mais relevantes. O objetivo deste artigo é verificar como a teologia acadêmica, especialmente aquela produzida na universidade, expressa essa característica da atualidade: a pluralidade. O método é a análise qualitativa de estudos que valorizam o plural na fé e na teologia cristã. A hipótese é que as perspectivas ecumênicas e inter-religiosas são (...) fundamentais para uma teologia plural hoje. E isso requer uma revisão tanto no aspecto formal e epistemológico da teologia, quanto em seu conteúdo. A conclusão é que a teologia precisa ser construída como conhecimento plural, não só porque dialoga com culturas, ciências e diferentes formas de crer, mas também porque ela mesma é plural. Resumen El escenario religioso, cambiante y plural, del nuestro tiempo implica en la teología cristiana, particularmente la que se produce en las universidades, espacios catalizadores de las cuestiones mundiales, siendo la religiosa una de las más relevantes. El objetivo de este artículo es verificar como la teología académica, en especial la producida en la universidad, expresa esta característica de la actualidad: la pluralidad. El método es el análisis cualitativo de estudios que valorizan el plural en la fe y en la teología cristiana. La hipótesis es que las perspectivas ecuménica e interreligiosa son fundamentales para una teología plural hoy. Y esto exige una revisión tanto en el aspecto formal y epistemológico de la teología, cuanto en su contenido. La conclusión es que la teología necesita construirse como conocimiento plural, no solo porque dialoga con culturas, ciencias y diferentes formas de creer, sino porque ella misma es plural.The changing and plural religious scenario of our time implies in Christian theology, particularly that produced in universities, spaces that are catalysts for world issues, with religion being one of the most relevant. The objective of this article is to verify how the academic theology, especially that produced in the university, expresses this current characteristic: plurality. The method is the qualitative analysis of studies that value plurality in faith and in Christian theology. The hypothesis is that ecumenical and interreligious perspectives are fundamental for a plural theology today. And this requires a review both in the formal and epistemologia aspect of theology, as well as in its content. The conclusion is that theology needs to be constructed as plural knowledge, not only because it dialogues with cultures, sciences and different ways of believing, but also because it is itself plural. (shrink)