In this article, we explore the implications of a Rawlsian theory for intergenerational issues. First, we confront Rawls's way of locating his `just savings' principle in his Theory of Justice with an alternative way of doing so. We argue that both sides of his intergenerational principle, as they apply to the accumulation phase and the steady-state stage, can be dealt with on the bases, respectively, of the principle of equal liberty (and its priority) and of the difference principle. We then (...) proceed by focusing on the implications of applying maximin to his steady-state stage. One central claim is that, in principle, Rawlsians should consider not only generational dissavings, but also generational savings, as unfair. This principle suffers a series of exceptions on which we focus in the fourth section of the article. In some cases, growth can be maximin compatible. (shrink)

The idea that deep brain stimulation (DBS) induces changes to personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy and self (PIAAAS) is so deeply entrenched within neuroethics discourses that it has become an unchallenged narrative. In this article, we critically assess evidence about putative effects of DBS on PIAAAS. We conducted a literature review of more than 1535 articles to investigate the prevalence of scientific evidence regarding these potential DBS-induced changes. While we observed an increase in the number of publications in theoretical neuroethics (...) that mention putative DBS-induced changes to patients’ postoperative PIAAAS, we found a critical lack of primary empirical studies corroborating these claims. Our findings strongly suggest that the theoretical neuroethics debate on putative effects of DBS relies on very limited empirical evidence and is, instead, reliant on unsubstantiated speculative assumptions probablyin lieuof robust evidence. As such, this may reflect the likelihood of a speculative neuroethics bubble that may need to be deflated. Nevertheless, despite the low number of first-hand primary studies and large number of marginal and single case reports, potential postoperative DBS changes experienced by patients remain a critical ethical concern. We recommend further empirical research in order to enhance theoretical neuroethics work in the area. In particular, we call for the development of better instruments capable of capturing potential postoperative variations of PIAAAS. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to shed light on Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) postoperative suicidality risk factors within Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD) patients, in particular by focusing on the ethical concern of enrolling patient with history of self-estrangement, suicide attempts and impulsive–aggressive inclinations. In order to illustrate these ethical issues we report and review a clinical case associated with postoperative feelings of self-estrangement, self-harm behaviours and suicide attempt leading to the removal of DBS devices. Could prospectively identifying and excluding (...) patients with suicidality risk factors from DBS experimental trials—such as history of self-estrangement, suicide attempts and impulsive–aggressive inclinations—lead to minimizing the risk of suicidality harm? (shrink)

Brain transplant thought experiments figure prominently in the debate on personal identity. Such hypotheticals are usually taken to provide support for psychological continuity theories. This standard interpretation has recently been challenged by Marya Schechtman. Simon Beck argues that Schechtman's critique rests upon ‘two costly mistakes’—claiming that (1) when evaluating these cases, philosophers mistakenly try to figure out the intuitions that they think people inhabiting such a possible world ought to have, instead of pondering their own intuitions. Beck further asserts that (...) (2) brain transplant thought experiments cannot confirm any given theory of personal identity but rather they can only rule out theories. I argue on grounds of the social ontology of personhood that Beck has things back to front. Since our concept of personhood is shaped and informed by contingent de facto norms and structures of the natural world, and as such is heavily normatively laden, the conceptual genesis of personhood must be taken into account. This calls for constructing thought experiments as realistically as possible in order to trigger reliable intuitions. Furthermore, drawing on recent evidence from cognitive science, an empirically informed look at brain transplant thought experiments considering ‘Embodied Cognition’ reveals that Beck's arguments not only fall short for supporting psychological continuity theories, but also suggests an advantage of Schechtman's ‘Person Life View’. (shrink)

Late medieval theories of language and contemporary philosophy of language have been compared on numerous occasions. Here, we would like to compare two debates: that between the nature of Virtus sermonis , on the medieval side—focusing on a statute published in 1340 by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris and its opponents—and, on the contemporary side, the on-going discussion on the semantics-pragmatics distinction and how the truth-value of an utterance should be established. Both the statute and Gricean (...) pragmatics insist on the importance of taking into account the speaker's intention and the context in establishing the signification of an utterance. Yet, upon closer examination, a more convincing parallel might be drawn between the statute's position and current theories in truth-conditional pragmatics. Focusing on a few aspects of the statute that seem to find a counterpart within contemporary pragmatics, we try to show how the issues they give rise to converge, but also diverge. (shrink)

The study by Levy et al. (2024) offers new insights into clinical trial participant experience when assessing a novel visual cortical prosthesis (VCP) during an early feasibility study (EFS). We ap...

Pylyshyn argues against representations with pictorial properties that would be superimposed on a scene. We present evidence against this view, and a new method to depict pictorial properties. We propose a continuum between the top-down generation of internal signals (imagery) and the bottom-up signals from the outside world. Along the continuum, superstitious perceptions provide a method to tackle representational issues.

La philosophie médiévale du langage présente deux séries d’affinités remarquables avec les approches contemporaines. L’une se situe du côté des sémantiques formelles et, plus généralement, des analyses logiques des conditions de vérité des énoncés. L’autre relève plutôt de la pragmatique, notamment des perspectives contextuelles sur les actes de langage. Les logiciens, grammairiens et théologiens du Moyen Âge étaient, de fait, pleinement conscients qu’ils avaient à leur disposition deux types d’approche des énoncés, selon qu’ils prenaient en compte les seules propriétés sémantiques (...) de leurs composants ou qu’ils intégraient des considérations extralinguistiques allant de l’intention des auteurs / locuteurs à leur statut, en passant par le contexte d’énonciation. Chacune de ces perspectives a bénéficié d’un certain nombre d’études récentes ; la question que je voudrais aborder est plutôt celle de leur frontière en logique, de son emplacement, ses déplacements, sa porosité éventuelle. La complexité des matériaux en jeu ne permettra pas de proposer plus que quelques points de repères, qui peuvent toutefois aider à évaluer l’hypothèse d’un « projet formel » en sémantique médiévale. (shrink)

According to several late medieval logicians, the use the universal quantifier ‘omnis’ creates the requirement that the sentence refers to at least three items—the principle of sufficientia appellatorum. The commitment is such that, when the quota is not fulfilled, one has to import the missing items from the realm of the nonexistent. While the central argument for this principle, whose origin is Aristotle’s De Caelo, stems from the contrast between unrestricted universal quantifiers and binary quantifiers, the discussion is often mixed (...) with another issue, concerning the requirement of a plurality of referents for universals. In this paper, we try to distinguish those different issues and map the reactions of xiii th authors to the principle of sufficientia appellatorum. (shrink)

The Histories of Anthropology Annual presents diverse perspectives on the discipline’s history within a global context, with a goal of increasing awareness and use of historical approaches in teaching, learning, and conducting anthropology. The series includes critical, comparative, analytical, and narrative studies involving all aspects and subfields of anthropology. Volume 11, Historicizing Theories, Identities, and Nations, examines the work and influence of scholars, including Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, John Dewey, Randolph Bourne, A. Irving Hallowell, and Edward Westermarck, and anthropological practices (...) and theories in Vietnam and Ukraine as well as the United States. Contributions also focus on the influence of Western thought and practice on anthropological traditions, as well as issues of relativism, physical anthropology, language, epistemology, ethnography, and social synergy. (shrink)

Malebranche's conception of imagination is often thought to be entirely contained in Book II of La Recherche de la vérité, which aims at destroying the beliefs and false theories resulting from the untempered use of that faculty. And yet Malebranche shows, in Book VI of the same work, that imagination has an essential function in the construction of science, particularly when it comes to producing geometrical models for phenomena; and it is, from the point of view of cognition, a singular (...) cunning of reason which associates the presence of corporeal affects in the mind, and ideas, which enlighten it without touching it. This conception rests upon unacknowledged quotations from the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, which Malebranche must have had at hand while working on the Recherche. At stake is, for us, the precise understanding of the relation between mathematics and imagination, first in the Regulae and then in the Recherche, in the general context of the project of a universal science or mathesis universalis. (shrink)

RésuméLes observatoires occidentaux se transforment en véritable usine scientifique à partir du milieu du 19e siècle. L'astrométrie symbolise ce passage à une économie industrieuse des pratiques scientifiques. Le chronographe imprimant, qui permet de réduire les équations personnelles des observateurs, s'impose, d'abord aux Etats-Unis, puis en Angleterre, en instrument-emblème de cette transformation profonde. En France, les initiatives de l'astronome Liais restent prototypiques. Ce n'est qu'au début du 20e siècle, par les voies détournées de l'observatoire d'Hendaye et de l'abbé Verschaffel, que le (...) chronographe imprimant fait son retour et conquiert les espaces savants. La centralisation excessive de l'astronomie française, l'autoritarisme du directeur de l'Observatoire de Paris Urbain Le Verrier, et la faiblesse du marché des instruments expliquent pourquoi le chronographe imprimant n'a fait souche que très tardivement en France. (shrink)

This set is a carefully balanced selection of writings representing some of the most important currents in the thought of city and regional planning during the period 1870-1940 when urban planning emerged as a serious disciplinary field. The set consists of eight key books from this period, handsomely illustrated and reproduced in their entirety, and a separate volume of fifteen seminal short selections - all by major figures of the time, such as Abercrombie, Geddes, and the Olmsteds. Soria y Mata's (...) writings on the linear city also appear in translation for the first time. In addition to seminal works on city planning, the set covers themes such as neighbourhood, Utopian and visionary planning; planning for parks; housing; transportation systems, and public health. A wide variety of cities feature including Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Manchester, New York and San Francisco, showing a great diversity of cultural styles. Early Urban Planning 1870-1940 is of continued importance today, as it highlights ideals which remain strikingly relevant in development of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to point out the equivalence between three notions respectively issued from recursion theory, computational complexity and finite model theory. One the one hand, the rudimentary languages are known to be characterized by the linear hierarchy. On the other hand, this complexity class can be proved to correspond to monadic second‐order logic with addition. Our viewpoint sheds some new light on the close connection between these domains: We bring together the two extremal notions by providing (...) a direct logical characterization of rudimentary languages and a representation result of second‐order logic into these languages. We use natural arithmetical tools, and our proofs contain no ingredient from computational complexity. (shrink)

ArgumentThe scientific system is primarily differentiated into disciplines. While disciplines may be wide in scope and diverse in their research practices, they serve scientific communities that evaluate research and also grant recognition to what is published. The analysis of communication and publication practices within such a community hence allows us to shed light on the dynamics of this discipline. On the basis of an empirical analysis ofIsis, we show how the process of discipline-building in history of science has led its (...) practitioners to be socialized and sensitized in relatively strong intra-disciplinary terms – with minimal interdisciplinary openness. (shrink)

1891. The recovered manuscript of Aristotle's Constitutional History of Athens, now for the first time given to the world from the unique text in the British...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

La bibliographie Platon 1990-1995 prend concretement la suite du travail bibliographique (couvrant la periode 1950-1990) deja paru dans la revue Lustrum publiee a Gottingen et qui preserve, pour l'essentiel, la presentation materielle. Pour la periode ici consideree (1990-1995), on denombre plus de 70 entreprises d'edition et de traduction, et surtout pres de 1800 travaux d'interpretation, livres ou articles eux-memes publies dans des periodiques, actes de congres, melanges ou recueils. Ces travaux, ecrits en une dizaine de langues differentes, sont ici accompagnes (...) pour la plupart d'une notice et analyses dans un index tres detaille. Le chercheur dispose ainsi d'une sorte de carte geographique lui permettant de s'orienter facilement dans cet immense territoire de litterature secondaire et d'aller rapidement d'un point a un autre en evitant les detours fastidieux et les impasses. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that we are entitled to see in Schütz’s article “Equality and the Social Meaning Structure” the proposal for a formal analysis of group membership understood as a kind of We-experience irreducible to pure We-relationships. First I argue that such an account defines the experience of group membership as a “situation definition process”. Then I show the relevance of this approach for the description of membership experiences and current debates on Collective Intentionality. Finally, (...) I point to its unclarified conceptual presuppositions—such as the at­tribution of situations to groups—, and propose an interpretative solution by drawing on the notions of “social situation” and community of relevances from The Structures of the Life-World. (shrink)

Émile Meyerson (1859–1933) is an epistemologist, in the French meaning of the term: he himself introduced the word in French as a synonymous for “philo- sophy of science” in his major book of 1908 Identity and Reality. First educated as a chemist, Meyerson discovered philosophy while reading Auguste Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive. However, he strongly rejected Comte’s positivism: metaphysics, he said, penetrates science and even common sense; men, whether they are scien- tists or not, are interested in finding a (...) cause behind the stream of phenomena. This anti-positivism is justified in so far as Meyerson used the same method and pursued the same goal as Comte: the philosopher must practice an “a posteriori analysis of the products of thought”, so as to determine the laws of human mind. Consequently, Meyerson’s work is not a mere philosophy of science, it is more than an “épistémolo- gie” in the French sense. Its ambition is to reach the intellectual basis of all thought. The philosopher can resort to the resources of metaphysics to reach the psychologi- cal foundations of humanity, when he reflects on the historical products of thought. He establishes the transcendent or metaphysical logic involved in the process of thought. Meyerson’s work consequently deserves the name its author eventually gave to it in his posthumous Essais: a “philosophy of intellect”. But is such a philoso- phy wide enough to embrace the meaning of all the products of human thought? It seems that Meyerson was embarrassed and limited by his very starting point, namely Comte’s system. I argue that scientific or common conceptions may need more than the anti-positivist claim of the preservation of one substance behind phenomena. Truth to tell, men generally tend to identify a large and rich configuration of causes or substances. Only such architectonics can give an idea of what people mean by invoking their “vision of the world”. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions from leading researchers in the field of agent-based modelling and simulation. This approach has grown out of some recent and innovative ideas in the social sciences, computer sciences, life sciences, physics and game theory. It is proving helpful in understanding complexity in many domains. The opportunities it offers to explore the experimental approach to social and human behaviour is proving of theoretical and empirical value across a wide range of fields. With contributions from researchers whose (...) work has served to define this new field such as Nigel Gilbert, Robert Axtell (in economics and social science) and Jacques Ferber (in multi-agent systems), as well as practitioners who are working at the cutting edge of the new domain, this collection of essays has been assembled by two of its leading exponents: Frédéric Amblard and Denis Phan. The research, case studies and theoretical approaches discussed in this book are designed to introduce beginners and experts alike to the current state of play in this new and exciting field of social science. (shrink)

In Quebec, dropout of university studies is a scarcely studied phenomenon, particularly in the 120-credit Bachelor’s degree programs in Vocational Education. More than 10 years after the implementation of these programs, the secondary analysis of existing data from two sources reveals that almost one in two students abandoned their studies. A look at the specific context these students are in, along with a discussion on theoretical and methodological issues related to these dropout statistics, are used to examine the complex and (...) troubling dropout phenomenon in this particular university program. (shrink)

Was bedeutet es, über die Dauer des Lebens als individuelle Person fortzubestehen? Wagner entwickelt eine Theorie, die Personen als psycho-physische Akteure auffasst, deren Identität durch die kontingenten faktischen Normen und Strukturen der Handlungswelt bestimmt wird. Personenidentität wird als graduierbare Relation verstanden, die unsere Existenz auf einem Kontinuum zwischen Menschsein und Personsein lokalisiert.

La Seconde Guerre mondiale venait à peine de s'achever quand le hasard fit de Frédéric de Towarnicki le premier visiteur de Heidegger dans l'Allemagne ne cendres, verrouillée de toute part. Quel " coup de dés " l'avait donc conduit dans Fribourg en ruine, à la recherche de ce philosophe dont on ne savait rien depuis des années? Le récit insolite, parfois drôle, de ses rencontres avec Heidegger dans sa maison de Zähringen ou sur les routes de la Forêt-Noire est (...) suivi de vingt-trois conversations avec Jean Beaufret qui fut, durant plus de trente ans, l'ami et l'interlocuteur du penseur le plus audacieux et le plus attaqué de notre temps. La passion qui anime ce livre pourrait bien, au-delà des polémiques, révéler au lecteur la surprenante simplicité à laquelle aboutissent les méditations de Heidegger. (shrink)