Au mois de mai 1940 deux chefs de guerre s’affrontent. L’un a été le colonel du premier régiment où l’autre est arrivé en sortant de Saint Cyr et lui a, par la suite, servi de mentor. Mais des conceptions de ce qu’est la France, les mythes fondateurs de la nation auxquels ils se référent, de même que leur position les sépare. L’un est maréchal, le seul général en chef survivant de la guerre précédente alors que l’autre vient d’être nommé général. (...) Cependant, ce dernier sera rejoint par d’ardents jeunes gens, entrés récemment dans une carrière ou ne l’ayant pas encore abordée, et saura coordonner les mouvements dispersés de résistance. Aidé par les circonstances, qu’il a su exploiter, il vaincra.Les temporalités permettant de mettre en perspective ce récit sont diverses : elles vont du temps figé de la métaphore et du mythe, en passant par la chronologie linéaire. Mais la temporalité qui se révèle cruciale est celle du moment opportun et de la capacité à le saisir, qui, dans un premier temps est utilisée par les deux protagonistes, pour les différencier définitivement par la suite. (shrink)

De l'Europe de Locarno dans les-années vingt, a la crise des euromissiles dans l'Europe dos années quatre-vingt, l'idée européenne, celle de l'unité politique de l'Europe, a été l'objet de la pensée de Raymond Aron, en ses diverses qualités de philosophe, éditorialiste et sociologue. Parti de l'idéal d'une République européenne des Lettres, Raymond Aron a consacré sa vie à défendre la liberté politique. Pendant la guerre, dans La France Libre, il a combattu la propagande hitlérienne qui usurpait le mythe politique de (...) l'Europe. Il a ensuite lui-même utilisé ce mythe pour renforcer la cohésion de I'Occident pendant la guerre froide. Selon lui, l'idée européenne est raisonnable, mais, écrit-il, c'est "une idée d'intellectuels". Il rappelait que l'Europe n'a jamais existé qu'en tant que nations : "On ne crée pas les patries sur commande." La vision aronienne de l'Europe n'était ni celle de Jean Monnet, ni celle du général de Gaulle. Ainsi Raymond Aron a-t-il pu se présenter comme un "grognard" du mouvement européen, ce qu'il fut dans les deux sens du mot : comme vétéran incontestable de l'entreprise, et critique opiniâtre de celle-ci. Citoyen français et intellectuel européen, Raymond Aron s'est efforcé d'être un éducateur de la cité, à l'échelle de la nation comme du continent. Comme elle traite de notre condition politique, sa pensée concerne, aujourd'hui plus que jamais, tous ceux qui se sentent citoyens en Europe. (shrink)

YVES CHARLES ZARKA ET SABINE CHOQUET. — Est-ce qu’il y a un acte de naissance du souverainisme au Québec ? Et, si tel est le cas, est-il lié à la visite du général de Gaulle au Québec et à la célèbre phrase : « Vive le Québec libre ! » qu’il a prononcée à Montréal le 24 juillet 1967 ?JOSEPH FACAL. — On..

The article examines the ethical and socio-political rationales behind France’s decision to sign the armistice with Nazi Germany in June 1940. Subsequent to the defeat, France confronted a binary choice: capitulation or armistice. Capitulation would have entailed responsibility falling on the military; in contrast, in the case of the armistice, it fell on civilian authority. Unlike capitulation, which did not bind civilian governance and remained an exclusively military action, the armistice extended the suspension of hostilities across territories under French sovereignty. (...) In practical terms, capitulation would have allowed France’s legal government to continue the war from other locations, whereas the armistice strictly prohibited such actions. Despite these constraints, France chose the armistice in an attempt to shield its populace from Nazi atrocities. However, this protection ultimately proved illusory. The article contends that the subsequent delegation of full constituent powers to Marshal Pétain deepened societal divisions between collaborationists and members of the Resistance. Contrary to popular belief, General de Gaulle mythologized the Resistance after the war not merely to glorify it but also to alleviate national tensions and position France among the victors of World War II. Reflecting upon the experience of French history, the article concludes on the political and social consequences of decisions regarding war and peace, contingent upon whether political or military leadership assumes the responsibility. (shrink)

Dans un livre ultime où il laisse s'exprimer tout son génie, Jean Guitton met en scène d'une manière magistrale les derniers moments de sa vie. Durant les quelques heures qui précèdent sa mort, il fait le point avec Pascal sur ses raisons de croire en Dieu - avec Bergson, sur celles d'être chrétien, et avec Paul VI - dans les bras duquel il meurt -, sur ses raisons d'être catholique. Durant ses funérailles aux Invalides, du haut de la tribune, c'est (...) un regard espiègle qu'il jette sur la foule... se plaignant de certaines absences et écoutant ce que les uns et les autres disent de lui. Il en profite pour rétablir la vérité sur certains aspects de sa vie intellectuelle, affective et spirituelle. Cette longue cérémonie lui permet de discuter de l'art avec le Greco ; du problème du mal avec le général de Gaulle ; de l'amour et de la poésie avec Dante, et de diverses questions philosophiques avec Socrate, Blondel, Senghor... Lors de son jugement, haut en couleur, où de drôles de damnés assistent à l'audience, on est étonné de voir Thérèse de Lisieux et le président Mitterrand intervenir en sa faveur. Il révèle à cette occasion des choses bien surprenantes sur ses rencontres avec le président. Par son testament, Jean Guitton, dans de fulgurantes intuitions, dévoile les enjeux philosophiques et spirituels auxquels l'homme sera confronté. En situant la dramaturgie de son livre dans les ultimes moments de l'existence humaine, il fait au lecteur un cadeau immense : il pose pour lui-même et pour tout homme les questions essentielles sur le sens de la vie. Il apporte des éléments de réflexion pour aborder le grand débat philosophique, spirituel et religieux du troisième millénaire. (shrink)

YVES CHARLES ZARKA ET SABINE CHOQUET. — Est-ce qu’il y a un acte de naissance du souverainisme au Québec ? Et, si tel est le cas, est-il lié à la visite du général de Gaulle au Québec et à la célèbre phrase : « Vive le Québec libre ! » qu’il a prononcée à Montréal le 24 juillet 1967 ?JOSEPH FACAL. — On..

Les États-Unis et la France entretiennent depuis deux siècles des relations diplomatiques, riches en épisodes édifiants et quasi légendaires, riches aussi en crises et en passions. Autant que l’amitié de Franklin et de La Fayette, la tension entre Clemenceau et Wilson, après la Première Guerre, entre Roosevelt et le général de Gaulle, pendant la Deuxième, me paraissent symboliques du..

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

This paper outlines and defends a notion of tragic-remorse. This moral emotion properly accompanies those actions that involve unavoidable moral wrongdoing in general and dirty hands scenarios in particular. Tragic-remorse differs both phenomenologically and conceptually from regret, agent-regret and remorse. By recognising the existence of tragic-remorse, we are better able to account for our complex moral reality which at times makes it necessary for good persons to act in ways that although justified leave the agent with a moral stain (...) and a particular emotional response. (shrink)

The past fifty years have been a time of immense change in Ireland, as the country has moved from a traditional to a modern society. The introduction of electricity, the 'quiet revolution', was accompanied by changes in attitudes to Church, sex, relationships, property, emigration - to life in general. In that short time people have absorbed massive change, often enthusiastically, though perhaps with the occasional pang of regret for the 'old ways'. Here we see the faces, the landscapes and (...) the life of that recently disappeared Ireland - Jack Lynch, JFK, Grace Kelly, Dev, de Gaulle, the Troubles, folk traditions - alongside the new faces and the new styles of our modern society. (shrink)

We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical (...) icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a new interpretation for Rousseau’s surprisingly spare use of the phrase “general interest” in his works. My starting point is the very notion of interest in his political thought. For Rousseau, interest is not a matter of calculation but of experience; properly speaking, once we are in the state of society, there is nothing like an individual interest because all our interests are shared with somebody else. And our political interest (our sensitivity to society’s (...) general disorders) is shared with all our fellow citizens. In this regard, I bring to light a clear antinomy between the “common interest” in Rousseau’s Social Contract and the “general interest” as conceptualized by the physiocrats a few years later. By “common interest” Rousseau means the material basis for the democratic formation of a general will (that is, a political will) among the citizens, whereas by “general interest” physiocrats mean the normative language in which a non-democratic political decision claims its legitimacy by appealing to reason. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je reviens sur un constat bien connu, mais jamais parfaitement élucidé : Rousseau n’emploie que très exceptionnellement l’expression « intérêt général », à laquelle il préfère celle d’« intérêt commun ». Je m’efforce d’y apporter une explication nouvelle, en partant d’un réexamen du concept même d’« intérêt » dans son œuvre, auquel il faut prêter un sens assez différent de celui auquel la philosophie politique nous a accoutumés : l’intérêt ne saurait être individuel, il ne saurait s’identifier (...) à l’« avantage », il ne saurait faire l’objet d’un « calcul ». À ce titre, il existe une véritable antinomie entre la notion d’intérêt commun chez Rousseau et celle d’intérêt général qui se formalise chez les physiocrates de façon quasi contemporaine. L’intérêt commun est la base de formation démocratique d’une volonté politiquement orientée, qui prend comme telle le nom de « volonté générale », là où l’intérêt général est le langage normatif dans lequel une décision politique non nécessairement démocratique cherche à fonder sa légitimité en raison. (shrink)

An intuitive view is that creativity involves bringing together what is already known and familiar in a way that produces something new. In cognitive science, this intuition is typically formalized in terms of computational processes that combine or associate internally represented information. From this computationalist perspective, it is hard to imagine how non-representational approaches in embodied cognitive science could shed light on creativity, especially when it comes to abstract conceptual reasoning of the kind scientists so often engage in. The present (...) article offers an entry point to addressing this challenge. The scientific project of embodied cognitive science is a continuation of work in the functionalist tradition in psychology developed over a century ago by William James and John Dewey, among others. The focus here is on how functionalist views on the nature of mind, thought, and experience offer an alternative starting point for cognitive science in general, and for the cognitive science of scientific creativity in particular. The result may seem paradoxical. On the one hand, the article claims that the functionalist conceptual framework motivates rejecting mainstream cognitive views of creativity as the combination or association of ideas. On the other hand, however, the strategy adopted here—namely, revisiting ideas from functionalist psychology to inform current scientific theorizing—can itself be described as a process of arriving at new, creative ideas from combinations of old ones. As is shown here, a proper understanding of cognition in light of the functionalist tradition resolves the seeming tension between these two claims. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, Forensic Flexible Assertive Community Treatment is used as a specialized form of outpatient intensive treatment. This outreaching type of treatment is aimed at patients with severe and long lasting psychiatric problems that are at risk of engaging in criminal behavior. In addition, these patients often suffer from addiction and experience problems in different areas of their life. The aim of this exploratory study was to gain more insight into the characteristics of the ForFACT patient population. More knowledge (...) about these patients may enhance the effectiveness of ForFACT and therefore reduce the risk of recidivism. Data on 132 ForFACT patients were gathered by studying electronic patient records, criminal records, and by conducting semi-structured interviews with practitioners and patients. Additionally, as part of a cognitive screening, two screening instruments were conducted to gain insight into intelligence and possible mild cognitive impairments. This article gives a broad description of the ForFACT patient population, including demographic data and context variables, diagnostics, recidivism risk and offense history, and aspects related to care. Furthermore, several recommendations are given to further improve ForFACT. Based on the results it can be concluded that the ForFACT patient population shows a high degree of diversity in complex care needs and responsivity issues. Therefore, this article highlights the necessity for ForFACT to collaborate with other mental health institutions, as well as probation officers, and forensic or criminal justice institutions. Moreover, it is important to continually check the inclusion and exclusion criteria when admitting patients to ForFACT, and to examine whether ForFACT is still the most adequate care for patients or if they need to be referred. In addition, the results emphasize the importance of cognitive screening for forensic outpatients. Finally, this study zooms in on the interface between forensic psychiatric care and general mental health care. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Crises of Memory and the Second World WarPatrick HenryCrises of Memory and the Second World War, by Susan Rubin Suleiman; x & 286 pp. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. $29.95.This excellent study deals widely and deeply with the crises of memory and World War II but generally focuses on France, Vichy and the Holocaust. The author defines a crisis of memory as "a moment of choice and sometimes (...) of predicament or conflict, about remembrance of the past, whether by individuals or by groups" (p. 1). In the crises of memory she examines, "individual self-representation overlaps with... collective self-representation" in such a way that individual remembrance takes on collective significance. In nine rich chapters of textual analysis of mostly self-consciously literary texts, Suleiman deftly analyzes writers from the left and the right, two films of tremendous import, the nature of Holocaust memoirs, experimental writing and the concepts of trauma, amnesia, amnesty, testimony and forgiveness.In the first three chapters, Suleiman studies French memories of the Occupation, the collaborationist Vichy regime and the Resistance from 1945 to the present. These chapters depict the relations between history and memory and highlight the intriguing process of the evolution of public remembrance. Chapter one, "Choosing Our Past," surprises even the most careful reader of Jean-Paul Sartre's plays and novels, for it demonstrates brilliantly that, in several of his very early post-Vichy essays where he conveniently passes over in silence France's collaborationist past—even the major role played by Vichy police in the roundup and deportation of Jews—he helped create, along with de Gaulle and others, the myth of "Resistancialism," the founding myth of the post-Vichy [End Page 204] Period, the idea that all Frenchmen resisted the Nazis. In the words of Pierre Nora, Sartre and de Gaulle were "writing history from the point of view of the future" (p. 17).In chapter two, the author analyzes the 1997 "Aubrac Affair," exposing the problems that the Resistance heroes, Lucie and Raymond Aubrac, encountered when they were suddenly suspected of having betrayed Jean Moulin, whose 1964 enshrinement in the Pantheon is examined in chapter three within the context of the politics of national memory in France. Whereas Moulin's enshrinement marked the apex of the myth of "Resistancialism" in France, the "Aubrac Affair" comes fifty-four years after the betrayal of Jean Moulin and twenty-five years after the myth of "Resistancialism" began to fade. In treating the charges and countercharges in the "Aubrac Affair," which continues to fascinate because it illustrates "the problematic relation between public and private memory, and between history and fantasy in the construction of both an individual and a collective past" (p. 61), Suleiman highlights the problems of narrative verisimilitude and the narrative tendency toward heroic aggrandizement as well as its opposite, the desire to topple heroes.In chapter four, Suleiman studies Marcel Orphuls's Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, a four-hour documentary of great significance that remains relatively unknown when compared with his earlier film, The Sorrow and the Pity. Barbie was the infamous Nazi war criminal, known as "the Butcher of Lyon," who tortured and deported hundreds of Jews and tortured to death the great French Resistance hero, Jean Moulin. He was extradited from Bolivia to France in 1983 where he was tried for crimes against humanity in 1987. Orphuls's film exposes the conflicted memories and partisanships produced by WWII and the Holocaust in public and private spaces throughout Europe and the Americas. This chapter will undoubtedly convince others of the film's importance. It will certainly convince the reader of Suleiman's ability to read film. She explains in detail Orphuls's method of "dialectical montage" (already evident in The Sorrow and the Pity) whereby he cuts up individual interviews and juxtaposes them with parts of others that often qualify or simply contradict what has been stated. This is why his films are "interactive documentaries" that "force the viewer into uncomfortable subject positions in relation to the material" (p. 87). No voice-over or "voice of God" commentary comes to aid the viewer who is forced to evaluate critically... (shrink)

The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence for making decisions in public affairs has sparked a lively debate on the benefits and potential harms of self-learning technologies, ranging from the hopes of fully informed and objectively taken decisions to fear for the destruction of mankind. To prevent the negative outcomes and to achieve accountable systems, many have argued that we need to open up the “black box” of AI decision-making and make it more transparent. Whereas this debate has primarily focused on (...) how transparency can secure high-quality, fair, and reliable decisions, far less attention has been devoted to the role of transparency when it comes to how the general public come to perceive AI decision-making as legitimate and worthy of acceptance. Since relying on coercion is not only normatively problematic but also costly and highly inefficient, perceived legitimacy is fundamental to the democratic system. This paper discusses how transparency in and about AI decision-making can affect the public’s perception of the legitimacy of decisions and decision-makers and produce a framework for analyzing these questions. We argue that a limited form of transparency that focuses on providing justifications for decisions has the potential to provide sufficient ground for perceived legitimacy without producing the harms full transparency would bring. (shrink)

The following analysis attempts to provide a general account of the multiple solutions given to the quantum measurement problem in terms of causality. Leaving aside instrumentalism which restricts its understanding of quantum mechanics to the algorithmic prediction of measurement outcomes, the many approaches which try to give an answer can be distinguished by their explanation based on the efficient cause —recovering in this way a classical physical description— or based on the final cause —which goes back to the hylomorphic (...) tradition. Going beyond the limits of these two schemes we call the attention to an ‘inversion of the measurement problem’ and its proposed solution based on the immanent cause. By replacing both the final and efficient causes by the immanent cause we attempt to lay down new conditions for representing quantum superpositions in a realist way which coherently relates the quantum formalism with outcomes. (shrink)

We examine the expressive power of probabilistic context free grammars (PCFGs), with a special focus on the use of probabilities as a mechanism for reducing ambiguity by filtering out unwanted parses. Probabilities in PCFGs induce an ordering relation among the set of trees that yield a given input sentence. PCFG parsers return the trees bearing the maximum probability for a given sentence, discarding all other possible trees. This mechanism is naturally viewed as a way of defining a new class of (...) tree languages. We formalize the tree language thus defined, study its expressive power, and show that the latter is beyond context freeness. While the increased expressive power offered by PCFGs helps to reduce ambiguity, we show that, in general, it cannot be decided whether a PCFG removes all ambiguities. (shrink)

Kristeva points to Montesquieu's esprit général--his notion of the social body as a guaranteed hierarchy of private rights--in this humanistic plea for tolerance and commonality.

Echoing a distinction made by David Wiggins in his discussion of the relation of identity, this paper investigates whether aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ are sortal-relative or merely sortal-dependent. The hypothesis guiding the paper is that aesthetic adjectives, though probably sortal-dependent in general, are sortal-relative only when used to characterize multifunctional artefacts. This means that multifunctional artefacts should be unique in allowing the following situation to occur: for some object x there are sortals K and K' such that x (...) is a beautiful K and also a K', but not a beautiful K'. Examples of multifunctional artefacts show that this is indeed a possibility. However, that multifunctional artefacts are unique in this respect will be demonstrated by a more principled argument, taking into account the nature of functions on the one hand, and the nature of artefact-classification on the other hand. (shrink)

BackgroundThe past 10 years have witnessed a significant growth in sharing of health data for secondary uses. Alongside this there has been growing interest in the public acceptability of data sharing and data linkage practices. Public acceptance is recognised as crucial for ensuring the legitimacy of current practices and systems of governance. Given the growing international interest in this area this systematic review and thematic synthesis represents a timely review of current evidence. It highlights the key factors influencing public responses (...) as well as important areas for further research.MethodsThis paper reports a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies examining public attitudes towards the sharing or linkage of health data for research purposes. Twenty-five studies were included in the review. The included studies were conducted primarily in the UK and North America, with one study set in Japan, another in Sweden and one in multiple countries. The included studies were conducted between 1999 and 2013. The qualitative methods represented in the studies included focus groups, interviews, deliberative events, dialogue workshops and asynchronous online interviews.ResultsKey themes identified across the corpus of studies related to the conditions necessary for public support/acceptability, areas of public concern and implications for future research. The results identify a growing body of evidence pointing towards widespread general—though conditional—support for data linkage and data sharing for research purposes. Whilst a variety of concerns were raised in cases where participants perceived there to be actual or potential public benefits from research and had trust in the individuals or organisations conducting and/or overseeing data linkage/sharing, they were generally supportive. The studies also find current low levels of awareness about existing practices and uses of data.ConclusionsWhilst the results indicate widespread public support for data sharing and linkage for research purposes, a range of concerns exist. In order to ensure public support for future research uses of data greater awareness raising combined with opportunities for public engagement and deliberation are needed. This will be essential for ensuring the legitimacy of future health informatics research and avoiding further public controversy. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is to present a critical view on Hans Kelsen's new work, Secular Religion , finished in 1964 but published only in 2012. The treatise starts with a reflection on the contemporary relevance of the problem of the bonds between Science, Politics and Religion in the Modern Times, and examines the main theses contained in Secular Religion , by pointing out its strong and weak points, and concludes with a general account on Kelsen's point (...) of view concerning the nascent "political theology". In short, Kelsen intends to demonstrate the conservative and deceptive outlines of the attitude held by many intellectuals – Erich Voegelin, Karl Löwith, Arnold J. Toynbee, Etienne Gilson, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger etc. – who see religious elements in the fundamental structures of the Modern times, such as: Philosophy, Science and Politics. According to Kelsen, such identification is not only false but also dangerous, given the fact that the characterization of the laic and democratic project of the Modern Times as some kind of religion can lead to the theologization of the thought, which is typical of totalitarian political systems. (shrink)

Depression has been linked with impaired executive control and specific impairments in inhibition of negative material. To date, only a few studies have examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and executive functions in response to emotional information. Using a new paradigm, the Affective Shift Task (AST), the present study examined whether depressive symptoms in general, and rumination specifically, are related to impairments in inhibition and set shifting in response to emotional and non-emotional material. The main finding was that depressive (...) symptoms in general were not related to inhibition. Set-shifting impairments were only observed in moderate to severely depressed individuals. Interestingly, rumination was related to inhibition impairments, specifically when processing negative information, as well as impaired set shifting as reflected in a larger shift cost. These results are discussed in relation to cognitive views on vulnerability for depression. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a general account of the causal models which attempt to provide a solution to the famous measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics. We will argue that—leaving aside instrumentalism which restricts the physical meaning of QM to the algorithmic prediction of measurement outcomes—the many interpretations which can be found in the literature can be distinguished through the way they model the measurement process, either in terms of the efficient cause or in terms of the final cause. (...) We will discuss and analyze why both, ‘final cause’ and ‘efficient cause’ models, face severe difficulties to solve the measurement problem. In contradistinction to these schemes we will present a new model based on the immanent cause which, we will argue, provides an intuitive understanding of the measurement process in QM. (shrink)

There is perhaps no text with a broader impact on our lives than the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights . It is strange, therefore, that historians have paid so little attention to the UDHR. I argue that its potential impact on the study of history is profound. After asking whether the UDHR contains a general view of history, I address the consequences of the UDHR for the rights and duties of historians, and explain how it deals with their (...) subjects of study. I demonstrate that the UDHR is a direct source of five important rights for historians: the rights to free expression and information, to meet and found associations, to intellectual property, to academic freedom, and to silence. It is also an indirect source of three duties for historians: the duties to produce expert knowledge about the past, to disseminate it, and to teach about it. I discuss the limits to, and conflicts among, these rights and duties. The UDHR also has an impact on historians’ subjects of study: I argue that the UDHR applies to the living but not to the dead, and that, consequently, it is a compass for studying recent rather than remote historical injustice. Nevertheless, and although it is itself silent about historians’ core duties to find and tell the truth, the UDHR firmly supports an emerging imprescriptible right to the truth, which in crucial respects is nothing less than a right to history. If the UDHR is a “Magna Carta of all men everywhere,” it surely is one for all historians. (shrink)

The paper discusses legal implications of the expansion of practical uses of mathematics in social life. Taking as a starting point the omnipresence of mathematical infrastructures underlying policies, technology and markets, the paper proceeds by attending to relevant materials offered by general philosophy, legal philosophy, and the history and philosophy of mathematics. The paper suggests that the modern transformation of mathematics and its practical applications have spurred the emergence of multiple useful technologies and forms of social interaction but have (...) impoverished access to meanings originating in the lifeworld. The paper also argues that, as part of devices of interest aggregation and expert networks, mathematical infrastructures can be scrutinized by a revised form of legal practice that subjects them to legal critique and reconstruction in order to overcome conditions that have eroded the moral self-awareness of individuals and communities and their existential meanings. (shrink)

One area of ethical concern in higher education is writing services for graduate students, which can range from simple proofreading to rewriting content for flow, coherence, and structure to extensive content creation akin to ghostwriting. There are various ways to look at the use of writing services: 1) as a clear violations of ethics, presenting the student as a more capable writer than he or she is; 2) as a “necessary evil” resulting from greater numbers of individuals with inadequate writing (...) preparation entering university graduate programs; and 3) as a routine part of professional practice utilized by published writers who uniformly benefit from editing and proofreading. Professors, research advisors, and writing center tutors must face a range of ethical questions regarding writing assistance, particularly given that many graduate students, particularly those at the doctoral level, will soon be established professionals expected to guide others in the production of scholarly work. What are the ethical differences between types of writing assistance? What is the appropriate level of writing help for those in graduate programs? How does a strict stance on the editing of student papers reflect on the common practice of professional editing for publication—which can make published writers appear perhaps more capable than they really are? This article examines the complex issues those working with graduate students can face in trying to improve the writing they produce while also maintaining strong ethical standards regarding authorship and encouraging the learning process. It provides an overview of the ethical issues involved in writing services and extensive outside writing help provided to graduate students, and offers suggestions for creating a balance between compassion, professionalism, and honesty in graduate writing. It also proposes general ideas for offering appropriate assistance based on the type of writing in question—assistance that honors the learning process, demonstrates respect for the concept of authorship, and adheres to the concepts of Respect for Persons, Beneficence, and Justice outlined in the Belmont Report. (shrink)

The relationship between sociology and bioethics has been an uneasy one. It has been described as contentious and adversarial, and at least some of the sociologists who have ventured into the territory of medical ethics report back on unfriendly natives. This bioethical ill will toward sociology is not without cause. Sociologists have been quite critical of what they call the bioethical project. Two decades ago - when bioethics was just getting up on its organizational feet - Renée Fox and Judith (...) Swazey leveled the charge of cultural myopia against bioethics, noting that this myopia generally manifests itself in the form of systematic inattention to the social and cultural sources and implications of its own thought. They go on to say ifbioethics is an indicator of the general state of American ideas, values, and beliefs, of our collective self knowledge, and our understanding of other societies and cultures - then there is every reason to be worried about who we are, what we have become, and where we are going. (shrink)