Au début de la deuxième vague de COVID-19, le 7 novembre 2020, était organisé le séminaire « Questions d’éthique » au Lieu Unique à Nantes (France). La conférence du Pr. Axel Kahn était axée sur la perspective éthique des relations entre information et médias, chercheurs et essais cliniques, liberté individuelle et démocratie sanitaire, mais également l’urgence des soins, le tri des patients et le confinement. Partant du caractère indispensable de l’ « éthique en temps de crise », titre de sa (...) conférence, il analyse sa pratique à travers le prisme de la liberté et de la responsabilité. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists have attempted to elucidate the nature of mental representation by appealing to notions like isomorphism or abstract structural resemblance. The ‘structural representations’ that these theorists champion are said to count as representations by virtue of functioning as internal models of distal systems. In his 2007 book, Representation Reconsidered, William Ramsey endorses the structural conception of mental representation, but uses it to develop a novel argument against representationalism, the widespread view that cognition essentially involves the manipulation of (...) mental representations. Ramsey argues that although theories within the ‘classical’ tradition of cognitive science once posited structural representations, these theories are being superseded by newer theories, within the tradition of connectionism and cognitive neuroscience, which rarely if ever appeal to structural representations. Instead, these theories seem to be explaining cognition by invoking so-called ‘receptor representations’, which, Ramsey claims, aren’t genuine representations at all—despite being called representations, these mechanisms function more as triggers or causal relays than as genuine stand-ins for distal systems. I argue that when the notions of structural and receptor representation are properly explicated, there turns out to be no distinction between them. There only appears to be a distinction between receptor and structural representations because the latter are tacitly conflated with the ‘mental models’ ostensibly involved in offline cognitive processes such as episodic memory and mental imagery. While structural representations might count as genuine representations, they aren’t distinctively mental representations, for they can be found in all sorts of non-intentional systems such as plants. Thus to explain the kinds of offline cognitive capacities that have motivated talk of mental models, we must develop richer conceptions of mental representation than those provided by the notions of structural and receptor representation. (shrink)

The contributors to _Somaesthetics and Sport_ explore our embodied experiences of watching and playing sport, including sport’s beauty; the place of exercise in our sense of living a good life; and how we cope with pain and suffering.

If a man born blind were to gain his sight in later life would he be able to identify the objects he saw around him? Would he recognise a cube and a globe on the basis of his earlier tactile experiences alone? This was William Molyneux's famous question to John Locke and it was much discussed by English and French empiricists in the eighteenth century as part of the controversy over innatism and abstract ideas. Dr Morgan examines the whole (...) history of this debate: Locke's own (negative) answer to the question, the contributions of Berkeley, Condillac, Diderot and Voltaire and the factual accounts of early cataract operations and modern laboratory studies. He shows how this debate is involved in the development and eventual separation of philosophy and experimental psychology after the eighteenth century and considers why the original question is effectively still unanswered. This is one problem-area with its intricate cluster of connected conceptual and technical difficulties which suggests the need for some reunion or at least collaboration between the two subjects. (shrink)

This book provides a clear and helpful overview of the philosophical core of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most significant and interesting philosophers of the late twentieth century.

My argument will proceed as follows. I will first sketch out the broad internalist case for pitching its normative account of sport in the abstract manner that following Dworkin’s lead in the philosophy of law its adherents insist upon. I will next show that the normative deficiencies in social conventions broad internalists uncover are indeed telling but misplaced since they hold only for what David Lewis famously called ‘coordinating’ conventions. I will then distinguish coordinating conventions from deep ones and make (...) my case not only for the normative salience of deep conventions but for their normative superiority over the abstract normative principles broad internalists champion. (shrink)

Subjects have various ways of thinking about themselves. Here are three examples: a subject can think of herself under an appropriate description (the hiker), d.

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Sport is a landmark publication in sport studies. It goes further than any book has before in tracing the contours of the discipline of the philosophy of sport and in surveying the core themes, approaches and theories that form its disciplinary fabric. The book explores the ways in which an understanding of philosophy can inform our understanding of important prevailing issues in sport. Edited by two of the most significant figures in the development (...) of the philosophy of sport, Mike McNamee and Bill Morgan, and with contributions from many of the world’s leading sport philosophers, this is an invaluable companion reference volume for any course in the social scientific study of sport, and an essential addition to the bookshelf of any serious scholar of the philosophy and/or ethics of sport. (shrink)

It will surprise no readers that Germans fiercely debated the notion of revelation from 1750 to 1850. Nevertheless, few would deny the difficulties inherent to studying the topic, with its bewilder...

This article explores the characteristics of research sites that scientists have called “natural experiments” to understand and develop usable distinctions for the social sciences between “Nature’s or Society’s experiments” and “natural experiments.” In this analysis, natural experiments emerge as the retro-fitting by social scientists of events that have happened in the social world into the traditional forms of field or randomized trial experiments. By contrast, “Society’s experiments” figure as events in the world that happen in circumstances that are already sufficiently (...) “controlled” to be open for direct analysis without reconstruction work. (shrink)

Some have claimed that there are laws of appearance, i.e. in principle constraints on which types of sensory experiences are possible. Within a representationalist framework, these laws amount to restrictions on what a given experience can represent. I offer an in-depth defence of one such law and explain why prevalent externalist varieties of representationalism have trouble accommodating it. In light of this, I propose a variety of representationalism on which the spatial content of experience is determined by intrinsic features of (...) conscious subjects. I conclude by considering an externalist-friendly reworking of my proposal, but suggest that the success of such a reworking is dubious. (shrink)

Based on the "Guide to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990", this volume reviews the regulation of assisted conception including complex moral issues such as abortion, embryo research and cloning.

Les années 1960-1970 marquent une étape importante dans la rencontre entre l'école et les médias. Nous cherchons ici à mettre en évidence comment la nécessaire prise en compte de l'environnement médiatique et les questions qu'il a générées ont suscité de fructueuses rencontres entre deux champs d'activités, l'éducation et la communication. À quelles sources théoriques, à quels courants de pensée, à quels mouvements sociaux ces deux secteurs ont-ils pu s'alimenter réciproquement, pour finalement donner naissance, à travers une histoire tourmentée, à un (...) champ d'intervention et de recherches spécifique: l'interrelation éducation-communication?.The years 1960-1970 marked an important stage in the meeting between the schools and the media. We attempt here to highlight how the need to take account of the media environment and the issues it has generated have generated fruitful encounters between two fields, education and communication. On what theoretical sources, what currents of thought, what social movements both sectors could they eat each other, finally giving birth through a turbulent history, a field of intervention and research specific: the interrelation education-communication? (shrink)

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with (...) both negative and positive reactions. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Del Mar offered two main criticisms of Marmor’s account of social conventions. The first took issue with Marmor’s claim that the constitutive rules of games and kindred social practices determine in an objective way their central aims and values; the second charged Marmor with scanting the historical context in which conventions do their important normative work in shaping the goals of games. I argue that Del Mar’s criticism of Marmor’s account of the normative (...) centrality and force of constitutive rules in games and the like fails, but that his criticism faulting Marmor for giving short shrift to the normative work conventions do in these social practices is on the mark. So while I reject Del Mar’s claim that a closer look at the social and historical contexts in which the conventions of games and the like carry out their normative tasks undermines Marmor’s account of constitutive rules, I think his argument that conventions play a far more important, even if supplementary, role in shaping our understanding of and participation in these social practices than Marmor allows is persuasive. (shrink)

In his book, The Last Word, Thomas Nagel expresses the hope that there exists no God. Guy Kahane, in his paper ‘Should We Want God to Exist?’, attempts to defend Nagel from an argument that concludes such a hope may be impermissible. In this paper we present a new defense for the hope that God does not exist.

After yeast cells commit to the cell cycle in a process called START, genes required for DNA synthesis are expressed in late G1. Periodicity is mediated by a hexameric sequence, known as a MCB element, present in all DNA synthesis gene promoters. A complex that specifically binds MCBs has been identified. One polypeptide in the MCB complex is Swi6, a transcription factor that together with Swi4 also binds G1 cyclin promoters and participates in a positive feedback loop at START. The (...) finding that Swi6 is directly involved in both START and DNA synthesis gene control suggest a model in which Swi6, activated through its participation in START, serves as the central transcription factor in coordinating late G1 gene expression. The mechanism may be conserved in all eukaryotic cells. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir held that human experience is intrinsically ambiguous and that there are no values extrinsic to experience, but she also designated some actions as absolute evil. This essay explains how Beauvoir utilized an intrinsic absolute value to ground an action-guiding principle of freedom that justifies her notion of evil. Morgan's analysis counters Robin May Schott's objections that Beauvoir failed to systematically justify her notion of absolute evil and that Beauvoir shifted from a “logic of action” to a (...) “logic of history” when she utilized the concept. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die philosophische und psychologische Literatur zum Begriff der Dankbarkeit bis ins Jahr 2013. Geprüft werden die in beiden Wissenschaften veröffentlichten Arbeiten vor allem hinsichtlich ihrer begrifflichen Grundlagen und der ethischen Bewertung von Dankbarkeit, etwa als Pflicht, Tugend oder Supererogation. Die Analyse zeigt, dass jeweils mit einer Reihe untereinander unvereinbarer Begriffsverständnisse gearbeitet wird, sodass die Debatte von einem komplexen Netzwerk sich überschneidender und überkreuzender Begriffe geprägt ist. Der Beitrag endet mit Vorschlägen für die weitere Forschung. (...) Psychologen wird empfohlen, ihre Konzeptionen von Dankbarkeit präziser zu fassen und zu begründen sowie Bottom-up-Studien zum alltagspraktischen Begriff der Dankbarkeit durchzuführen. Philosophen sollten dagegen der in den Sozialwissenschaften durchgeführten Bottom-up-Arbeit mehr Beachtung schenken. (shrink)

The fifth edition of Michael L. Morgan's Classics of Moral and Political Theory broadens the scope and increases the versatility of this landmark anthology by offering new selections from Aristotle's Politics, Aquinas' Disputed Questions on Virtue and Treatise on Law, as well as the entirety of Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration, Kant's To Perpetual Peace, and Nietzsche's On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life.

ABSTRACT The IAB Presidential Address was delivered by Alexander Capron to the internationally gathered audience at the Closing Ceremony of the 8th World Congress of Bioethics, Beijing on 9th August 2006.

Morality is one of the fundamental structures of any society, enabling complex groups to form, negotiate their internal differences and persist through time. In the first book-length study of Roman popular morality, Dr Morgan argues that we can recover much of the moral thinking of people across the Empire. Her study draws on proverbs, fables, exemplary stories and gnomic quotations, to explore how morality worked as a system for Roman society as a whole and in individual lives. She examines (...) the range of ideas and practices and their relative importance, as well as questions of authority and the relationship with high philosophy and the ethical vocabulary of documents and inscriptions. The Roman Empire incorporated numerous overlapping groups, whose ideas varied according to social status, geography, gender and many other factors. Nevertheless it could and did hold together as an ethical community, which was a significant factor in its socio-political success. (shrink)

This article undertakes a crucial examination of Kant’s depiction of the interconnectedness between human reason and the divine. The argument posits that Kant conceptualizes reason as inherently founded on a divine basis. The primary objective of this article is not to delve into whether Kant endorses or dismisses specific Christian doctrines, or if his portrayal of reason aligns with a particular strand of Christian thought. Instead, the aim is to chart an interpretive middle path – one that embraces the profound (...) philosophical underpinnings embedded in Kant’s rationalist legacy while recognizing the inherent limitations he imposes on human reason. The conclusion drawn is that Kant’s account of reason tends towards the divine, though the precise nature of this interconnectedness remains shrouded in mystery. (shrink)

Much controversy surrounds Schenker's mature theory and its attempt to explain musical pitch motion. Becoming Heinrich Schenker brings a new perspective to Schenker's theoretical work, showing that ideas characteristic of his mature theory, although in many respects fundamentally different, developed logically out of his earlier ideas. Robert P. Morgan provides an introduction to Schenker's mature theory and traces its development through all of his major publications, considering each in detail and with numerous music examples. Morgan also explores the (...) relationship between Schenker's theory and his troubled ideology, which crucially influenced the evolution of his ideas and was heavily dependent upon both the empirical and idealist strains of contemporary German philosophical thought. Relying where possible on quotations from Schenker's own words, this book offers a balanced approach to his theory and a unique overview of this central music figure, generally considered to be the most prominent music theorist of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Do we have to conceive of ourselves as isolated individuals, inevitably distanced from other people and from whatever we might mean when we use the word God? On Becoming God offers an innovative approach to the history of the modern Western self by looking at human identity as something people do together rather than on their own. Ben Morgan argues that the shared practices of human identity can be understood as ways of managing and keeping at bay the impulses (...) and experiences associated with the word God. The "self" is a way of doing things, or of not doing things, with "God." The book draws on phenomenology, gender studies and contemporary neuroscience to present a new approach to the history of modern identity. It surveys existing approaches to modern selfhood and proposes an alternative account by investigating late medieval mysticism, in particular texts written in Germany by Meister Eckhart and others in the same milieu. Reactions to the condemnation of Meister Eckhart's teaching for heresy in 1329 offer a microcosm of the circumstances in which something like the modern self arises as people change their behavior toward others, toward themselves, and toward what they call "God." The book makes Meister Eckhart and his contemporaries appear as our contemporaries by changing the assumptions with which we approach our own identity. To make this change requires a revision of current vocabularies for approaching ourselves, and in particular the vocabulary and habits inherited from psychoanalysis. The book finishes by exploring the parallel between late medieval confessors and their spiritual charges, and late-nineteenth-century psychoanalysts and their patients. The result is a renewed vision of the Freud's project of finding a vocabulary for acknowledging and nurturing our everyday commitments to others and to our spiritual longings. (shrink)

The standard account of elsewhere is that it is any place that isn’t here. In this paper I argue against this account by demonstrating that it results in a contra-diction. In its place I offer a modified account of elsewhere; where a place can only be elsewhere if it is in the same type of space as here.

Induction of c‐fos expression occurs following treatment of diverse cell types with agents that trigger mitogenesis, differentiation or membrane depolarization. We suggest that c‐fos may be regarded as a marker for a set of rapidly induced genes (termed cellular immediate‐early genes) whose function is to couple extracellular stimulation to long‐term responses. In the brain, these genes may contribute to the adaptive alterations involved in neuronal plasticity.