The current study examined the effects of an intervention aimed at blocking the transfer of frustration from a previous experience (i.e. recall task) to a subsequent and unrelated task (i.e. ultimatum bargaining task). Participants who went through the intervention were more likely to accept unfair offers in the ultimatum bargaining task than those who did not go through the intervention. These results show that participants who were blocked from transferring their feelings of frustration from the recall task to the subsequent (...) bargaining task (no-transfer condition) more likely accepted unfair offers than those who inadvertently transferred their feelings of frustration (transfer condition). The effect of conditions on accept-reject decisions in the ultimatum bargaining was mediated by reported feelings of frustration. (shrink)

Animal use in medical research is widely accepted on the basis that it may help to save human lives and improve their quality of life. Recently, however, objections have been made specifically to the use of animals in scientific investigation of human obesity. This paper discusses two arguments for the view that this form of animal use, unlike some other forms of animal-based medical research, cannot be defended. The first argument leans heavily on the notion that people themselves are responsible (...) for developing obesity and so-called ‘lifestyle’ diseases; the second involves the claim that animal studies of obesity's causes and therapies distract attention from preventive efforts. Drawing on both empirical data and moral reasoning, we argue that the relevant attributions of responsibility and claims about distraction are not plausible, and that, therefore, there is no reason to single out the use of animals in obesity research as especially problematic. (shrink)

Animal welfare and the ethical issues it raises have been discussed intensively for a couple of decades. The emphasis has been on the direct effects of housing and husbandry, but more attention is now being given to problems originating in selective breeding. European attempts to adjust animal welfare legislation to deal with these problems have been largely unsuccessful, but the fact that selective breeding can introduce welfare problems continues to place an ethical responsibility on the animal breeding industry. Since breeding (...) decisions are made centrally and, increasingly, internationally, strategic change is only likely to occur if it is embedded in an international agreement of some kind. The aim of this paper is to describe the key ethical issues facing animal breeding and assess the suggestion that the breeding industry itself can deal with ethical issues by means of an ethical code. Results from recent projects involving commercial breeding enterprises are presented. (shrink)

This article is a polemic with the article by Marian Przełęcki, O pewnych filozoficznych konsekwencjach semantycznej definicji prawdy published by “Studia Filozoficzne” 6, 1973. Przełęcki claimed that certain evaluative propositions have a logical value by virtue of containing evaluative predicates which are commonly understood. The functioning of these predicates in natural languages makes it possible to identify their denotation in these languages, and thus it is possible to assign logical values to the propositions that predicate about different elements of the (...) world their values in all cases when these elements do not fall into the range of vagueness of the predicates used. The authors of the polemic points out that the propositions analysed by Przełęcki are in fact descriptive and not normative because their logical value is determined by a common understanding of the evaluative predicates which they contain. These propositions do not say what is morally good, but, what is commonly believed to be morally good. Consequently, the problem of logical value of evaluative propositions has not been settled in Przełęcki’s article, while the ascription of logical values to propositions belonging to descriptive ethics, which is the real subject matter of the article, hardly poses any questions. The authors of this polemic contend that it is not possible to settle the problem of logical value of evaluative propositions without an analysis of the meaning of evaluative predicates. (shrink)

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep brain (...) stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

The movement for the revival of the Scholastic tradition (Neo-Scholasticism) was a reaction to devastating criticism by the representatives of Enlightenment which led to the destruction of traditional metaphysics and of epistemological optimism, the two pillars of European religious philosophy. Reception of Kantian ideas in Neo-Scholasticism varied from total rejection to its use in renewing the philosophical foundation of religious philosophy. In this regard the legacy of the Polotsk Jesuit Academy was one of the first attempts to interpret Kant’s ideas (...) and confront them in the framework of the Scholastic tradition. It is therefore not irrelevant to look at how Kant’s programmatic ideas were perceived at the Polotsk Jesuit Academy, one of the few centres of Jesuit philosophy that survived in the territory of the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century. The object of this study is the attempt at a critical analysis of Kant made in the Philosophical Instructions for Students at the Polotsk Academy by the Academy’s professor, Giuseppe Angiolini. Angiolini constantly refers to Kant in his reasoning and sees him as his main ideological rival. The ideas articulated in the Philosophical Instructions influenced the philosophical positions of the Academy’s graduates who in turn made a tangible contribution to the development of the Belarusian intellectual tradition. The relationship between Kant’s ideas and the ideas Angiolini drew from the Scholastic tradition is analysed through the use of the concepts that are common to both trends, such as the transcendental, the empirical and the sensible, self-evident truths and common sense. (shrink)

Plagiarism and other transgressions of the norms of academic integrity appear to be a persistent problem among upper secondary students. Numerous surveys have revealed high levels of infringement of what appear to be clearly stated rules. Less attention has been given to students’ understanding of academic integrity, and to the potential misconceptions and false beliefs that may make it difficult for them to comply with existing rules and handle complex real-life situations.In this paper we report findings from a survey of (...) European upper secondary students’ views on issues relating to academic integrity. We relate these findings to the students’ training about academic integrity, self-reported level of questionable behavior and country of study.A total of 1654 students at 51 institutions located in 6 European countries participated in the study. The participants generally believed they had a good understanding of the rules applying to them and knew how to behave in compliance with norms of academic integrity. The results indicate, however, that often, in practice, this belief was mistaken. Many students had an inadequate understanding of core elements of academic integrity. They were uncertain about how to act, and they struggled in the handling of complex situations that require context-sensitive judgement. While some differences between countries were identified, they were modest and exhibited no clear pattern. Our results also suggest that reducing students’ level of uncertainty and, to a lesser degree, improving their level of knowledge could lead them to engage less in certain types of questionable behaviours. Surprisingly, the effect of academic training is modest and ambiguous. The study also confirms that perception of peer behaviour has the strongest association with student engagement in questionable behaviours. Thus, academic integrity at the upper secondary level cannot be explained simply in terms of individual ethics or knowledge. (shrink)

This study examined linguistic patterns in mothers’ reports about their toddlers’ involvement in everyday household work, as a way to understand the parental ethnotheories that may guide children’s prosocial helping and development. Mothers from two cultural groups – US Mexican-heritage families with backgrounds in indigenous American communities and middle-class European American families – were interviewed regarding how their 2- to 3-year-old toddler gets involved in help with everyday household work. The study’s analytic focus was mothers’ responses to interview questions asking (...) about the child’s efforts to help with a variety of everyday household work tasks. Results showed that mothers responded with linguistic patterns that were indicative of ethnotheoretical assumptions regarding children’s agency and children’s prosocial intentions, with notable contrasts between the two cultural groups. Nearly all US Mexican-heritage mothers reported children’s contributions and participation using linguistic forms that centered children’s agency and prosocial initiative, which corresponds with extensive evidence suggesting the centrality of both children’s autonomy and supportive prosocial expectations in how children’s helpfulness is supported in this and similar cultural communities. By contrast, middle-class European American mothers frequently responded to questions about their child’s efforts to help with linguistic forms that “pivoted” to either the mother as the focal agent in the child’s prosocial engagement or to reframing the child’s involvement to emphasize non-help activities. Correspondence between cultural differences in the linguistic findings and existing literature on socialization of children’s prosocial helping is discussed. Also discussed is the analytic approach of the study, uncommon in developmental psychology research, and the significance of the linguistic findings for understanding parental ethnotheories in each community. (shrink)

Several writers on animal ethics defend the abolition of most or all animal agriculture, which they consider an unethical exploitation of sentient non-human animals. However, animal agriculture can also be seen as a co-evolution over thousands of years, that has affected biology and behavior on the one hand, and quality of life of humans and domestic animals on the other. Furthermore, animals are important in sustainable agriculture. They can increase efficiency by their ability to transform materials unsuitable for human consumption (...) and by grazing areas that would be difficult to harvest otherwise. Grazing of natural pastures is essential for the pastoral landscape, an important habitat for wild flora and fauna and much valued by humans for its aesthetic value. Thus it seems that the environment gains substantially when animals are included in sustainable agricultural systems. But what about the animals themselves? Objections against animal agriculture often refer to the disrespect for animals’ lives, integrity, and welfare in present intensive animal production systems. Of the three issues at stake, neither integrity nor animal welfare need in principle be violated in carefully designed animal husbandry systems. The main ethical conflict seems to lie in the killing of animals, which is inevitable if the system is to deliver animal products. In this paper, we present the benefits and costs to humans and animals of including animals in sustainable agriculture, and discuss how to address some of the ethical issues involved. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory $\cal Q$ allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that $x = x$ is not a formula, if $x$ is an arbitrary term. $\cal Q$ was partially motivated by the problem of non-individuality in quantum mechanics. In this paper I discuss the range of explanatory power of $\cal Q$ for quantum phenomena which demand some notion of indistinguishability among quantum objects. My main focus is (...) on the double-slit experiment, a major physical phenomenon which was never modeled from a quasi-set-theoretic point of view. The double-slit experiment strongly motivates the concept of degrees of indistinguishability within a field-theoretic approach, and that notion is simply missing in $\cal Q$. Nevertheless, other physical situations may eventually demand a revision on quasi-set theory axioms, if someone intends to use it in the quantum realm for the purpose of a clear discussion about non-individuality. I use this opportunity to suggest another way to cope with identity in quantum theories. (shrink)

Good academic practice is more than the avoidance of clear-cut cheating. It also involves navigation of the gray zones between cheating and good practice. The existing literature has left students’ understanding of gray zone practices largely unexplored. To begin filling in this gap, we present results from a questionnaire study involving N = 1639 undergraduate students from seven European countries representing all major disciplines. We show that large numbers of these students are unable to identify gray area issues and lack (...) sensitivity to the context dependence of these. We also show that a considerable proportion of students have a poor understanding of concepts like plagiarism and falsification, not only in gray zone scenarios, but also in cases of relatively clear-cut cheating. Our results are similar across the faculties and countries of study, and even for students who have attended academic integrity training. We discuss the implications of this for academic integrity training. (shrink)

In the article, tenderness, a category presented in the Nobel Prize speech by Olga Tokarczuk, is analyzed as a new ethical imperative, developing the feminist relational ethics, i.e. the ethics of care. In the proposed interpretation, tenderness is a broader category than care understood in feminist terms: it is more universal, inclusive, and unifying. Tenderness also applies to – or perhaps most of all – the world beyond-the-human, as it goes beyond the anthropocentric perspective of the ethics of care. The (...) article opens with a brief overview of feminist interventions in ethics, with an emphasis on the ethics of care. In the next step, the differences between care and tenderness are identified and described to show how the latter can develop and complement feminist ethics of care. Considerations are driven by the question of why tenderness is a better moral imperative than care – more adequate and responding to the challenges of the present times. in the last part of the article, the tender existential attunement is also interpreted in aesthetic terms as an attitude sensitizing to the beauty and complexity of the post-anthropocentric world. (shrink)

SPINOZA AND KANT ON THE NATURE OF HUMAN MIND In the paper I try to compare the Spinozian and the Kantian accounts of the mind, underlining their relevance to contemporary debates in the area. I also discuss the problem of the nature of consciousness, in particular whether, on the basis of both Spinoza’s and Kant’s theories, one can claim that consciousness, or mentality, can be regarded as specifically distinctive of human beings. My suggestion is that one cannot. Keywords: SPINOZA, KANT, (...) MIND, NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} is a first order theory which allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that x = x is not a formula, if x is an arbitrary term. The terms of????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} are either collections or atoms (empty terms who are not collections), in a precise sense. (...) Within this context,????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} is supposed to be some sort of generalization of ZFU (ZF with atoms). Strangely enough, no one published any permutation model of quasi-set theory until now, although this theory is already 30 years old. In this paper I introduce a class of permutation models of????′\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}'$$\end{document} defined as????−{Axiom of Choice and all axioms involving quasi-cardinality}\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}-\{\text{Axiom of Choice and all axioms involving quasi-cardinality}\}$$\end{document}. I show, for example, that all permutation models of????′\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}'$$\end{document} are models of ZFU−{Axiom of Choice}. (shrink)

Nature in the Politics has been most extensively studied in the context of the book 1 argument that the polis is "by nature." Fred Miller's Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics is a landmark in this respect as in many others, and his discussion of the naturalness of the polis is, I think, definitive, and should put an end to the notion that according to Aristotle people find their natural end functioning as mere parts in some large organic social (...) whole. However, nature in Aristotle's ethical and political works contains complications outside book 1, and I hope that there remain some points to be made and issues to be elucidated. (shrink)

The aim of UK-REACH (“The United Kingdom Research study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 outcomes in Healthcare workers”) is to understand if, how, and why healthcare workers (HCWs) in the United Kingdom (UK) from ethnic minority groups are at increased risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19. In this article, we present findings from the ethical and legal stream of the study, which undertook qualitative research seeking to understand and address legal, ethical, and social acceptability issues around data protection, privacy, and information (...) governance associated with the linkage of HCWs’ registration data and healthcare data. We interviewed 22 key opinion leaders in healthcare and health research from across the UK in two-to-one semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were coded using qualitative thematic analysis. Participants told us that a significant aspect of Big Data research in public health is varying drivers of mistrust—of the research itself, research staff and funders, and broader concerns of mistrust within participant communities, particularly in the context of COVID-19 and those situated in more marginalised community settings. However, despite the challenges, participants also identified ways in which legally compliant and ethically informed approaches to research can be crafted to mitigate or overcome mistrust and establish greater confidence in Big Data public health research. Overall, our research indicates that a “Big Data Ethics by Design” approach to research in this area can help assure (1) that meaningful community and participant engagement is taking place and that extant challenges are addressed, and (2) that any new challenges or hitherto unknown unknowns can be rapidly and properly considered to ensure potential (but material) harms are identified and minimised where necessary. Our findings indicate such an approach, in turn, will help drive better scientific breakthroughs that translate into medical innovations and effective public health interventions, which benefit the publics studied, including those who are often marginalised in research. (shrink)

Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst share a long-standing collaboration that has lasted from Dunst's adolescence onwards and into mature womanhood. As a former child star, Dunst has grown up in front o...

Epistemic injustice is a kind of injustice that arises when one’s capacity as an epistemic subject is wrongfully denied. In recent years it has been argued that psychiatric patients are often harmed in their capacity as knowers and suffer from various forms of epistemic injustice that they encounter in psychiatric services. Acknowledging that epistemic injustice is a multifaceted problem in psychiatry calls for an adequate response. In this paper I argue that, given that psychiatric patients deserve epistemic respect and have (...) a certain epistemic privilege, healthcare professionals have a pro tanto epistemic duty to attend to and/or solicit reports of patients’ first-person experiences in order to prevent epistemic losses. I discuss the nature and scope of this epistemic duty and point to one interesting consequence. In order to prevent epistemic losses, healthcare professionals may need to provide some patients with resources and tools for expressing their experiences and first-person knowledge, such as those that have been developed within the phenomenological approach. I discuss the risk of secondary testimonial and hermeneutical injustice that the practice of relying on such external tools might pose and survey some ways to mitigate it. (shrink)

Investigation of spiritual-moral factors of psychological defence of personality is being put in practice through Christian cognition about a man and with the help of modern psychological achievement in science. The most important spiritual factors are sin and passion. Sin is observed as one of the reasons of moral men'sdiseases, which brings to moral, psychological and body's destructions and unconscious psychological defence. Defensive mechanisms is the way to support men's sin passion, blunt conscience, keep positive illusion and unbroken “I” of (...) his personality. All the necessary ways to overcome destructive psychologicaldefence and to get mental healthy are being observed. Confession, prayer, keep eating, taking part in Church Mystery, charity-wisdom are the main ways in Christian Tradition. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine Abelard’s model of the incarnation and place it within the wider context of his views in metaphysics and logic. In particular, we consider whether Abelard has the resources to solve the major difficulties faced by the so-called “compositional models” of the incarnation, such as his own. These difficulties include: the requirement to account for Christ’s unity as a single person, despite being composed of two concrete particulars; the requirement to allow that Christ is identical with (...) the pre-existent Son, despite the fact that the pre-existent Son is a (proper) part of the incarnate Christ; and finally the requirement to avoid Nestorianism, i.e., the position that Christ’s proper parts are persons in their own right. We argue that Abelard does have adequate solutions to these problems. In particular, we show that his theories of relations and predication can be put to use in defence of a compositional account of the incarnation. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the acquisition of the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality. Evidentiality markers encode the speaker’s source for the information being reported in the utterance. While languages like English express evidentiality in lexical markers (I saw that it was raining vs. I heard that it was raining), other languages grammaticalize evidentiality. In Turkish, for all instances of past reference there is an obligatory choice between the suffixes -DI (realized as –di, -dı, -du, -dü, -ti, -tı, -tu, -tü (...) depending on the vowel harmony) and –mIs (realized as -mis, -mıs, -mus, -müs depending on the vowel harmony). These past-tense morphemes also carry evidential meanings: the morpheme –DI is used to describe witnessed events and the morpheme –mIs is used to describe information acquired from someone (hearsay) or some clue (inference). (shrink)

In his treatise on dreams Somniorum Synesiorum Libri IIII, published in 1562, the Italian Renaissance philosopher and physician Girolamo Cardano distinguishes between idola and visiones. Historians have discussed the reasons for such a distinction without taking into account Cardano’s original theory of sense-perception. In this article I shall argue that, in order to interpret the meaning of idola and visiones in Cardano’s theory of dreams, one should bear in mind his view that hearing is superior to sight and that while (...) idola are essentially based on sound, visiones depend on images. (shrink)

The article refers to Helena Eilstein’s views: her analysis of biblical contradictions and a limited moral relativism (similar observations made by Leszek Kołakowski are also evoked). It classifies the types of contradictions found in the Bible and suggests how to deal with them. At times the conceptual apparatus created in the philosophy of science is used and a connection to scientific cognition is made, for foundations of philosophy of science can influence the attitude towards biblical contradictions. It emphasizes the role (...) of individual attitudes and the psychological conditionality of taking moral decisions, as well as the importance of shaping moral sensitivity. Metaphors play a double role in the Bible. Firstly, metaphorical interpretations eliminate contradictions. Secondly, metaphors are useful for shaping moral sensitivity. (shrink)

I argue that Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight are best seen as an example of memento mori art. Memento mori, the admonition to remember death, can take many forms, but the idea remains the same, namely that an awareness of our inevitable end should bear on how we live. I show how Richard Linklater’s warning works in each of the movies and argue that with the Before trilogy he makes a Frankfurt-style case that romantic love is life’s summum (...) bonum--i.e. "the ultimate ground of practical rationality.". (shrink)

Grounding theorists insist that grounding and explanation are intimately related. This claim could be understood as saying either that grounding ‘inherits’ its properties from explanation or it could be interpreted as saying that grounding plays an important—possibly an indispensable—role in metaphysical explanation. Or both. I argue that saying that grounding ‘inherits’ its properties from explanation can only be justified if grounding is explanatory by nature, but that this view is untenable. We ought therefore to be ‘separatists’ and view grounding and (...) explanation as distinct. As it turns out, though, once grounding has been in this sense distinguished from the explanation it backs, the view that the role grounding plays in explanation justifies its introduction ends up in serious trouble. I conclude that the role grounding plays in explanation does not justify attributing to grounding whatever nature we think it has, and it most likely does not give us any special reason to think grounding exists. (shrink)

The paper is aiming to present and analyse the notions used by Adam Smith: ‘instinct’ and ‘ appetites’. They appear in two of the Scottish philosopher’s works: in ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ and in an essay ‘ Of the External Senses’. Smith noticed that there are certain inborn mechanisms that suggest the existence of crucial needs and means leading to satisfy those needs. That concerns, mostly, hunger and thirst, but also sex drive. He regarded the need of self-preservation and (...) of caring for one’s own well-being as crucial for a man’s behaviour. The essay ‘ Of the External Senses’ mentions instinctive correlation of the objects of sight with the objects of touch as crucial for the human survival, basing on George Berkeley’s theory of vision. Smith’s remarks on appetites give a new perspective on how the mechanisms given us by Nature influence moral and social individuals, at the same time completing the philosopher’s theory. The need to care for self ’s prosperity and survival can be regarded not only as an instinct, but also as actions leading to realisation of the virtue of prudence. Moreover, we learn how to fulfil our instinctive needs and appetites within the society, searching for acceptable means. In the paper Smith’s view of instincts and appetites is also being briefly confronted with David Hume’s and Thomas Hobbes’ remarks on the subject. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss Zineb Sedira’s two-screen video projection “Saphir” in relation to the landscape which Hélène Cixous has called the “the immense landscape of the trans-, of the passage.” My non-conclusive text explores the acts of transition taking place on the dual screen of Sedira’s video work. The work – filmed in the harbour area of Algiers – forms a multifaceted visual narrative of departures and arrivals. Within this narrative an intriguing choreography develops between two solitary characters, a (...) man and woman, who never meet but nonetheless, step by step, mutually perform a ritualistic dance. “Saphir” – which borrows its name from a French colonial hotel – is filled with ambiguities that evoke the landscape described by Cixous. Contemplating its topography, I become involved in Cixous’s bodily word world. “Passage” is what she calls part of this landscape, but it is also a word. It is a password which when split in two in the French language becomes ill-behaved and unwise. But could the word, I ask, also lead to a wise step (un pas sage )? And where do the steps danced by Sedira’s man and woman lead? (shrink)

By the 1990s the dynamic array of creative direct action tactics used against militarised technologies that emerged from women’s anti-nuclear protest camps in the 1980s became largely eclipsed by cyberfeminism’s focus on digital and online technologies. Yet recently, as robots and algorithms are put forward as the vanguards of new drone execution regimes, some are wondering if now is the time for another Greenham Common. In this article I return to cyborg feminism and anti-nuclear activisms of the 1980s to explore (...) what drone feminism might look like today. I examine how anti-nuclear protesters infused affect and techné, creating innovative images of, and tactics for, material resistance. I argue that Greenham women’s cyborg feminisms arose from their material entanglements with the military base. In their efforts to reveal and undermine the national and imperial myths upon which warfare is based, protesters re-imagined technological possibilities based upon a global accountability for ‘earthly survival’. (shrink)

This paper examines how Heidegger's view that language is poetry might provide a helpful way of understanding the nature of religious language. Poetry, according to Heidegger, is language in its purest form, in that it both reveals Being, whilst also showing the difference between word and thing. In poetry, Heidegger suggests, we come closest to the essence of language itself and encounter its strangeness and impermeability, and its revelatory character. What would be the implications for viewing religious language in this (...) way? Through examining Heidegger's view that poetry is the purest form of language, I suggest that it would also be possible to view religious language as poetry in this way, in that it also shows the transcendence of what cannot be brought to presence in language, except as concealed. Such a view of religious language does not regard it as a problematic type of language, deserving special treatment, but rather suggests that in religious language the inarticulable relationship between word and world is revealed. (shrink)

Since the Phaedo characterizes Socrates’s death as a punishment by Athens, many scholars argue that he could neither have been responsible for nor have intended his death, so that his death was not suicide. This is no mere semantic quibble: the question turns on issues of responsible and intentional action. I argue that the dialogues portray Socrates as committing suicide. To do so, I use a Platonic account of responsibility and intention to show how Athens and Socrates were jointly responsible (...) for Socrates’s death and that his intention was not only to do what justice requires but also to kill himself. (shrink)

Author: Wojciechowska Anna Title: COLLABORATORS, CO-AUTHORS OR INDEPENDENT THINKERS? JOHN STUART MILL AND HARRIET TAYLOR MILL (Współpracownicy, współmyśliciele czy niezależni myśliciele? John Stuart Mill i Harriet Taylor Mill) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2005, vol:.5, number: 2005/1, pages: 139-158 Keywords: J.S. MILL, HARRIET TAYLOR (MILL), SOCRATIC DIALOG, COLLABORATORS Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:This article raise almost unnoticed in the literature problem of a creative relation between J.S. Mill and Harriet Taylor (...) (Mill). The author concentrates her attention on their views concerning the situation and rights of women. Comparing the views of a partners, states that thanks to the method which was combination of Socratic dialog and collaborative self, they created an incredible arrangement resting on the literary collaboration. (shrink)

Many studies have deduced subterranean dialogues between Hannah Arendt and Carl Schmitt from indirect evidence. This article uses new evidence from marginalia in Arendt’s copy of Nomos of the Earth and finds that she formed, but never published, an incisive critique of Schmitt’s geopolitics. Through an analysis of Arendt’s comments on the topics of soil, conquest, and contract, I show that Arendt deemed Schmitt’s theory to be imperialist and in contradiction with itself. Her reading of Schmitt prompts important new questions (...) regarding the scholarly use of Schmitt’s conception of nomos as a tool of critique against American empire in the post-9/11 era. The marginalia also suggests, against past scholarship, that Arendt thought justice should play a central role in politics. I propose that we look to Arendt’s own conception of nomos, which she developed later, in order to form an alternative geopolitics. Because of her focus on intersubjective world-building, Arendt’s nomos embraces contract and promise-mak... (shrink)

James Mill's History of British India’ (1817) played a major role in re-shaping the English policy and attitudes in India throughout the nineteenth century. This article questions the widely held view that the ‘HBI’ heralded the utilitarian justification of colonisation found for instance in John Stuart Mill's writings. It suggests that James Mill's role as a proponent of ‘utilitarian imperialism’ has been overstated, and argues that much of Mill's criticism of Indian society arose from the continuing influence of his religious (...) education as well as from his links with a network of Presbyterian and Evangelical thinkers. It is only after his death that the colonialist views put forward in the History of British India were re-interpreted in light of his later attachment to utilitarianism. ☆ I am most grateful to Gareth Stedman Jones for his guidance in the early stages of my research into this topic. I would also like to thank Justin Jacobs and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. (shrink)

Résumé -/- Anna Caterina Dalmasso L’artiste et l’adversité. Hasard et création chez Merleau-Ponty -/- À plusieurs reprises, Merleau-Ponty tisse une correspondance entre art et histoire, entre pratique artistique et action politique : plus précisément il nous invite à former le concept d’histoire sur l’exemple de l’art. À première vue, un tel rapprochement pourrait paraître abstrait, sinon provocateur, l’art étant souvent conçu comme un domaine qui semble avoir peu à faire avec l’espace de l’action. Mais, nous pouvons aujourd’hui comprendre davantage (...) l’intérêt de l’intuition merleau-pontienne, nous, qui faisons l’expérience de la connexion étroite entre l’univers visuel et le milieu politique ou historique, comme des dimensions devenues désormais inséparables. Au fur et à mesure qu’une conception positiviste de l’histoire ou de la politique entendue comme progrès, ou du moins comme projet, échoue sous nos yeux interdits, la question de l’historicité se fait de plus en plus urgente : Merleau-Ponty nous invite à penser l’histoire comme le « lieu de nos interrogations et de nos étonnements », le lieu d’une réponse, voire d’une responsabilité que nos organismes technologiques exigent. C’est à partir de l’expérience de la création artistique et de son rapport constitutif au hasard qu’une pensée de l’historicité peut s’élaborer, là où l’esthétique merleau-pontienne rejoint le mystère d’un sens historique et esquisse implicitement une éthique de la contingence, en ce qu’elle nous appelle à un exercice de la liberté. -/- Abstract -/- Anna Caterina Dalmasso The Artist and the Adversity. Chance and Creation in Merleau-Ponty -/- Throughout his works, Merleau-Ponty has developed the analogy between art and history, between art practice and political action: more precisely he invites us to think about the concept of history on the example of art. At first sight, such an equivalence could seem abstract, if not provocative, insofar as art is still sometimes regarded as a field having little to share with action. But today, experiencing the close connection between the visual and the political environment, we can understand, perhaps better than his contemporaries, what is at stake in Merleau-Ponty’s insight for a new comprehension of history. Whereas a positivist conception of history and politics understood as progress or project seems to be failing before our astonished eyes, the question of historicity becomes more and more urgent: Merleau-Ponty prompts us to think of history as a mysterious junction between facticity and intention, as the beginning of our wonder, as the place of the responsibility that our technological organisms demand. The experience of creation is the figure through which Merleau-Ponty tries to conceive contingency, which is the kernel of the Geneva conference, later called The Man and the Adversity. So, drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s constant reference to the operation of artistic creation, especially on the reference to El Greco, I aim at examining how a new conception of history can spring by a comprehension of the experience of creation. I will argue that, from the analysis of the relationship between the artist and the sensible, between the artist and her body, Merleau-Ponty comes to outline what I would call an ethics of contingency, insofar as it calls us to the exercise of our freedom. (shrink)

When Mill's The Subjection of Women was published in 1869 it was ahead of its time in boldly championing feminism. It failed to inaugurate a respectable intellectual debate. Feminist writers have tended to refer to it with respect but without any serious attempt to come to grips with Mill's actual arguments. Kate Millett's chapter in Sexual Politics is the only sustained discussion of Mill in the feminist literature that I am aware of, but it is not from a philosophical viewpoint, (...) and deals with Mill only in the service of an extended comparison with Ruskin. Philosophical books on Mill give the essay short measure. Alan Ryan in J. S. Mill heads one chapter ‘Liberty and The Subjection of Women’, but the former work gets twenty-six pages and the latter only four. Ryan says that ‘it is almost entirely concerned with the legal disabilities of women in Victorian England’. H. J. McCloskey, injfohn Stuart Mill: A Critical Study, gives the essay one and a half pages, commenting that it reads ‘like a series of truisms’ and seems so unimportant today because equality of the sexes has been achieved! (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is often observed that experiences of utterance understanding are what surfaces in hearer’s consciousness in the course of language comprehension. The nature of such experiences has been a hotly debated topic. One influential position in this debate is the semantic perceptual view, according to which meaning properties can be perceived. In this paper I present two new challenges for the view that we can become perceptually aware of meaning properties in auditory experience or, in brief, that we can (...) hear meanings. The first challenge concerns the issue of providing a plausible model of meaning perception. The second challenge consists in accommodating the crucial role of cognition in the etiology of such experiences. Drawing on these observations, I will suggest a new account, according to which experiences of understanding have a complex, mixed nature involving both perceptual and cognitive elements. (shrink)

In this contribution, I refer to a discussion between Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom on the latter’s normative pragmatics as advanced in Making it Explicit. Parting with Habermas, I intend to show that though both normative pragmatics and formal pragmatics postulate similar discursive ideals, the former, as compared with the latter, is not a particularly well-calibrated critical tool. I argue that whereas Brandom focuses on making conceptual norms explicit, and takes mutual recognition among participants to a linguistic practice for granted, (...) Habermas proposes a universal frame of reference, which delineates what should be taken as a paradigm case of perception and action, and thus a normative standard according to which all kinds of human endeavors can be judged. Thus construed, the formal frame of reference points to possible perceptual distortions along any of the three dimensions: the subjective, social, and objective worlds. (shrink)

Kant's radical criticism of the passions has a central but largely overlooked moral-psychological component: for Kant, the passions promote a kind of self-deception he calls ‘rationalizing’. In analysing the connection between passion and rationalizing self-deception, I identify and reconstruct two essential traits of Kant's conception of the passions. I argue (1) that rationalizing self-deception, according to Kant, contributes massively to the emergence and consolidation of passions. It aims to resolve a psychological conflict between passion and moral duty when in fact, (...) it does not resolve but perpetuates this conflict. I then argue (2) that rationalizing does not necessarily aim to devalue moral duty, as Kant seems to suggest in the Groundwork. It can also aim to revalue the ‘counterweight’. By analysing Kant's presentation of several individual passions in the Anthropology, I demonstrate that rationalizing here is concerned with elevating these passions and making them pass as morally (or at least prudentially) justified. (shrink)

Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya: Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie. By Christopher Braun. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, vol. 327. Berlin: Klaus Schwartz, 2016. Pp. 160. €39.80.

This paper explores the relationship between language, subjectivity and teaching in Emmanuel Levinas’s Totality and Infinity. It aims to elucidate Levinas’s presentation of language as always already predicated on a relationship of responsibility towards that which is beyond the self and the idea that it is only in this condition of being responsible that we are subjects. Levinas suggests that the relation with the Other through which I am a subject as one uniquely responsible is also the scene of teaching. (...) Through examining these ethical conditions of subjectivity, I suggest that this notion of the self as oriented towards the Other in a relation of passivity presents a challenge to many of the standard topoi of teaching and learning and invites us to consider the nature of teaching in a provocative new manner. (shrink)

In his book Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit suggests that people are not harmed by being conceived with a disease or disability if they could not have existed without suffering that particular condition. He nevertheless contends that entities can be harmed if the suffering they experience is sufficiently severe. By implication, there is a threshold which divides harmful from non-harmful conceptions. The assumption that such a threshold exists has come to play a part in UK policy making. I argue that (...) Parfit’s distinction between harmful and non-harmful conceptions is untenable. Drawing on Kant’s refutation of the ontological argument for God’s existence, I suggest that the act of creation cannot be identical with the act of harming—nor indeed of benefiting—however great the offspring’s suffering may be. I suggest that Parfit is right that bringing children into existence does not usually harm them, but I argue that this must be applied to all conceptions, since Parfit cannot show how the harm threshold can be operationalised. If we think certain conceptions are unethical or should be illegal, this must be on other grounds than that the child is harmed by them. I show that a Millian approach in this context fails to exemplify the empirical and epistemological advantages which are commonly associated with it, and that harm-based legislation would need to be based on broader harm considerations than those relating to the child who is conceived. (shrink)

"And I Quote": Direct and Indirect Point-of-View Switches in Clusivity-Oriented Discourse The aim of this paper is to approach the notion of speech/thought representation from a pragma-cognitive perspective. The use of direct and indirect representation in political discourse allows the speaker to construe the speech situation from a perspective other than her/his own. The speaker normally occupies the focal position in relation to other discourse entities in a particular speech situation, and thus presents discourse events from her/his point of view, (...) however, on some occasions she/he allows other "voices." It is the distinction between the Speaker and the Sayer that provides means of capturing the phenomenon in question: the Speaker construes the actual/present speech situation presenting events from her/his own perspective, while in the represented speech situation the Speaker represents the words of the Sayer, i.e. the original speaker of the represented speech situation. Assuming the existence of the Sayer's consciousness separate from the Speaker's consciousness, it is clear that the Sayer's perspective is independent of the Speaker's perspective. The Speaker may employ a series of shifts occurring in spatio-temporal and axiological dimensions of the actual speech situation leading either to a full switch or to an apparent switch to the Sayer's perspective. In both cases, the distance between the Speaker and a particular discourse entity may be reduced or increased to indicate its inclusionary or exclusionary status, as well as to include the entity in or exclude it from the "us" group. The data analysed and samples used for illustrative purposes have been selected from a corpus of 35 speeches delivered by Barack Obama between 10th February 2007, i.e. the announcement of his candidacy for the presidency of the USA, and 4th November 2008, i.e. the day of the election. The transcripts of the speeches have been downloaded from the official Obama's website "Organizing for America". (shrink)