Kit Fine’s arguments in Essence and Modality are widely accepted as being a decisive blow against modal essentialism. A selection of replies exist that have done little to counter the general view that modally construed essence is out of touch with what we really mean when we make essentialist claims. I argue that Fine’s arguments fail to strike a decisive blow, and I suggest a new interpretation of the debate that shows why Fine’s arguments fall short of achieving their goal.

Conventionalism about essence is the view that truths about what is (and isn’t) essential to things are based upon talk and thought about the world, rather than mind-independent facts. This chapter presents motivations for conventionalism, and explains how conventionalism can be (and has been) developed to accommodate essences that can only be discovered with the help of empirical investigation, like “water is H2O” or “Obama is human”. We examine a range of objections that have been raised against conventionalism—often presented dismissively (...) and decisively—and show how conventionalism has ample resources with which to plausibly respond to these challenges. (shrink)

Nosology is the science of defining and classifying diseases. Meta‐nosology is the study of how we do this, on what principles nosological practices are based, the quality of the resulting medical taxonomy, and primarily whether/how diseases can be defined better than they are now. In modern Western medicine, there are a wide variety of ways in which diseases are defined and categorized. Examples include by the symptoms they present with (syndromic), their underlying causes (etiological), the biological mechanisms involved (pathogenetic), available (...) treatments, historical precedent, and through diagnostic exclusion. Here, I explore the hypothesis that how we define diseases has an impact on how (and how effectively) we research and treat them. I explore the philosophical implications of this thesis and suggest a direction that the underlying metaphysics of disease definition might follow. I conclude that further research is warranted into whether our current disease definitions could be improved upon. (shrink)

Traditional conventionalism about modality claims that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is true by convention. In the wake of the widespread repudiation of truth-byconvention, traditional conventionalism has fallen out of favour. However, a family of theories of modality have arisen that, whilst abandoning truth-by-convention, retain the spirit of traditional conventionalism. These ‘neo-conventionalist’ theories surpass their forebears and don’t fall victim to the criticisms inherited through truth-by-convention. However, not all criticisms levelled at traditional conventionalism target truth-by-convention. Any conventional theory (...) of modality must face the contingency problem. This claims that the contingency of our linguistic conventions jeopardises the necessity of the necessities they determine. I present the contingency problem as relevant to both the traditional conventionalist and the neo-conventionalist. I examine a response from Einheuser that builds upon a response from Wright. I show that the Einheuser response does more to accommodate the conventionalist’s modal beliefs, but that it does not fully satisfy some further conditions that ought to be laid upon such a response. I then suggest how the response can be revised so as to satisfy these conditions. The resulting model of conventionalism is compatible with the validity of S4, and suitably in the spirit of conventionalism. (shrink)

This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for Socrates to be essentially human is for it to be necessary that he be (...) a human if he exists, and for Socrates to accidentally have a beard is for it to be contingent that Socrates has a beard if he exists. According to neo-Aristotelian essentialism, objects have definitions in something like the way words do. For Socrates to be essentially human but accidentally bearded is for it to be part of the definition of Socrates that he is human, but not part of that definition that he is bearded. I argue that both are susceptible to antirealist interpretation. This thesis sets about showing that this is the case. In Chapters One and Two I investigate neo-conventionalist theories of modality, in the hope of using such a position to develop an antirealist modal essentialism. In Chapter Three I discuss the debate between modal and neo-Aristotelian essentialism and conclude that it is by no means settled. In Chapter Four I develop an antirealist neo-Aristotelian essentialism based on the mechanism of one of the neo-conventionalist accounts of modality. In Chapter Five I argue that this account is in a better position to give an essentialist theory of necessity than its realist counterparts. I conclude that, regardless of whether one is a modal or neo-Aristotelian essentialist, antirealist essentialism is a viable theory of essence that is worthy of consideration in contemporary debate. (shrink)

Infinity exists as a concept but has no existence in actuality. For infinity to have existence in actuality either time or space have to already be infinite. Unless something is already infinite, the only way to become infinite is by an 'infinity leap' in an infinitely small moment, and this is not possible. Neither does infinitely small have an existence since anything larger than zero is not infinitely small. Therefore infinity has no existence in actuality.

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by (...) interrogating the relevance of these scientific discussions for political positions and a post-racial future. (shrink)

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when it relies (...) on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 509 covered and interpreted. Depending on their interests and their theories of causation, historians may have any variety of single-facetcd or multi-faceted interpretations. Social history of ideas is one variety. Practitioners of each of the above willnotice omissions of subdivisions and may differ with my definition of their field. Such a reaction would further indicate that indeed there is a plethora of approaches. Such abundance is (...) needed to meet the spectrum of concerns of historically-minded scholars. In each approach the focus is different; an idea, a general topic, the transmission of ideas, a discipline, a specific social environment, an intellectual community, the spirit of an era, a whole society and culture, an event, the life and times of a writer. Ideas do in fact have meaning and function along this full spectrum of contexts. A methodology is chosen which will throw light on a particular kind of context; some of the best scholarship results from the utilization by one individual of complementary methodologies. Fortunately, to compensate for the limitations of individual scholars, we have other scholars! The tensions between the horiz0ntalists and verticalists and between the externalists and intemalists are healthy tensions. Only through communicationamong scholars utilizing differentmethodologies and through attempts by individual scholars to approach their subject from several perspectives can we hope to gain a multi-faceted comprehension of man's past. MARYANNE CLINE HOROWITZ Occidental College DESCARTES' INCONSISTENCY: A REPLY* In my paper, "Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An Essential Inconsistency,''1 I point out that Descartes claims on one occasion that he could have a faculty which is unknown to him (Claim A), but on a second occasion, within the same Meditation, claims the contrary (Claim B). I then try to show that nothing which Descartes achieves or says between A and B justifies this volte face on his part, and subsequently conclude that he is inconsistent in Meditation III, and that this inconsistency is in fact essential to his argument. Professors Brewster and Humphrey have raised objections to my view that Descartes is inconsistent.2 Here I wish to reply to these objections because I think they fail, though sometimesin quite subtle ways, and because I believe I can in this way clarity my earlier contentions. Brewster and Humphrey, as I understand them, have raised three major objections to my paper. These objections, in the order in which I shall take them up, are: I. That I do not have a prima facie case for my claim that Descartes is inconsistent, for * I wish to thank my colleague, Professor Jonathan Robinson, and Professor Donald Livingston of Northern Illinois University for their helpful comments on a draft of this reply. i "Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An Essential Inconsistency," Journal of the History of Philosophy, VI, 3 (July, 1968), 244-256. 2 Leonard E. Brewster, "How to Know Enough about Unknown Faculties," Journal o! the History of Philosophy, XII, 3 (July, 1974), 366--371, and Ted B. Humphrey, "How Descartes Avoids the Hidden Faculties Trap," ibid., 371-377. 510 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Claim A can be demonstrated to be false, and hence Descartes is justified in maldng Claim B. (Brewster)8 Ii. That I fail to note that Claim A is made in a limited context, namely, a discussion of the origin of only those ideas which are adventitious, while Claim B is made in a signilicantly different context, and hence the two claims are not inconsistent. (Humphrey) III. That I have failed to see that for Descartes Jacultiesare always dependent modes of substances, and hence that no faculty could have a power exceeding the substance of which it is a mode, which is to say that I have missed a crucial metaphysical distinction which accounts for the apparent differences in the two claims, and permits both to be made without inconsistency. (Humphrey) I. Professor Brewster argues that I do not have a prima fade case for the claim that Descartes is inconsistent. The "pivotal issue," he suggests, "is whether the possibility of the unknown faculty invalidates Descartes' first proof for the existence of God." He then suggests that this proof consists of three premises: (1) "Descartes' assertion that he possesses an... (shrink)

In Art and intention Paisley Livingston develops a broad and balanced perspective on perennial disputes between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists in philosophical aesthetics and critical theory. He surveys and assesses a wide range of rival assumptions about the nature of intentions and the status of intentionalist psychology. With detailed reference to examples from diverse media, art forms, and traditions, he demonstrates that insights into the multiple functions of intentions have important implications for our understanding of artistic creation and authorship, the ontology (...) of art, conceptions of texts, works, and versions, basic issues pertaining to the nature of fiction and fictional truth, and the theory of art interpretation and appreciation. Livingston argues that neither the inspirationist nor rationalistic conceptions can capture the blending of deliberate and intentional, spontaneous and unintentional processes in the creation of art. Texts, works, and artistic structures and performances cannot be adequately individuated in the absence of a recognition of the relevant makers4intentions. The distinction between complete and incomplete works receives an action-theoretic analysis that makes possible an elucidation of several different senses of "fragment" in critical discourse. Livingston develops an account of authorship, contending that the recognition of intentions is in fact crucial to our understanding of diverse forms of collective art-making. An artist's short-term intentions and long-term plans and policies interact in complex ways in the emergence of an artistic oeuvre, and our uptake of such attitudes makes an important difference to our appreciation of the relations between items belonging to a single life-work. The intentionalism Livingston advocates is, however, a partial one, and accommodates a number of important anti-intentionalist contentions. Intentions are fallible, and works of art, like other artefacts, can be put to a bewildering diversity of uses. Yet some important aspects of art's meaning and value are linked to the artist's aims and activities. (shrink)

In aesthetics, the topic of intentions comes up most often in the perennial debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists over standards of interpretation. The underlying assumptions about the nature and functions of intentions are, however, rarely explicitly developed, even though divergent and at times tendentious premises are often relied upon in this controversy. Livingston provides a survey of contentions about the nature and status of intentions and intentionalist psychology more generally, arguing for an account that recognizes the multiple functions fulfilled by (...) intentions in the lives of temporally situated agents who deliberate over what to do, settle on ends and means, and try to realize some of their plans. Artists’ intentions are the same sorts of attitudes that we attribute to ourselves and to others as we attempt to describe, explain, and predict our actions. As such, intentions are relevant not only to debates over the interpretation of works of art but also to a range of other basic topics in the philosophy of art, including artistic creation and authorship, the ontology of art, the nature of texts, works, versions, and life-works, and the status and nature of fiction and fictional truth. With regard to the controversy over the interpretation of art, Livingston advocates a ‘partial’ intentionalism. Intentions are never infallible, so there is a conceptual gap between the completed work and the intentions that initiated and guided its making. Yet in spite of the fallibility of intentions and of our beliefs and claims about them, intentions regularly contribute to the determination of a work’s features, including implicit meanings, the recognition of which requires the uptake of the artist’s intentional design. Partial intentionalism also finds support in the idea that at least one sort of artistic value depends on the artist’s skilful accomplishment of intentions. (shrink)

The Harvard Graduate School of Education convocation speech, praised as "powerful" by Hillary Rodham Clinton in Teen Vogue and "inspired" by Justin Timberlake, that has offered inspiration to millions around the world In Lift Off, Donovan Livingston offers a groundbreaking rallying call about education, race, and the true nature of equality. In emotionally charged spoken-word poetry, Livingston shares a message of hope and hard truths, declaring that education can become an equalizer only if we first acknowledge the inequality and racial (...) divides holding back America's future. Livingston is dedicated to helping young people reach their celestial potential, and in his galvanizing commencement address, now adapted for the first time to the page, he calls on us to raise our voices on behalf of all children, as their brighter futures can light up our own. Together, we can lift off! Praise for Donovan Livingston "Donovan Livingston gave a powerful speech at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's convocation. In a spoken-word poem, he shared his struggles in life and urged his fellow graduates to fight inequality and inspire students. Donovan's message hit home. [He is] part of a rising generation that's. standing up to some of the biggest challenges in the world today."--Hillary Rodham Clinton, Teen Vogue "These are the words, and Donovan Livingston's voice and spirit are the music, but in any form, this rare graduation speech tells us that learning is full of bias yet can lead us to the stars."--Gloria Steinem "Donovan Livingston's Lift Offis our youth's gift to us. In this joyous young man's voice is the promise of tomorrow."--James McBride. (shrink)

Some contemporary discussion about the explanation of consciousness substantially recapitulates a decisive debate about reference, knowledge and justification from an earlier stage of the analytic tradition. In particular, I argue that proponents of a recently popular strategy for accounting for an explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal facts – the so-called “phenomenal concept strategy” – face a problem that was originally fiercely debated by Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. The question that is common to both the older and the contemporary discussion (...) is that of how the presence or presentation of phenomenal experiences can play a role in justifying beliefs or judgments about them. This problem is, moreover, the same as what was classically discussed as the problem of acquaintance. Interestingly, both physicalist and non-physicalist proponents of the phenomenal concept strategy today face this problem. I consider briefly some recent attempts to solve it and conclude that, although it is prima facie very plausible that acquaintance exists, we have, as yet, no good account of it. (shrink)

This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ discussions (...) of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered. (shrink)

The idea of Hume as a philosopher of culture has only recently gained general acceptance; yet as far back as 1941 the Journal of the History of Ideas was publishing essays on Hume which reflected this aspect of his work. The essays selected for this volume range back as far as 1941, but they may be viewed as more timely than ever, given the recent interest in Hume as a philosopher of society, politics and history.

Quine’s thesis of translational indeterminacy stands as one of the most central, surprising, and influential results of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century. The suggestion that the meaning of linguistic terms and sentences, as shown in the situation of radical translation, is systematically indeterminate and undetermined by actual speech practice, has for decades engendered thought and reflection on the nature and basis of linguistic meaning. And even beyond this surprising moral itself, Quine’s theoretical use of the radical translation scenario has (...) been wholly or partly responsible for a wide variety of theoretical programs in analytic philosophy since the middle of the last century, including Davidsonian semantics, Dummett’s consideration of the form and shape of knowledge about meaning, Rorty’s celebration of “philosophy without foundations,” and, more recently, Brandom’s pragmatist project of analyzing the roots of meaning and normativity in intersubjective and socially regulated speech behavior. On many retellings of the history of the analytic tradition, the suggestion that the philosophical analysis of language and meaning depends on reflection about the structure of intersubjective linguistic practice marks a general sea change in the methodological self-conception of analytic philosophy, away from the brands of metaphysical, epistemological, or purely syntactic analyses that had characterized its earlier projects, and toward the more concrete, pragmatic, and empirically influenced reflective practice that philosophers inherit today. (shrink)

Within contemporary analytic philosophy, varieties of “naturalism” have recently attained an almost unchallenged methodological and thematic dominance. As David Papineau wrote in the introduction to his 1993 book Philosophical Naturalism, “nearly everybody nowadays wants to be a naturalist,” although as Papineau also notes, those who aspire to the term also continue to disagree widely about what specific methods or doctrines it implies. My purpose in this paper, however, is not to argue for or against philosophical naturalism on any of the (...) several conceptions current among analytic philosophers, but rather simply to suggest that a closer look at the history of the analytic tradition can offer helpful terms for rethinking what can be meant by applying the categories of “nature” and “culture” within philosophy’s ongoing reflection on the constitutive forms of human life and practice. For, as I shall argue, the central experience of this history – philosophy’s radical encounter with what it envisions as the logical or conceptual structure of everyday language – also repeatedly demonstrates the existence of a fundamental aporia or paradox of origin and practice at the center of the claim of language upon an ordinary human life. The appearance of this paradox has repeatedly determined the results and projects of the analytic tradition, even as analytic philosophers have also reacted to it, on the level of positive theory, in characteristic modes of dismissal, denial, or repression. Besides offering to elicit more clearly what analytic philosophy still offers to show us about our everyday relation to the language that we speak, I shall argue, documenting the existence and effects of this aporia can also yield a clarified sense of the relationship of the analytic tradition itself to the neighboring streams of “continental” philosophy that have also taken up the question of language during the twentieth century. (shrink)

This essay provides a conceptual analysis and reconstruction of the notion of mimetic desire, first proposed in Girard (1961). The basic idea behind the idea of mimetic desire is that imitation can play a key role in human motivational processes. Yet mimetic desire is distinguished from related notions such as social modelling and imitation. In episodes of mimetic desire, the process in which the imitative agent's desires are formed is oriented by a particular species of belief about the model or (...) mediator whose desire is copied. These 'tutelary beliefs' essential to mimetic desire are distinguished from the 'thin' and purely instrumental beliefs about the model central to Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory and similar models of observational learning. The problem of the identity of the objects of desire in episodes of social modelling motivates a distinction between internal and external forms of interpersonal mediation. Girard's claims about cognitive constraints associated with mimetic desire are examined, and scenarios of reciprocal mimetic modelling are analysed. (shrink)

Frege ridiculed the formalist conception of mathematics by saying that the formalists confused the unimportant thing, the sign, with the important, the meaning. Surely, one wishes to say, mathematics does not treat of dashes on a bit of paper. Frege’s idea could be expressed thus: the propositions of mathematics, if they were just complexes of dashes, would be dead and utterly uninteresting, whereas they obviously have a kind of life. And the same, of course, could be said of any proposition: (...) Without a sense, or without the thought, a proposition would be an utterly dead and trivial thing. And further it seems clear that no adding of inorganic signs can make the proposition live. And the conclusion which one draws from this is that what must be added to the dead signs in order to make a live proposition is something immaterial, with properties different from all mere signs. But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use. (Blue Book, p. (shrink)

We present an analysis of work completion couched in terms of an effective completion decision identified by its characteristic contents and functions. In our proposal, the artist's completion decision can take a number of distinct forms, including a procedural variety referred to as an ‘extended completion decision’. In the second part of this essay, we address ourselves to the question of whether collaborative art-making projects stand as counterexamples to the proposed analysis of work completion.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted food and educational systems, laying bare institutional inadequacies and structural inequalities. While there has been ample discussion on impacts to the food system and higher education institutions separately, there has been little written through the perspective of people who navigate both. Farmers, researchers, graduate students, chefs, and many stakeholders contribute to community engaged scholarship (CES) in food systems, facing novel obstacles and opportunities with the spread of the pandemic. In this article, I utilize institutional ethnography (...) to center the experiences of the people who participated in or led CES projects during the spring and summer of 2020. The goal of this study is to understand how discourse and texts in the academic institution constrain the reality of CES partnerships and identify areas for change. My findings show that tenure and promotion guidelines and funding opportunities constrain CES partnerships, reducing opportunities for relationship building and discouraging innovative models of participation. Quantified evaluation metrics on grant rubrics and tenure and promotion guidelines privilege individual academic researchers growing large programs, writing lucrative grants for the university, and publishing profusely. However, community-led and decentralized projects were able to adapt to community priorities and sustain research projects during the pandemic. COVID-19 created obstacles to community engagement and allowed for creative approaches to community participation. By restructuring academic evaluation and funding processes to support problem-solving models of CES led by community partners, CES projects can support both academic and community priorities in times of disruption and relative stability. (shrink)

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” has been canonized as an essential statement of the political theory of civil disobedience. This article examines the early reception of King’s essay and the development of the liberal idea of civil disobedience it has become synonymous with to argue that its canonization coincided with, and displaced, the radicalization of King’s developing thinking about disobedience. It examines published and archival writings from 1965 through 1968 to reconstruct King’s power-oriented theory of “mass” (...) civil disobedience as it developed in response to the dual challenges of white backlash and Black Power. The basic challenge of mass civil disobedience is how to mobilize liberating acts of taking power without undercutting the possibility of transformative integration through sharing power. To articulate this dilemma, this article draws on an undertheorized category from John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice to conceptualize disobedience as a practice of militant love. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV.

A comprehensive user-friendly introductory account of Freudian theory and other major currents in psychoanalytic thought. It also includes biographical material on the major theorists. It helps to clear up many misconceptions about psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Introduction.--Epicurus.--The cynics.--The stoics: Epictetus.--The stoics: Marcus Aurelius.--A philosophic missionary: Dion Chrysostom.--Plutarch.--A popular preacher: Maximus Tyrius.--A theosophist: Apollonius of Tyana.--The sophists: Polemon and Herodes Atticus.--A prince of neurotics: Aelius Aristodes.--Lucian.--Epilogue.

A realist story of concepts like Millikan's can and should accommodate facts about how the context of items available for comparison during concept formation affects just what concept is formed or reidentified. Similarly, the contribution of the goals and purposes of the conceptualizer are relevant to how concepts are acquired and deployed, but can be understood as entirely consistent with a view of concepts as objectively evaluable.

Beginning with the prevalent idea that creativity is the ability to make or do things having valuable novelty, the paper explores a variety of axiological and novelty conditions and defends an instrumental success condition. I discuss Robert K. Merton's distinction between 'originality' and 'priority', and Margaret Boden's similar distinction between historical and psychological creativity, as well as Thomas Reid's and Bruce Vermazen's remarks on relations between novelty and value.

Les conceptions de Georges Duby ont eu un profond impact sur la manière dont les médiévistes en Amérique considèrent le Moyen Âge. Son héritage est sans doute le plus net en ce qui concerne l’étude des femmes dans cette période. G. Duby a défini l’expérience féminine comme marquée par la répression et l’absence de pouvoir. De fait, il a défini la période médiévale comme le « mâle » Moyen Âge. Nombre de chercheurs américains ne s’accordent pas avec la description des (...) femmes qu’il a présentée. Leur examen des documents de la pratique, telles les chartes, les a menés à dresser un tableau très différent de l’expérience féminine. Là où G. Duby et ses disciples décèlent domination masculine et répression, ces chercheurs ont découvert que les femmes exerçaient pouvoir et influence, étaient des membres respectés de la société où elles vivaient et apparaissaient dans tous les aspects de la vie médiévale. (shrink)

This study explores the phenomenon of artificial intelligence (AI) aversion within the context of public policy, building on prior research on algorithmic aversion. I aim to establish a clear conceptual distinction between algorithms and AI in the public’s perception and develop a robust metric for assessing AI aversion. Utilizing a national survey, I employed affective imagery testing to compare Americans emotional responses towards AI, algorithms, and advanced technology. The findings reveal that AI elicits significantly more negative emotional responses than the (...) other two, indicating its unique position in public perception. I then construct the Artificial Intelligence Aversion Index (AIAI) based on responses to policy-related vignettes. Regression analyses showed a strong negative relationship between the AIAI and public support for both current and future AI applications within public policy, with aversion more pronounced towards potential future uses. These insights underscore the importance of understanding public sentiment towards AI to inform policymaking as well as helping to establish a framework by which to evaluate aversion levels. (shrink)

Derrida's key concepts or pseudo-concepts of différance, the trace, and the undecidable suggest analogies to some of the most significant results of formal, symbolic logic and metalogic. As early as 1970, Derrida himself pointed out an analogy between his use of ‘undecidable’ and Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which demonstrate the existence, in any sufficiently complex and consistent system, of propositions which cannot be proven or disproven (i.e., decided) within that system itself. More recently, Graham Priest has interpreted différance as an instance (...) of the general metalogical procedure of diagonalisation. In this essay, I consider the extent to which Derrida's key terms and the essential operations of deconstruction can be formalised. I argue that, if formalisation is indeed the technique of writing par excellence, then the formalisation of deconstructive concepts tends to show how the auto-deconstruction of total systems arises from the problematic possibility of writing itself. For instance, since diagonalisation permits the ‘arithmetisation of syntax’ whereby a formal system is able to formulate claims about its own logico-grammatical properties, we can understand its potential to inscribe the undecidable within the systematicity of language as simply one instance of the potential of writing, in figuring itself, to render inscrutable the trace of its own origin. (shrink)

'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Muller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in (...) emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole. Muller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come. (shrink)

Although Ingmar Bergman figures on everyone’s list of philosophical filmmakers, attempts to specify the philosophical implications of his films have yielded highly divergent results. One reason why this is the case is that interpreters disagree over how the philosophical content of a cinematic oeuvre is to be identified. Some interpreters clearly believe it best to work with their own philosophical views when interpreting a film’s story and themes, while others contend that the content of a work is at least partly (...) constituted by the filmmaker’s own ideas and background, which the interpreter should try to reconstruct on the basis of the available evidence. This entry focuses on claims made by interpreters who share the latter premise. Such interpreters often disagree about the content of a given film because they do not have the same evidence about its context, or because they reason about the evidence differently. I survey such disagreements among Bergman’s interpreters and then shed new light on his actual philosophical sources and ideas. (shrink)