The graphical presentation of experimental data in the physical sciences has several advantages which today are too familiar to require very detailed enumeration. Its greatest strength lies in the clarity and succinctness with which it displays the information contained in tabulated results: for the experimenter a graph provides a rough and immediate check on the accuracy and suitability of the methods he is using, and for the reader of a scientific report it may convey in a few seconds information that (...) could only be gleaned from a table of measurements by hours of close study. There are occasions whereonlythe analysis of experimental graphs will provide the information we require, but usually the actual analysis of results is carried out nowadays by computational methods. The use of graphs is therefore not so much a necessary part of scientific procedure as an extremely useful one, and one that is often taken very much for granted. (shrink)

Reframing Authority provides new perspectives by focusing on the role of materiality and media for questions of authority, as well as on the changing roles of authority historically and cross-culturally.

The idea at the core of the New Mechanical account of explanation can be summarized in the claim that explaining means showing ‘how things work’. This simple motto hints at three basic features of Mechanistic Explanation (ME): ME is an explanation-how, that implies the description of the processes underlying the phenomenon to be explained and of the entities that engage in such processes. These three elements trace a fundamental contrast with the view inherited from Hume and later from strict logical (...) empiricism (see Creath 2017), focused on epistemic and formal features of science and according to which issues concerning the kind of entities and processes that lie within a theory’s domain are extraneous to science and belong instead to ontology or metaphysics. Philosophers belonging to the new mechanical philosophy believe that the received view of scientific explanation (Hempel 2001), pivoting on the notion of law of nature, overshadows this insight. Since its origin in the 17th century, mechanical philosophy aimed to explain natural phenomena by reducing them to mechanisms. Traditional attempts to define the concept of mechanism involved the identification of a limited set of fundamental elements as, for instance, contact action, action at a distance, inertial motion (see e.g. Hesse 2005), and, more recently, transmission of a mark, or of a conserved quantity (see Frisch, this volume). The new mechanical philosophy rejects this austere characterization of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation and aim at providing a novel, philosophically rigorous explication of the concept of mechanism and of its role in scientific explanation and practice. ME has been adopted with profit in philosophy of special sciences (for instance in biomedical sciences, e.g. in the explanation of chemical transmission at synapses ((Machamer, Darden and Craver 2000), MDC henceforth); but also in social sciences, e.g. the three kinds of social mechanisms in Coleman’s analysis of Max Weber’s account of the role of the Protestant ethic in the growth of capitalism (Hedström and Swedberg 1998)), where exceptionless regularities are rarely ever found. In physics, it is generally possible to formulate explanations in law-based form, with the result that the plurality of explanatory forms might be overlooked. This should not come as a surprise, given that physics was the main inspiration for logical empiricists, and, in particular, Newtonian physics was a template for Hempel’s formulation of the covering law model. However, this situation is unfortunate, since, we will argue, knowing how things work is often part of the explanation of physical phenomena. In this chapter, we provide an introduction to the basic features of ME, with specific focus on its application to physics (section 1). The main part of the chapter is devoted to the defence of two theses: on the one hand, some domains of physics are not compatible with mechanistic reasoning and explanation (section 2); on the other hand, a comprehensive account of explanation in physics can’t dispense with ME (section 3). (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy is a volume of especially commissioned critical essays, conversations, collaborative, creative and performative writing mapping the key contexts, debates, methods, discourses and practices in this developing field. Firstly, the collection offers new insights on the fundamental question of how thinking happens: where, when, how and by whom philosophy is performed. Secondly, it provides a plurality of new accounts of performance and performativity as the production of ideas, bodies and knowledges in the arts and beyond. (...) Comprising texts written by international artists, philosophers and scholars from multiple disciplines, the essays engage with questions of how performance thinks and how thought is performed in a wide range of philosophies and performances, from the ancient to the contemporary. Concepts and practices from diverse geographical regions and cultural traditions are analysed to draw conclusions about how performance operates across art, philosophy and everyday life. The collection both contributes to and critiques the philosophy of music, dance, theatre and performance, exploring the idea of a philosophy from the arts. It is crucial reading material for those interested in the hierarchy of the relationship between philosophy and the arts, advancing debates on philosophical method, and the relation between Performance and Philosophy more broadly. (shrink)

Traditional normative realists are committed to the idea that different individuals manage to pick out on the very same property with terms like ‘morally right’, despite variations in their understanding and use of the term. How is this possible? In this chapter, we sketch a metasemantic account that promises to vindicate traditional normative realism within a broadly rationalist framework. We will first introduce a metasemantic principle that ties reference determination to what is justifiable from the perspective of the conceptually competent (...) subject. This type of metasemantic approach has been andstill is the most influential general model of reference determination. We explain how this metasemantic principle can help vindicate something close to the traditional rationalist claim that normative truths can be known a priori. We will then show how an anti-individualist version of this principle can handle the problem of radical disagreement among competent speakers. Finally, we explain how the principle can help to vindicate the traditional rationalist thesis that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action. (shrink)

_Emotions in Plato_, through a detailed analysis of emotions such as shame, anger, fear, and envy, but also pity, wonder, love and friendship, offers a fresh account of the role of emotions in Plato’s psychology, epistemology, ethics and political theory.

The term “Anthropocene” is frequently used to refer to the present planetary epoch, characterized by a geological signature of human activities, which have led to global ecological crises. This paper probes at what it means to be human on earth now, using healing as a concept to orient humanity in relation to other species, and particularly medicinal plants. Donna Haraway’s concept of the “Chthulucene” is used as an alternate lens to the Anthropocene, which highlights the inextricable linkages between humans and (...) other-than-human species. Healing can be viewed as a type of embodied orientation or engagement with the world, which has the potential to reach across boundaries of the skin, blur distinctions between self and other, and allow for both transpersonal and trans-species reconciliation. I focus my attention on Indigenous Shipibo healing rituals, and Shipibo concepts of healing that integrate humans within the ecosystem, and traverse species boundaries through communication with and embodiment of plant spirits. These healing rituals offer ways of coming into being within an ecology of selves—both internal and external, human and non-human—through listening and lending voice. I explore the potential for healing and ritual to work as a form of porous resistance through the internal blurring of binaries and hierarchical structures. (shrink)

Resumo Entre 1988 e 1993, Iúri M. Lótman formulou algumas proposições sobre “a voz da massa anônima”: uma voz coletiva que, em certas situacões ligadas a crises de caráter cultural, é portadora de paixões violentas que podem produzir interferências profundas no curso da história. Em seus últimos trabalhos, o semioticista russo postulou, diante disso, a noção de uma semiótica das emoções como objeto de estudo para entender a dinâmica cultural, em especial de períodos tidos como revolucionários ou de transição, a (...) saber, quando a massa anônima é capaz de manipular os eventos ou quando, revendo o passado, confere aos eventos uma interpretação distorcida. Lótman focalizou, principalmente, a relação entre as grandes fraturas históricas, os mecanismos de autopropagação do medo e a criação cultural de bodes expiatórios. O presente estudo visa abordar a reflexão de Lótman sobre perseguição, com especial atenção à figura da mulher durante o fenômeno de caça às bruxas. ABSTRACT Between 1988 and 1993, Yuri Lotman composed a series of reflections on “the voice of the anonymous mass”: a collective voice that, in particular situations linked to a cultural crisis, is the bearer of striking passions, which can deeply influence history. In his late works, the Russian semiotician postulated, therefore, the idea of a semiotics of emotions as an object of study to understand the dynamics of culture, especially during periods perceived as revolutionary or transitional―namely, when the anonymous mass manipulates the events or, when looking back, gives them a distorted interpretation. Lotman focused in particular on the relationship between great historical fractures, the self-propagating mechanisms of fear, and the cultural creation of scapegoats. This paper is devoted to framing Lotman’s reflection on persecution, paying particular attention to women during the phenomenon of the witch hunt. (shrink)

With and beyond the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière, this book rethinks critical agency and its emancipatory effects today through an examination of the body.

This article analyses an anti-essentialist SF novel, focusing on the extent to which anti-foundationalism enables a more accurate as well as a more productive representation of postmodernity. My argument stresses the ways in which Pat Cadigan's novel Synners, mostly because of its remarkable narrative form, challenges some of the most dangerous norms and normativity of American thought and culture. I argue, that, in order to understand this complex novel correctly, we must approach technoscience and transnational capitalism as separate, interacting discourses (...) and material practices. The representations of technoscience, in the novel, are definitely not ‘figures’ for late capitalism: they are representations of a discourse which interacts with capitalism in the fictional world as in the real world. Contrary to what has been suggested by a number of critics writing about Foucault, use of this notion of discourse does not preclude use of notions of agency. As the queer theorists who have drawn on Foucault's work show, agency can be theorized in terms compatible with the notions of discourses, material practices and technologies. My discussion of Synners thus focuses on questions of agency, showing how Cadigan uses a deconstruction of Judeo-Christian religious tropes to argue for a responsible, and knowledgable, ‘incurably informed’ approach to technology. (shrink)

Biotechnology now makes it possible to enhance human traits as well as treat illnesses and disorders. What it has neglected to establish, however, is a clear line between these two functions, a distinction between what counts as treatment or therapy and what counts as enhancement. The bulk of the literature on enhancements focuses on the ethics of enhancements, not on the criteria that qualify a procedure as an enhancement . While the ethical questions regarding the desirability of enhancements are certainly (...) worthy of consideration, so is the issue of what constitutes an enhancement versus a form of treatment or therapy. Scholars have debated the issue of whether a distinction between therapy and enhancement exists, but the placement of that distinction has not yet been sufficiently addressed . Much like the field of bioethics itself, my study of this issue is a work in progress, so this paper will ask and explore questions relevant to this topic without providing answers to all of them. Nonetheless, they are important questions to ask with important implications for the future of bioethics. This paper will describe the line between enhancement and therapy, map the terrain and define the terms. It will also investigate where the line is at present, and where and how it has been set by legislation and private companies. It will then illustrate the issues, using two examples, to demonstrate the difficulties and complexities involved. Finally, it will explore the implications of the line for society’s financial as well as physical interests, and for healthcare access in the United States. It will conclude by considering the open question of how a company, a government, and a just society should go about setting the line. I hope that asking the questions and exploring their complexities will help draw attention to and prompt serious consideration of the placement of the line between therapy and enhancement. (shrink)

_Manifesto Now!_ maps the current rebirth of the manifesto as it appears at the crossroads of philosophy, performance, and politics. While the manifesto has been central to histories of modernity and Modernism, the editors contend that its contemporary resurgence demands a renewed interrogation of its form, its content, and the uses. Featuring contributions from trailblazing artists, scholars, and activists currently working in the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Norway, this volume will be indispensible to scholars across the disciplines. (...) Filled with examples of manifestos and critical thinking about manifestos, it contains a wide variety of critical methodologies that students can analyze, deconstruct, and emulate. (shrink)

A l'aube du troisième millénaire, l'âme est oubliée. Les poètes l'ont remplacée par son double, le corps ; les philosophes l'évitent, les psychanalystes tentent de le remplacer. Même les théologiens en boudent l'usage& Eclipse de l'âme. Une disparition si singulière appelle à la réflexion. Le mot très ancien se serait-il usé à force de trop signifier? Faudrait-il le ranger définitivement au grenier des idées désuètes? Ayant relégué l'âme au rayon des vieilleries, nous sommes aujourd'hui confrontés au fait que les notions (...) de corps, d'animal, de vie, de mort et de personne sont devenues impossibles à cerner, comme le savent les experts en bioéthique et les juristes, parfois désemparés devant les problèmes que posent la science, la médecine moderne et le développement des biotechnologies. L'auteur propose de revenir sur les théories et les " modèles " que les philosophes, les théologiens, les médecins et les hommes de science ont proposés, et parfois soumis à l'expérimentation pour penser l'âme, d'en retracer les origines parfois très anciennes, et d'en suivre les avatars dans l'histoire naturelle de l'Homme. Tout cela afin de retrouver le moyen de penser notre " place " parmi les autres êtres " animés ", les relations entre notre " âme vitale " et notre " âme pensante ", de penser les problèmes de la vie, la mort, et de la frontière entre les deux. (shrink)

This article explores the British anti-slavery writings of the mid- to late 18th century, and the meanings which they gave to the idea of owning a property in the person. It addresses the construction of a particular moral and political landscape where freedom was understood as both a kind of property and as non-domination, and slavery was constructed as a form of theft, and as the exercise of arbitrary power. This created a complex moral space, where possession, commerce, savagery, tyranny (...) and the emergence of race were all caught up with each other and entangled with the concept of consent. The article concludes with the suggestion that our current understandings of slavery continue to be informed by our notions of contract and consent, and so by conceptions of freedom and ownership that take us back to the tensions and debates of the 18th century. (shrink)

Neste ensaio, argumento que Mandeville explora emoções específicas de uma economia capitalista emergente. Mandeville ataca a crença sentimental e religiosa de que o comportamento virtuoso levará à recompensa de Deus e do mercado. No entanto, embora Mandeville rejeite o sentimentalismo, ele exibe uma aguda consciência do sofrimento. Como médico e filósofo, entende o alívio dos sofrimentos como parte do objetivo. Para algumas pessoas, observa Mandeville, a economia comercial emergente substituiu um tipo de sofrimento (esforço físico) por outro (melancolia). No entanto, (...) para outros, traz um tormento físico implacável. Por essa razão, sugiro que o poema “The Planter’s Charity”, um poema sobre a hipocrisia de cristianizar os escravizados, é mandevilliano, se não realmente escrito por Mandeville. Seu Tratado de hipocondria e paixões histéricas explora o custo emocional de um sistema que cria tanta melancolia e o papel do médico na tentativa de aliviá-la. O interesse pelo corpo sofredor vem do poema “The Planter’s Charity”, de A fábula das abelhas e do Tratado. (shrink)

This interview covers topics related to Everyday Aesthetics and confirms the multi-faceted, rich and inclusive environment surrounding Nino Migliori,1 both as a human being and as a photographer. In particular, the experience from some of his workshops reveal how such concepts as space and time, playing and experiencing, amplify and broaden the classic definition of Everyday Aesthetics provided by field literature.2 More generally, this approach also provides a cue to conduct an aesthetic analysis that is free from judgments in taste. (...) This means considering Migliori’s photographic gesture within an everyday life aesthetic perspective and proposing that it is analyzed along a pragmatic course. Therefore, pragmatism-related observations are here brought forward to provide research insights within the nature of Everyday Aesthetics. (shrink)

The study described in this article examines whether wives' relative resources and material conditions affect husbands' domestic labor within varying economic development contexts. The study tests: whether wives' relative resources increase husbands' regularity of housework participation and whether the effects of wives' relative resources on husbands' regularity of housework participation vary in quantity and effect at different levels of economic development. The study indicates that wives' material conditions and relative resources have no consistent, significant effects on husbands' regularity of housework (...) participation. Levels of national economic development also have little effect. (shrink)

Este trabajo surge de la tesis de Maestría en Educación Superior denominada "El campo de la Tecnología Educativa en los planes de estudio de la carrera de Ciencias de la Educación de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo". Allí se analizan los sentidos plasmados en los planes de estudio y en las prácticas de los docentes que formaron parte del campo. Aquí, trabajamos específicamente los hallazgos en los planes de estudio, desde una perspectiva hermenéutico-interpretativa, realizando un (...) estudio longitudinal, desde la creación de la carrera, en 1986, hasta el año 2009. En este artículo ponemos especial hincapié en cómo se refleja en los planes de estudio y en el campo de la Tecnología Educativa, la influencia de los macro y micro contextos de cada época histórica, marcando rupturas y continuidades en el significado que se le atribuyó a dicho campo dentro de la carrera de Ciencias de la Educación. También y como consecuencia de ello, los aspectos positivos, así como los espacios vacíos para la formación del docente y del licenciado. (shrink)

To engender the Jewish past is to continue to question how and what we think we already know about Jewish history and Jewish memory. In order to imagine other stories, we must risk engaging in other ways of doing Jewish study. Only by repeatedly engaging in these other practices can we begin to undo the assumptions about gender we have come to assume as normal or natural. This paper explores first, what it means to engender the Jewish past and then (...) what a contemporary Jewish Studies informed by feminism looks like. (shrink)

A través de la pandemia del COVID-19 el mundo se vió envuelto en una serie de cambios que impactaron aspectos tan importantes como la educación. Algunas plataformas digitales tomaron esta como oportunidad para evaluar y mejorar las condiciones educativas en todo el mundo. Este es el caso de Coursera que, a través de su minería de datos y sus cursos en línea, mostró al mundo la necesidad de cambiar la manera en que se educa para dotar a los estudiantes de (...) las herramientas necesarias para trabajar en el mundo actual. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es demostrar que aquello que vincula la deconstrucción con lo político es la idea de acontecimiento y, en concreto, la fe en el acontecimiento. Lo mesiánico consiste en esta fe en el acontecimiento que Derrida recupera de Marx. Para demostrar esta tesis procederé, en primer lugar, a distinguir la idea de mesianicidad de la idea reguladora kantiana; en segundo lugar, se analizará el concepto de creencia que, según Derrida, debe habitar el concepto mismo de democracia; (...) y finalmente se mostrará cómo este elemento fiduciario de la deconstrucción desborda el ámbito de lo ético para abrir una concepción de lo político vinculada a lo religioso. (shrink)

This new edition of Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals thoroughly updates the highly regarded and groundbreaking first edition, offering the contemporary reader clinical wisdom and ethical guidance for challenging times. As with its predecessor, the second edition features commentaries by leaders in psychiatric ethics, plus two foundational chapters on ethics and professionalism in the field of mental health. These commentaries and introductory chapters provide an overview of essential ethical principles and concepts, the professional (...) obligations of the mental health clinician, common ethical tensions found in practice, ethical aspects of caring for special populations, and ethical issues in professional training and research. The introductory chapters are followed by case-oriented questions and answers on core concepts and topics in clinical care, medical research, and interactions with colleagues and trainees. Topics explored in-depth include authorship, disclosure, and ethical peer review for scientific publications; assisted suicide and euthanasia; professional voyeurism versus patient privacy online and on social media; the appropriate process for reporting an impaired colleague; and problems of burnout, work-life balance, and professional well-being. Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals poses and plumbs critically important ethical dilemmas in a compelling, down-to-earth way for today's practitioners and learners. (shrink)

Let R be a real closed field, and X⊆Rm\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${X\subseteq R^m}$$\end{document} semi-algebraic and 1-dimensional. We consider complete first-order theories of modules over the ring of continuous semi-algebraic functions X→R\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${X\to R}$$\end{document} definable with parameters in R. As a tool we introduce -piecewise vector bundles on X and show that the category of piecewise vector bundles on X is equivalent to the category of syzygies of (...) finitely generated submodules of free modules. We give an explicit method to determine the Baur–Monk invariants of free modules in terms of pre-piecewise vector bundles. When R is a recursive real closed field this yields the decidability of the theory of free modules. Where it makes sense, we address the same questions for continuous definable functions in o-minimal expansions of a real closed field. From the free module case we are able to deduce generalisations of some results to arbitrary modules over the ring. We present a geometrically motivated quantifier elimination result down to the level of positive primitive formulae with a certain block decomposition of the matrix of coefficients. (shrink)