Reply to John Lewis: Note on "The critique of the personality cult". Remark on the category "Process without a subject or goal(s)"--Elements of self-criticism: On the evolution of the young Marx.--Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? "Something new".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.1 (2004) 71-80 [Access article in PDF] Some Reflections on the (Analytic) Philosophical Approach to Delusion Louis A. Sass There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." —Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5 The peculiar, often problematic phenome na of psychopathology have been attract ing the attention of analytic philosophers in recent years. The topic of delusion (...) has been a particular draw, with a number of analytic philosophers attempting to use their conceptual tools, usually combined with ideas from cognitive neuroscience, to criticize the traditional understanding and to clarify the nature of this central psychiatric topic. It is useful to have this kind of interdisciplinary dialogue. Indeed, there is good reason to hope that concepts honed in the philosophy of mind and other philosophical subfields will help to sort out our understanding of a phenomenon (or set of phenomena) for which contemporary psychiatric definitions and conceptualizations are clearly inadequate and, in some respects, downright misleading (see Parnas and Sass 2001; Spitzer 1990).1Here, however, I would like to call attention to some weaknesses that, it seems to me, are rather common (I do not say universal) in many analytic philosophical approaches to psychopathology. In my opinion, there is a tendency to formulate issues and arguments in overly polarized, even dichotomous terms, and then to rely too uncritically on these essentialistic formulations in exploring the domain of inquiry. Although this polarizing tendency sometimes has the salutary effect of clarifying conceptual domains, it can, when taken too far, actually hamper our understanding of phenomena that are often fraught with ambiguities and complexities that defy many standard conceptualizations.The relationship between philosophy and psychopathology is obviously a two-way street—we are familiar, for example, with disorders that challenge deep philosophical assumptions about self and mind (e.g., blindsight, split-brain phenomena, perhaps also Dissociative Identity Disorder, and the first rank symptoms of schizophrenia). I am suggesting that, in their work on delusions, philosophers may need to put more emphasis on moving from the natural phenomena [End Page 71] of psychopathology and to the domain of philosophical analysis.I believe that a greater sensitivity to the modes of knowing associated with the phenomenological tradition, and to the forms of conceptual self-critique fostered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, are crucial ingredients for any adequate approach to delusion as well as many other topics in psychopathology. In my opinion, the work of many analytic philosophers interested in psychopathology would be enriched if they spent more time trying to discover and imagine what it might be like to experience certain kinds of abnormal psychiatric conditions, and also speculating about what implications such experiential modalities might have for action and verbal expression. I believe they would also be wise to spend more time questioning, and attempting to transcend, the philosophically derived conceptual distinctions and dichotomies that appear to organize their conceptual universes. Phenomenological imagination and Wittgensteinian critique can show how to move outside the conceptual capsule and into the rich and strange realms of actual experience, both normal and abnormal.So far I have offered only slogans. Let me use the articles by Tim Bayne and Elisabeth Pacherie (2004) and Robert Klee (2004) to flesh out the criticisms I have offered. There is much that is intelligent and much that is worthwhile in both their articles. (For example, I was largely convinced by the criticisms of John Campbell and of Donald Davidson that are central to the articles by Bayne and Pacherie and by Klee, respectively.) Here, however, I will focus only on issues that illustrate the above-mentioned tendencies—tendencies that, in my view, tend to infect even the best writings on the (analytic) philosophy of psychiatry. I will also make some remarks about the works of Campbell and Davidson, the two philosophers criticized in the articles by Bayne and Pacherie and by Klee. Because the article by Eugenie Georgaca (2004) is in a different tradition, I will say only a few words about it at the end. Bayne and Pacherie on the Preservation-Of-meaning... (shrink)

A modified version of the mere exposure effect paradigm was utilized in an implicit artificial grammar learning task in an attempt to develop a procedure that would be more sensitive in assesing nonconscious learning processes than the methods currently utilized within the field of implicit learning. Subjects were presented with stimuli generated from a finite-state artificial grammar and then had to either decide if novel items conformed to the rule structure of the grammar or rate the degree to which they (...) liked novel items. Because the latter of the task was more indirect of the two procedures, subjects′ availability to discriminate between well-formed and ill-formed items on this liking task was taken as a more sensitive piece of evidence of implicit learning, compared to performance on the rule conformity task. A subsequent test of subjects′ explicit knowledge of the rules of the grammar showed that subjects do have some conscious knowledge of the artificial grammar, but subjects making liking decisions exhibited significantly less conscious rule knowledge than subjects initially making rule-conformity judgements. The findings are discussed in relation to synergistic relationships among implicit perception, implicit memory, and implicit learning proceses. (shrink)

In 1941 Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish friar from Warsaw was arrested for publishing anti-Nazi pamphlets and sentenced to Auschwitz. There he was beaten, kicked by shiny leather boots, and whipped by his prison guards. After one prisoner successfully escaped, the prescribed punishment was to select ten other prisoners who were to die by starvation. As ten prisoners were pulled out of line one by one, Fr. Kolbe broke out from the ranks, pleading with he Commandant to be allowed to (...) take the place of one of the prisoners, a Polish worker with a wife and children dependent upon him. "I'm an old man, sir, and good for nothing. My life will serve no purpose," the 45 year old priest pleaded. He was taken, thrown down the stairs into a dank dark basement with the other nine prisoners and left to starve. Usually, prisoners punished like this spent their last days howling, attacking each other and clawing the walls in a frenzy of despair. (shrink)

The method of supervaluations offers an elegant procedure by which semantic theory can come to terms with sentences that, for one reason or another, lack truth-value. I argue, however, that this method rests on a fundamental mistake, and so is unsuitable for semantics. The method of supervaluations, I argue, assigns semantic values to sentences based not on the semantic values of their components, but on the values of other, perhaps homophonic, but nevertheless distinct, expressions. That is because supervaluations are generated (...) from classical valuations which necessarily require reinterpreting the component expressions, but the reinterpretation of an expression is tantamount to the introduction of a new expression, or alternatively, to a shift to an entirely new language. To confuse the expression of the language for which a semantic theory is developed with its reinterpreted counterpart, is to commit a fallacy of equivocation. That is the flaw within the method of supervaluations. We see it manifest in a number of examples. (shrink)

This study examines steroid production in fathers watching their children compete, extending previous research of vicarious success or failure on men’s hormone levels. Salivary testosterone and cortisol levels were measured in 18 fathers watching their children play in a soccer tournament. Participants completed a survey about the game and provided demographic information. Fathers with higher pregame testosterone levels were more likely to report that referees were biased against their children’s teams, and pre- to postgame testosterone elevation was predicted by watching (...) sons compete rather than daughters as well as perceptions of unfair officiating. Pregame cortisol was not associated with pregame testosterone or with perceived officiating bias, but cortisol did fluctuate synergistically with testosterone during spectator competition. Although fathers showed no consistent testosterone change in response to winning or losing, pregame testosterone may mediate steroid hormone reactivity to other aspects of their children’s competition. (shrink)

On compte plusieurs études sur la Politeia attribuée à Diogène, mais, sauf erreur de ma part, aucun livre ne lui avait jusqu’à maintenant été consacré, non plus qu’à la pensée politique de Diogène. L’ouvrage passionnant que Suzanne Husson (désormais S. H.) vient d’y consacrer démontre à l’évidence que la pensée politique de Diogène, et des cyniques en général, méritait une étude approfondie. Dans le premier chapitre de l’ouvrage (« Problèmes textuels », p. 21‑45), S. H. se penche sur les prin...

Chapters I.4 and IV.3 of the Memorabilia, where Socrates presents an anthropocentric teleology and an elaborate conception of the divine providence that rules the universe, had a profound influence on the Stoics. The ancients were well aware of this influence, but modern acknowledgement of it was slow in coming, sometimes because these chapters of the Memorabilia were seen as interpolations of Stoic origin, sometimes because the teleology presented by Socrates was attributed to Diogenes of Apollonia. Fortunately, recent commentators no longer (...) seek to deny Xenophon’s authorship of these two chapters, and it is therefore possible to attempt to determine the extent of their legacy among the Stoics. The aim of the following study is to shed light on the numerous overlaps that can be observed between the text of the Memorabilia (chapters I.4 and IV.3) and book II of Cicero’s De natura deorum, where Balbus offers a detailed presentation of Stoic theology. It appears that the influence of the Memorabilia on Cicero’s text is much more important than has been recognized before now. (shrink)

French thought no longer enjoys the kind of prominence in the Anglophone world that it did in most of the last half of the twentieth century, a time when Sartre and Camus, then Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, and Derrida exercised a decisive influence on innovative work in literary and cultural theory, the human and social sciences, and on social thought more generally. It would be a mistake, however, to exaggerate the degree to which this represents either a decline in the actual influence (...) of twentieth century French thinkers or an enervation of contemporary theorizing in France. Derridean deconstruction and Foucauldian power/knowledge analyses have, for.. (shrink)

Purpose of review This review considers the literature on ethical and conceptual issues in eating disorders from the last 18 months. Some reference to earlier work is necessary in order to provide context for the recent findings from research that is ongoing. -/- Recent findings Empirical ethics research on anorexia nervosa includes novel ethical and conceptual findings on the role of authenticity and personal identity in individuals’ reports of their experience, as well as new evidence on the role of affective (...) states and values in decision making at later stages of the illness. Evidence points to the hypothesis that anorexia nervosa may be a distinct affective syndrome that organizes feelings and emotions in accordance with a fixed idea. -/- Summary There has been impressive progress in empirical ethics research on anorexia nervosa, with important implications for ethical and conceptual issues that surround decision-making capacity and our understanding of the illness. (shrink)

Comprendre la tyrannie, retrouver les critères qui nous permettent de l’apercevoir et d’en juger correctement, telle est la fin que Leo Strauss assigne explicitement à son étude du Hiéron de Xénophon. Pourtant, la lecture du livre peut aisément donner l’impression qu’il y est moins question de la tyrannie proprement dite que du rapport entre le philosophe et le politique, ou entre la sagesse et la loi. La préoccupation pour la tyrannie semble ainsi s’effacer devant une préoccupation plus générale sur la (...) nature de la philosophie politique classique dans son ensemble. Nous voulions toutefois ici prendre plus au sérieux l’intention de Strauss, et nous efforcer de comprendre son argumentation ou « enseignement » sur la tyrannie. (shrink)

Imagining being someone else from the inside is something relatively easy to do. In Williams (Imagination and the self, problems of the self: philosophical papers, p 26–45, 1973), for instance, one finds Williams’s famous imaginative scenario consisting in imagining being Napoleon from the inside at the battle of Austerlitz. However, providing an adequate analysis for imagination reports like “(1) Williams imagines being Napoleon (from the inside)” is no easy task, because the logical form of such imagination report is controversial. Following (...) Vendler (Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 84(2):161–173, 1979), the logical form of statements “X imagines F-ing” typically involve a _PRO_ construction. Furthermore, it is generally acknowledged following Chierchia (Semant Contextual Exp 11:1–31, 1989) that _PRO_ constructions require a _de se_ reading. Consequently, (1) is argued to be an instance of _de se_ imagination (this is the “genuine _de se_” analysis of (1)). Yet, (1) is also crucially about Napoleon and, as forcefully argued for in Williams (Imagination and the self, problems of the self: philosophical papers, p 26–45, 1973), it is not even clear that it is about Williams. So (1) cannot be an instance of _de se_ imagination in the standard sense, because Williams does not self-ascribe the semantic content of the imagining episode (this is the “quasi-_de se_” analysis of (1)). In this paper, I vindicate the genuine _de se_ analysis, based on some new data involving nested imaginings. I then investigate some consequences of the view, which, I argue, are not available to the quasi-_de se_ theorists, including what the view says about failed imaginings. (shrink)

Recently it was shown that certain fluid-mechanical ‘pilot-wave’ systems can strikingly mimic a range of quantum properties, including single particle diffraction and interference, quantization of angular momentum etc. How far does this analogy go? The ultimate test of quantumness of such systems is a Bell-test. Here the premises of the Bell inequality are re-investigated for particles accompanied by a pilot-wave, or more generally by a resonant ‘background’ field. We find that two of these premises, namely outcome independence and measurement independence, (...) may not be generally valid when such a background is present. Under this assumption the Bell inequality is possibly violated. A class of hydrodynamic Bell experiments is proposed that could test this claim. Such a Bell test on fluid systems could provide a wealth of new insights on the different loopholes for Bell’s theorem. Finally, it is shown that certain properties of background-based theories can be illustrated in Ising spin-lattices. (shrink)

It is a Pleasure to comment on Somogy Varga’s intriguing paper, which offers welcome insight into the historical sources, changing uses, and underlying assumptions pertaining to the concept of ‘melancholia,’ especially in relationship to ‘depression.’ We found Varga’s discussion of the relationship between affect and cognition in past discussions of melancholia and depression to be illuminating, especially given the emphasis on cognitive distortions in contemporary psycho-pathology. His explanation of the gradual evolution of the depression concept from melancholia sheds interesting light (...) on current notions. All in all, we find Varga’s arguments persuasive, and are inclined to agree with him (and others whom he .. (shrink)

There is a large amount of scientific work on emotion in psychology, neuroscience, biology, physiology, and psychiatry, which assumes that it is possible to study emotions and other affective states, objectively. Emotion science of this sort is concerned primarily with 'facts' and not 'values', with 'description' not 'prescription'. The assumption behind this vision of emotion science is that it is possible to distinguish factual from evaluative aspects of affectivity and emotion, and study one without the other. But what really is (...) the basis for distinguishing fact and value in emotion and affectivity? And can the distinction withstand careful scientific and philosophical scrutiny? The essays in this collection all suggest that the problems behind this vision of emotion science may be more complex than is commonly supposed. (shrink)

Gasparyan shows the relationship of eigenform with semiosis. In agreement with her, I discuss these ideas from my own viewpoint.

In How to Be a Marxist in Philosophy one of the most famous Marxist philosophers of the 20th century shares his concept of what it means to function fruitfully as a political thinker within the discipline and environs of philosophy. This is the first English translation to Althusser's provocative and, often, controversial guide to being a true Marxist philosopher. Althusser argues that philosophy needs Marxism. It can't exist fully without it. Similarly, Marxism requires the rigour and structures of philosophy to (...) give it form and focus. He calls all thinking people to, 'Remember: a philosopher is a man who fights in theory, and when he understands the reasons for this fight, he joined the ranks of the struggle of workers and popular classes.' In short, this book comprises Althusser's elucidation of what praxis means and why it continues to matter. With a superb introduction from translator and Althusser archivist G.M. Goshgarian, this is a book that will re-inspire contemporary Marxist thought and reinvigorate our notions of what political activism can be. (shrink)

After examining these decisions in their one-period setting, they devote most of the book to a multiperiod context, which adds the long-term perspective most risk management analyses require.