The starting point of this conversation with philosopher Mathieu Triclot is the issue of the causal contribution of video game playing in school shootings. Triclot explains the limitations of current psychological approaches regarding video game violence. He further develops on the peculiar features of the video game medium and how they relate to the problem of violence. Triclot eventually shows that, although players may relate to virtual violence in very different ways, violence in video games is not merely a (...) subjective phenomenon. He highlights that some “regimes of experience,” which got stable in the video game culture, cultivate a toxic relation to violence. (shrink)

In this paper, elementary but hitherto overlooked connections are established between Wittgenstein's remarks on mathematics, written during his transitional period, and free-variable finitism. After giving a brief description of theTractatus Logico-Philosophicus on quantifiers and generality, I present in the first section Wittgenstein's rejection of quantification theory and his account of general arithmetical propositions, to use modern jargon, as claims (as opposed to statements). As in Skolem's primitive recursive arithmetic and Goodstein's equational calculus, Wittgenstein represented generality by the use of free (...) variables. This has the effect that negation of unbounded universal and existential propositions cannot be expressed. This is claimed in the second section to be the basis for Wittgenstein's criticism of the universal validity of the law of excluded middle. In the last section, there is a brief discussion of Wittgenstein's remarks on real numbers. These show a preference, in line with finitism, for a recursive version of the continuum. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people’s intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the ‘plagiarism’ label should not be used for (...) deeds which are very different in nature and importance. (shrink)

A Polish space is not always homeomorphic to a computably presented Polish space. In this article, we examine degrees of non-computability of presenting homeomorphic copies of compact Polish spaces. We show that there exists a $\mathbf {0}'$ -computable low $_3$ compact Polish space which is not homeomorphic to a computable one, and that, for any natural number $n\geq 2$, there exists a Polish space $X_n$ such that exactly the high $_{n}$ -degrees are required to present the homeomorphism type of $X_n$. (...) Along the way we investigate the computable aspects of Čech homology groups. We also show that no compact Polish space has a least presentation with respect to Turing reducibility. (shrink)

Comment les discours et les images produits sur le thème des pratiques sociales de danse deviennent-ils, dans l’entre-deux-guerres (1919-1939), le réceptacle d’un discours plus ample sur les mutations des rapports de genre? C’est ce que cet article essaie d’éclairer, en analysant le contexte de profond bouleversement qui caractérise le domaine de la danse de société au lendemain de la Grande Guerre, avec l’introduction en France de danses importées des Amériques. L’imaginaire des danses nouvelles, support privilégié de la représentation du couple, (...) suscite alors des représentations transgressives des rôles sexués, à travers les figures de la garçonne et du danseur mondain, tandis que les pratiques corporelles des femmes sont profondément affectées par les mutations du répertoire chorégraphique. (shrink)

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, (...) Number 3. (shrink)

This pioneering book demonstrates the crucial importance of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics to his philosophy as a whole. Marion traces the development of Wittgenstein's thinking in the context of the mathematical and philosophical work of the times, to make coherent sense of ideas that have too often been misunderstood because they have been presented in a disjointed and incomplete way. In particular, he illuminates the work of the neglected 'transitional period' between the Tractatus and the Investigations.

The past two decades have seen growing calls for the “tobacco endgame.” Its advocates are united by their commitment to two ideas. First, tobacco‐related harms represent a catastrophic health emergency, and second, current tobacco‐control approaches are an inadequate response to the scale of that emergency. To endgame advocates, tobacco policy should have more ambitious goals than merely “controlling” tobacco. Instead, it should aim to bring about a smoke‐free world. While a range of different policies are included under the umbrella of (...) the “tobacco endgame,” the most radical proposal is for a complete ban on tobacco. Its advocates argue that in addition to improving global public health, an effective ban on tobacco would also promote overall autonomy and would have important egalitarian benefits. This article critically examines these arguments for a tobacco ban. I argue that they rely on idealizing assumptions about the likely effects of a ban. Because an effective ban would require robust enforcement to control the illegal market in tobacco, it would be more likely to undermine autonomy and equality than it would be to promote them. By relying on idealizing assumptions and ignoring the likely consequences of a tobacco ban, advocates of a ban obscure, rather than clarify, both the policy debate and the ethical stakes. I conclude by considering the ways that idealizing assumptions should—and should not—play a role in debates about ethical issues in public policy. (shrink)

Many engineering ethics classes and textbooks introduce theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism (and most others draw from these theories without mentioning them explicitly). Yet using ethical theories to teach engineering ethics is not devoid of difficulty. First, their status is unclear (should one pick a single theory or use them all? does it make a difference?) Also, textbooks generally assume or fallaciously ‘prove’ that egoism (or even simply accounting for one’s interests) is wrong. Further, the drawbacks of ethical theories (...) are underestimated and the theories are also otherwise misrepresented to make them more suitable for engineering ethics as the authors construe it, viz. the ‘moral reasoning’ process. Stating in what various theories disagree would allow the students to frame the problem more productively in terms of motive–consequence or society–individual dichotomies rather than in terms of Kant–utilitarian. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the transmission of some ideas of the pragmatist tradition to Wittgenstein, in his ‘middle period,’ through the intermediary of F. P. Ramsey, with whom he had numerous fruitful discussions at Cambridge in 1929. I argue more specifically that one must first come to terms with Ramsey’s own views in 1929, and explain how they differ from views expressed in earlier papers from 1925-27, so a large part of this paper is devoted to this task. One (...) is then in a better position to understand the impact of Ramsey’s astute critique of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in conjunction with his pragmatism, and explain how it may have set into motion the ‘later’ Wittgenstein. I then argue that Ramsey introduced his notion of ‘variable hypothetical’ as a rule, not a proposition, on pragmatist grounds and that Wittgenstein picked this up in 1929, along with a more ‘dynamic’ view of meaning than the ‘static’ view of the Tractatus, and that this explains in part Wittgenstein’s turn to his ‘later philosophy.’. (shrink)

The use of physical models of molecular structures as research tools has been central to the development of biochemistry and molecular biology. Intriguingly, it has received little attention from scholars of science. In this paper, I argue that these physical models are not mere three-dimensional representations but that they are in fact very special research tools: they are cognitive augmentations. Despite the fact that they are external props, these models serve as cognitive tools that augment and extend the modeler’s cognitive (...) capacities and performance in molecular modeling tasks. This cognitive enhancement is obtained because of the way the modeler interacts with these models, the models’ materiality contributing to the solving of the molecule’s structure. Furthermore, I argue that these material models and their component parts were designed, built and used specifically to serve as cognitive facilitators and cognitive augmentations. (shrink)

Since cheating is obviously wrong, arguments against it need only be mentioned in passing. But the argument of unfair advantage absurdly takes education to be essentially a race of all against all; moreover, it ignores that many cases of unfair advantages are widely accepted. On the other hand, the fact that cheating can hamper learning does not mean that punishing cheating will necessarily favour learning, so that this argument does not obviously justify sanctioning cheaters.

Longtemps objet de prédilection des hitoriens de l'économie européenne, la croissance médiévale n'est plus au centre de leurs préoccupations. En la replaçant dans une perspective de long terme, du XIe au XVe siècle, et en s'interrogeant sur ce qui en elle relève proprement des processus de développement ou des dynamiques conjoncturelles, il est possible de replacer au centre du débat historique un moment essentiel de construction de l'économie-monde européenne. L'article insiste en particulier sur l'importance des processus sociaux de promotion des (...) activités productives et des groupes de travailleurs: ils ont rendu possible une intensification du travail, rémunérée par un ensemble complexe de mécanismes de redistribution des richesses qui sont l'une de créations originales des sociétés médiévales. (shrink)

What may we learn about the life of human beings with Evolutionary Biology? In order to answer this question, without taking a distrustful stance, I think that Daniel Dennett’s evolutionary cognitivism and Foucault s archaeological approach are not unreconciliable but complementary traditions. Indeed, Derrnett’s originality, thanks to his interpretation of the Baldwin Effect and his thesis of Self as a Narrative Center of Gravity, manages to present the human being’s world as the living fulfilment of a set of historical products, (...) without giving up the properly creative dimension of the individual . In this way, devices of domination and processes of « subjectivisation » belong to the broader transfornzative process of the evolution of life on Earth. In return, Dennett s philosophy, rightfully careful when it comes to political questions, should be complemented by a critical analysis. (shrink)

Nous tenterons ici d’élucider le sens de la référence quelque peu surprenante de H. G. Gadamer à la doctrine médiévale des transcendantaux à la fin de Vérité et méthode. Le concept d’appartenance signifie pour Gadamer l’insertion de la connaissance dans l’être. Nous soutenons que la thèse fondamentale de Gadamer, l’être susceptible d’être compris est langage, ne signifie pas que l’être soit «soumis» au langage, mais suggère plutôt une certaine intelligibilité de l’être auquel l’homme participe par le biais de la connaissance. (...) Ceci nous reconduit à deux doctrines clés issues de la philosophie médiévale en ce qui concerne le problème de la vérité, soit les transcendantaux et la définition classique de la vérité comme adaequatio rei et intellectus. (shrink)

After sketching an argument for radical anti-realism that does not appeal to human limitations but polynomial-time computability in its definition of feasibility, I revisit an argument by Wittgenstein on the surveyability of proofs, and then examine the consequences of its application to the notion of canonical proof in contemporary proof-theoretical-semantics.

Prominent ethical and policy issues such as affirmative action and female enrollment in science and engineering revolve around the idea that diversity is good. However, a precise definition is seldom provided. I show that diversity may be construed as a factual description, a craving for symmetry, an intrinsic good, an instrumental good, a symptom, or a side effect. These acceptions differ vastly in their nature and properties. Some are deeply mistaken and some others cannot lead to concrete policies. It is (...) thus necessary to clarify what one means by ‘diversity.’ It may be a neutral description of a given state; but this is insufficient to act. The idea that there should be the same representation in a specific context as in the overall population is both puzzling and arbitrary. Diversity as intrinsic good is a mere opinion, which cannot be concretely applied; moreover, the most commonly invoked forms of diversity are not intrinsically good. On the other hand, diversity as instrumental good can be evaluated empirically and can give rise to policies, but these may be very weak. Finally, symptoms and side effects are not actually about diversity. I consider the example of female enrollment in science and engineering, interpreting the various arguments found in the literature in light of this polysemy. (shrink)

The thesis according to which the meaning of a mathematical sentence is given by its proof was held by both Wittgenstein and the intuitionists, following Heyting and Dummett. In this paper, we clarify the meaning of this thesis for Wittgenstein, showing how his position differs from that of the intuitionists. We show how the thesis originates in his thoughts, from the middle period, about proofs by induction, and we sketch his answers to a number of objections, including the idea that, (...) given the particular meaning he gives to this thesis, he cannot account for mathematical conjectures. We conclude by showing how his views find a favourable echo today in the paradigm of “proposition-as-type” and extensions of the Curry-Howard isomorphism from which this paradigm originates. (shrink)

Funding agencies in Canada are attempting to break down the organizational boundaries between disciplines to promote interdisciplinary research and foster the integration of the social sciences into the health research field. This paper explores the extent to which biomedical and clinician scientists’ perceptions of social science research operate as a cultural boundary to the inclusion of social scientists into this field. Results indicated that cultural boundaries may impede social scientists’ entry into the health research field through three modalities: (1) biomedical (...) and clinician scientists’ unfavourable and ambivalent posture towards social science research; (2) their opposition to a resource increase for the social sciences; and (3) clinician scientists procedural assessment criteria for social science. The paper also discusses the merits and limitations of Tom Gieryn’s concept of boundary-work for studying social dynamics within the field of science. (shrink)

Pierre Mathieu L’analyse des publications et des textes de conférences du cistercien québécois Yves Girard permet de dégager un thème majeur de sa théologie spirituelle : le désir de l’être, interprété par lui comme un désir de rencontre avec Dieu. C’est un désir inconscient, inscrit dans la structure de l’être par le Créateur qui désire être en relation avec ses créatures. Selon l’auteur, nous possédons déjà ce que nous désirons, une richesse intérieure à laquelle le silence nous donne accès.

This article maps a controversy in network science over the last 15 years, dividing the field about the epistemic status of a central notion, scale-freeness. The article accounts for the two main disputes, in 2005 and in 2018, as they unfolded in academic publications and on social media. This article analyzes the conflict, and the reasons why it reignited in 2018, to the surprise of many. It is argued that the concept of complex networks is shared by the distinct subcultures (...) of theorists and experimentalists; and that these subcultures have incompatible approaches to knowledge: nomothetic and idiographic. Following Galison, this article contends that network science is a trading zone where theorists and experimentalists can trade knowledge across the epistemic divide. (shrink)

A leading idea of cultural evolutionary theory is that for human cultures to undergo evolutionary change, cultural transmission must generally serve as a high-fidelity copying process. In analogy to genetic inheritance, the high fidelity of human cultural transmission would act as a safeguard against the transformation and loss of cultural information, thus ensuring both the stability and longevity of cultural traditions. Cultural fidelity would also serve as the key difference-maker between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, explaining why only (...) us humans, with our uniquely high-fidelity transmission capabilities, are capable of evolving and sustaining complex traditions. But what does it mean for cultural transmission to be more or less faithful? This article has two objectives. The first is to clarify the meaning and uses of the concept of cultural fidelity and to evaluate their explanatory import. I argue that cultural evolutionists use several fidelity concepts (episodic, propensity, and generalized fidelity), concepts that I will define and clarify. The second objective is to challenge the explanatory significance of a general notion of fidelity (generalized fidelity) as being both explanatorily meaningful and operationalizable. I conclude that if fidelity is to serve as an explanation of the key differences between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, then the concept will have to be redesigned and rely on different assumptions. 1Introduction 2Generalized Fidelity 2.1The need for an explanatory concept of fidelity 2.2Three conditions for a general notion of cultural fidelity 3Episodic Fidelity 3.1Measuring episodic fidelity 3.2The relevance problem 3.3Explanatory pluralism 3.4The incommensurability of fidelity metrics 4Propensity Fidelity 5Fidelity as an Explanatory Concept 5.1Explaining cultural stability 5.2Explaining human distinctiveness 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Que serait une exposition qui, au lieu de prendre place dans un musée ou dans une galerie, prendrait place au cinéma? (un projet de Mathieu Copeland, avec Chantal Akerman, Peter Downsbrough, Liam Gillick, John Giorno, Philippe Grandrieux, Isidore Isou, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Meredith Monk, Lee Ranaldo, Susan Stenger, Alan Vega, Jacques Villeglé, Lawrence Weiner, Apichatpong Weerasethakul...).

After presenting the rules of Eleatic antilogic, i.e., dialectic, I argue that Zeno was a practitioner, and, on the basis of key passages from Plato’s Parmenides (127e-128e and 135d-136c), that his paradoxes of divisibility and movement were notreductio ad absurdum, but simple derivation of impossibilities (adunaton) meant to ridicule Parmenides’ adversaries. Thus, Zeno did not try to prove that there is no motion, but simply derived this consequence from premises held by his opponents. I argue further that these paradoxes were (...) devised, in accordance with Eleatic antilogic, following a scheme that included hypotheses and their contradictories, within which the subject is to be treated both “in relation to itself,” and “in relation to other things”. (shrink)

Research has shown that context influences how sincere a smile appears to observers. That said, most studies on this topic have focused exclusively on situational cues (e.g. smiling while at a party versus smiling during a job interview) and few have examined other elements of context. One important element concerns any knowledge an observer might have about the smiler as an individual (e.g. their habitual behaviours, traits or attitudes). In this manuscript, we present three experiments that explored the influence of (...) such knowledge on ratings of smile sincerity. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants rated the sincerity of Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles after having been exposed to cues about the smiler’s tendency to reciprocate (this person always, never or occasionally returns favours). In Experiment 3 they performed the same task but with cues about the smiler’s love of learning (this person always, never or occasionally enjoys learning new tasks). The results show that cues about the smiler’s reciprocity tendency influenced participants’ ratings of smile sincerity and did so in a stronger manner than cues about the smiler’s love of learning. Overall, these results both strengthen and broaden the literature on the role of context on judgements of smile sincerity. (shrink)

There is now an awakening to and recognition of the emotionally complex lives of some non-human animals. While their forms of consciousness may vary, some are indeed conscious and deserve political consideration. What that political consideration ought to be is the central topic of this article. First, I argue that interspecies justice must be understood in terms of the relationships that foster individual flourishing of all concerned. The obstacles to such flourishing are the five faces of oppression famously identified by (...) Iris Marion Young: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. By extending Young’s concept of the social group to intra- and interspecies groups, we become more attuned to differences between and among species. Theorizing the existence of interspecies groups brings forward new avenues to explore oppression and simultaneously theorize its opposite – interspecies justice. Second, I argue that a positive theory of interspecies flourishing can be developed on the basis of Marx’s materialist philosophy and reclamation of species-being. Though Marx uses humanist language throughout the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, attention to his methodological commitments reveals that some non-human animals can no longer be excluded from the capability of flourishing and species-being. Some non-human animals are conscious, act purposefully, and labor creatively and must be included in our circle of moral and political concern. (shrink)