This article challenges conventional readings of Michel Foucault by examining his fascination with neoliberalism in the late 1970s. Foucault did not critique neoliberalism during this period; rather, he strategically endorsed it. The necessary cause for this approval lies in the broader rehabilitation of economic liberalism in France during the 1970s. The sufficient cause lies in Foucault's own intellectual development: drawing on his long-standing critique of the state as a model for conceptualizing power, Foucault concluded, during the 1970s, that economic liberalism, (...) rather than “discipline,” was modernity's paradigmatic power form. Moreover, this article seeks to clarify the relationship between Foucault's philosophical antihumanism and his assessment of liberalism. Rather than arguing that Foucault's antihumanism precluded a positive appraisal of liberalism, or that the apparent reorientation of his politics in a more liberal direction in the late 1970s entailed a partial retreat from antihumanism, this article contends that Foucault's brief, strategic, and contingent endorsement of liberalism was possible precisely because he saw no incompatibility between antihumanism and liberalism—but only liberalism of the economic variety. Economic liberalism alone, and not its political iteration, was compatible with the philosophical antihumanism that is the hallmark of Foucault's thought. (shrink)

This work explores caring robots' lifesaving benefits, particularly during contagion, while probing the threat they pose to interpersonal engagement and genuine human caregiving. As humans, we have a binding moral responsibility to care for the Other, and genuine caring demands our embodied, human-to-human presence.

Our increasingly sophisticated medical technological interventions yield numerous benefits. At the same time, there are dangerous trade-offs, particularly in the domain of digitized health communication and electronic medical records. These have become the rule of thumb, the default posture, in place of interpersonal, embodied, face-to-face interaction. This foremost stumbling block in our healthcare system generates an urgent moral imperative to resuscitate embodied presence in healthcare. Through applying a phenomenological lens, focusing particularly on insights from Emmanuel Levinas, this essay examines his (...) metaphysic of ethics that occurs through encountering the face of the Other, le visage. This encounter evokes an epiphany, a “rupture of being,” that constitutes a moral invitation, a beckoning that offers further ground for an ethics of embodied presence as a path to re-establish genuine communication with our patients. (shrink)

Given the known hazards of nuclear energy in seismically active Japan after the Fukushima meltdowns as well as the presence of viable conservation and renewable energy options, the question of Japan’s stalled energy transition warrants critical interrogation. To better understand why, after Fukushima, Japan’s energy policy trajectory maintained the nuclear status quo and an increased reliance on fossil fuels, this article employs network and historical analyses to examine the confluence of post-Fukushima political forces connected to Japan’s nuclear energy sector. Our (...) novel network dataset combines with historical analysis to identify a dense network of overlapping executives and officials in Japan that forge long-term ties between the nuclear energy industry, the state, and the leading business federation in Japan. Following the 3.11 disaster and the meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility, a long-standing nuclear safety myth and a tightly networked nuclear energy industrial complex provided an ideological and structural context to re-legitimize nuclear energy in spite of widespread public concern. Instead of a bold, ecologically rational policy to quickly phase out nuclear power and phase in renewable energy, well-worn class and state networks aligned to recommit Japan to a nuclear-reliant energy path. These findings support a theoretical synthesis around our concept of an energy industrial complex with applications in environmental and political sociology. (shrink)

Across the globe, radical conservative political forces and ideas are influencing and even transforming the landscape of international politics. Yet IR is remarkably ill-equipped to understand and engage these new challenges. Unlike political theory or domestic political analyses, conservatism has no distinctive place in the fields’ defining alternatives of realism, liberalism, Marxism, and constructivism. This paper seeks to provide a point of entry for such engagement by bringing together what may seem the most unlikely of partners: critical theory and the (...) New Right. Important parts of today’s New Right represent self-conscious appropriations of Critical themes and thinkers—turning them to self-declared “reactionary” ends. Developing outside the confines of the academy, these forms of thought have woven insights from across Critical theory into new and mobilizing forms of conservative ideology, seeking to link that ideology to social forces that play increasingly active roles in global politics. Our intention here is not to somehow blame Critical perspectives for the ideas of the New Right, either directly or by association. Rather, we seek to show how an engagement with Critical theory helps us understand the New Right, while also demonstrating some of the direct challenges the New Right poses for critical perspectives. (shrink)

AbstractMany management theories have descriptive and normative elements, and no management theory used to generate prescriptions can be totally devoid of normative assumptions. Yet, there remain few useful models for assessing the relative strength or utility of the normative frameworks that inform most management theorizing. In this essay, we offer a model from a field of art rather than science. We introduce the poetry of early twentieth century American writer Hart Crane as providing such a model. Crane uses a panorama (...) of consequences to examine modern social phenomena and subject them to normative evaluation. We argue that management theorists can use a similar panorama of consequences method to “test” normative theories by assessing the directional consistency of the normative evaluations the theories generate about an empirical phenomenon or relationship, as well as how extensively the theories’ normative evaluations cover the full scope of a phenomenon’s or relationship’s impact. We explicate an exemplar poem of Crane’s, and then demonstrate how his method might be used to study shareholder activism, a normatively ambiguous management practice, in a way that illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the relevant normative frameworks. (shrink)

This article characterizes the varieties of four - dimensionalism and provides a critical overview of the main arguments in support of it.

One of the key tenets of James Buchanan’s political thought was the centrality of the status quo, embodied in Buchanan’s frequently heard axiom that “we start from where we are.” There is practical political value in “starting from where we are,” because we are in fact there, and not someplace else. Buchanan’s normative concern is that starting from where “we are” means that changes are more likely to be voluntary, and therefore Pareto-improving. The history of this notion of the status (...) quo in contractarian thought is developed briefly, and then a particular example, the Chilean Constitution and its problematic implementation, is discussed. (shrink)

Between 1949 and 1961 (or, arguably, 1966), three interconnected dimensions of Foucault’s early thought emerged. First, the young Foucault offered a Hegelian perspective on Kant’s notion of the transcendental. The a priori conditions of thought, Foucault suggested, both shape and arise from historical experience. Second, Foucault drew on Heidegger’s study of Kant to argue that modern thought rests on the premise of human finitude and embraces a problematic epistemology rooted in philosophical anthropology. Foucault argued that anthropology enabled a vast extension (...) of the scope of possible knowledge predicated on the falsely modest pretense that human understanding is inherently limited, even as it embraced a diminished conception of human existence. Third, Foucault developed a pointed critique of contemporary psychology and psychiatry, maintaining that they fallaciously seek to acquire positive knowledge of human beings, despite the fact the latter are inherently defined by what Foucault called “negativity.” This three-pronged interpretation of the young Foucault allows us to better situate Foucault’s work in intellectual history, to clarify his key arguments, and to grasp the articulation of his youthful and his mature thought. (shrink)

The arguments for redistribution of wealth, and for prohibiting certain transactions such as price-gouging, both are based in mistaken conceptions of exchange. This paper proposes a neologism, “euvoluntary” exchange, meaning both that the exchange is truly voluntary and that it benefits both parties to the transaction. The argument has two parts: First, all euvoluntary exchanges should be permitted, and there is no justification for redistribution of wealth if disparities result only from euvoluntary exchanges. Second, even exchanges that are not euvoluntary (...) should generally be permitted, because access to market exchange may be the only means by which people in desperate circumstances can improve their position. (shrink)

This paper is the report of a meetingthat gathered many of the UK's most senioranimal scientists with representatives of thefarming industry, consumer groups, animalwelfare groups, and environmentalists. Therewas strong consensus that the current economicstructure of agriculture cannot adequatelyaddress major issues of concern to society:farm incomes, food security and safety, theneeds of developing countries, animal welfare,and the environment. This economic structure isbased primarily on competition betweenproducers and between retailers, driving foodprices down, combined with externalization ofmany costs. These issues must be addressed (...) by acombination of legislation, restructuring ofthe market, and use of public funds. Themeeting included workshops that made otherrecommendations for research and education. Themost urgent requirement is recognition thatchange is needed and development of a visionfor what that change must achieve. (shrink)

There is a tradition according to which Parmenides of Elea endorsed the following set of counterintuitive doctrines: (a) There exists exactly one material thing. (b) What exists does not change. (g) Nothing is generated or destroyed. (d) What exists is undivided. For convenience, I will use the label ‘Eleatic monism’ to refer to the conjunction of a–d.

Language is commonly held to be unique to humans, and to have emerged suddenly in a single “great leap forward” within the past 100,000 years. The view is profoundly anti-Darwinian, and I propose instead a framework for understanding how language might have evolved incrementally from our primate heritage. One major proposition is that language evolved from manual action, with vocalization emerging as the dominant mode late in hominin evolution. The second proposition has to do with the role of language as (...) a means of communicating about events displaced in space and time from the present. Some have argued that mental time travel itself is unique to human, which might explain why language itself is uniquely human. I argue instead that mental time travel has ancient evolutionary origins, and gradually assumed narrative-like properties during the Pleistocene, when language itself began to take shape. (shrink)

We introduce the notions of a mutually algebraic structures and theories and prove many equivalents. A theory $T$ is mutually algebraic if and only if it is weakly minimal and trivial if and only if no model $M$ of $T$ has an expansion $(M,A)$ by a unary predicate with the finite cover property. We show that every structure has a maximal mutually algebraic reduct, and give a strong structure theorem for the class of elementary extensions of a fixed mutually algebraic (...) structure. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Achille Varzi (2009) argues that mereological universalism (U) entails mereological extensionalism (E). The thesis that U entails E (call it ‘T’) has important implications. For example, as is well known, T plays a crucial role in Peter van Inwagen’s argument against universalism (1990: 74–79). In what follows, I show that Varzi’s arguments for T rely on a tendentious assumption about parthood.

Though Michel Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, little is known about his early life. Even Foucault’s biographers have neglected this period, preferring instead to start the story when the future philosopher arrives in Paris. Becoming Foucault is a historical reconstruction of the world in which Foucault grew up: the small city of Poitiers, France, from the 1920s until the end of the Second World War. Beyond exploring previously unexamined aspects of Foucault’s childhood, including (...) his wartime ordeals, it proposes an original interpretation of Foucault’s oeuvre. Michael Behrent argues that Foucault, in addition to being a theorist of power, knowledge, and selfhood, was also a philosopher of experience. He was a thinker intent on making sense of the events that he lived through. Behrent identifies four specific experiences in Foucault’s childhood that exercised a decisive influence on him and that, in various ways, he later made the subject of his philosophy: his family’s deep connections to the medical profession; his upbringing in a bourgeois household; the German Occupation during World War II; and his Catholic education. Behrent not only reconstructs the specific nature of these experiences but also shows how reference to them surfaces in Foucault’s later work. In this way, the book both sheds light on a formative period in the philosopher’s life and offers a unique interpretation of key aspects of his thought. (shrink)

I argue that a critical feature of language that distinguishes it from animal communication isdisplacement,the means to communicate about the non-present. This implies a capacity for mental travels in time and space, which is the ability to call to mind past episodes, imagine future ones or purely fictitious ones, and locate them in different places. While mental travel in time, in particular, is often considered to be unique to humans, behavioral and neurophysiological evidence suggests that it is evident in some (...) form, at least, in nonhuman animals, including rodents, and may go far back in the evolution of animals that move. The linguistic capacity to share experiences that transcend space and time evolved much more recently, accelerating during the Pleistocene with increasing demands for effective cooperation and long-distance planning. The expansion of mental time travel probably co-evolved with the development of language itself, because the sharing of memories, plans, and stories vastly added to our own individual experiences. From this perspective, the critical period of the Road Map runs from the emergence of the genusHomoaround 2 million years ago to the present. (shrink)

This two-volume collection brings together Michael C. Rea's most substantial work in analytic theology. The first volume considers the nature of God and our ability to talk and discover truths about God, whereas Volume II focuses on theological questions about humanity and the human condition. -/- The chapters in the first part of Volume I explore issues pertaining to discourse about God and the authority of scripture. Part two focuses on divine attributes, while part three discusses doctrine of the (...) trinity and related issues. Part one of Volume II considers the doctrines of the incarnation, original sin, and atonement. Part two examines the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and a theological problem that arises in connection with the idea God not only tolerates but validates a response of angry protest in the face of these problems. (shrink)

Over the past sixty years, within the analytic tradition of philosophy, there has been a significant revival of interest in the philosophy of religion. More recently, philosophers of religion have turned in a more self-consciously interdisciplinary direction, with special focus on topics that have traditionally been the provenance of systematic theologians in the Christian tradition. The present volumes Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, volumes 1 and 2 aim to bring together some of the most important essays on six central topics (...) in recent philosophical theology. Volume 1 collects essays on three distinctively Christian doctrines: trinity, incarnation, and atonement. Volume 2 focuses on three topics that arise in all of the major theistic religions: providence, resurrection, and scripture. (shrink)

We define an easily verifiable notion of an atomic formula having uniformly bounded arrays in a structure M. We prove that if T is a complete L-theory, then T is mutually algebraic if and only if there is some model M of T for which every atomic formula has uniformly bounded arrays. Moreover, an incomplete theory T is mutually algebraic if and only if every atomic formula has uniformly bounded arrays in every model M of T.

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, and Philebus and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good.“Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith.... Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”-Alexander Nehemas, New York Times Book Review“The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent annotation provide (...) special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”-Choice“This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial.... I enthusiastically recommend this...challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”-Francis J. Ambrosio, International Philosophy QuarterlyHans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato and Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. (shrink)

Creating focal lesions in primary visual cortex (V1) provides an opportunity to study the role of extra-geniculo-striate pathways for activating extrastriate visual cortex. Previous studies have shown that more than 95% of neurons in macaque area V2 and V3 stop firing after reversibly cooling V1 [1,2,3]. However, no studies on long term recovery in areas V2, V3 following permanent V1 lesions have been reported in the macaque. Here we use macaque fMRI to study area V2, V3 activity patterns from 1 (...) to 22 months after lesioning area V1. We find that visually driven BOLD responses persist inside the V1-lesion projection zones (LPZ) of areas V2 and V3, but are reduced in strength by ,70%, on average, compared to prelesion levels. Monitoring the LPZ activity over time starting one month following the V1 lesion did not reveal systematic changes in BOLD signal amplitude. Surprisingly, the retinotopic organization inside the LPZ of areas V2, V3 remained similar to that of the non-lesioned hemisphere, suggesting that LPZ activation in V2, V3 is not the result of input arising from nearby (non-lesioned) V1 cortex. Electrophysiology recordings of multi-unit activity corroborated the BOLD observations: visually driven multi-unit responses could be elicited inside the V2 LPZ, even when the visual stimulus was entirely contained within the scotoma induced by the V1 lesion. Restricting the stimulus to the intact visual hemi-field produced no significant BOLD modulation inside the V2, V3 LPZs. We conclude that the observed activity patterns are largely mediated by parallel, V1-bypassing, subcortical pathways that can activate areas V2 and V3 in the absence of V1 input. Such pathways may contribute to the behavioral phenomenon of blindsight. (shrink)

The prevailing view of the origin of the idea of republican liberty holds that it emerged as a polemical tool to wield against political opponents in the Roman republic. But viewing republican liberty as partisan rhetorical device has obscured the important philosophical innovations that were necessary to render it theoretically viable and coherent. Turning to Cicero, the earliest extant theorist of republican liberty, I seek to explore the depth of the conceptual revolution that made it possible to articulate that ideal. (...) Cicero transforms the practice of republican libertas into a coherent ideal through a re-thinking of some of the central claims of Greek political philosophy. (shrink)