In this article, Peter and Rowland explore the role of implicit statistical learning in syntactic development. It is often accepted that the processes observed in classic implicit learning or statistical learning experiments play an important role in the acquisition of natural language syntax. As Peter and Rowland point out, however, the results from neither research strand can be used to fully explain how children's syntax becomes adult‐like. They propose to address this shortcoming by using the structural priming paradigm.

The scientific study of consciousness emerged as an organized field of research only a few decades ago. As empirical results have begun to enhance our understanding of consciousness, it is important to find out whether other factors, such as funding for consciousness research and status of consciousness scientists, provide a suitable environment for the field to grow and develop sustainably. We conducted an online survey on people’s views regarding various aspects of the scientific study of consciousness as a field of (...) research. 249 participants completed the survey, among which 80% were in academia, and around 40% were experts in consciousness research. Topics covered include the progress made by the field, funding for consciousness research, job opportunities for consciousness researchers, and the scientific rigor of the work done by researchers in the field. The majority of respondents (78%) indicated that scientific research on consciousness has been making progress. However, most participants perceived obtaining funding and getting a job in the field of consciousness research as more difficult than in other subfields of neuroscience. Overall, work done in consciousness research was perceived to be less rigorous than other neuroscience subfields, but this perceived lack of rigor was not related to the perceived difficulty in finding jobs and obtaining funding. Lastly, we found that, overall, the global workspace theory was perceived to be the most promising (around 28%), while most non-expert researchers (around 22% of non-experts) found the integrated information theory (IIT) most promising. We believe the survey results provide an interesting picture of current opinions from scientists and researchers about the progresses made and the challenges faced by consciousness research as an independent field. They will inspire collective reflection on the future directions regarding funding and job opportunities for the field. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo determine to which degree industry partners in randomised clinical trials own the data and can constrain publication rights of academic investigators.MethodsCohort study of trial protocols, publication agreements and other documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, for a sample of 42 trials with industry involvement approved by ethics committees in Denmark. The main outcome measures used were: proportion of trials where data was owned by the industry partner, where the investigators right to publish were constrained and if this was (...) mentioned in informed consent documents, and where the industry partner could review data while the trial was ongoing and stop the trial early.ResultsThe industry partner owned all data in 20 trials (48%) and in 16 trials (38%) it was unclear. Publication constraints were described for 30 trials (71%) and this was not communicated to trial participants in informed consent documents in any of the trials. In eight trials (19%) the industry partner could review data during the trial, for 20 trials (48%) it was unclear. The industry partner could stop the trial early without any specific reason in 23 trials (55%).ConclusionsPublication constraints are common, and data is often owned by industry partners. This is rarely communicated to trial participants. Such constraints might contribute to problems with selective outcome reporting. Patients should be fully informed about these aspects of trial conduct. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

With some justification, Michel Serres claimed that he was one of the first to make ecology a central question for philosophy. Many of his books explore the ecological emergency and spell out the need to include the more-than-human in any ethical and political response. Yet Serres’ thought has been generally neglected in scholarly debate outside France. To highlight the importance of Serres’ philosophy, I contrast aspects of his work with Latour’s sustained search for a political ecology. I contend that Serres’ (...) thought overlaps with but also challenges Latour’s approach that has increasingly turned for inspiration to the theory of Gaia proposed by Lovelock and Margulis. I argue that drawing from science, history, fables, the humanities and his own experience, Serres brings together a narrative of the commonality of all living and non-living things that exposes a contractable obligation and formulates the grounding for a new politics. (shrink)

Contemporary French philosopher Michel Serres has out-of-the-rut thoughts about many things, including media. This article focuses on his understanding of the genealogy of media, the notion of exo-Darwinism, and his forward-looking attitude toward new technologies. An alternative, counterintuitive take on human nature is revealed as the discussion proceeds. This article also touches upon what is irreplaceable about humans in an age when artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving.

Considering that some university-based principal preparation programmes may not be properly training principals for leadership roles, “grow your own” leadership development programmes have become more popular across the US. This study provides a contribution to previous research in terms of the specific components a district leadership development programme may incorporate into its curriculum in order to positively influence school principals’ effectiveness as school leaders. A purposeful sample of second-, third- and fourth-year campus principals working in a large urban school district (...) in the south-west region of the US who had participated in their district’s leadership development programme were administered the Principal Effectiveness Survey and participated in semi-structured interviews to examine the influence of the programme on the participants’ effectiveness as leaders. Survey results indicated that principals consider training activities related to human capital, executive leadership, s... (shrink)

Brian Ribeiro’s slim volume presents a comparative study of three of the most important figures in the history of skepticism: Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, and David Hume. Ribeiro’s rich text, like most of his work, is written in a colloquial, easy style that nearly masks the considerable erudition informing his thought. This text, in fact, gathers, synthesizes, and expands on the substantial work with which Ribeiro has been engaged for decades. Drawing from that precedent research, Ribeiro’s focus here is (...) the possible scope of skepticism, the implications of that scope for rationality, and the value skeptical philosophy promises. (Ribeiro makes clear that his objective is not to establish his reading as... (shrink)

This essay examines how Michel Henry's and Jean‐Luc Marion's continuation of phenomenology's turn to the invisible relates to painting, aesthetics, and theology. First, it discusses Henry and Marion's redefinition of phenomenality. Second, it explores Henry's “Kandinskian” description of abstract painting as expressing “Life.” Third, it explicates Marion's “Rothkoian” rehabilitation of the idol and renewed zeal for the icon—both phenomena exemplify “givenness.” Fourth, it unpacks my thesis: Henry's phenomenology, theologically applied, exercises an inadequate Kantian apophasis, characterized by a sublime sacrifice of (...) the imagination; although Marion's work sometimes evidences a similar tendency, its prevailing momentum offers theology a fully catholic scope. (shrink)

Children’s cognitive and language development is a central aspect of human development and has wide and long-standing impact. The parent-infant relationship is the chief arena for the infant to learn about the world. Studies reveal associations between quality of parental care and children’s cognitive and language development when the former is measured as maternal sensitivity. Nonetheless, the extent to which parental mentalizing – a parent’s understanding of the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of a child, and presumed to underlie sensitivity – (...) contributes to children’s cognitive development and functioning, has yet to be thoroughly investigated. According to the epistemic trust theory, high mentalizing parents often use ostensive cues, which signal to the infant that they are perceived and treated as unique subjective beings. By doing so, parents foster epistemic trust in their infants, allowing the infant to use the parents a reliable source of knowledge to learn from. Until recently, parental mentalizing has been limited to verbal approaches and measurement. This is a substantial limitation of the construct as we know that understanding of intentionality is both non-verbal and verbal. In this investigation we employed both verbal and non-verbal, body-based, approaches to parental mentalizing, to examine whether parental mentalizing in a clinical sample predicts children’s cognitive and language development 12 months later. Findings from a longitudinal intervention study of 39 mothers and their infants revealed that parental embodied mentalizing in infancy significantly predicted language development 12 months later and marginally predicted child cognitive development. Importantly, PEM explained unique variance in the child’s cognitive and linguistic capacities over and above maternal emotional availability, child interactive behavior, parental reflective functioning, depression, ethnicity, education, marital status, and number of other children. The theoretical, empirical, and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Reviews : C.L.R. James, World Revolution 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International ; Michel Beaud, Socialism in the Crucible of History ; Cornelius Castoriadis, Political and Social Writings, Volume 3, 1961- 1979 ; Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination—A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Tbeory.

Reviews : Clare O'Farrell, Foucault—Historian or Philosopher? ; James W. Bernauer, Michel Foucault's Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics for Thought ; Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment ; Jonathon Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.

With this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem of (...) evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, between 1292 and 1298, the Franciscan Peter of John Olivi wrote a series of short devotional texts, known as Opuscula, aimed at the religious edification of the laity. Olivi's perspective was strongly eschatological: in his opinion, the imminence of the end of time made lay religious experience more authentic than that of the clergy, which would eventually oppose the final evangelical renewal.Among the twelve surviving Opuscula, the most eschatologically oriented is titled Remedia (...) contra temptationes spirituales. The Remedia are characterized by a cautious and rigorous judgment on spiritual gifts, such as visions and raptures. According to Olivi, these phenomena are particularly... (shrink)

An anthology of responses to the ideas of Michel Foucault. These responses are concentrated in the English world, but they try to reveal the full range of reaction and to assess Foucault's achievement and his place in intellectual history.

Underdevelopment and poverty are some of the ongoing problems afflicting Africa. Metz diagnoses excessive individualism as one of the main problems that undermines development globally. He does not regard capitalism as the main problem. Metz’s reformist relational economics provides remedies that seek to eliminate excessive individualism by incorporating communal values into the global capitalistic system. On the other hand, Marxist scholars regard underdevelopment and poverty as effects of the intrinsic structural faults of the global capitalist system. These faults include imperialism, (...) primitive accumulation, the creation of a permanent surplus population, and the transfer of value from the Global South to the Global North. In this paper, I use the views of Samir Amin, Michelle Yates, and Rosa Luxemburg to show the limitations of Metz’s reformist relational economics. This paper seeks to use Marxist political economy to contribute knowledge about the plausibility of integrating the global capitalist system with Afro-communal values. (shrink)

Interpreters of Michel Foucault's 1966 Les mots et les choses have often conflated the terms 'episteme' and 'historical a priori'. This article suggests that the two terms are entirely separate: while 'episteme' refers to the configuration of thought in a given historical period, 'historical a priori' refers to the conditions of unity for a certain field of science within a given period. In his use of the term 'historical a priori', Foucault is thus much closer to Husserl than has hitherto (...) been appreciated. Keeping the two terms separated also sheds new light on the archaeological method that Foucault uses, showing that there is a procedure to get from an archive of texts to the reconstruction of an episteme. (shrink)

Inspired by Michel Foucault’s notion of subjugated knowledge, this paper elaborates an analytical framework seeking to unsettle the authority of contemporary psychology. This framework focuses on the performative dimension of psychology and other ‘psy-regimes’, namely the practices and actions that may be undertaken on the basis of these forms of knowledge. We probe this framework by exploring the emergence, utilization and demise of spiritualism (1880s to 1920s) and psychotechnics (1920s to 1960s) in Denmark. On the basis of this framework, we (...) argue that the rise and fall of these psy-regimes may be understood neither in terms of (inadequate) epistemological rigour nor in terms of social repression, but instead as radically contingent events that correlated with particular programs and techniques seeking to promote human happiness and productivity. (shrink)

The philosophy of irony has had, since its romantic origins, no good reputation because of its methodological and logical inconclusiveness and its contamination with literature. Whether we talk about Friedrich Schlegel or Paul de Man, about Søren Kierkegaard or Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Rorty or Peter Sloterdijk, the “ironists” are hated because of their ability to say, even on the verge of death: “however”. The charge that philosophy makes against ironists is based on three “suspicions”: 1) that they are not (...) philosophically consistent and, therefore, that they, ultimately, do not know how to ironize themselves; 2) that their irony is only a disguised “egology”, as Hegel would claim and assumes literary forms; 3) finally that they are vitiated by a sort of anthropological “lack of commitment”, or – as Rorty would say – a “lack of solidarity”, and, therefore, they are quite often ineffective and even harmful from a social and political point of view. In the following pages I will try to dissolve these “suspicions” through a close and “ironic” reading of two texts that belong to this tradition of cultural (not only literary) analysis, telling the story of an elective affinity between two emblematic thinkers: Friedrich Schlegel and Paul de Man. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Our understanding of the nature of power in western societies is currently undergoing a major reassessment. The significance of this reassessment emerges forcefully through comparing the writings of the principal exponents of Critical Theory - Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas - with those of Michel Foucault. Peter Miller suggests that these two traditions embody fundamentally distinct philosophical and sociological principles. He grounds his analysis in the concepts of domination and power. Miller identifies the (...) notion of subjectivity as central to a differentiation of the respective approaches of Critical Theory and Foucault. For Critical Theory it is the repression of subjectivity which provides the evidence of domination and the rationale for its critique, while for Foucault subjectivity in western societies is fabricated through power and linked to the deployment of specific knowledges. Miller shows that despite the achievements of Critical Theory in bringing to light the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies, its thinking is inadequate as a basis for future analysis and critique. He argues that Foucault's genealogy of the modern subject, which highlights the role of the human sciences in its fabrication, is a more fruitful basis for charting and investigating the mode of operation of contemporary forms of power. The book includes a survey of all published works by Foucault, up to the time of his death in 1984, and commentaries on the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. (shrink)

This article provides a comparative analysis of various methodologies employed in building arguments regarding prostitution law and policy, and reflects on the proper aims of legal philosophy more generally. Taking Peter de Marneffe’s Liberalism and Prostitution (OUP 2010 ) as a launching point for these reflections, the article offers a mostly favourable review of the book as a whole, and defends the philosophical method as one (amongst other) valuable ways to argue about prostitution.

Taking a cue from one of the most (in)famous postmodern thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche, the essays in this book put forth “experiments” in thought rather than arguments for fixed conclusions. Blum brings John Howard Yoder to the same table with Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, and provides a provocative glimpse of what the resulting conversation might look like. As Anne Lamott and others have recently insisted, faith is not the opposite of doubt, but of certainty. Blum’s essays explore some of (...) our commonly held ways of talking about knowledge, meaning, commitment, and action. He suggests that some postmodern theoretical work, often dismissed or assumed to be anti-Christian, is well worth bringing into contemporary Anabaptist-Mennonite conversations about discipleship and corporate life. Part of the Polyglossia series, this book is intended for conversation among academics, ministers, and laypersons regarding knowledge, beliefs, and practices of the Christian faith. (shrink)

Das 1999 veröffentlichte Proust-Lexikon von Philippe Michel-Thiriet umfasst neben zahlreichen biographischen Daten ein »Lexikon der Personen in der Recherche« sowie ein »Lexikon der Orte der Recherche«. Es gibt jedoch kein Lexikon der Dinge der Recherche: kein Verzeichnis der Möbel im Salon von Madame Verdurin, keine Notiz zur »Feindseligkeit der violetten Vorhänge« im Hotel in Balbec, zum vergessenen Fächer der Königin von Neapel oder der Hängelampe im Esszimmer von Combray. Gehören diese Dinge demnach nicht dazu? Handelt es sich um Uneigentliches, um (...) Beiwerk oder Requisiten? Oder sind diese Objekte im Ordnungssystem eines Lexikons einfach nicht adressierbar? Aber warum? Der Beitrag geht diesen Fragen nach und versucht, den Gegenständen in À la recherche du temps perdu die gleiche Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, die in der Regel nur den handelnden Charakteren des Romans gewidmet wird. Zugleich geht es um die Hinterlassenschaften von Prousts Existenz, die gelegentlich mit Dingen im Roman identifiziert wurden. Aber wie kann ein reales Ding in einen Roman eingehen? Und findet es jemals wieder heraus? Philippe Michel-Thiriet's, published in 1999, contains beside biographical data a »lexicon of characters« and a »lexicon of places in the Recherche.« There is, however, no »lexicon of objects:« No directory of the furniture in the parlor of Madame Verdurin, no comment on the »enmity of the violet curtains« in the Hotel of Balbec, the Queen of Naple's forgotten fan or the hanging lamp in the dining room in Combray. Are these objects thus not part of the novel? Are they mere accessories and requisites? Or are they simply not classifiable in the systematic categories of a lexicon? But why? The paper addresses these questions and tries to give the objects in the attention that usually only the novel's protagonists receive. At the same time, it deals with the legacies of Proust's existence that are occasionally identified with the objects in the novel. But how can a real object enter a novel? And does it ever find its way back out? (shrink)

Since the 1980s the concepts of “neoliberalism” and “technoscience,” although both of them were coined earlier, have almost simultaneously become rather prominent conceptual tools in various fields of social science research. The starting point of Neoliberalism and Technoscience: Critical Assessments, edited by Luigi Pellizzoni and Marja Ylönen, is the assumption that this temporal overlap is not just a coincidence and that it would be “quite surprising, then, to find no or merely casual connections between neoliberalization processes and technoscience” . There (...) is already some work in science and technology studies and the sociology of science investigating the impact of neoliberalism on science, frequently focusing on the management of scientific institutions; in addition, there are a number of studies, often inspired by Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics and governmentality, on the close relations of science and neoliberalism in the field of biomedicine .. (shrink)

Although it is widely acknowledged that Foucault’s accounts of the concept of heterotopia remain briefly sketched and somewhat confusing, the notion has provoked many interpretations and applications across a range of disciplines. In particular, it has been coupled with different stages or processes of modernity and persistently linked to forms of resistance. This article re-examines Foucault’s concept through a close textual analysis. It contrasts heterotopia with Lefebvre’s conceptualization of heterotopy and wider formulations of utopia. Drawing on Foucault’s study of the (...) spaces of literature of Borges, and particularly Blanchot, the article argues that heterotopia refers to varied spatial and temporal disruptions that imaginatively interrogate and undermine certain formulations of utopia. It concludes by outlining how heterotopia contests the space in which we live. (shrink)

The essay draws on the concept of ‘asymmetric counter-concepts’ as developed by Reinhart Koselleck starting with twin-formulas such as ‘the familiar and the unfamiliar’ which are generally used to establish collective des­ignations of the self and others and which institutionalize the axiological and the epistemological. These counter-concepts can have different semantic temperatures. The focus is on the underlying meaning-production schemes which produce value-asymmetries. The essay tries to show that a process of heating up these value-asymmetries is only one side of (...) the history of such asymmetric counter-concepts from medieval to modern times. Simultaneously a cooling down can be observed in written texts from different periods; examples include the 12th century Rolandslied and the 16th century Essais of Michel de Montaigne. Full negation eliminates uncertainties and value insecurities. But the complexities and contingencies that emerge since Early Modern times then lead to losses of negatability, which in turn render gains in unfamiliarity. The modern experience of the foreign is indeterminate otherness instead of determined negation that characterized pre-modern alterity. Modern societies therefore need to mediate between validity and contingency under the circumstances of plurality. Interpretational demands and uncertainty about the relevant interpretive frames increase. Foreignness is then experienced as unfamiliarity. This presupposes intellectual attitudes like irritability, curiosity, and willingness to learn. The modern concept of ‘culture’ then is proposed as a comparative pattern where only unavoidable structural asymmetry remains. It explains cultural differences and the experience of foreignness through heterogeneity. Using this specifically modern pattern, there is no longer a legitimate value slope between one’s own position and its negation. The distinction is then between the familiar and the unfamiliar. (shrink)

La publication des " Cahiers noirs " de Heidegger en Allemagne a mis au jour plusieurs passages, écrits dans les années 1938-1941, au contenu antisémite incontestable. Peter Trawny, spécialiste de Heidegger et éditeur de ces " Cahiers ", affronte ici le choc de ces pages mettant en question la thèse prédominante jusqu'à aujourd'hui qui voudrait que l'engagement de Heidegger dans le national-socialisme n'ait pas impliqué de sa part une adhésion à l'antisémitisme. Selon Peter Trawny, si Heidegger s'écarte de (...) l'antisémitisme "vulgaire" des nazis, il en donne bien une reformulation en termes d'" histoire de l'être ". Autrement dit, il intègre l'antisémitisme à son interprétation philosophique de l'Histoire mondiale. Comment penser ce désastre du jugement de la part d'un des plus grands philosophes du XXe siècle, qui a exercé une profonde influence sur Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault et tant d'autres? Avec tout le sérieux scientifique, le sens historique et philosophique qui s'imposent à l'interprète, l'auteur cherche à répondre aux questions que soulève cette découverte. (shrink)

a. The literature on biopolitics emerged 1970s with Michel Foucault’s ‘Right of Death and Power over Life’, part five of The History of Sexuality: An Introduction :For a long time,...

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

This volume is the best available tool to compare and appraise the different approaches of today’s biology and their conceptual frameworks, serving as a springboard for new research on a clarified conceptual basis. It is expected to constitute a key reference work for biologists and philosophers of biology, as well as for all scientists interested in understanding what is at stake in the present transformations of biological models and theories. The volume is distinguished by including, for the first time, self-reflections (...) and exchanges of views on practice and theoretical attitudes by important participants in recent biological debates. The questions of how biological models and theories are constructed, how concepts are chosen and how different models can be articulated, are asked. Then the book explores some of these convergences between different models or theoretical frameworks. Confronting views on adaptive complexity are investigated, as well as the role of self-organization in evolution; niche construction meets developmental biology; the promises of the emergent field of ecological-evolutionary-development are examined. In sum, this book is a marvellous account of the dynamism of today’s theoretical biology. Foreword: Carving Nature at its Joints? Richard Lewontin Chapter 1: Introduction Anouk Barberousse, Michel Morange, Thomas Pradeu Chapter 2: Articulating Different Modes of Explanation: The Present Boundary in Biological Research Michel Morange Chapter 3: Compromising Positions: The Minding of Matter Susan Oyama Chapter 4:ions, Idealizations, and Evolutionary Biology Peter Godfrey-Smith Chapter 5: The Adequacy of Model Systems for Evo-Devo: Modeling the Formation Of Organisms / Modeling the Formation Of Society Scott F. Gilbert Chapter 6: Niche Construction in Evolution, Ecosystems and Developmental Biology John Odling-Smee Chapter 7: Novelty, Plasticity and Niche Construction: The Influence of Phenotypic Variation on Evolution Kim Sterelny Chapter 8: The Evolution of Complexity Mark A. Bedau Chapter 9: Self-Organization, Self-Assembly, and the Origin of Life Evelyn Fox Keller Chapter 10: Self-Organization and Complexity in Evolutionary Theory, or, In this Life the Bread Always Falls Jammy Side Down Michael Ruse. (shrink)

This article analyzes the moral relevance of technological artifacts and its possible role in ethical theory, by taking the postphenomenological approach that has developed around the work of Don Ihde into the domain of ethics. By elaborating a postphenomenological analysis of the mediating role of ultrasound in moral decisions about abortion, the article argues that technologies embody morality and help to constitute moral subjectivity. This technological mediation of the moral subject is subsequently addressed in terms of Michel Foucault’s ethical position, (...) in which ethics is about actively co-shaping one’s moral subjectivity. Integrating Foucauldian ethics and postphenomenology, the article argues that the technological mediation of moral subjectivity should be at the heart of an ethical approach that takes the moral dimensions of technology seriously. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate ‘the confessional’ as an aspect of Wittgenstein's style both as a mode of philosophising and as a mode of ‘writing the self’, tied explicitly to pedagogical practices. There are strong links between Wittgenstein's confessional mode of philosophising and his life—for him philosophy is a way of life —and interesting theoretical connections between confessional practices and pedagogy, usefully explored in the writings of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The Investigations provides a basis and springboard for understanding (...) the notion of ‘writing the self’ as a pedagogical practice which encourages a confessional mode compelling us to tell the truth about ourselves and, thus, creating the conditions for ethico-poetical self-constitution. (shrink)

As I am not at all a specialist on Gottlob Frege’s work, my comments intended initially to be focused on an aspect that emerges in the last part of Peter Clark’s paper “Frege, neo-logicism and applied mathematics” 1, where he treats the question of “applied mathematics” — an aspect that appealed to me and that was triggered by Frege’s relationship between numbers and concepts, and reasoning. Starting with this concern, I have been led by my subject to propose some (...) considerations about foundations and rationality which will go — briefly — in two directions. The first direction is that of a distinction between logical and rational foundations, whilst the second direction is that of taking into account as a fact the historical development of mathematics among the sciences, which modifies the terms of any foundational program. In delineating these considerations, I found that what I had in mind could apply to mathematics itself as well as to “applied mathematics”, thus deviating somewhat from my first explicit intention. In conclusion I shall consider the possibility of a rational foundation programme for mathematical and physico-mathematical sciences which would take into account the changes in the scientific contents and the widenings of the forms of rationality that, in my view, make these changes possible. Such foundations for knowledge would not be any more static, but dynamical and would be possibly considered only retrospectively: they would be “forward foundations”, in a sense that will be discussed in detail elsewhere. (shrink)

Poststructuralism--as a name for a mode of thinking, a style of philosophizing, a kind of writing--has exercised a profound influence upon contemporary Western thought and the institution of the university. As a French and predominantly Parisian affair, poststructuralism is inseparable from the intellectual milieu of postwar France, a world dominated by Alexandre Kojève's and Jean Hyppolite's interpretations of Hegel, Jacques Lacan's reading of Freud, Gaston Bachelard's epistemology, George Canguilhem's studies of science, and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. It is also inseparable from (...) the structuralist tradition of linguistics based upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jacobson, and the structuralist interpretations of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, and the early Michel Foucault. Poststructuralism, considered in terms of contemporary cultural history, can be understood as belonging to the broad movement of European formalism, with explicit historical links to both Formalist and Futurist linguistics and poetics, and with aspects of the European avant-garde, especially André Breton's surrealism. Each essay in this unique collection by and for educators is devoted to the work and educational significance of one of ten major poststructuralist philosophers. (shrink)

This article analyses the attempts to promote economic and social development in the Third World through techniques of empowerment and participation. Based on Michel Foucault’s analytics of government - notably the notion of self-technologies - we analyse two empowerment projects for women. We argue, first, that empowerment projects seek to constitute beneficiaries as active and responsible individuals with the ability to take charge of their own lives. Thus, empowerment should be viewed not as a transfer of power to individuals who (...) formerly possessed little or no power, but as a technology seeking to create self-governing and responsible individuals, i.e. modern citizens in the western liberal sense. Second, through the intertwinement of anthropological knowledges and radical action research, knowledge about the local has become an authoritative mode of veridiction (regime of truth) in development interventions. By seeking to instigate and activate ‘local knowledges’, participatory development interventions entail a crucial recasting of the governing of the target population who are now supposed - on the basis of rational decision-making, such as cost-benefit analysis - to freely join the power-loaded game of the active citizen. Third and finally, it is also maintained that the role of the developer (now labelled ‘facilitator’) is profoundly recast. By basing themselves on the subjective involvement of the individual developer, the participatory approaches recast development as an art form that puts at stake the ethical practices of ‘facilitators’ and beneficiaries alike. (shrink)

This essay considers the beginnings of the journal October's critical practice and the significance of a work by Michel Foucault: “Ceci n'est pas une pipe”.1 The theoretical issues/problematics raised by this essay became key to future debates in and around October; the essay becoming something of an emblematic means by which October might be distinguishing from other visual art critical practices. The importance of Foucault's text in relation to October was revealed during correspondences with Rosalind Krauss in August 2001. Foucault's (...) self-referential essay can be seen as crucial not only to Rosalind Krauss's intellectual development, but also to the continuing debate on the nature of text and image in which the journal would be involved. The spiralling interplay of Foucault's narrative, combined with Magritte's picture, might be interpreted as a metaphor for the mediations of post-structural visual criticism itself as its practitioners sought to institute language into the visual sign, a project that attempted to produce a theoretical rationale – and perhaps a justification – for images being treated as if they were texts; thus, paraphrasing Foucault, introducing into the plenitude of the image a certain disorder. Such a weaving together of representation and discourse is interpreted as the formation of a destabilizing dialectic, a dialectic that can be linked to the writings of October as it shifts its rhetorical locations in an attempt to break down the normative pictorial and discursive frames of reference; becoming in essence a dedisciplinary and de-formative critical practice. This essay provides an outline of the determining conditions that led to the development of this “linguistic turn” and an associated reflection on Foucault's text that seeks to direct attention specifically towards its semiotic and discursive implications in relation to the developing oeuvre of criticism exemplified by the magazine. The essay is supported by interviews with Rosalind Krauss and Douglas Crimp conducted by the author in March 2002. (shrink)

Peter Singer est un philosophe utilitariste de renommée internationale. Il est titulaire de la chaire de bioéthique à Princeton. Depuis une trentaine d’années il s’intéresse à des questions éthiques telles que le statut moral des animaux, la bioéthique, l’environnement, et la manière de lutter contre la pauvreté dans le monde. C’est à cette question qu’il consacre son dernier ouvrage, paru en France en 2009 : Sauver une vie. Agir maintenant pour éradiquer la pauvreté.Sauver une vie n’est pas ..

Based on Michel Foucault's 1978 and 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on governmental rationalities and his 1977 interview regarding his work on imprisonment, this volume is the long-awaited sequel to Power/Knowledge.

In the first part the text specifies Hannah Arendt's philosophical approach in three dimensions: a) She used Max Scheler's new phenomenology of living beings . b) She transformed Karl Jaspers' extraordinary limit situations of human conduct into anthropological conditions. c) Such conditions are questions that do need answers in forms of "vita active" and of "vita contemplative". Arendt moved from Max Scheler's Philosophical Anthropology to her own historical conception of the human condition inside the heterogeneity of our Occidental tradition. The (...) second part of this paper gives an overview about her network of concepts that enables a comparison of Occidental cultures via the change of dominance in relations of vita active and vita contemplative. The third part situates her approach between those of Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor in a debate that is needed at present. Her historic-phenomenological anthropology allows her a critique of modernity without a hermeneutic circle and without an anthropological circle. (shrink)

This article compares the ways in which Michel Foucault’s and Quentin Skinner’s historical analyses seek to unsettle the limits on present forms of freedom. We do so by comparing their ways of analysing discourse, rationality and agency. The two authors differ significantly in the ways they deal with these three phenomena. The most significant difference lies in their ways of addressing agency and its relationship to power. Notwithstanding these differences, the historical analyses of both authors seek to problematize the ways (...) in which past thoughts and practices limit contemporary forms of freedom. While Foucault seems to go furthest in this endeavour, a comparison may enrich both lines of historical analyses. (shrink)

Physicians, philosophers, and theologians consider how to address death and dying for a diverse population in a secularized century.Most of us are generally ill-equipped for dying. Today, we neither see death nor prepare for it. But this has not always been the case. In the early fifteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church published the Ars moriendi texts, which established prayers and practices for an art of dying. In the twenty-first century, physicians rely on procedures and protocols for the efficient management (...) of hospitalized patients. How can we recapture an art of dying that can facilitate our dying well? In this book, physicians, philosophers, and theologians attempt to articulate a bioethical framework for dying well in a secularized, diverse society.Contributors discuss such topics as the acceptance of human finitude; the role of hospice and palliative medicine; spiritual preparation for death; and the relationship between community, and individual autonomy. They also consider special cases, including children, elderly patients with dementia, and death in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when doctors could do little more than accompany their patients in humble solidarity.These chapters make the case for a robust bioethics—one that could foster both the contemplation of finitude and the cultivation of community that would be necessary for a contemporary art of dying well.ContributorsJeffrey P. Bishop, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Daniel Callahan, Farr A. Curlin, Lydia S. Dugdale, Michelle Harrington, John Lantos, Stephen R. Latham, M. Therese Lysaught, Autumn Alcott Ridenour, Peter A. Selwyn, Daniel Sulmasy. (shrink)

Having a confirmation bias sometimes leads us to hold inaccurate beliefs. So, the puzzle goes: why do we have it? According to the influential argumentative theory of reasoning, confirmation bias emerges because the primary function of reason is not to form accurate beliefs, but to convince others that we’re right. A crucial prediction of the theory, then, is that confirmation bias should be found only in the reasoning domain. In this article, we argue that there is evidence that confirmation bias (...) does exist outside the reasoning domain. This undermines the main evidential basis for the argumentative theory of reasoning. In presenting the relevant evidence, we explore why having such confirmation bias may not be maladaptive. (shrink)