In the thirty years since its discovery by Terje Lomo and Tim Bliss, Long Term Potentiation has become one of the most extensively studied topics in contemporary neuroscience. In LTP the strength of synapses between neurons is potentiated following brief but intense activation. LTP is thought to play a central role in learning and memory, though the exact nature of its role is less clear. In spite of years of research, there are many questions about LTP regarding its functional relevance (...) that remain unanswered - for example, is it a model of memory formation, or is the actual neural mechanism used by the brain to store information? This volume presents a state of the art account of LTP. It begins with lively accounts, by the scientists most closely involved, of the discovery of LTP and of the experiments that established its basic properties and induction mechanisms. Later contributions contain reviews and new research that cover the range of molecular, cellular, physiological and behavioural approaches to the study of LTP. Provocative, accessible, and authoritative, this book makes it clear why LTP continues in equal measure to puzzle and beguile neuroscientists today. Advance praise for Long Term Potentiation: 'This book provides a definitive overview of the development of ideas about synaptic plasticity and about the wide range of current research in this fascinating field.' Colin Blakemore, University of OxfordReadership: Neuroscientists from postgraduate level upwards. (shrink)

L’émergence de l’installation au milieu du xxe siècle se fait de manière concomitante avec l’art de la performance et de la vidéo. Les artistes de l’installation se sont donc emparés de l’image en mouvement et ont développé des dispositifs au caractère performatif vis-à-vis du visiteur. Dans les années 1970, Dan Graham révèle la visibilité et la perception d’un « invu », à savoir le temps comme matière et l’espace comme vecteur proprioceptif dans ses installations vidéographiques reposant sur l’effet de (...) time delay. Face à l’enregistrement et à la retransmission en décalé de sa propre image, le visiteur prend conscience de son existence et de son rapport aux autres. Plus récemment, les installations « post-cinématographiques » ont permis de renouveler ces questionnements. L’exposition Servitudes de Jesper Just témoigne de ce dialogue entre installation audiovisuelle, espace architectural et perception du visiteur. Projeté sur des écrans, disséminé dans les sous-sols du Palais de Tokyo, le film de Just n’est visible que par fragments, le visiteur devenant le « monteur » d’une narration ambiguë et hétérodoxe, et devant pour cela se déplacer à travers les enchevêtrements de rampes métalliques, créant une « architecture spectatorielle de l’installation ». The emergence of installation art in the middle of the twentieth century is concomitant with the art of performance and video. The artists therefore took possession of the moving image and developed devices with a performative character vis-à-vis the visitor. In the 1970s, Dan Graham manifests the visibility and the perception of an “invu” which is time as matter and space as a proprioceptive vector in his video installations based on the effect of time delay. Faced with the recording and retransmission of his/her own image, the visitor becomes aware of his/her existence and its relationship to others. More recently, the “post-cinematographic” installations made it possible to investigate anew these questions. The exhibition Servitudes by Jesper Just testify of this dialogue between an audiovisual installation, an architectural space and the visitor’s perception. Shown on screens, scattered in the basements of the Palais de Tokyo, the film of Just was visible only in fragments. Hence the visitor became the “editor” of an ambiguous and heterodox narration. To do so he/she had to move through the entanglements of metal ramps, creating a “spectatorial architecture of the installation”. (shrink)

La démarchandisation, ou la capacité à maintenir un niveau de vie raisonnable pour une personne incapable de participer au marché du travail, est l’objectif principal des prestations liées au handicap. Toutefois, peu de recherches ont été menées jusqu’à présent pour savoir si les dispositifs mis en œuvre atteignent cet objectif dans le monde réel. Cet article propose un retour socio-historique sur les dispositifs de prestations handicap et décrit les réformes entreprises, qui sont largement transnationales à l’ère post-industrielle. L’article évalue ensuite (...) la manière dont ces dispositifs démarchandisent en s’appuyant sur des données qui englobent neuf pays et deux systèmes de politiques en faveur des personnes handicapées, à partir de données tirées de l’enquête sur la santé, le vieillissement et les retraites en Europe. Il présente et analyse enfin des mesures visant à améliorer la démarchandisation induite par les dispositifs liés au handicap, tout en proposant un programme de recherche pour l’avenir. (shrink)

Debate between Dan Demetriou (Philosophy, Minnesota Morris) and Michael Huemer (Philosophy, Colorado), forthcoming in Problems in Applied Ethics: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates, Steven Cowan, ed. (Bloomsbury). The main essays are 5000 words or fewer; replies are 1500 words or fewer. This penultimate version is published here with permission from the editor.

Movement is crucial to Merleau-Ponty’s effort to comprehend sense, meaning as generated within being. This requires a new concept of movement, not as a dislocation within an already determinate space- or time- frame, but as a deeper, more fundamental change that first engenders space and time as determinate contexts in which movement can follow a sensible course. This poses a novel challenge: conceptualizing determinate space and time as contingently arising from a deeper sort of change, which I call templacement. I (...) address this challenge by turning to the Mexica/Aztecs because the most basic term of their ontology is motion-change, and it is obvious to them that motion-change does not occur in an abstract space-time container. Instead, time-place is woven out of ‘prior’ motion-change. This study leads to a deeper lesson for phenomenology, regarding ‘obvious’ presuppositions about what time and philosophy obviously are – and how these presuppositions go hand in hand.La question du mouvement est cruciale dans l’effort de Merleau-Ponty pour comprendre le sens, la signification telle qu’elle se produit dans l’être. Cela requiert un nouveau concept du mouvement, qui n’est pas compris comme un déplacement dans un cadre spatial – ou temporel – prédéterminé, mais plutôt comme un changement plus profond et fondamental, qui, avant tout, produit l’espace et le temps comme des contextes déterminés dans lesquels le mouvement peut suivre un cours sensible. Cela pose un nouveau défi : conceptualiser un espace et un temps déterminés qui résulteraient, de manière contingente, d’un type de changement plus profond, que j’appellerai templacement. Je lance ce défi en me tournant vers les Mexicas/Aztèques parce que le terme le plus élémentaire de leur ontologie est le mouvement-changement, et il est naturel pour eux que le mouvement-changement n’ait pas lieu dans un conteneur spatio-temporel abstrait. Au contraire, le temps-lieu est tissé sans mouvement-changement « préalable ». Cette recherche conduit à un enseignement encore plus profond pour la phénoménologie, concernant au sujet des présupposition “évidentes” sur le temps et sur la philosophie, et elle nous montre aussi comment ces présuppositions sont étroitement liées.Il movimento è un elemento cruciale nello sforzo di Merleau-Ponty di comprendere il senso, il significato in quanto generato all’interno dell’essere. Questo sforzo richiede un nuovo concetto di movimento, da intendere non come movimento-spostamento nell’ambito di una cornice spazio-temporale predefinita, ma come più profondo e più fondamentale mutamento che inaugura lo spazio e il tempo, in quanto contesti nei quali il movimento stesso può esprimere una traiettoria dotata di senso. Si pone quindi una nuova sfida: quella di concettualizzare lo spazio e il tempo come generati da una forma più radicale di mutamento, che propongo di definire templacement. Per affrontare questa sfida, mi rivolgo ai Mexica/Aztechi poiché il termine più basilare della loro ontologia è quello del moto-mutamento, e poiché essi ritengono ovvio che questo moto-mutamento non si verifichi all’interno di un contenitore spazio-temporale astratto: al contrario, lo spazio-tempo è per loro un intreccio che risulta da un moto-mutamento “precedente”. Questo studio permette di ricavare una lezione più profonda per la fenomenologia, che concerne le sue “ovvie” presupposizioni riguardo a che cosa siano “ovviamente” il tempo e la filosofia – e a come queste presupposizioni siano strettamente connesse. (shrink)

In recent years, two schools of thought have emerged with regard to the Cambrian “explosion”. One argues that it was very quick, with phyla tumbling into existence in a virtual geological instant. The other view has a more relaxed temporal perspective. It looks to slow aeons of cryptic metazoan history, which led to a final breakthrough in the Cambrian, not in evolution but of fossilization potential. Yet both views have serious difficulties. Now, in a recent issue of Biological Reviews, (...) class='Hi'>Graham Budd and Sören Jensen(1) argue for a third way. In an intriguing blend of functional morphology, the fossil record and cladistic thinking, they suggest that the assembly of metazoan bodyplans took place in a surprisingly straightforward manner. BioEssays 22:1053–1056, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Graham Hubbs | : Philosophical accounts of self-deception have tended to focus on what is necessary for one to be in a state of self-deception or how one might arrive at such a state. Less attention has been paid to explaining why, so often, self-deceived individuals resist the proper explanation of their condition. This resistance may not be necessary for self-deception, but it is common enough to be a proper explanandum of any adequate account of the phenomenon. The goals (...) of this essay are to analyze this resistance, to argue for its importance to theories of self-deception, and to offer a view of self-deception that adequately accounts for it. The view’s key idea is that, in at least some familiar cases, self-deceived individuals maintain their condition by confusing a nonepistemic satisfaction they take in their self-deceived beliefs for the epistemic satisfaction that is characteristic of warranted beliefs. Appealing to this confusion can explain both why these self-deceived individuals maintain their unwarranted belief and why they resist the proper explanation of their condition. If successful, the essay will illuminate the nature of belief by examining the limits of the believable. | : Les explications philosophiques de l’auto-illusion ont eu tendance à mettre l’accent sur ce qui est nécessaire pour que quelqu’un soit considéré comme étant sous l’emprise de l’auto-illusion ou encore sur la façon dont quelqu’un parvient à un tel état. Moins d’efforts ont été dirigés vers les raisons pour lesquelles, si souvent, les individus sous l’emprise de l’auto-illusion opposent une résistance à l’explication véritable de leur condition. Cette résistance n’est peut-être pas essentielle à l’auto-illusion, mais elle est suffisamment courante pour constituer un explicandum approprié pour tout traitement adéquat du phénomène. Cet essai a pour buts d’analyser cette résistance, de défendre son importance pour les théories de l’auto-illusion, et de proposer une conception de l’auto-illusion qui en rend compte de manière adéquate. Cette conception repose sur l’idée suivante : au moins dans certains cas connus, les individus sous l’emprise de l’auto-illusion maintiennent leur condition en prenant la satisfaction non-épistémique qu’ils retirent de leurs croyances illusoires pour la satisfaction épistémique qui caractérise les croyances justifiées. C’est en faisant appel à cette confusion que l’on peut expliquer à la fois pourquoi ces individus conservent leur croyance infondée et pourquoi ils opposent une résistance à l’explication adéquate de leur condition. Si tant est qu’il y parvienne, cet essai éclairera la nature de la croyance en examinant les limites du croyable. (shrink)

L'essai concerne le philosophe-théologien, Giles de Rome, de la fin du treizième siècle. Bien qu'il fut un disciple de Thomas d'Aquin, sa théorie de la sensualité est très différente de la sienne. Dans sa discussion de la maîtrise de soi, Giles utilise des métaphores politiques pour exprimer comment la raison contrôle les appétits des sens. Ces métaphores sont toutes d'un caractère violent. Ici, Giles se trouve en compagnie de Platon, Descartes, Kant, et plus récemment du Jésuite Karl Rahner. Aquinas, au (...) contraire, développe un modèle de contrôle de soi basé sur un langage politique de persuasion. La préoccupation centrale de l'article consiste à montrer que ces images politiques contrastées mettent en lumière des conceptions métaphysiques très différentes de la structure de la personne humaine. A cause de sa métaphysique, Giles est très proche de poser la violence dans la structure même de la personne: une position commune à l'âge moderne, mais très différente de celle de Thomas d'Aquin. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty, la passivité et la scienceJe soutiens qu’il y a plus en jeu dans l’intérêt de Merleau-Ponty pour la science qu’une simple dialectique entre disciplines. C’est parce que son évolutionméthodologique le conduit à trouver dans la science un moyen spécifique d’approfondir ses recherches ontologiques, que celle-ci hante de plus en plus sa philosophie. En effet, dans le chapitre « champ phénoménal » de la Phénoménologie de la perception, il est possible de rapprocher certains aspects de son défi méthodologique et l’idée (...) selon laquelle la philosophie tient son origine d’une conscience réflexive, active et autonome dans son ensemble. Je lie cela aux problèmes de la passivité de telle sorte que la science apparaisse comme une façon de saisir la réflexion non pas comme autonome, mais comme une opération du champ phénomenal, comme réflexion radicale. Grâce à l’analyse critique des recherches récentes sur le génome, je montre ensuite commentl’embryologie peut nous aider à conceptualiser la vie comme un champ phénoménal, c’est-à-dire comme un champ qui engendre ce même genre d’opérations qui caractérisent aussi la phénoménalité. Cela nous conduit à voir la phénomenologie non plus comme une réflexion de survol sur les phénomènes, mais plutôt comme une réflexion radicale qui se realise à travers un phénoménalité plus « ancienne », qui appartient à la vie ellemême. Cela ouvre également des perspectives sur quelques problèmes difficiles de la dernière philosophie de Merleau-Ponty; ceux-ci sont abordés d’une manière nouvelle, grâce au rapprochement de sa première philosophie et de la science actuelle.Merleau-Ponty, la passività e la scienzaRitengo che, nell’interesse che Merleau-Ponty rivolge alla scienza, vi sia in gioco qualcosa di più del semplice confronto dialettico con un’altra disciplina. Il motivo è che il suo impegno metodologico finisce per individuare nella scienza una speciale risorsa per l’indagine di quelle profonde questioni ontologiche che investono in modo crescente la sua filosofia. Intendo argomentare tale ipotesi, connettendo dei passi del capitolo di Fenomenologia della percezione “Il campo fenomenico” con la sua sfida metodologica all’idea che la filosofia abbia inizio da una coscienza riflessiva autonoma e interamente attiva. Collego questo alle questioni della passività in un modo che rivela la scienza come una potenziale risorsa per comprendere la riflessione non come autonoma, bensì in quanto operazione di e nel campo fenomenico – come riflessione radicale. Poi, attraverso un’analisi critica dei risultati recenti riguardanti il DNA regolatore, mostrocome l’attuale embriologia può aiutarci a concettualizzare la vita come un campo fenomenico che implicitamente produce i tipi di operazioni rivelatrici distintive della fenomenalità. Questo ci permette di collocare la fenomenologia non semplicemente come una riflessione dall’alto sui fenomeni, ma come una riflessione radicale che opera grazie ad una “più antica” fenomenalità della vita. Questo ci fornisce degli spunti su alcune difficili questioni nella filosofia dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, suggerendo un nuovo percorso che giunga a queste combinando il primo periodo della sua filosofia con la scienza recente. (shrink)

"Qu'est-ce qu'une chose? " Question déjà ancienne. Elle n'est toujours neuve que parce qu'il faut sans cesse la poser à nouveau ", observait Heidegger. C'est le traitement de cette question fondamentale de la métaphysique qu'entreprend, à nouveaux frais, Graham Harman en proposant une théorie originale de l'objet compris comme une unité autonome et concrète. Un objet, en effet, n'est jamais épuisé par l'usage ou la connaissance que j'en prends. Sa réalité ne se réduit pas non plus aux interactions qu'il (...) peut avoir avec les autres objets qui l'entourent. II outrepasse toute perspective et toute synthèse qui prétendraient le soumettre, possédant un " en soi " qui, enfoui dans les profondeurs mêmes de l'être, en assure l'altérité radicale. La question Qu'est-ce qu'une chose? en cache donc une autre, plus inquiétante : Comment penser ce qui, du réel, ne se montre en aucun cas? Rouvrant un dossier qui semblait clos depuis la mise au ban de la " chose en soi " kantienne, l'auteur trouve dans la phénoménologie les concepts de base de cette remarquable aventure ontologique : dans la pensée husserlienne de l'objet intentionnel et, plus encore, dans l'analyse heideggérienne de l'outil dont Graham Harman suggère la continuité avec le thème mystérieux du " Quadriparti ". C'est alors que l'objet pourra se laisser penser dans toute sa profondeur, réalité multipolaire et conflictuelle, à la fois manifeste et retirée, dont le présent ouvrage dessine la carte inédite". Olivier Dubouclez. (shrink)

Although the concept of HAPPINESS plays a central role in ethics, contemporary philosophers have generally given little attention to providing a robust account of what this concept entails. In a recent paper, Dan Haybron sets out to accomplish two main tasks: the first is to underscore the importance of conducting philosophical inquiry into the concept of HAPPINESS; the second is to defend a particular account of happiness—which he calls the ‘emotional state conception of happiness’—while pointing out weaknesses in the primary (...) competing accounts of happiness, including the hedonistic account. I argue against his claim that the emotional state conception of happiness is superior to the hedonistic conception of happiness. In the course of defending the hedonistic account of happiness against Haybron's attacks, I provide my own explanation for why the study of happiness is important to ethics. (shrink)

Le chiasme de l’être: une exploration de l’ontologie du sens de Merleau-PontyLa question de l’ontologie inclut celle de savoir comment un être se détermine et acquiert son sens, autrement dit comment il instaure sa différenciation par desorientations, des significations et des différences en général. Cette étude explore l’idée que le sens d’un être provient d’une « chiralité ontologique », c’est-à-dire d’un type de différence ontologique présentant un apparentement caractéristique de ses deux côtés droit et gauche. L’étude montre tout d’abord comment (...) l’ontologie merleau-pontienne de la réversibilité conduit à la question de la chiralité. On fait ensuite entrer dans la discussion des résultats obtenus dans les domaines de la chimie, de la biologie et de la géométrie, pour mieux mettre en lumière l’importance des différences en chiralité et pour élaborer une définition de la « chiralité ontologique » en étroite liaison avec l’ontologie du sens.Il chiasma dell’essere: un’esplorazione dell’ontologia del senso merleau-pontianaIl problema dell’ontologia include il problema di come l’essere sia determinato e acquisisca senso, acquisisca cioè gli orientamenti, i significati, tutte quelle differenze che fanno la differenza. Questo saggio esplora il pensiero secondo il quale il senso dell’essere deriva da una ‘chiralità ontologica,’ una sorta di differenza ontologica con caratteristiche affini alle differenze fra le mani destra e sinistra. Il testo illustra in primo luogo come l’ontologia merleau-pontyana della reversibilità porti alle questioni della chiralità. I risultati della ricerca attuale, in chimica, biologia e geometria sono poi discussi per illuminare l’importanza delle differenze chirali e per sviluppare una definizione della chiralità ontologica che si connette ad una ontologia del senso. (shrink)

Résumé La passion des Chinois pour les pierres est un trait fondamental de leur culture qui remonte à la préhistoire, a traversé les siècles et perdure encore aujourd’hui ; cette dévotion s’enracine dans leur conception philosophique du monde où minéraux, végétaux animaux et êtres humains sont animés des mêmes énergies vitales (le « qi »). Les Chinois construisent des jardins remplis de rocailles et de fleurs qui favorisent la méditation et l’union avec le souffle vital. Bien que la pensée occidentale (...) soit diamétralement opposée, il y a eu, après les épicuriens et les stoïciens de la Grèce antique, des philosophes occidentaux, au xix e siècle, tels que Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Thoreau, qui se sont faits, dans leurs œuvres, l’écho de la pensée taoïste du yin et du yang, et de la non différenciation entre l’animé et l’inanimé. L’auteur, enfin, regrette que la modernisation due aux pressions économiques éloigne les Chinois de ces croyances et il pense que le respect sacré de l’environnement, qui va par ailleurs dans les sens des préoccupations écologiques actuelles, pourrait aujourd’hui sauver la planète. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Pour plusieurs, la troisième notion primitive, celle de l'union de l'esprit et du corps, est un ajout obscur et inexplicable dans la philosophie de Descartes, et qui est venu après coup. Je soutiens, pour ma part, que nous pouvons réconcilier la conception que se fait Descartes de cette troisième notion primitive avec l'approche dualiste des Méditations par le biais d'un modèle non représentationnaliste des passions. Je montre, pour y parvenir, que les passions, qui sont des manifestations de la troisième (...) notion primitive, sont autoréflexives et présentent ainsi la même structure que la conscience du cogito. (shrink)

Research on algorithms tends to focus on American companies and on the effects their algorithms have on Western users, while such algorithms are in fact developed in various geographical locations and used in highly diverse socio-cultural contexts. That is, the spatial trajectories through which algorithms operate and the distances and differences between the people who develop such algorithms and the users their algorithms affect remain overlooked. Moreover, while the power of big data algorithms has been recently compared to colonialism (Couldry (...) and Mejias 2019), the move from the colonial gaze (Yegenoglu 1998) to the algorithmic gaze (Graham 2010) has yet to be fully discussed. This article aims to fill these gaps by exploring the attempts to algorithmically conceptualize “the Other”. Based on the case study of an Israeli user-profiling company and its attempts to sell its services to East Asian corporations, I show that the algorithmic gaze—algorithms’ ability to characterize, conceptualize, and affect users—stems from a complex combination between opposing-but-complimentary perspectives: that it is simultaneously a continuation of the colonial gaze and its complete opposite. The ways in which algorithms are being programmed to see the Other, the ways algorithmic categories are named to depict the Other, and the ways people who design such algorithms describe and understand the Other are all different but deeply interrelated factors in how algorithms “see.” I accordingly argue that the story of algorithms is an intercultural one, and that the power of algorithms perpetually flows back and forth—between East and West, South and North. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel interpretation of the term xìng 性 as it occurs in Chinese texts of the late Warring States period (roughly 320–221 BCE). The term played an important role both in the famous controversy over the goodness or badness of people’s xìng and elsewhere in the intellectual discourse of the period. Extending especially the work of A.C. Graham, the essay stresses the importance for understanding xìng of early Chinese assumptions about spontaneity, continuity, health, and (in the (...) human case) motivation. These assumptions make xìng fundamentally different from the contemporary nature concepts with which it is often equated. In particular, people’s xìng is not a near-equivalent of human nature or (in modern Chinese) of rénxìng 人性. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on divine hiddenness and divine inscrutability. I argue that theism is trapped between two opposite poles. On one end, we encounter an argument developed by John Schellenberg. God is understood as a being who, in virtue of God's perfect love, (...) would have relationship with any of Her creatures who are open to loving relationship with God. If so, we would not expect there to exist non-resistant non-believers. Yet there are non-resistant non-believers. So, this sort of God does not exist. On the other pole, God is completely incomprehensible. But if God is incomprehensible, then this leads to a series of theological problems. For example, if God is incomprehensible, then it is difficult to understand how any human could rationally endorse God's existence. I argue that both poles are problematic for the theist and that it is difficult to see how to construct a road through the middle that would not inherit the problems of either pole. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on whether naturalism or theism can successfully explain the distribution of suffering in our world. Wheras another section covers the possibility that suffering is evidence against theism, my essay is concerned only with the ability for either naturalism or theism (...) to explain suffering. I argue that, for naturalists, suffering is not to be explained by either philosophers of religion or theologians. Instead, naturalists believe that suffering should be explained by the cognitive and social sciences, perhaps in conjunction with political philosophy and philosophy of mind. Moreover, naturalists may take suffering to be an important reason for action. In a world without a transcendent, supernatural being to watch over us, we can only depend upon each other to ameliorate existing conditions, to the extent that they can be ameliorated. On the other hand, theistic explanations of the distibution of suffering slip very easily into problematic theologies when they try to offer explicit explanations for suffering. For example, the world's most vulnerable people are often those who suffer the most, whereas oppressors are often able to prosper. That is, theistic explanations of our world's suffering easily slip into, e.g., the just world fallacy, racist ideology (i.e., that God favors some race(s) of people over others), or patriarchal ideology. Instead of offering an explicit explanation, theists should instead be skeptical theists -- i.e., they should argue that an explanation for our world's suffering is beyond our ken. While skeptical theism avoids the aforementioned problematic implications, if skeptical theism is true, then our world's suffering cannot be fully explained. (shrink)

Les délires sont des composantes cruciales de nombreux troubles psychiques, surtout la schizophrénie. Que sont les délires? Selon l’opinion courante, il s’agit d’un type de croyance, plus précisément, une croyance pathologique. Malheureusement, l’opinion courante ne correspond pas rigoureusement, dans tous les cas, à la pratique clinique, où l’expression « délire » est souvent appliquée à des états qui ne sont pas des croyances. Nous examinons les raisons pour lesquelles des états qui ne sont pas des croyances peuvent être considérés comme (...) des délires. Nous soutenons que les délires sont des structures complexes d’attitudes d’ordre supérieur et inférieur. Ils constituent un type spécifique de défaillance de la connaissance et de la gestion de soi. Nous fournirons une description du type en question. Notre point de vue implique sur le plan conceptuel que les croyances ne sont pas essentielles aux délires.Delusions are critical components in a number of mental disorders, schizophrenia formost. What are they? The standard view is that they are a type of belief — a pathological belief. Unfortunately, the standard view does not consistently correspond to clinical practice, where the term « delusion » often applies to non-beliefs. We review the case for saying that non-beliefs can count as delusions. We argue that delusions are complexes of higher and lower order attitudes. They constitute a distinctive type of failure of self-knowledge and self-management. We describe the relevant type. One of the conceptual implications of our view is that beliefs need not be central to delusions. (shrink)

En posant avec clarté des questions de philosophie de l’esprit, d’ontologie et d’épistémologie, ce livre témoigne à la fois de l’intérêt réel de la danse comme objet philosophique et du rôle unique que peut jouer la philosophie dans une meilleure compréhension de cet art. Qu’est-ce que danser ? Que nous apprend le mouvement dansé sur la nature humaine et la relation entre le corps et l’esprit ? À quelles conditions une œuvre est-elle correctement interprétée par les danseurs et bien identifiée (...) par les spectateurs ? (shrink)

Le projet ambitieux de David Morris dans ce nouvel ouvrage se mesure à l’élaboration des concepts qu’il met en œuvre pour comprendre la genèse du sens. Connu pour l’ouvrage The Sense of Space, paru en 2004, David Morris poursuit ici son investigation de la profondeur merleau-pontienne en direction de ce qu’il nomme la « temporalité profonde » (Deep Temporality). S’inscrivant dans une filiation merleau-pontienne comme l’atteste son titre, l’ouvrage n’en constitue pas pour autant un opuscule de...

Figure du mouvement Arts and Crafts et militant socialiste, William Morris (1834-1896) n’a jamais séparé ces deux versants de son existence : quand la pratique artisanale et artistique participe d’une défense du travail contre sa dénaturation moderne, l’engagement politique vise à produire les conditions d’une vie digne qui ne peut se concevoir sans beauté. En introduction à la traduction de deux conférences de Morris inédites en français, nous revenons ici sur le rôle central que joue la notion d’ornement (...) dans sa réflexion, puisqu’elle se trouve justement à la croisée de ses conceptions esthétiques et politiques. (shrink)

Les deux thèses principales de ce livre sont d’une part que les premiers penseurs ioniens, Anaximandre, Anaximène, Héraclite, ne furent pas des partisans du « monisme matériel », comme le voulait Aristote, d’autre part que les physiciens du ve siècle, Anaxagore et Empédocle, et dans un second temps les atomistes, loin de s’opposer à Parménide, furent en réalité ses héritiers : ils acceptèrent sa critique de la théorie du changement défendue par les premiers Ioniens (nommée par l’auteur Genera...

El vídeo fue considerado por Gene Youngblood (1979) como un nuevo medio de creación artística, cuyos códigos abrirán nuevas perspectivas a la imagen en movimiento dándole entidad estética propia. Se analiza diversas teorías relacionadas con la comunicación y el arte de autores como Wiener, Benjamin, Brecht, McLuhan, Burris. Así mismo estudia obras pioneras y el uso del feedback loop como elemento de retroalimentación entre emisor receptor. Wipe Cycle (1969) de Frank Gillette e Ira Schneider y Time Delay Room (1974) de (...) Dan Graham nos mostrarán las claves para entender el funcionamiento interno de un nuevo medio que acababa de nacer. (shrink)

According to the influential Plato-Aristotle account, Parmenides advocates holistic monism (‘all things are one’), and Xenophanes anticipated him by advocating some version of monotheism. Over the last half-century or so, Parmenides studies have disputed this vulgate by arguing that Parmenides’ focus is on the nature of ‘what is’ (to eon), rather than on ‘the One’. Correspondingly, there has developed a tendency to minimize the philosophical importance of Xenophanes, by viewing him primarily as a reformer of Greek religious beliefs and as (...) social critic. I argue that a close study of Xenophanes shows that he had developed a coherent naturalist or physicalist world-view. And this also allows us to gain deeper insights into Parmenides, by viewing the latter as generalizing Xenophanes’ critique of peculiarly ‘anthropist’ (or anthropomorphist) bias in our approach to the universe.Dedication: to Dan Graham. (shrink)

Dans son introduction à la collection Moving Words. Writing Dance consacrée à une analyse des évolutions de la recherche anglophone des années 1990 sur la danse, Gay Morris souligne l’héritage d’une historiographie « anecdotique, sans théorisation, et avec un appareil critique très rudimentaire ». Carol Brown confirme que l’histoire de la danse est fondée essentiellement sur l’écriture des « balletomanes » qui ont idéalisé le corps de la danseuse comme une entité anhistorique. Rattachée à un...

Groups do better at reasoning tasks than individuals, and, in some cases, do even better than any of their individual members. Here is an illustration. In the standard version of Wason selection task (Wason, 1966), the most commonly studied problem in the psychology of reasoning, only about 10% of participants give the correct solution, even though it can be arrived at by elementary deductive reasoning.1 Such poor performance begs for an explanation, and a great many have been offered. What makes (...) the selection task relevant here is that the difference between individual and group performance is striking. Moshman & Geil for instance (1998, see also Maciejovsky & Budescu, 2007) had participants try and resolve the task either individually or in groups of five or six participants. While, unsurprisingly, only 9% of the participants working on their own found the correct solution, an astonishing 70% of the groups did. Moreover, when groups were formed with participants who had first tried to solve the task individually, 80% of the groups succeeded, including 30% of the groups in which none of the members had succeeded on his or her own. How are such differences between individual and group performance to be explained? (shrink)

Dan Zahavi, the editor of this collection, heads the Center for Subjectivity Research, at the University of Copenhagen. The essays reflect the interests of the Center and seek to address the following issue: To what extent can the current discussion of consciousness in mainstream cognitive science and analytical philosophy of mind profit from insights drawn from the investigations of subjectivity found in the Kantian and post-Kantian tradition as well as in the phenomenological and hermeneutical tradition. The contributions include some that (...) are philosophical, while others relate to issues in empirical science, such as psychopathology, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental psychology.Contributors include Andrew Brook, John Drummond, Shaun Gallagher, Arne Groen, Josef Parnas, Peter Poellner, Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl, Louis Sass, Dieter Teichert and Dan Zahavi. (shrink)

There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply getting clear on what various writers are talking about: what are the important meanings of the term and how do they connect? (...) While the “well-being” sense of happiness receives significant attention in the contemporary literature on well-being, the psychological notion is undergoing a revival as a major focus of philosophical inquiry, following on recent developments in the science of happiness. This entry focuses on the psychological sense of happiness (for the well-being notion, see the entry on well-being). The main accounts of happiness in this sense are hedonism, the life satisfaction theory, and the emotional state theory. Leaving verbal questions behind, we find that happiness in the psychological sense has always been an important concern of philosophers. Yet the significance of happiness for a good life has been hotly disputed in recent decades. Further questions of contemporary interest concern the relation between the philosophy and science of happiness, as well as the role of happiness in social and political decision-making. (shrink)

Augustine tells us in the Confessions that his reading of Cicero's Hortensius at the age of nineteen aroused in him a burning ‘passion for the wisdom of eternal truth’. He was inspired ‘to love wisdom itself, whatever it might be, and to search for it, pursue it, hold it, and embrace it firmly’. And thus he embarked on his arduous journey to the truth, which was at the same time a conversion to Catholic Christianity, and which culminated twelve years later (...) in his experience in the garden in Milan. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDespite being held in something approaching universal esteem for its capacity to promote prosocial behavior and inhibit antisocial behavior, empathy has recently become the recipient of strong criticism from some of today’s leading academics. Two of the more high-profile criticisms of empathy have come from philosopher Jesse Prinz and psychologist Paul Bloom, each of whom challenges the view that empathy has an overall beneficial influence on human behavior. In this essay, I discuss the basis of their criticisms as well as (...) why I am not compelled by their arguments to believe that empathy does more harm than good. In the process of responding to empathy’s critics, I discuss the important role that empathy plays in our moral lives. I argue that, rather than employing rational considerations to minimize the role that empathy plays in our moral and political judgments, such considerations are put to better use by expanding empathy when conducive to the common good and suppressing it when it opposes th... (shrink)

Dan Marshall and Josh Parsons note, correctly. that the property of being either a cube or accompanied by a cube is incorrectly classified as intrinsic under the definition we have given unless it turns out to be disjunctive. Whether it is disjunctive, under the definition we gave, turns on certain judgements of the relative naturalness of properties. They doubt the judgements of relative naturalness that would classify their property as disjunctive. We disagree. They also suggest that the whole idea of (...) judging relative naturalness is a dubious business. We reply that, like them or not, such judgements cannot easily be avoided. (shrink)

To speak of the nature of an image is to initiate a problematic second only to that raised by considerations of the nature of language. To inquire into the relations between image and language is to step into a very old philosophical problem. Nevertheless, I would hope at least to approach the edge of such an encounter in the attempt to see what relevance it might have for recent past art. Certainly the term “image” has had a long and embattled (...) history. A taxonomy and a genealogy of the term might be in order. Do we wish to speak of mental images or of optical ones? What about perceptual images or the verbal images of descriptions and metaphors? To consider the sense data and appearances of the perceptual, or the dreams, fantasies, memories, and ideas of the mental image is to review an entire Western philosophical discourse. We might consider the issue of what may or may not be in the mind as an image; or the relation of visual images to linguistic terms; or the relation between objects and visual images that stand for them. Certainly the ways of formulating such relations have decided the divisions of Western metaphysics. Representational theories of the mind revolve around such issues and imply the persistent division of mind from body, subject from object.Let me say right away that my interests here are not to review an entire philosophical discourse with the hope of establishing a clarity of distinctions between the imagistic and the linguistic. Rather the assumption here is that the two are inextricably entangled, and the interest is to see how certain art in this century has resisted or embraced this entanglement. Robert Morris is an artist and a professor at Hunter College. A collection of his writings is forthcoming. (shrink)

The idea that cultural evolution exhibits variation, competition, and inheritance and therefore can be studied by adjusting the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection is an attractive one. It has been argued by a number of authors (e.g., Campbell 1960; Monod 1970; Dawkins 1976; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985; Durham 1991; Aunger 2002; Mesoudi et al. 2004) and pursued in a variety of ways, some (Dawkins and memeticists) staying close to the Darwinian model, others (e.g., Boyd, (...) Richerson, and their collaborators) being more innovative. We agree that there are relevant analogies between biological and cultural evolution and, in particular, that cultural items do exhibit variation, competition, and cumulative modification. On the other hand, we believe that a proper understanding of the mechanisms of cultural propagation drawing on the work of cognitive and social scientists (see Sperber and Hirschfeld 1999 for a review) contradicts the idea that culture exhibits inheritance in the strict sense needed for the theory of evolution by natural selection to apply straightforwardly to it. If so, it will take more than adjusting the Darwinian model to be faithful to the Darwinian inspiration. (shrink)

Rationing is the allocation of a good under conditions of scarcity, which necessarily implies that some who want and could be benefitted by that good will not receive it. One reflection of our ambivalence towards health care rationing is reflected in our resistance to having it distributed in a market like most other goods—most Americans reject ability to pay as the basis for distributing health care. They do not view health care as just another commodity to be distributed by markets. (...) Despite this widespread view, we are the only developed country without some form of universal health insurance, and so for the 46 million Americans without health insurance their access to health care often does depend on their ability to pay for it. Rationing largely remains a topic that the public, their elected leaders, and many health care professionals prefer to avoid. Ever-growing costs of health care will increasingly force the practice and issue of health care resource prioritization and rationing into the open for public, professional, and political attention. This paper explores some of the features of those practices and issues that make them especially ethically and politically difficult. Those issues will not be easily resolved, but avoiding them will not avoid the need or reality of rationing, it will only mean that it will go on covertly and unexamined. That will lead neither to better or more legitimate prioritization and rationing decisions. (shrink)

This article begins with a treatment of Friedrich Nietzsche’s early essay “On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense.” The essay is often read, in the deconstructive tradition, as a showcase example of the impossibility of making a literal philosophical claim: is Nietzsche’s claim that all truth is merely metaphorical itself a true statement, or merely a metaphorical one? The present article claims that this supposed paradox relies on the groundless assumption that all philosophy must ultimately be grounded in some (...) unshakeable literal truth. From here, we turn to Edmund Gettier’s famous critique of the widespread notion of knowledge as “justified true belief.” Expanding on Gettier’s point, it is argued that there can only be “justified untrue belief” or “unjustified true belief,” never a belief that is both justified and true at once. (shrink)