Recently, several philosophers have recast feminist arguments against pornography in terms of Speech Act Theory. In particular, they have considered the ways in which the illocutionary force of pornographic speech serves to set the conventions of sexual discourse while simultaneously silencing the speech of women, especially during unwanted sexual encounters. Yet, this raises serious questions as to how pornographers could (i) be authorities in the language game of sex, and (ii) set the conventions for sexual discourse - questions which these (...) speech act-theoretic arguments against pornography have thus far failed to adequately answer. I fill in this gap of the argumentation by demonstrating that there are fairly weak standards for who counts as an authority or convention-setter in sexual discourse. With this analysis of the underpinnings of a speech act analysis of pornography in mind, I discuss a range of possible objections. I conclude that (i) the endorsement of censorship by a speech act analysis of pornography competes with its commitment to the conventionality of speech acts, and, more damningly, that (ii), recasting anti-pornography arguments in terms of linguistic conventions risks an unwitting defence of a rapist's lack of mens rea - an intolerable result; and yet resisting this conclusion requires that one back away from the original claim to women's voices being 'silenced'. (shrink)

The analysis of social communication in other-than-human animals poses several theoretical challenges due to the complexity of individual and extra-individual variables. Some previous studies have found a valuable solution in Uexküll’s work by expanding and adapting its usage for the study of communication in a heurtistic manner. An Umwelt analysis provides a theoretical toolbox, which allows researchers to take an emic perspective on the lives and phenomenal world of other animals. However, Umwelt and its elaborations do not allow for a (...) clear distinction between acts of perception and communication and seem to ignore factors that escape the specific communication contexts under analysis. Thus, moving away from the existing linear and cyclical approaches to communication, we propose a complementary approach to the study of social communication by combining Barnlund’s transactional model of communication with Umwelt theory and the functional circle more specifically. Our elaborated model conceives social communication as the process of creating meaning through the interaction of two subjects and emphasizes the role of species-specific and individual features in its creation. Our goal is to re-evaluate the research on social communication of other-than-human animals by advocating for the theoretical and empirical potential of Umwelt, especially pertaining to animals with complex Umwelten. Our model offers a valuable solution to the analysis of intraspecies communication that accounts for the role of private and public cues as well as the subjects’ specific behaviors, messages, and context in the creation of meaning. (shrink)

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper analyses the cultural and biosemiotic bases of human attitudes towards other species. A critical stance is taken towards species neutrality and it is shown that human attitudes towards different animal species differ depending on the psychological dispositions of the people, biosemiotic conditions (e.g. umwelt stuctures), cultural connotations and symbolic meanings. In real-life environments, such as zoological gardens, both biosemiotic and cultural aspects influence which animals are chosen for display, as well as the various ways in which they are (...) displayed and interpreted. These semiotic dispositions are further used as motifs in staging, personifying or de-personifying animals in order to modify visitors’ perceptions and attitudes. As a case study, the contrasting interpretations of culling a giraffe at the Copenhagen zoo are discussed. The communicative encounters and shifting per ceptions are mapped on the scales of welfaristic, conservational, dominionistic, and utilitarian approaches. The methodological approach described in this article integrates static and dynamical views by proposing to analyse the semiotic potential of animals and the dynamics of communicative interactions in combination. (shrink)

The paper is intended as a contribution to historical materialism. The authors are not interested in any historical-philosophical, still less in exegetical, problems. They believe that this intellectual tradition is relevant for understanding the social transformations ongoing contemporarily and for coping with practical problems to which these transformations give rise. Among the most important changes there are those labeled as “globalization” and the rise and development of “knowledge society” and “information civilization.” If one adopts this stance, one should admit that (...) the problems of space and culture deserve special attention. Discussing the ways these problems could be tackled in historical materialism, the authors use the ideas of Leszek Nowak and Immanuel Wallerstein. (shrink)

Al-Jabartī, ʿAjāʾib al-āthār fī l-tarājim wa-l-akhbār. Edited by Shmuel Moreh. Max Schloessinger Memorial Series, Texts, vol. 9. 5 vols. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2013. Pp. 2,780. $525.

Przyglądam się tej kognitywistycznej książce z kognitywistycznej perspektywy. Zastanawiam się nad recepcją wydanej przed pięciu laty pracy, jej aktualnością i wpływem na rozwój relacji między fenomenologią a kognitywistyką.

This article contributes to Science and Technology Studies on vulnerability by putting cyborgs at center stage. What vulnerabilities emerge when technologies move under the skin? I argue that cyborgs face new forms of vulnerability because they have to live with a continuous, inextricable intertwinement of technologies and their bodies. Inspired by recent feminist studies on the lived intimate relationships between bodies and technologies, I suggest that sensory experiences, material practices, and cartographies of power are important heuristic tools to understand the (...) vulnerabilities of hybrid bodies. Based on an analysis of how patients in the Netherlands and the United States cope with appropriate and inappropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator shocks, I describe how defibrillators introduce two new kinds of vulnerabilities: vulnerability as an internal rather than an external threat, and as harm you may try to anticipate but can never escape. Despite these vulnerabilities, some heart patients don’t position themselves as passive victims of faulty machines. They actively engage in material practices of resilience by using magnets to stop inappropriate shocks. I conclude that anticipating and taming the improper working of technologies inside bodies constitutes a new form of invisible labor that is crucial to diminishing the existential uncertainties of cyborgs. (shrink)

This article analyzes philosophical discussions on the problem of barbarity as the reverse side of civilization in general, and of the modern civilization in particular (as exemplified by the works of K. Offe, L. Klausen, K.-Z. Reberg, M. Miller, H.-G. Soeffner, S.N. Eisenstadt and Z. Bauman. Joining in these discussions, the author makes a critical appraisal of these works and presents (in brief) her own conception of civilization which she has been elaborating for the last 25 years. Particular attention is (...) drawn to the studies of barbarity implanted in the development of the modern civilization and revealed in the various forms of present-day barbarism (ecological, political, militaristic violence, utter dereliction in daily life, etc.), especially evident in ‘outbursts’ of violence, suppressing and violating legal rules and moral principles (fascism, totalitarianism, international aggression). (shrink)

In today’s world the growth potential of freedom with its resulting risks and responsibilities can be found in three major interrelated areas of globalization, epistemization and humanization. Our analysis is based on the idea of freedom as a personality’s value, viewed as an individual self-determination towards the most valuable of all possible choices. Globalization provides a general access to collective achievements and introduces new opportunities for development at a global, personal and local level. Epistemization presupposes that leadership positions in society (...) are taken by individuals with what we call as “K-knowledge”; i.e., knowledge and competencies that are key to the advancement of society. We maintain that to implement K-knowledge such individuals ought to possess high ethical standards. Finally, humanization is the ongoing recognition, ideologically and practically of the priority of human dignity and the value of each and every individual. The advancement of human rights is rooted in the implementation of freedom opportunities in all the three areas but mostly agrees with humanization processes. As a result, humanization today needs developing meta-principles, embracing a variety of local value-regulatory systems. Our claim is that the umbrella meta-principles should be those of humanity, justice and tolerance. (shrink)

Open Science becomes the basic concept in organizing and conducting the research and development process. The opening of the process of research and communication of science is supported and promoted both at the international level and at the national level in many countries through science policies and actions. At present, no Open Science policy is approved at the national level in the Republic of Moldova, but there are actions, undertaken by various organizations or within some projects, that promote this concept. (...) And recently, the national authority in the field of science policy has been concerned about the promotion of Open Science principles in the country. Policy development and implementation of Open Science principles is difficult without involving all stakeholders and without knowledge of the current situation, both in terms of technical and legislative issues, and especially in terms of awareness of the need and willingness of people to contribute to this process. In this context, we set out to carry out this study, taking into account the insufficient level of debates and analyzes on Open Science subject carried out in the Republic of Moldova. Its purpose is to determine the attitude, the level of awareness and involvement in issues related to Open Science and its elements in the Republic of Moldova, which will serve to develop Open Science policies and instruments at national and institutional levels. (shrink)

This archival feature serves to present the personality and philosophy of Elena Oznobkina (1959–2010), a key figure of late-Soviet and, later, Russian philosophy. Oznobkina pioneered the present-day reception of Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl in Russia, but also made substantial contributions to Nietzsche studies and political philosophy, which are detailed in Nelly Motrozhilova’s introduction. Her philosophical work was inseparable from her personal political engagement, to which the featured archival text (“Prison or Gulag?”, 2000) testifies. It gives a poignant and (...) concise characterisation of the prison as an object of philosophical theory, while asking the question of where Soviet prison camps and the prisons of post-Soviet Russia are to be located within this field of thought. (shrink)

The role of users in innovation processes has gained increasing attention in innovation studies, technology studies, and media studies. Scholars have identified users and use practices as a source of innovation. So far, however, little insight has been generated in innovation processes in which communities of users are the driving force in all phases of the innovation process. This article explores the conceptual vocabularies of innovation studies and actor— network theory and discusses their adequacy for describing and understanding the dynamics (...) of user-initiated innovation processes in which community and innovation are closely intertwined. The authors introduce the concept of community innovation and argue for its relevance for understanding the full dynamics of innovations initiated and shaped by user collectives. The article elaborates a qualitative case study of Wireless Leiden, a local wireless network infrastructure in the Dutch town of Leiden initiated, designed, and maintained by a local community of users. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading Bataille: The Invention of the FootLucette Finas (bio)Translated by Nelly Furman (bio)§ 1. Certainly, I wrote Le mort before the spring of 1944. This text must have been composed probably in 1943, not before. I do not know where I wrote it, in Normandy (end of 1942), in Paris in December 1942, or during the first three months of 1943; at Vézelay, from March to October 1943? (...) Or in Paris from November ‘43 to the spring of ‘44? Perhaps even at Samois from April to June. Or even perhaps in Paris on Cour de Rohan during the winter of ‘43–‘44. I can no longer remember. I am certain only of having recopied Le mort so as to sell a small number of manuscripts before June 1944 (as I am certain that I wrote this text after the spring of 1942, a time at which I fell ill; and even at the earliest during my stay in Normandy from September to November ‘42).§ 2. In any case, there is the closest relationship between Le mort and the stay in Normandy of the tubercular patient that I was; in Normandy, not far from the village of Tilly (which I name Quilly in Le mort). The inn of Quilly is in fact the inn of Tilly; 1 the woman innkeeper, the one from Tilly. I invented the other details, with the exception of the rain that wouldn’t stop in October or November ‘42. With the exception also of the very dark night when Julie knocked at the door of the inn? I can no longer even remember if I slept in this inn? It seems to me that yes. I believe furthermore that in the room there were two or three farmhands in gummed rubber boots and even a player piano. Whatever it was, it was sinister, and beyond measure. Finally, it is certain that the atmosphere of Tilly’s inn suggested to me the one of the inn of Le mort. I am also almost certain—in the end—that I slept—alone—in this place that terrified me.§ 3. The rest is linked to the frenzied sexual arousal in which I was during November’s extravagance; in my almost total solitude, I lived then not far from Tilly, but we lived apart, a kilometer from one another, a beautiful girl, my mistress, and I; I was ill, in an obscure state of depression, of horror, and of arousal. It is difficult to imagine the mud of the rough small roads where I traveled, without the right footwear, on a bicycle. Then, I ate most of my meals, but alone, with farmers.§ 4. I remember in particular having heard one day a plane whose engine sputtered [avait des ratés]. The noise of the engine was followed by a violent shock. I took my bicycle. I ended up finding the place where this German plane had fallen. It was burning in the middle of an immense orchard (apple trees); several trees were calcinated, and three or four dead, thrown around the plane, were spread out on the grass. At some distance, in the valley of the Seine, an Englishman had probably just shot down this enemy plane that could only crash at some distance. The foot of one of the Germans was bared [dénudé], the sole of the shoe having been torn away. The heads of the dead, it seems to me, were shapeless. The flames must have touched them; this foot alone was intact. It was [End Page 97] the only human thing belonging to a body, and its nakedness, having become earthen, was inhuman: the heat of the blaze had transfigured it; this thing was neither baked nor calcinated: in the upper [l’empeigne] with no sole of the shoe, it was diabolical: but no, it was unreal, stripped naked [dénudée], indecent to the highest degree. I remained motionless for a long time that day, for this naked foot was looking at me.§ 5. [The truth, I believe, has only one face: that of a violent denial. Truth has nothing in common with allegorical figures, with figures of naked women: but... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that a norm of literary fiction is to compel the reader to form beliefs about the world as it is. It may seem wrong to suggest that the reason I believe p is because I imagined p, yet literary fiction can make this the case. I argue for an account grounded in indexed doxastic susceptibilities mapped between a fictional context and the particular properties of a reader, more specifically the susceptibilities in her beliefs, attitudes, and (...) psychological states. Works of fiction can be about different things at the same time, some of which are fictive and some of which are factual. Since belief can be weak or strong, partial or complete, tenuous or robust, opaque or clear, there are susceptibilities throughout a doxastic set out of which new beliefs are formed. Skillful works of fiction exploit these susceptibilities and create new ones. This is an aesthetic achievement of such works: they take what should be a norm-violating practice of belief-formation on the basis of imaginative engagement and they make it so. (shrink)

The article discusses the challenges posed by the rise of digital journalism, contrasting it with traditional journalism’s standards of impartiality, fact-checking, and ethics. Digital platforms, where user-generated content dominates, have disrupted the media landscape, often prioritizing engagement over journalistic quality. The European Union is taking steps to introduce regulations like the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) to promote quality journalism and safeguard democratic discourse. The second part is dedicated to the concept of quality journalism and the framework measures that are (...) yet to be adopted in the context of the European Media Freedom Act. (shrink)

In der Medizin vollzieht sich im 19. Jahrhundert eine kopernikanische Wende: Die Zellulartheorie wird entwickelt. Heute ist uns vollig selbstverstandlich, dass der menschliche Korper aus Zellen besteht, die seine Struktur und Funktion bestimmen. Doch diese Lehre bestimmt seit gerade einmal 150 Jahren das medizinische Denken und hat Theorien abgelost, welche unvorstellbare 2.000 Jahre Geltung besassen. Diesen Wandel interpretiert die Autorin als Paradigmawechsel und verfolgt ihn in den Werken deutscher, englischer und franzosischer Arzte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Sie beleuchtet den (...) Einfluss der Philosophie, insbesondere die Auswirkungen der Ideen Kants und Schellings. Die Studie zu den philosophischen Grundlagen der modernen Medizin richtet sich an Philosophen, Wissenschaftshistoriker und Arzte. In the 19th century, a Copernican turn took place in medicine with the development of the cell theory. We take it completely for granted today that the human body is made up of cells which determine its structure and its function. But this doctrine has only been defining medical thinking for 150 years and it replaced theories which had been valid for an inconceivable 2000 years. The author interprets this transition as a paradigm shift, and she explores it in the works of German, English and French doctors in the 18th and 19th century. She sheds light on the influence of philosophy, in particular the impact of Kans and Schellings ideas. This study of the philosophical foundations of modern medicine is addressed to philosophers, science historians and medical physicians. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Contextualist theories of semantics are not undermined by their purported failure to explain the practice of indirect reporting. I adopt Cappelen & Lepore’s test for context sensitivity to show that the scope of context sensitivity is much broader than Semantic Minimalists are willing to accept. The failure of their arguments turns on their insistence that the content of indirect reports is semantically minimal.

Animal welfare is a complex matter that includes scientific, ethical, economic and other dimensions. Despite the existence of more comprehensive approaches to animal welfare and the obvious shortcomings of the ‘Five Freedoms’, for zoological gardens the freedoms still constitute the general guidelines to be followed. These guidelines reflect both, an ethical view and a science based approach. Analysis reveals that the potential ineptitude of the ‘Five Freedoms’ lies in the manifold perceptions that people have of other animals. These perceptions are (...) biased by our own umwelt, which is intertwined with different cultural attitudes towards other species. Perceptions of animals may be held simultaneously by different interest groups and may often be incompatible, thus often making it difficult to follow the ‘Five Freedoms’ in practice. We aim to recognise and consider the multiplicity of factors that, besides animal subjectivity, are relevant in understanding this hybrid environment. The moral value and practical applicability of the ‘Five Freedoms’ are sometimes undermined by prioritising some freedoms over others and by species bias. Both are characteristic phenomena of the zoo as a hybrid environment where other species are managed by humans. Given deficiencies are further amplified by humanistic and moralistic attitudes that people hold. (shrink)

Abstract: An indirect report typically takes the form of a speaker using the locution “said that” to report an earlier utterance. In what follows, I introduce the principal philosophical and pragmatic points of interest in the study of indirect reports, including the extent to which context sensitivity affects the content of an indirect report, the constraints on the substitution of co-referential terms in reports, the extent of felicitous paraphrase and translation, the way in which indirect reports are opaque, and the (...) use of indirect reports as pragmatic vehicles for other speech acts such as humor, insult, or irony. Throughout I develop several positions: (i) that a semantic analysis of indirect reports is insufficient, (ii) that the distinction between direct and indirect reports is not clear and that indirect reports are the predominate way of reporting while direct reports may be a para-linguistic variation on them, (iii) that most questions about the semantics and pragmatics of indirect reports will rely on a full understanding of the nature of what is reported and how it gets reported, (iv) that an analysis of reporting requires the pragmatic tools of metarepresentation and a social, inter-personal understanding of relevance and shared knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.4 (2005) 12-19 [Access article in PDF] Seeking the Aesthetic in Creative Drama and Theatre for Young Audiences Nellie McCaslin Introduction Is an aesthetic experience ever achieved in a creative drama class or in attending a performance of a children's play? If it is, how do I know and how can it be achieved? This is a question to which I have given much (...) thought and in so doing have been flooded with memories of my own passion for theatre in all its forms, first as a child and years later as a teacher. These memories have shaped my perception of the aesthetic presence, elusive but powerful, which comes in its own way and in its own time. The following is an account of revisiting those memories in the light of today's practices and objectives. The result is not a scholarly piece or approach to the question but simply a record of one person's journey through the theatre arts as she experienced it at a particular point in time, when the pedagogy and the terminology of today were nonexistent, or at least were not generally known. Nor, I might add, was the question.From that journey through time, I have reached a few tentative convictions. First among them is that the most important element in teaching creative drama or producing children's plays is the one too often marginalized by practitioners today in their pursuit of practical ends and contemporary issue-oriented scripts.1 It is the aesthetic. Is theatre an art form worth studying in its own right or is it an educational tool, appealing to administrators and producers because it is effective? I believe that it is an art and should be taught as an art form first and foremost, but that skillfully done, it can accomplish both objectives. The grey area between art and education is difficult for the inexperienced teacher to negotiate without the loss of one goal or the other. It is the intent that charts the course. [End Page 12] Early Recollections What was it that first drew me to the theatre? Was it the play? The players? Or the combined skills of all who were involved in the production whether it was a professional company in a theatre downtown; a puppet show at a community center; "dramatics" in the classroom, when the teacher allowed us to "act out" a history lesson or favorite story; or an assembly program put on by the eighth grade in the school auditorium? To me, they were all theatre, and theatre in whatever form it took was magic. To us, theatre was real, regardless of the performers or the venue. Even the puppets ceased to be inanimate figures in the hands of an artist who shared his belief in their reality with his young audiences. Indeed, the puppets assumed human proportions before our eyes and have remained so in my memory ever since. Was this not just as much of an aesthetic experience for us, the viewers, as the performance of living actors? I believe that it was, although at the age of eight I had never heard the word "aesthetic" or stopped to analyze my reactions.The reason, among others, for my lack of discrimination as a child was the fact that in America at that time no differentiation was made between what we did and what we saw, never mind who did it. There was a clear distinction between the amateur and the professional; it didn't concern us. We flocked to the few shows, both amateur and professional, deemed appropriate for children, and we made up shows of our own in our own backyards. Our shows were improvised (another term we didn't know then), but even minus a script, it was still theatre because we believed in it and so did the little ones on our block who were the audience.It was Winifred Ward, an American pioneer in the field, writing a few years later, who was to distinguish between process and product... (shrink)

The definition of Induction in the "topic" is but a description of the prearistotelian process of generalisation. - The genuine aristotelian theory of induction does not concern general propositions but the objectconstruction; it tries to give a logical solution to the theory of anamnesis. - The inductive syllogism is not a summative induction but a suggestion that the relation of extensions of classes is the only criterion for the projectibility of known cases on unknown. - The stoics accept contraposition as (...) the only form of scientific inference while the epicureans introduce a pure empirical criterion for sound general propositions. Both theories however, suggest an identification of the problem of induction with the problem of possibility. - Philoponos is the first author to give a classification of sciences from a methodological point of view. He rejects pure induction and proposes the hypothetico - deductive Method as a solution of the problem of induction. (shrink)

The author discusses the postmodernist claim that the grand theories have lost credibility, even in the field of medical science and practice. Rather than representing a shared reality among physician and patient, illness represents two quite distinct realities — the meaning of one being significantly and distinctively different from the meaning of the other. However, existential clinical narratives can function as important bridges between the world of the patient and the world of the physician. Such narratives provide important information regarding (...) the patient's biographical situation and, particularly, the personal and cultural meanings which are a function of the biographical situation. At the same time, these narratives provide physicians with useful information for the practice of medicine. (shrink)

Communication and behaviour of animals living ex situ has been one of the major sources of knowledge about wild animals. Nevertheless, it is also acknowledged that depending on the environment that the animals inhabit, there are differences in their communication and behaviour. With some species it is difficult to reproduce their natural environment to an extent that excludes deviations from the behaviour and communication exhibited by animals living in situ. In zoological gardens, welfare measures are introduced in order to counteract (...) the effects of the captive environment and to grant an individual’s good physical and psychological well-being. The relation between good welfare and species-specific communication and behaviour is discussed, and as a result, a general model of ex situ animal communication and behaviour is proposed. The suggested model is inclusive of differences between captive animals and free-ranging animals and serves to explain the welfare-related reasons underlying individual animal’s deviations from species-specific behaviour and communication. (shrink)

Semantic Minimalists make a proprietary claim to explaining the possibility of utterances sharing content across contexts. Further, they claim that an inability to explain shared content dooms varieties of Contextualism. In what follows, I argue that there are a series of barriers to explaining shared content for the Minimalist, only some of which the Contextualist also faces, including: (i) how the type-identity of utterances is established, (ii) what counts as repetition of type-identical utterances, (iii) how it can be determined whether (...) semantically minimal content has been repeated, and (iv) what the nature of such content is. (shrink)

Cet article examine le degré de visibilité des ṣāliḥāt dans quatre documents hagiographiques du Maghreb médiéval ainsi que la manière de les nommer; il tente une réflexion sur les formes de l'expérience religieuse et les modalités de présence de ces saintes à la vie de la cité. La walāya feminine dans cet espace-temps de l'islam médiéval est marquée du sceau de l'ambivalence, oscillant volontiers entre esseulement et compagnonnage, sédentarité et pérégrination, inqibāḍ et inbisāṭ aux préoccupations et attentes des contemporains. Il (...) suggère de voir dans ce soufisme non dépourvu d'originalité, agrée et reconnu, matière à nouvelle approche de la sainteté féminine en Islam. (shrink)