This paper examines Hannah Ginsborg's attempt to address the challenge raised by Saul Kripke's meaning sceptic. I start by identifying the two constraints that the sceptic claims must be met by a satisfactory answer. Then I try to show that Ginsborg's proposal faces a dilemma. In the first instance, I argue that it is able to meet the second constraint, but not the first. I then amend the proposal in order to make room for the first constraint. I go on (...) to argue that, under this new interpretation, it cannot meet the second constraint. (shrink)

Professional codes of ethics are regarded as elements of nurses' ethical knowledge base and consequently part of their ethics education. However, research focusing on these codes from an educational viewpoint is scarce. This study explored the need and applicability of nursing codes of ethics in modern health care, their importance in the nursing ethics curriculum, and the need for development of their teaching. A total of 183 Finnish nurse educators and 212 nursing students answered three structured questions, with an opportunity (...) to justify their responses, and one open-ended question. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse the data. The results suggest that the existence of the codes was seen as important and their applicability mainly as appropriate, despite new challenges posed by modern health care. The codes were regarded as an important part of nurses' ethics education, but current integrated teaching methods require development. (shrink)

Organizations are increasingly expected by their stakeholders to tackle the “wicked” problems of society. These new pressures have created a highly equivocal corporate social responsibility (CSR) environment whereby firms face competing stakeholder perspectives regarding their CSR strategy. To reduce CSR environmental equivocality and determine a CSR strategy, organizations need to effectively and efficiently identify, evaluate, and exploit CSR initiatives to create financial and social value (i.e., shared value). In this paper, we explain how organizations can optimize their shared value creation (...) and promote the construction of intersubjective agreement, which can reduce CSR environmental equivocality. Theory is put forth that explains how the proper alignment of an organization’s level of CSR environmental equivocality, which is comprised of varying amounts of “unknowingness,” corporate entrepreneurship strategy, which promotes experimentation, and stakeholder engagement process, which facilitates information gathering and dissemination, supports the construction of intersubjective agreement. A typology of organizational shared value creation in equivocal CSR environments with four “ideal types” of organizations—Container, Explorer, Embracer, and Manager—is presented and an organization’s choice among and movement between types discussed. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke articulates a form of scepticism about meaning. Even though there is considerable disagreement among critics about the reasoning in which the sceptic engages, there is little doubt that he seeks to offer constraints for an adequate account of the facts that constitute the meaningfulness of expressions. Many of the sceptic's remarks concern the nature of the guidance involved in a speaker's meaningful uses of expressions. I propose that we understand those remarks (...) as seeking to give shape to the idea that to use an expression under the guidance of one's understanding is to have a reason for that use, which one's understanding allows one to discern and act on. Any philosophical elucidation of meaning must adequately capture the rational nature of our linguistic acts. (shrink)

Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM) research involves the infection of otherwise healthy participants with disease often for the sake of vaccine development. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised the urgency of enhancing CHIM research capability and the importance of having clear ethical guidance for their conduct. The payment of CHIM participants is a controversial issue involving stakeholders across ethics, medicine and policymaking with allegations circulating suggesting exploitation, coercion and other violations of ethical principles. There are multiple approaches to payment: reimbursement, wage (...) payment and unlimited payment. We introduce a new Payment for Risk Model, which involves paying for time, pain and inconvenience and for risk associated with participation. We give philosophical arguments based on utility, fairness and avoidance of exploitation to support this. We also examine a cross-section of the UK public and CHIM experts. We found that CHIM participants are currently paid variable amounts. A representative sample of the UK public believes CHIM participants should be paid approximately triple the UK minimum wage and should be paid for the risk they endure throughout participation. CHIM experts believe CHIM participants should be paid more than double the UK minimum wage but are divided on the payment for risk. The Payment for Risk Model allows risk and pain to be accounted for in payment and could be used to determine ethically justifiable payment for CHIM participants.Although many research guidelines warn against paying large amounts or paying for risk, our empirical findings provide empirical support to the growing number of ethical arguments challenging this status quo. We close by suggesting two ways (value of statistical life or consistency with risk in other employment) by which payment for risk could be calculated. (shrink)

Empathy is a form of emotionally charged imaginative perspective‐taking. It is also the unique source of a particular form of understanding, which I will call humane understanding. Humane understanding consists in the direct apprehension of the intelligibility of others’ emotions. This apprehension is an epistemic good whose ethical significance is multifarious. In this paper, I focus on elaborating the sense in which humane understanding of others is non‐instrumentally valuable to its recipients. People have a complex but profound need to be (...) humanely understood. Because we respond to others’ very real need when we pursue this sort of understanding of their emotions, empathy is best understood as itself a way of caring, rather than just a means to promote other caring behavior. (shrink)

We thank the authors of the five commentaries for their careful and highly constructive consideration of our paper,1 which has enabled us to develop our proposal. Participation in research has traditionally been viewed as altruistic. Over time, payments for inconvenience and lost wages have been allowed, as have small incentives, usually in kind. The problem, particularly with controlled human infection model (CHIM) research or ‘challenge studies’, is that they are unpleasant and time-consuming. Researchers want to offer carrots to incentivise participation (...) (as Fernandez Lynch and Largent suggest2). We are proposing that research participation be viewed as a job with the full suite of financial entitlements of fairly remunerated work, including payment for risk and labour law protections. This would be a significant shift from current practice and standards. Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth have grasped this basic point and have beautifully elaborated how a fair price could be arrived at using economic theory. They build on our proposal helpfully and suggest ‘(1) salary for time involvement that is adjusted to account for the amount of discomfort experienced during participation, (2) insurance against ex post adverse outcomes and (3) ex ante compensation for risks that cannot be compensated ex post (such as death).’3 This effectively addresses Fernandez Lynch and Largent’s2 concern (echoed by Jamrozik and Selgelid4) that compensation for risk is inappropriate for harms which do not eventuate. However, because death cannot be compensated for, there must be payment for risk of death, as Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth convincingly argue.3 Indeed, the three-part model suggested by Ambuehl, Ockenfels and Roth makes us realise that job model would be a better title for our model than a payment for risk model. The alternative to a properly remunerated job model is the original altruistic model. However, this …. (shrink)

Background: Moral courage is required at all levels of nursing. However, there is a need for development of instruments to measure nurses’ moral courage. Objectives: The objective of this study is to develop a scale to measure nurses’ self-assessed moral courage, to evaluate the scale’s psychometric properties, and to briefly describe the current level of nurses’ self-assessed moral courage and associated socio-demographic factors. Research design: In this methodological study, non-experimental, cross-sectional exploratory design was applied. The data were collected using Nurses’ (...) Moral Courage Scale and analysed statistically. Participants and research context: The data were collected from a convenience sample of 482 nurses from four different clinical fields in a major university hospital in Finland for the final testing of the scale. The pilot comprised a convenience sample of 129 nurses. Ethical considerations: The study followed good scientific inquiry guidelines. Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee and permission to conduct the study from the participating hospital. Findings: Psychometric evaluation showed that the 4-sub-scale, 21-item Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale demonstrates good reliability and validity at its current state of development showing a good level of internal consistency for a new scale, the internal consistency values ranging from 0.73 to 0.82 for sub-scales and 0.93 for the total scale, thus well exceeding the recommended Cronbach’s alpha value of >0.7. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported the theoretical construct of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. Face validity and expert panel assessments markedly contributed to the relevance of items in establishing content validity. Discussion and conclusion: Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale provides a new generic instrument intended for measuring nurses’ self-assessed moral courage. Recognizing the importance of moral courage as a part of nurses’ moral competence and its assessment offers possibilities to develop interventions and educational programs for enhancement of moral courage. Research should focus on further validation measures of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale in international contexts. (shrink)

Background: Nursing practice takes place in a social framework, in which environmental elements and interpersonal relations interact. Ethical climate of the work unit is an important element affecting nurses’ professional and ethical practice. Nevertheless, whatever the environmental circumstances, nurses are expected to be professionally competent providing high-quality care ethically and clinically. Aim: This study examined newly graduated nurses’ perception of the ethical climate of their work environment and its association with their self-assessed professional competence, turnover intentions and job satisfaction. Method: (...) Descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational research design was applied. Participants consisted of 318 newly graduated nurses. Data were collected electronically and analysed statistically. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval and permissions to use instruments and conduct the study were obtained according to required procedures. Data were rendered anonymous to protect participant confidentiality. Completing the questionnaire was interpreted as consent to participate. Findings: Nurses’ overall perception of the ethical climate was positive. More positive perceptions related to peers, patients and physicians, and less positive to hospitals and managers. Strong associations were found between perceived ethical climate and self-assessed competence, turnover intentions in terms of changing job, and job satisfaction in terms of quality of care. Nurses at a higher competence level with positive views of job satisfaction and low turnover intentions perceived the climate significantly more positively. Conclusion: Nursing management responsible for and having the power to implement changes should understand their contribution in ethical leadership, as well as the multidimensional nature of nurses’ work environment and the interaction between work-related factors in planning developmental measures. Future research should focus on issues in nurse managers’ ethical leadership in creating ethical work environments. There is also a need for knowledge of newly graduated nurses’ views of factors which act as enhancers or barriers to positive ethical climates to develop. Interventions, continuing education courses, and discussions designed to promote positive ethical climates should be developed for managers, nurses, and multi-professional teams. (shrink)

Background: Nursing as an ethical practice requires courage to be moral, taking tough stands for what is right, and living by one’s moral values. Nurses need moral courage in all areas and at all levels of nursing. Along with new interest in virtue ethics in healthcare, interest in moral courage as a virtue and a valued element of human morality has increased. Nevertheless, what the concept of moral courage means in nursing contexts remains ambiguous. Objective: This article is an analysis (...) of the concept of moral courage in nursing. Design: Rodgers’ evolutionary method of concept analysis provided the framework to conduct the analysis. Data sources: The literature search was carried out in September 2015 in six databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and The Philosopher’s Index. The following key words were used: “moral” OR “ethical” AND “courage” OR “strength” AND “nurs*” with no time limit. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 31 studies were included in the final analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted according to good scientific guidelines. Results: Seven core attributes of moral courage were identified: true presence, moral integrity, responsibility, honesty, advocacy, commitment and perseverance, and personal risk. Antecedents were ethical sensitivity, conscience, and experience. Consequences included personal and professional development and empowerment. Discussion and conclusion: This preliminary clarification warrants further exploring through theoretical and philosophical literature, expert opinions, and empirical research to gain validity and reliability for its application in nursing practice. (shrink)

A considerable body of evidence now documents, beyond reasonable doubt, biological and health risk factors for crime and violence. Nevertheless, intervention and prevention efforts with offenders have avoided biological interventions, in part due to past misuses of biological research and the challenges that biological predispositions to crime raise. This article reviews the empirical literature on two biological intervention approaches, omega-3 supplementation and transcranial direct current stimulation. Emerging research on these relatively benign interventions suggests that increased omega-3 intake through dietary intervention (...) and prefrontal upregulation using non-invasive brain stimulation may show some initial promise in reducing antisocial behavior. The ethical issues related to mandated and offered biological interventions within the criminal justice system are discussed. (shrink)

This article discusses the triage response to the COVID-19 delta variant surge of 2021. One issue that distinguishes the delta wave from earlier surges is that by the time it became the predominant strain in the USA in July 2021, safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 had been available for all US adults for several months. We consider whether healthcare professionals and triage committees would have been justified in prioritising patients with COVID-19 who are vaccinated above those who are unvaccinated (...) in first-order or second-order triage. Given that lack of evidence for a correlation between short-term survival and vaccination, we argue that using vaccination status during first-order triage would be inconsistent with accepted triage standards. We then turn to notions of procedural fairness, equity and desert to argue that that there is also a lack of justification for using vaccination status in second-order triage. In planning for future surges, we recommend that medical institutions base their triage decisions on principles meant to save the most lives, minimise inequity and protect the public’s trust, which for the time being would not be served by the inclusion of vaccination status. (shrink)

In this essay Olivia Newman critically examines two opposing rights claims: the liberal claim that children have a right to become liberal choosers and the fundamentalist claim that children have a right to not become liberal choosers. These positions reflect differing views regarding the value of critically choosing, rather than simply accepting, a way of life. Given their assumptions regarding preference formation, both of these rights appear untenable in light of recent scholarship in psychology: we can neither select a (...) way of life independent of our social milieu, as liberals often imply, nor can we predict how different experiences will affect our preferences, as fundamentalists assume. Nevertheless, each position points to important concerns. Children have a substantive right of exit from constraining social milieus, as liberals purport, as well as a right to respect in public institutions, as fundamentalists insist. When liberals and fundamentalists assert these more modest rights claims, educators can and should strive to satisfy both. (shrink)

Although undergraduate engineering ethics courses often include the development of moral sensitivity as a learning objective and the use of active learning techniques, teaching centers on the transmission of cognitive knowledge. This article describes a complementary assignment asking students to perform an ethics “experiment” on themselves that has a potential to enhance affective learning and moral imagination. The article argues that the focus on cognitive learning may not promote, and may even impair, our efforts to foster moral sensitivity. In contrast, (...) the active learning assignments and exercises, like the ethics “experiment” discussed, offer great potential to expand the scope of instruction in engineering ethics to include ethical behavior as well as knowledge. Engineering ethics education needs to extend beyond the narrow range of human action associated with the technical work of the engineer and explore ways to draw on broader lifeworld experiences to enrich professional practice and identity. (shrink)

This article takes the 2008–2010 financial crisis as a case study to explore the tension between responsibility and accountability in complex crises. I analyze the patterns of attribution and assumption of responsibility of thirty-three bankers in Wall Street, interviewed from fall 2008 to summer 2010. First, I show that responsibility for complex failures cannot be easily attributed or assumed: responsibility becomes diluted within the collective. Actors can only assume collective responsibility, recognizing that they belong to an institution at fault. Second, (...) I show that blaming is a social process that should be examined contextually, relationally, and dynamically. I build on sociological theories to depart from the normative focus of philosophers, and the cognitive focus of psychologists, who have dominated the study of responsibility so far. (shrink)

Anna Wexler and Laura Specker Sullivan (2023) draw on their positionality as Global North early career neuroethics scholars to initiate a meaningful and timely conversation on Translational Neuroet...

Our collective enthusiasm for empathy reflects a sense that it is deeply valuable. I show that empathy bears a complex and surprisingly problematic relation to another social epistemic phenomenon that we have reason to value, namely testimonial trust. My discussion focuses on empathy with and trust in people who are members of one or more oppressed groups. Empathy for oppressed people can be a powerful tool for engendering a certain form of testimonial trust, because there is a tight connection between (...) empathy and a approval of another's outlook. I then argue that the qualities of empathy that make it such a powerful tool for bridging differences and building trust also have a problematic upshot: they make it the case that reliance on empathy will sometimes have a distorting effect upon the ways we extend testimonial trust. (shrink)

This study analysed teaching of nurses’ codes of ethics in basic nursing education in Finland. A total of 183 educators and 214 students responded to a structured questionnaire. The data was analysed by SPSS. Teaching of nurses’ codes was rather extensive. The nurse-patient relationship was highlighted. Educators assessed their teaching statistically significantly more extensive than what students’ perceptions were. The use of teaching and evaluation methods was conventional, but differences between the groups concerning the use of these methods were statistically (...) significant. Students’ knowledge of and their ability to apply the codes was mediocre. Most educators and students assessed educators’ knowledge of the codes as adequate for teaching. These educators also taught the codes more extensively and these students perceived the teaching as more extensive. Otherwise educators’ and students’ socio-demographic variables had little association with the teaching. Research should focus on the organization and effectiveness of ethics education, and on educators’ competence. (shrink)

In his treatment of the Wittgensteinian paradox about rule-following, Saul Kripke represents the non-reductionist approach, according to which meaning something by an expression is a sui generis state that cannot be elucidated in more basic terms, as brushing philosophical questions under the rug. This representation of non-reductionism captures the way in which some of its proponents conceive of it. Meaning is viewed by these philosophers as an explanatory primitive that provides the basic materials for philosophical inquiry, but whose nature cannot (...) serve as an object for that inquiry. There is, however, an alternative way of conceiving of non-reductionism, which makes it possible to tackle philosophical questions about the nature of meaning head-on. (shrink)

The reality-virtuality continuum encompasses a multitude of objects, events and environments ranging from real-world multisensory inputs to interactive multisensory virtual simulators, in which sensory integration can involve very different combinations of both physical and digital inputs. These different ways of stimulating the senses can affect the consumer’s consciousness, potentially altering their judgements and behaviours. In this perspective paper, we explore how technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can, by generating and modifying the human sensorium, act on consumer consciousness. (...) We discuss the potential impact of this altered consciousness for consumer behaviour while, at the same time, considering how it may pave the way for further research. (shrink)

Although the topic of value congruence has attracted considerable attention from researchers and practitioners, evidence for the link between person–supervisor value congruence and followers’ reactions is less robust than often assumed. This study addresses three central issues in our understanding of person–supervisor value congruence by assessing the impact of objective person–supervisor value congruence rather than subjective value congruence, by examining the differential effects of value congruence in strongly versus moderately held values, and by exploring perceived empowerment as a central mediating (...) mechanism. Results of a multi-source study comprising 116 person–supervisor dyads reveal that objective value congruence relates to followers’ job satisfaction and affective commitment and that this link can be explained by followers’ perceived empowerment. Moreover, polynomial regression and response surface analyses reveal that congruence effects vary with the importance that leaders and followers ascribe to a certain value: Congruency in strongly held values have more robust relations with followers’ outcomes than congruence in moderately held values. (shrink)

RESUMENEste artículo propone una aproximación a la ética de la alteridad de Emmanuel Lévinas tomando como eje argumentativo la noción «rostro». En primer lugar, este concepto nos permitirá profundizar en la articulación de la relación de alteridad bajo un enfoque pragmático-lingüístico. Posteriormente, nuestra reflexión se abrirá a un análisis del mismo, en tanto que palabra y discurso, que derivará en un estudio de la responsabilidad levinasiana. Finalmente, y aún a partir de esta noción, se ahondará en la actualidad del sentido (...) y de la significación de la ética de la alteridad de Emmanuel Lévinas.PALABRAS CLAVESALTERIDAD, EXPRESIÓN, INTERPELACIÓN, ROSTRO, SENSIBILIDADABSTRACTThis article presents a close study on the ethics of alterity based on the notion of «face». Firstly, this concept will enable us to examine in detail the constitution of alterity relationship following a pragmatic and linguistic focus. Furthermore, this reflective study will lead to an analysis of «face» both as word and discourse, concluding with a study on Levinas’s concept of responsibility. Finally, keeping in line with this notion, this study will analyse topical issues related to the sense and meaning of Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of alterity.KEYWORDSALTERITY, EXPRESSION, QUESTIONING, FACE, SENSITIVITY. (shrink)

A timely and penetrating investigation, this book seeks to transform moral philosophy. In the face of continuing disagreement about which general moral principles are correct, there has been a resurgence of interest in the idea that correct moral judgements can be only about particular cases. This view--moral particularism --forecasts a revolution in ordinary moral practice that has until now consisted largely of appeals to general moral principles. Moral particularism also opposes the primary aim of most contemporary normative moral theory that (...) attempts to show that either one general principle, or a set of general principles, is superior to all its rivals. (shrink)

Against the background of a deeply uneven package of work–family reconciliation measures and an increasing focus on engaging men in unpaid care work, in this article I discuss the extension of the Irish discrimination law framework to provide protection against family status discrimination to workers who are engaged in certain care relationships. While this development of the law to recognize a relational understanding of inequality is welcome, its confined definition of family status fails to capture the range of workers’ caring (...) relationships and networks. Adopting a contextualized assessment of 12 years of litigation generated under the ‘family status’ ground, with reference to complainants’ gender and work status, the study considers the types of experiences being litigated as ‘family status’ discrimination. The study show how much of the nature and forms of inequality presented before the tribunals are beyond the conceptual boundaries of the principle of equal treatment that depends upon a sameness of treatment model with the ‘care-less’ comparator. Despite its potential to question the neutrality of workplace structures predicated upon the division between paid work and unpaid care, the principle of indirect family status discrimination has been under utilised as a litigation strategy. The most successful dimension of family status discrimination protection has been in respect of its ability to capture the negative stereotyping of worker–carers who continue to perform as ideal workers. I suggest that this extension of a limited negative rights framework, when considered alongside the state’s extremely poor support for workcare reconciliation more broadly, places negligible obligations on employers, and that the gender neutrality implicit in its provisions have yet to impact on gender equality as regards work–care reconciliation. (shrink)

Law moves, whether we notice or not. Set amongst a spatial turn in the humanities, and jurisprudence more specifically, this book calls for a greater attention to legal movement, in both its technical and material forms. Despite various ways the spatial turn has been taken up in legal thought, questions of law, movement and its materialities are too often overlooked. This book addresses this oversight, and it does so through an attention to the materialities of legal movement. Paying attention to (...) how law moves across different colonial and contemporary spaces, this book reveals there is a problem with common law's place. Primarily set in the postcolonial context of Australia - although ranging beyond this nationalised topography, both spatially and temporally - this book argues movement is fundamental to the very terms of common law's existence. How, then, might we move well? Explored through examples of walking and burial, this book responds to the challenge of how to live with a contemporary form of colonial legal inheritance by arguing we must take seriously the challenge of living with law, and think more carefully about its spatial productions, and place-making activities. Unsettling place, this book returns the question of movement to jurisprudence. (shrink)

Background: Spasticity following a stroke occurs in about 30% of patients. The mechanisms underlying this disorder, however, are not well understood. Method: This review aims to define spasticity, describe hypotheses explaining its development after a stroke, give an overview of related neuroimaging studies as well as a description of the most common scales used to quantify the degree of spasticity and finally explore which treatments are currently being used to treat this disorder.

This paper examines the meaningfulness of pointing in great apes. We appeal to Hannah Ginsborg’s conception of primitive normativity, which provides an adequate criterion for establishing whether a response is meaningful, and we attempt to make room for a conception according to which there is no fundamental difference between the responses of human infants and those of other great apes to pointing gestures. This conception is an alternative to Tomasello’s view that pointing gestures and reactions to them reveal a fundamental (...) difference between humans and other apes. (shrink)

In this introductory essay, I articulate a puzzle that is central for our understanding of ourselves as minded beings bound to live finite lives. I argue that our finitude is not something that can be set aside for the purposes of the philosophical inquiry into the mind. Grappling with it is an essential component of this inquiry.

In this study, we explore the future of work by examining differences in productivity when teams are composed of only humans or both humans and machine agents. Our objective was to characterize the similarities and differences between human and human–machine teams as they work to coordinate across their specialized roles. This form of research is increasingly important given that machine agents are becoming commonplace in sociotechnical systems and playing a more active role in collaborative work. One particular class of machine (...) agents, bots, is being introduced to these systems to facilitate both taskwork and teamwork. We investigated the association between bots and productivity outcomes in open source software development through an analysis of hundreds of project teams. The presence of bots in teams was associated with higher levels of productivity and higher work centralization in addition to greater amounts of observed communication. The adoption of bots in software teams may have tradeoffs, in that doing so may increase productivity, but could also increase workload. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing human–machine teaming research. (shrink)

This chapter weighs a challenge to the attractive notion that by enabling empathy, fiction affords wide-ranging knowledge of what others’ experiences are like. It is commonly held that ‘seeing the world through others’ eyes’ often requires the empathizer to undergo an imaginative shift in sensibility, and we might naturally think that fiction helps us to effect that shift. However, some recent work on empathy and imagination encourages the conclusion that we are actually rigidly restricted to our own sensibilities even in (...) the wildest flights of imagination great literature can inspire. Drawing on the work of the novelist Zadie Smith, the chapter argues that while our imaginative capacities are not entirely unconstrained by our sensibilities, fiction can still help us to learn about a wide range of human experiences, including the experiences of people whose sensibilities substantially diverge from our own. Notably, fiction can work on our patterns of attention in such a way that we become temporarily ‘not ourselves.’. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to revisit public happiness as Arendt develops it explicitly in On Revolution—and implicitly elsewhere throughout her oeuvre—in order to philosophically evaluate its ability to beget a political-theoretical framework able to relate politics to an “affective realignment,” alternative to the hegemonic paradigms of “againstness” and “resistance.” I will analyze the Arendtian theoretical framework regarding action, freedom, and happiness in its relation to the thinker’s political ontology, testing its ability to restore for us a political imaginary (...) that is generative and affirmative. Can Arendt can help us understand the political momentum of the present and by so doing help us reassess the political, freeing it from the depoliticized quagmire of these overtly neoliberal times? (shrink)

“The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa—giving the world a more human face.”—Steve BikoUndersta...

Étudier les actes de requête dans les discours prononcés aux Nations Unies s’avère d’une utilité certaine dans le travail de caractérisation de ce sous-genre diplomatique. La formulation indirecte des actes de langage et les procédés linguistiques qui éloignent les sources potentielles de confrontation révèle des discours contraints par l’exercice de la « politesse », au service de l’impératif institutionnel de valorisation du consensus. Ces discours qui s’éloignent du fonctionnement du langage ordinaire transfèrent la prise en charge de l’énonciation aux États-membres (...) qui sont ici de véritables locuteurs et qui partant parlent en leur propre nom. L’on observe alors l’impact d’un contexte socio-discursif sur le fonctionnement de langue. Les requêtes formulées dans ces discours reflètent les problématiques qui préoccupent les États membres, puisque dans bien des cas, une requête peut être l’aveu d’un manque. Les verbes illocutoires donnent un bon aperçu des « façons de parler » et témoignent d’ores-et-déjà d’une routinisation des pratiques langagières. (shrink)

We give an explicit construction of the dependent product in an elementary topos, and a site‐theoretic description for it in the case of a Grothendieck topos. Along the way, we obtain a number of results of independent interest, including an expression for the operation of universal quantification on subobjects in terms of finite limits and power objects.