In this paper, I analyze the extent to which classical phase transitions, especially continuous phase transitions, impose a challenge for reduction- ism. My main contention is that classical phase transitions are compatible with reduction, at least with the notion of limiting reduction, which re- lates the behavior of physical quantities in different theories under certain limiting conditions. I argue that this conclusion follows even after rec- ognizing the existence of two infinite limits involved in the treatment of continuous phase transitions.

We consider weighted o-minimal hybrid systems, which extend classical o-minimal hybrid systems with cost functions. These cost functions are “observer variables” which increase while the system evolves but do not constrain the behaviour of the system. In this paper, we prove two main results: optimal o-minimal hybrid games are decidable; the model-checking of WCTL, an extension of CTL which can constrain the cost variables, is decidable over that model. This has to be compared with the same problems in the framework (...) of timed automata where both problems are undecidable in general, while they are decidable for the restricted class of one-clock timed automata. (shrink)

Published in two volumes, these books provide a student audience with an excellent scholarly edition of Malthus' Essay on Population. Written in 1798 as a polite attack on post-French revolutionary speculations on the theme of social and human perfectibility, it remains one of the most powerful statements of the limits to human hopes set by the tension between population growth and natural resources. Based on the authoritative variorum edition of the versions of the Essay published between 1803 and 1826, and (...) complete with full introduction and bibliographic apparatus, this edition is intended to show how Malthusianism impinges on the history of political thought, and how the author's reputation as a population theorist and political economist was established. This is the two volume set. (shrink)

One’s philosophical points of view, which form the bases for assumptions that we bring to management theory and practice matter, and matter deeply, to management thinking and corporate behavior. In this paper I outline three related threads of philosophical conversations and explain how they are important in management theory and practice: the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, deriving from the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a social constructionist perspective: a set of theories at least implicitly derived from the linguistic turn in (...) philosophy, and the notion of the impartial spectator. I then use these three theories to analyze the idea of the corporation, corporate cultures and corporate mission statements, stakeholder theories and their differences, and the limitations of the popular notion of “corporate social responsibility.” I conclude that how one frames these management ideas makes a difference, a difference in theory and in practice. (shrink)

Citizenship education is a complex matter, and not least the place of civic virtues in it. This is illustrated by a consideration of the civic virtue of gratitude. Two conceptions of gratitude are explored. Gratitude seen as a debt is examined and Kant’s exposition of it, including his objections to a person’s getting himself into the position where he has to show gratitude as a beneficiary, is explored. An alternative conception of gratitude as recognition is developed. This, it is claimed, (...) has more relevance to the kind of gratitude it would be appropriate for citizens of a democratic state to feel. The educational implications of these views are indicated. (shrink)

El 28 de mayo de 1970, Jorge Luis Borges dictó la conferencia “Junín y la Conquista del Desierto” en esa la ciudad. Entre el público presente, un agente de los servicios de inteligencia local, escuchó, escribió y envió a sus superiores una versión de la conferencia y sus impresiones, registro singular que consta en el Archivo de la Dirección de Inteligencia de la Policía de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (DIPPBA). El objetivo del artículo es inscribir el documento en dos (...) niveles: (1) exponer algunas notas y reflexiones acerca de la narración de vidas, momentos biográficos y autobiográficos en la escritura y la estética literaria de Borges que señalan temas afines a lo supuestamente expuesto en la conferencia; (2) ubicar el documento, las lógicas del archivo y la coyuntura política que lo rodeaba en diálogo con lo anterior. Y, entretejiendo ambos, analizar en términos metodológicos y analíticos las relaciones tensionadas entre biografía, autobiografía y archivo. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 218-246.

This paper argues that practitioners of psychedelic-assisted therapy could learn a great deal from Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of psychoanalysis in Anti-Oedipus, as well as the practice of materialist psychiatry – schizoanalysis – that they offer in its stead. Much of the clinical research on psychedelics (particularly psilocybin) over the past fifteen years has privileged mystical experience, assessed according to a quantifiable scale, as the goal of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and source of cure ( Griffiths et al. 2006, 2016 ; Barrett (...) and Griffiths 2018 ; Pollan 2018 ). Has ‘mystical experience’ become the ‘imperialism of Oedipus’ within the psychedelic revival, towards which all psychedelic experience and activity of the unconscious is expected to tend? Distressed patients would be better held, I contend, through a therapeutic practice that adopts Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the unconscious as a desiring-machine and the cure as a completion of the process of desiring-production that is not arrested and reduced to pre-assigned ends. In this mode of working with psychedelics, the embodied memories, visions and sensations of the patient do not in a predetermined way ‘express’ or ‘represent’ a perennial, quantifiable experience (or myth). Rather, they enable the positive task of schizoanalysis of learning what a subject’s desiring-machines are and how they work, and the negative task of identifying and destroying all that stands in the way of their functioning. (shrink)

E. Levinas et M. Henry reconnaissent tous deux l’importance pour la philosophie occidentale de la pensée de Husserl, mais ils s’en démarquent car ils la trouvent trop intellectualiste. C’est pourquoi ils vont chercher respectivement dans l’autre et dans la vie auto-affective une issue radicale à toute représentation ou discours théorique. L’auteur de cette étude met dès lors en évidence le fait que la critique, par ces deux phénoménologues, des philosophies de la conscience les amène à décrire, dans le cadre de (...) ce qu’elle propose d’appeler une « méta-phénoménologie », des « attitudes » telles que le désir, la douleur et la fatigue. Il sera question dès lors de tâcher de répondre aux questions portant sur la possibilité d’une refondation de la phénoménologie qui irait « au-delà » ou « en deçà » de ce que cette démarche philosophique s’est donné elle-même comme horizon. (shrink)

Les esthétiques contemporaines nous ont habitués à penser que la valeur formelle d’un objet d’art n’était pas seulement formelle et que l’attention esthétique n’excluait ni l’intérêt cognitif ni l’émotion morale. Du côté de l’art, on a également observé ces dernières décennies un refus des distinctions trop catégoriques (forme/contenu ; fait/ valeur ; art/vie ; esthétique/cognitif/ émotionnel), en même temps qu’un retour à une pratique ouvertement orientée vers la vie éthique. Aussi, dans un contexte social où les discours et les images (...) médiatiques brouillent la perception du réel et de la mémoire, l’art cherche-t-il, par l’invention d’un autre langage et par le retour à la rhétorique dont l’histoire scientifique s’est défaite, à susciter la fonction imaginaire de la mémoire, en construisant une relation esthétique et critique aux lieux de notre histoire. Cette recherche apparaît notamment dans le travail d’Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Christian Boltanski, Sophie Calle, Pascal Convert, Anne et Patrick Poirier, Arno Gisinger ou Jochen Gerz, dont les œuvres ne se situent pas hors du monde mais au contraire prennent pied dans l’histoire, la mémoire collective et la réalité sociale, pour en explorer les failles et permettre au public une appropriation plus authentique de sa propre existence éthique et sociale. (shrink)

A democratic state is characterised by more than its particular principles and institutions; its citizens must have the democratic virtues and attitudes. One such important attitude is trust, as commentators on the current attempts to create democratic institutions in the USSR emphasise. The paper gives an account of social trust and also the important, though problematic, role that distrust plays in a democracy. Finally the paper considers how the school can instantiate social trust in its own ethos.

Ein zentrales Ziel von Transparency and Reflection ist es zu erklären, wie Selbstwissen möglich ist, während zugleich daran festgehalten wird, dass Wissen um Bewusstseinszustände ‚transparent‘ ist mit Blick auf unser Weltwissen. Ich möchte zeigen, dass die von Matthew Boyle bemühten Ressourcen – insbesondere „Bewusstsein als Subjekt“ und „Arten des Gegebenseins“ – nicht ausreichen, um die Einführung der Vorstellung eines Selbsts zu erklären, das vielfältige Zustände hat. Dagegen möchte ich vorschlagen, dass Boyle erfolgreicher gewesen wäre, wenn er bei seiner früheren Kantischen (...) Annahme geblieben wäre, nach der die Beherrschung der Vorstellung der Ersten-Person ein Bewusstsein der Aktivität des Denkens benötigt, das Subjekte dazu befähigt, Warum-Fragen zu beantworten. (shrink)

The history of the recovery movement began with a pushback against treatment, and the philosophies that it was founded upon still have relevant applications to contemporary social work practice. Financial aspects of service provision for people with serious mental illnesses have enabled other actors in the medical model of psychosis treatment to benefit, while disempowering and dehumanizing the consumers of those services. Since then, other movements like Psychopolitics and the Mad Movement have helped empower psychosis survivors to advocate for their (...) right to self-determination amid the epistemological pressure to identify as disabled. Social workers would like to believe that the field has moved beyond the philosophies that perpetuated institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses. Contemporary examples, however, reveal how social services in the US maintain the status quo of sanism for psychosis survivors. (shrink)

The global expansion of free enterprise has been underway for some time, and the challenges for global companies are well‐known. Companies often operate in economically blighted communities and in corrupt environments without a rule of law. At the same time Western‐based global corporations are under increasing public pressure to take on responsibilities to these communities that are often beyond their expertise or economic purview. For example, at the 2008 Davos meetings Bill Gates proposed the idea of “creative capitalism, challenging business (...) to ‘meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits’...” In what follows I shall argue that while there have been many successful global ventures, the Gates’ challenge requires academics and managerial leaders to rethink their mind sets and expand their thinking about what we mean by globalization, poverty, and the multiple dimensions of free enterprise. (shrink)

Drawing extensively on letters sent to me by him over fifty years, this paper tries to present a vivid picture of Paul Hirst in different aspects of his life. The first section covers the huge amount of work he did at the universities of London and Cambridge—in teaching and writing philosophy of education, high-level administrative university responsibilities, and involvement in national education policy. This is followed by a glimpse into his passion for music, especially opera. Final sections show him as (...) an academic mentor and friend. (shrink)

This paper argues that the creation narrative of the Fall in Genesis 2:4b–3:24 is not history and does not contain a doctrine of original sin. The doctrine of original sin as a theory of human nature needs a new foundation. The contemporary science of sociobiology has a theory of human nature that is remarkably similar to major versions of the Christian doctrines of original sin. To incorporate sociobiology's theory of human nature into Christianity is to lay the foundation for a (...) new, ecumenical understanding of original sin. (shrink)

How can and does science – and especially neuroscience – inform the philosophical puzzle of mind and body?