Far more telling than mere biography, this collection of the extant letters exchanged between philosopher Jacques Maritain and social activist Saul Alinsky reveals a deep and intimate friendship, however unexpected and unlikely. Indeed, to all who knew or knew of them the dignified, prominent philosopher and the earthy, truculent genius of social reform seemed antithetical to one another in almost every way. The Maritain-Alinsky correspondence began in 1945, shortly after they met, and continued until Alinsky's death (...) in 1972. The tone and content of the letters vary widely, ranging from expressions of mutual admiration and friendship, to details of the triumphs and tragedies of their personal lives, to anguished considerations of death and immortality. In their letters Maritain and Alinsky offer each other personal expressions of strong mutual support - as well as judicious warnings and slightly apprehensive distancing - for the different works each had undertaken at various times in his respective careers. They also discuss the Catholic church, taking ironic jibes at clerical pomposity and exchanging praise of the socially aware. Though it is difficult to tell whether either man had a significant influence on the thought and work of the other, their correspondence attests that the philosopher and the provocateur, so different in personality, educational backgrounds, demeanor, and intellectual affinities, enjoyed a surprisingly intimate and extraordinary friendship. With context and interpretation of the letters provided by the editor, this intriguing collection of lively, moving letters not only reveals the depths of a most improbable friendship, it also goes far in exposing thehumanity behind the personas. (shrink)

In this article we address torture in military and police organizations as a public health and human rights challenge that needs to be addressed through multiple levels of intervention. While most mental health approaches focus on treating the harmful effects of such violence on individuals and communities, the goal of the project described here was to develop a primary prevention strategy at the institutional level to prevent torture from occurring in the first place. Such an approach requires understanding and altering (...) the conditions that cause and sustain “atrocity producing situations”. Given the persistence of torture across the world and its profound health consequences, this is an increasingly important issue in global health and human rights. (shrink)

are synthetic a priori judgements possible?" In both cases, i~thas usually been t'aken for granted in fife one case by Kant that synthetic a priori judgements were possible, and in the other case in contemporary,'d-". philosophical literature that contingent statements of identity are ppss. ible. I do not intend to deal with the Kantian question except to mention:ssj~".

Pierre Gassendi (b. 1592, d. 1655) was a French philosopher, scientific chronicler, observer, and experimentalist, scholar of ancient texts and debates, and active participant in contemporary deliberations of the first half of the seventeenth century. His significance in early modern thought has in recent years been rediscovered and explored, towards a better understanding of the dawn of modern empiricism, the mechanical philosophy, and relations of modern philosophy to ancient and medieval discussions. Through an arch-empiricism—tempered by adherence to key elements of (...) Church doctrine—Gassendi views metaphysics as a realm for speculation grounded in the possibility of empirical confirmation, logic as a psychologistic and probabilistic enterprise, knowledge of the external world as built on and subject to sensory-based evidence, and ethics in quasi-hedonist, possibly quantifiable terms. His philosophy is a constant review of other sources, a thorough consideration of the landscape into which his own empiricism fits and represents an alternative to contrasting claims, past and present. Other hallmarks of his thought include an atomist matter theory, explorations and defenses of the new physics, objections to the Meditations, and refutations of contemporary Aristotelians and mystical thinkers. His presentation of an empiricism, atomism, and new cosmology in historical and philosophical context greatly advanced the community of scholarship in his day, and represents a then-new model of research and exposition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME ON FINDING AN IMPRESSION OF THE SELF 47 1 1. Introduction Descartes held that reflection on "the commonest matters", for example our recognition of a piece of wax, reveals our more fundamental awareness of ourselves. And further, if the [notion or] perception of the wax has seemed to me clearer and more distinct, not only after the sight or the touch, but also after many other causes have (...) rendered it quite manifest to me, with how much more [evidence] and distinctness must it be said that I now know myself, since all the reasons which contribute to the knowledge of wax, or any other body whatever, are yet better proofs of the nature of my mind!2 Even if I only seem to see a piece of wax, when I have no eyes to see and there is no wax before me, I still know something. I know myself. When I judge that the wax is soft I am aware of myself as so judging. When I judge that the wax is hard, I am aware that I_ judge it so. I cannot have knowledge of external bodies without having certain knowledge of myself, because even my mere beliefs reveal my self-knowledge. Descartes exploited the insight that he is more intimately conscious of his own mind than anything else to establish that he is "a mind or a soul... a thing which thinks".3 Philosophers who did not share Descartes' rationalism still held the view that we are intimately conscious of ourselves, and that our awareness of other things enhances our self-awareness, and is epistemically dependent on it. Butler claimed that our awareness of ourselves was beyond doubt, since to doubt that awareness presupposes that we already have it. Whenever we "turn our thoughts upon ourselves" we have 48 "certain conviction, which necessarily and every moment, rises within us" of our personal identity. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume argues against both the intelligibility of the notion of immaterial substance, and the claim that we have simple awareness of our selves independently of our awareness of other objects. when Hume turns his attention squarely to the topic of personal identity in the Treatise, he has already dismissed the rationalist notion of immaterial substance or soul. He attacks the view which tempted rationalists and empiricists alike, that our awareness of ourselves is distinct from our feeling and thinking, but is often enhanced by such experience. Hume's argument has been and continues to be influential. Recent Wittgenstein interpretation suggests that the Tractatus discussion of the unencounterability of the self in experience is directly borrowed from Hume.5 Chisholm's views concerning self-awareness are motivated in part by problems he locates in Hume's negative argument. Chisholm argues that the report that he finds no impression of self commits Hume to the existence of a subject of experience.6 Most recently, Nozick suggests that Hume did not consider the possibility that our awareness of ourselves might be isolated by employing •7 special techniques, such as yoga or meditation. In this paper I will focus on the passage in the Treatise where Hume reports his failure to find an impression of the self and presents this as an argument against the theory of self-awareness which many philosophers found irresistible. Although Hume's argument has been influential and is often discussed in contemporary literature, the Treatise passage in which it occurs appears confused. The confusion is cleared up only when it is seen that Hume really presents two 49 different arguments against the view that we are intimately conscious of ourselves. Finally I suggest how Hume's actual arguments pave the way for his positive views. 2. The Difficulty Hume's discussion of personal identity in the Treatise begins with his consideration of the view of "some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF."8 After characterizing the view, Hume rejects it, having found that we have no idea of self "after the manner it is here explain'd". The unnamed philosophers, as Hume understands them, take the idea of the self to be a simple idea. For Hume, a... (shrink)

Aucune méthode d'hypothèse et de raisonnement hypothétique en science ne peut être examinée dc façon critique sans que soit résolue au préalable la question de ce qui sert d'hypothèse. D'un point de vue très général, des éléments très différents peuvent servir à constituer la partie hypothétique ou conjecturale de la science. Du temps de Gassendi, il était possible de recourir à des entités hypothétiques tels les tourbillons cartésiens, à de généralisations idéalisées de phénomènes telle la loi de la chute libre, (...) à des élaborations conjecturales comme l'image céleste de Ptolémée, à des modèles explicatifs et synthétiques comme la description par Harvey de la circulation sanguine ou à de modèles précurseurs comme celui de Kepler (orbites planétaires). Tous ces éléments de nature différente ont au moins un point commun : nous les acceptons comme tels avec la promesse de pouvoir justifier leur utilisation, plus tard, d'une façon ou d'une autre. La difficulté de cette acceptation préliminaire, selon une conception toute classique, réside dans le paradoxe qui consiste à profiter des avantages - de nature explicative, déductive ou illustrative, pour n'en citer que quelque-uns - offerts par l'emploi de tels éléments hypothétiques, même si nous manquons de preuves satisfaisantes à leur sujet, et cela pour approfondir notre compréhension de phénomènes pour lesquels nous disposons réellement de preuves. (shrink)

Rift Valley Fever is a vector-borne disease mainly transmitted by mosquito. To gain some quantitative insights into its dynamics, a deterministic model with mosquito, livestock, and human host is formulated as a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations and analyzed. The disease threshold $$\mathcal{R}_0$$ is computed and used to investigate the local stability of the equilibria. A sensitivity analysis is performed and the most sensitive model parameters to the measure of initial disease transmission $$\mathcal{R}_0$$ and the endemic equilibrium are determined. (...) Both $$\mathcal{R}_0$$ and the disease prevalence in mosquitoes are more sensitive to the natural mosquito death rate, d m . The disease prevalence in livestock and humans are more sensitive to livestock and human recruitment rates, $$\Uppi_l$$ and $$\Uppi_h$$, respectively, suggesting isolation of livestock from humans is a viable preventive strategy during an outbreak. Numerical simulations support the analytical results in further exploring theoretically the long-term dynamics of the disease at the population level. (shrink)

A thermal-mechanical analysis of the behavior of the segments of the rollers of the briquetting machines is carried out due to the effect of thermal shock and efforts exerted on the part. It is intended to obtain the main causes that generate this problem, through a mechanical analysis that simulated the behavior in the presence of several thermal gradients. The purpose of the study is to reduce maintenance costs and the continuous replacement and repair of segments, as well as losses (...) in tons of production due to the failure that are of great impact to the industry. This investigation allows us to know to what extent the operating parameters, such as: material temperature, pressure, torque, speed of the rollers influence the life of the segments according to their manufacturing material and based on these the behavior is simulated during the briquetting process. Keywords: Simulation, Finite element, Briquettes. [1]D. F. Pinzón, «Diseño óptimo de Sistemas de Distribución,» Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 2014. [2]F. A. Mendoza Lameda, «Diseño multiobjetivo y multietapa de sistemas de distribución de energía eléctrica aplicando algoritmos evolutivos,» Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 2010. [3]L. Miró Hernández y R. Vizcón Toledo, «Sistema Hibrido Propuesto Para la Generación de Electricidad en un Policlínico,» Revista Avanzada Científica, vol. 9, nº 2, pp. 50-56, 2006. [4]J. Lagunas M., C. Ortega S. y P. Caratozzolo M., «Control supervisorio para sistemas híbridos de geración eléctrica basado en lógica difusa,» Boletin UE, Monterrey, 2005. [5]J. L. Bernal Agustín, «Aplicación de algoritmos genéticos al diseño óptimo de sistemas de distribución de energía eléctrica,» Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 1998. [6]V. MIranda, J. V. Ranito y L. Proenca, «Genetic Algorithms in Optimal Multistage Distribution Network Planning, » IEEE, Porto, 1994. [7]I. Ramirez-Rosado y J. Dominguez-Navarro, «Computer Aided Desing of Power Distribution Systems: Multiobjective Mathematical Simulations» International Journal of Power and Energy Systems, vol. 19, nº 4, pp. 1801-1810, 2004. (shrink)

Historian Dmitry Peretolchin quotes several of my publications on the creation and application of political technologies in the United States in his program about Saul Alinsky on the House of Cards podcast on the Den TV channel. An advertisement for the conference "Russian World Against the Global Reich" was inserted into this broadcast. This article: analyzes the statements of the podcast about Alinsky and his main ideas; showes that the main source of Alinsky's political technologies is (...) the experience of professional revolutionaries in Russia and that they in no way confirm the idea of a global Reich; describes the political technology that Alexander Prokhanov and his media complex uses to implement the Fifth Empire project, which is currently merged with the ideology of the Russian World; analyzes the ideological orientation of the House of Cards podcast and the Picture of the World club on the Den channel. The articles illustrates how the authors of the podcast are working to substantiate the propaganda direction of the media complex. The article also aims to show that political technologies, in particular, technologies of co-organization continue to develop and be implemented in countries with different political systems and can be applied to various types of social movements. (shrink)

Inspiré par son intérêt pour la discipline naissante de l'ingénierie aéronautique, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) se plonge dans l'étude de la logique et des fondements mathématiques. Son cheminement intellectuel et existentiel le conduira à redécouvrir l'importance du sens commun et de l'intuition pour éclairer la mosaïque des accords sensibles entre humains. Ne renonçant jamais aux exigences de la rationalité, il s'intéresse à l'anthropologie et au langage, à l'éthique et à l'esthétique, au droit et à l'art, refusant la rigidification dogmatique et le (...) cloisonnement des disciplines. Perçue comme difficile d'accès, sa philosophie nous donne pourtant des clefs pour articuler théorie et sensibilité, recherche de l'absolu universaliste et consentement à l'imperfection relative. Ce qui importe alors, et que la musique nous rappelle, c'est que nous sommes tous à la recherche d'une "voix individuelle qui réclame sa validité universelle" - son diapason juste."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Este artículo investiga las narraciones de 1 Sam 9 y 1 Sam 28 a la luz del trasfondo más amplio del contexto sacrificial en el primer libro de Samuel. En concreto, este estudio muestra cómo los episodios, unidos por la escena de un banquete y el reparto de la comida sagrada, constituyen las partes de un sistema simbólico definido que, en sus resultados, es capaz de describir, definir y dirigir las relaciones entre los participantes en el ritual y la deidad. (...) A través del ejemplo de los banquetes de Saúl, primero con Samuel y luego con una nigromante en la aldea de En Dor, el texto de 1Sam define una jerarquía precisa entre la práctica cultual y la monarquía naciente en Israel. (shrink)

Dans la culture occidentale, le paysage est le plus souvent reconnu comme une portion d'espace appréhendée à distance, selon un point de vue unique; l'étendue, telle qu'elle est circonscrite par le regard, l'emporte sur la temporalité qui se trouve négligée. Or, le territoire est affecté de changements incessants, que ceux-ci soient d'origine naturelle ou déterminés par l'intervention des hommes; les dispositifs techniques, qu'ils s'agissent des "machines de locomotion" ou des "machines de vision" contribuent à conférer une dimension temporelle à la (...) perception des sites. Le lieu est également le réceptacle des émotions, des souvenirs ou des anticipations de chacun. Paysages en devenir traite de la manière dont un certain nombre d'oeuvres artistiques contemporaines transcrivent et accompagnent les variations et les évolutions du paysage. (shrink)

Traditional theists are, with few exceptions, global semantic realists about the interpretation of external world statement. Realism of this kind is treated by many as a shibboleth of traditional Christianity, a sine qua non of theological orthodoxy. Yet, this love affair between theists and semantic realism is a poor match. I suggest that everyone (theist or no) has compelling evidence drawn from everyday linguistic practice to reject a realist interpretation of most external world statements. But theists have further reason to (...) forswear this view, because those who insist on global semantic realism open themselves to the charge of hubris of a theologically inappropriate kind. If the arguments in this paper are sound, then neither God nor any of us have reason to apply a realist interpretation to all or even most statements about the external world. (shrink)

This essay looks into the paradoxical friendship of Jacques Maritain, a Catholic philosopher, and Saul Alinsky, a radical community organizer. Commentators Bernard Doering and Charles Curran have used the fact of this friendship to draw the erroneous conclusion that Maritain approved of Alinsky’s philosophy. However, a closer look at their respective writings shows that Maritain and Alinsky retained profound disagreements on basic philosophical issues. Particular attention is paid to Maritain’s letter in response to Alinsky’s Rules (...) for Radicals, in which Maritain raised objections to many of Alinsky’s ideas. Thus, Maritain didnot compromise his Christian worldview. (shrink)

This collection of original essays brings together a world-class lineup of philosophers to provide the most comprehensive critical treatment of Ted Honderich’s philosophy, focusing on three major areas of his work: (1) his theory of consciousness; (2) his extensive and ground-breaking work on determinism and freedom; and (3) his views on right and wrong, including his Principle of Humanity and his judgments on terrorism. Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, Honderich is a (...) leading contemporary philosopher of mind, determinism and freedom, and morals. The collection begins with a comprehensive introduction written by Honderich followed by fourteen original chapters separated into three sections. Each section concludes with a set of remarks by Honderich. Contributors include Noam Chomsky, Paul Snowdon, Alastair Hannay, Barbara Gail Montero, Barry Smith, Derk Pereboom, Paul Russell, Kevin Timpe, Gregg D. Caruso, Mary Warnock, Paul Gilbert, Richard J. Norman, Michael Neumann, and Saul Smilansky. (shrink)

One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of free will skepticism is that it is unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior and that the responses it would permit as justified are insufficient for acceptable social policy. This concern is fueled by two factors. The first is that one of the most prominent justifications for punishing criminals, retributivism, is incompatible with free will skepticism. The second concern is that alternative justifications that are not ruled out by the skeptical view per (...) se face significant independent moral objections (Pereboom 2014: 153). Despite these concerns, I maintain that free will skepticism leaves intact other ways to respond to criminal behavior—in particular incapacitation, rehabilitation, and alteration of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justifiable and sufficient for good social policy. The position I defend is similar to Derk Pereboom’s (2001, 2013, 2014), taking as its starting point his quarantine analogy, but it sets out to develop the quarantine model within a broader justificatory framework drawn from public health ethics. The resulting model—which I call the public health-quarantine model (Caruso 2016, 2017a)—provides a framework for justifying quarantine and criminal sanctions that is more humane than retributivism and preferable to other non-retributive alternatives. It also provides a broader approach to criminal behavior than Pereboom’s quarantine analogy does on its own since it prioritizes prevention and social justice. -/- In Section 1, I begin by (very) briefly summarizing my arguments against free will and basic desert moral responsibility. In Section 2, I then introduce and defend my public health-quarantine model, which is a non-retributive alternative to criminal punishment that prioritizes prevention and social justice. In Sections 3 and 4, I take up and respond to two general objections to the public health-quarantine model. Since objections by Michael Corrado (2016), John Lemos (2016), Saul Smilanksy (2011, 2017), and Victor Tadros (2017) have been addressed in detail elsewhere (see Pereboom 2017a; Pereboom and Caruso 2018), I will here focus on objections that have not yet been addressed. In particular, I will respond to concerns about proportionality, human dignity, and victims’ rights. I will argue that each of these concerns can be met and that in the end the public health-quarantine model offers a superior alternative to retributive punishment and other non-retributive accounts. (shrink)

When The Absurd Hero in American Fiction was first released in 1966, Granville Hicks praised it in a lead article for the Saturday Review as a sensitive and definitive study of a new trend in postwar American literature. In the years that followed, David Galloway’s analysis of the writings of John Updike, William Styron, Saul Bellow, and J. D. Salinger became a standard critical work, an indispensable tool for readers concerned with contemporary American literature. The New York Times described (...) the book as “a seminal study of the modern literary imagination." David Galloway, himself an established novelist, later extensively revised The Absurd Hero to include authoritative discussions of more than a dozen novels which had appeared since the first revised edition was released in 1970. Among them are John Updike’s Couples, Rabbit Redux, and The Coup; William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice; and Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet and Humboldt’s Gift. Through detailed analyses of these works, Galloway demonstrates the continuing relevance of his own provocative concept of the absurd hero and provides important insights into the literary achievements of four of America’s most influential postwar novelists. (shrink)

“Metapolitics” is an ambiguous term. Recent philosophers have claimed the concept for neo-conservative, even right-wing agendas, while others have employed it to signal radical discontent with politics altogether. Beginning with Peter Viereck’s characterization of Nazi ideology as “Meta-Politics,” this essay works its way back from an “irrational,” “volkish,” and supposedly “conservative” concept to another use of “Metapolitics” as found in Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen that was rooted in a liberal tradition of the Enlightenment—especially in August Schlözer and Saul (...) Ascher. Both, Buber and Cohen, linked “metapolitical politics” to prophetic and theopolitical sensibilities. As such, the prophetic motif of turning loomed large at the center of their respective philosophies of nationalism. But it was a theme that also connected a wide range of thinkers, including Hans Kohn and Leo Baeck, and which emerged as a Leitmotiv of cultural and spiritual Zionism as well as of the modern Renaissance of Jewish culture. Drawing on Moritz Lazarus, the essay argues that the recurring trope of turning helped establish a paradoxical nationalism founded not upon self-empowerment and political othering but on self-criticism. Concluding with a brief excursion on Abraham Joshua Heschel’s prophetic politics in the Civil Rights Movement, the essay gestures towards the possibility of nationalism as collective introspection and self-reformation. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, middle-class progressives embraced visions of democracy rooted in their relatively privileged life experiences. Progressive educators developed pedagogies designed to nurture the individual voice within egalitarian classrooms, assuming that collective action in the public realm could be modeled on the relatively safe small-group interactions they were familiar with in their families, schools, and associations. Partly as a result, they remained blind to (and often denigrated) the democratic aspects of working-class organizations, such as unions and community action groups, (...) which found strength in solidarity. In this article Aaron Schutz argues that progressives must integrate into their models the often brutal lessons about power learned by those with less privilege. Until they do so, their approaches to democratic education will continue to have limited capacity to support social transformation and empowerment in the world as it is. (shrink)

Cet article propose d’examiner la question de l’exorcisme et des possessions démoniaques à partir d’une lecture du Malleus maleficarum. Conçu comme un manuel à l’usage des Inquisiteurs, le Malleus a développé une réflexion sur l’efficacité thérapeutique de l’exorcisme, en partant de l’épisode biblique, en 1 S 16,14-23, sur la possession du roi Saül et sa guérison par la cithare de David. L’hypothèse du Malleus affirme que le démon ne peut pas formellement modifier l’âme des sujets, mais seulement la plonger dans (...) l’illusion, ou l’altérer en agissant sur sa prédisposition passive à la démence. La fonction thérapeutique de l’exorcisme consiste donc à réduire le plus possible ce terrain affectif prédisposant. De la même manière que la cithare de David apaise l’âme tourmentée de Saül, de même la parole de l’exorciste convoque le démon, le contraint de cesser son action maléfique et le chasse hors du corps et de l’âme du possédé, « de telle manière qu’il ne revienne plus ». (shrink)

Scholars attribute contemporary union failure to structural factors, such as the legal decision allowing striking workers to be permanently replaced, and to globalization. This article examines the strategic choices made by New Labor’s leadership after their victory at the AFL-CIO in 1995, and the choices made by the breakaway unions that formed Change to Win. I identify the influence of Saul Alinsky in the background of many of the current New Labor leaders and attribute the strengths and weaknesses (...) of New Labor’s organizing approach to Alinsky’s strengths and weaknesses. I argue that despite two decades of rhetoric about organizing and the difficulties presented by a hostile climate, a critical factor in labor’s decline rests with decisions within its control: to embrace corporate campaigns and narrowly defined interest-based politics—decisions that led unions away from workers and the workplace and put them at odds with unorganized workers and the community. (shrink)

Les références à la crémation sont extrêmement rares dans les textes bibliques. L’histoire de Saül et de ses trois fils reste un cas unique d’usage de l’incinération (1 S 31, 12-13). La signification de ce geste inhabituel dans le contexte biblique n’est pas claire. Depuis longtemps, le passage de 1 Samuel 31, 12 pose problème aux exégètes et aux historiens de la religion de l’ancien Israël. Cet article présente les diverses hypothèses qui furent proposées au sujet de la crémation de (...) Saül à partir de sources textuelles et matérielles provenant des fouilles de sépultures. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous considérons un paradoxe sceptique que Saul Kripke a attribué à Wittgenstein. Nous critiquons la solution directe proposée par Colin McGinn , qui a recours à la théorie causale de la référence, et nous montrons pourquoi cette solution n'est pas satisfaisante. La solution sceptique que Kripke prête à Wittgenstein est ensuite discutée à la lumière de nos considérations sur la théorie causale, ce qui nous amène à constater qu'elle est aussi insuffisante. Nous concluons en montrant que (...) nous ne sommes pas d'emblée contraints d'accepter le paradoxe.We consider a sceptical paradox which Saul Kripke has attributed to Wittgenstein. We criticize the direct solution proposed by Colin McGinn, which resorts to the causal theory of reference, and we show why this solution in not satisfying. The sceptical solution which Kripke attributes to Wittgenstein is then discussed in the light of our considerations on the causal theory ; this leads us to ascertain that it is also insufficient. We conclude by showing that we don't really need to accept the paradox as it is first presented. (shrink)

English summary: This book attests that a study on the history of philosophy has its place in contemporary debates. This book attempts to reconstruct William of Ockham's position on the nature and function of real definitions in order to show that nominalism does not oblige a particular position on essences. French description: Guillaume d'Ockham, defenseur bien connu du nominalisme, a manifeste un interet soutenu pour les definitions reelles. Cet ouvrage s'efforce de reconstruire sa position sur la nature et la fonction (...) des definitions reelles. Un examen de ce qu'est une definition reelle appelle une etude de ce qu'est une essence et de la nature du lien a poser entre l'essentiel et le necessaire. Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de montrer que le nominalisme ne contraint pas a une position determinee sur les essences. Saul Kripke nous dit que l'essentiel se reduit au necessaire. Kit Fine, par contre, affirme qu'il faut revenir a Aristote et soutenir que l'essentiel est irreductible au necessaire. Notre examen atteste qu'une etude en histoire de la philosophie a toute sa place dans les debats contemporains. L'essentialisme de Guillaume d'Ockham incite a rendre a Aristote ce qui lui revient et a faire preuve de circonspection. En definitive, les deux positions en presence ne sont peut-etre pas incompatibles. (shrink)

This comment considers the influence Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation on the trajectory of unions and community organizations in the United States. It argues that this influence has been constructive along a number of important dimensions.

In early work, I argued that Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, often represented, in his political speeches and writings, a form of philosophical pragmatism with special relations to the University of Chicago and its reform tradition. That form of pragmatism, especially evident in the work of such early figures as John Dewey and Jane Addams, and such later figures as Saul Alinsky, Abner Mikva, David Greenstone, Richard Rorty, Danielle Allen, and Cass Sunstein, contributed greatly (...) to the intellectual atmosphere that Obama breathed during his many years in Chicago as a community organizer, senior lecturer in the University of Chicago Law School, and emerging figure in Illinois politics. And that form of pragmatism has, from Dewey to Obama, been keenly concerned to appropriate for its purposes the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. My purpose in this essay is to set out these filiations in ways more accessible to a global audience, and to carry the story forward through the opening moves of the Obama presidency. Key Words: Obama • pragmatism • optimism • pessimism • community • rhetoric • political philosophy. (shrink)

In his book Reveille for Radicals, Saul Alinsky writes, "Most people are eagerly groping for... some way in which they can bridge the gap between their morals and their practices". Today, many consumers try to bridge that gap by participating in what has been termed ethical consumption: the intentional purchase of products and services that the customer considers to be ethically produced. But what happens if consumer perceptions do not match reality? This study investigates one aspect of ethical (...) consumption by examining consumer perceptions of the term cruelty free. Various definitions of this term exist, and companies can use the term when the product or its ingredients were indeed tested on animals. This exploratory study suggests that many consumers use this term as a moral heuristic in decision-making. As a result, the use of the term creates a halo effect that elevates brand perceptions. When provided with information suggesting the heuristic is flawed, consumers slightly alter perceptions but attitudes remain relatively strong. While some countries have implemented regulation regarding the use of the phrase in some contexts, results suggest that a broader policy is necessary to correct misperceptions and avoid misleading consumers. (shrink)

This article draws on Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential theory of practice and employs it as a framework to analyze community organizing, focusing on the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky. As a practice in MacIntyre’s sense, it argues, community organizing constitutes a teleological form of social activity that is oriented toward distinctive kinds of “internal goods” and that functions to develop new capacities within its practitioners to recognize, desire, and attain those goods, relying on standards of excellence, characteristic institutions, and (...) its own “tradition” of practice. Such a MacIntyrean analysis of organizing foregrounds its ethical character as a practice and tradition of practice, informed by larger moral-cultural traditions. It also shows how organizing embodies, in practice, the core principles of the Catholic social tradition. Thus, it enables a clearer articulation of the conceptual and historical relationship between community organizing and the Catholic social tradition, and lays a theoretical foundation for further dialogue. (shrink)

Les travaux de Saul Aron Kripke et la logique modale contemporaine établissent que la simultanéité de la nécessité et de l’a prioricité constitutives de la métaphysique kantienne résulte d’une confusion entre nécessités aléthique et épistémique. Cela conduit à un renouveau de la métaphysique, fondée sur une nécessité réelle de type non-a priori, c’est-à-dire une nécessité de fait. Celle-ci est perceptible chez Aristote au travers de la conception d’une nécessité hypothétique. Cette conception est ré-élaborée en une métaphysique phénoménologique par Husserl (...) (« faits originaires » [Urtatsachen]), Sartre, Levinas (la phénoménologie « ruine la souveraineté de la représentation ») ou J.-L. Marion (et son concept paradoxal de « contingence nécessaire »), faisant ainsi de l’automanifestation de la phénoménalisation un événement qui émerge spontanément et qui s’établit de soi : une nécessité de fait. (shrink)

Jane McAlevey makes a significant contribution in her critique of labor’s growing use of the corporate campaign to stem union decline. But in placing the blame for the strategy’s adoption on the excessive influence of Saul Alinsky’s organizing model, she misses a much more fundamental cause: the changed nature of capital.

La notion d’identité narrative place la possibilité de l’identité à soi (ou identité-idem) avec celle du changement. Mais a-t-on besoin d’une médiation « dialectique », comme la désigne Ricœur, entre identité et changement? Seulement si l’identité est supposée exclure le changement. Or, tel n’est pas le cas de l’identité au sens le plus fondamental du terme, l’identité numérique. La seconde difficulté tient à ce que Ricœur paraît souvent rabattre l’une sur l’autre les notions d’histoire et de narration. Nous sommes des (...) êtres historiques, cela n’est guère discutable, mais est-ce à dire que notre identité dépend de la narration que nous faisons de notre histoire? Enfin, la troisième aporie réside dans la place primordiale accordée par Ricœur à la fiction dans sa détermination de l’identité narrative. Or il n’est pas du tout évident que les personnages de fiction jouissent d’une identité véritable en un quelconque sens. Des théoriciens contemporains de la référence, tels Saul Kripke ou David Kaplan, ont au contraire insisté sur le fait que les personnages romanesques ne possédaient qu’une apparence d’identité. Comment dès lors faire de ce semblant d’identité, qui se réduit à un faisceau de caractéristiques plus ou moins stables, le modèle pour penser nos identités réelles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Funding Utopia: Utopian Studies and the Discourse of Academic ExcellenceAdam Stock (bio)As an academic field, there is in some important ways nothing special about utopian studies. Granted, our object of inquiry may look beyond the present toward what Ruth Levitas terms the Imaginary Reconstruction of Society, but we are still workers in what Darren Webb calls the “corporate-imperial” university.1 Webb argues that within the university we can at best (...) protect “bolt holes, breathing spaces, and places of refuge” that can function as “fleeting, transitory, small-scale experiences of utopian possibility.” As academics, our greater value to utopian politics therefore involves using our “knowledge and resources... in the service of a collaborative process of memory- and story-making, pulling together disparate inchoate dreams and yearnings in order to generate a utopian vision that can help inform, guide, and mobilize long-term collective action for systemic change.”2 Such work uses resources and the products of labor within the academy in the service of ends beyond and at times against it. In other words, utopianism within the academy is necessarily complicit in the academy’s constitutive material relations, but it can also be oppositional in intellectual and—more importantly—activist senses to the academy’s ideological form. In other words, whether or not a given [End Page 517] project in the field of utopian studies is politically utopian does not depend on its material basis (i.e., how it is funded) so much as its content, in the senses of both the work that it does and the ways in which it captures and mobilizes available resources. Hence it is possible to imagine both regressive and emancipatory research projects in our field that capture or co-opt additional resources, including both internal and external funding. It is, however, a mark of emancipatory projects that they will use these resources to the ends Webb describes.Implicit in Webb’s argument is an acceptance that politically useful utopian work should be socially engaged beyond the confines of the university campus. However, engaging in utopian politics from within inegalitarian university structures (via what is institutionally termed “outreach” and “engagement” work) should be pursued with caution. Even researchers and educators acting in good faith can easily end up exploiting or causing damage to social movements, support groups and activists. Good allyship and effective support cannot be reduced to institutional mechanisms like ethics committee compliance or equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) initiatives, even when these go beyond “lip service” to become meaningful acts.3 For projects involving external collaborators with a connection to the sort of “long-term, collective action” Webb describes, research design must walk a tightrope between being supportive of utopian politics beyond the university and responding to instrumental pressures within it.Here I suggest as an academic field utopian studies is at least a little special as it mediates dialectically between theory and practice at one level while developing a conceptual framework of the dialectic between theory and practice at another. Within what Richter et al term “the paradox of universities as colonizing and liberatory spaces for community engagement and activism” the utopian method is well placed to ask questions about how we engage with the given conditions of the academy, including competitive research funding grants.4 I begin below with a discussion of the relationship of theory and academic work to the social with reference to utopian theory and then apply this to questions about our wider complicity within a discursive regime I term “academic excellence.” I argue this regime is central to the “prestige economy” upon which some of the structural inequalities of our sector are based. I conclude by suggesting that working within the constraints of the given while remaining orientated toward utopian politics in an ethical manner requires close attention to how we navigate the relationship between utopian theory and political practice. [End Page 518]Theory, Praxis, PracticeIn the final chapter of his recent monograph Becoming Utopian, Tom Moylan forms a cogent argument about the praxis of utopian-oriented politics with reference to Saul Alinsky’s community organizing and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed.5 The writings of both figures are grounded in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My Donation (...) Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My Donation (...) Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My Donation (...) Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)