In his book Wojciech Sady attempts to reconstruct the structure of the fundamental transformations that can be described as the relativistic and quantum revolution. Referring to rich historical material and Ludwik Fleck’s reflections on the development of scientific knowledge, the author tries to explain how it is possible that “scientists began to think differently than they had been taught.” Sady’s work, although not devoid of somewhat weaker points, is a brave and thought-provoking attempt to propose his own explanation of (...) the mechanisms of the aforementioned transformations. (shrink)

Thought style and thought collective are two well-known concepts from Ludwik Fleck’s theory of science, which he originally formulated in Polish and German. This paper contends that these two concepts cannot be fully understood without a third—Stimmung/nastrój, which is one of the musical metaphors that play an important role in Fleck’s thinking. Because it is most often translated into English as “mood”, Fleck’s musical metaphors are mostly lost in translation, appearing as mere rhetoric. Only if and when (...) we understand Stimmung/nastrój in the musical meaning of attunement, we can fully understand thought collectives, for which Stimmung/nastrój is sine qua non, and thought style, which appears if and when a collective turns out to be an enduring and not a momentary one. (shrink)

This paper analyses the early history of David Bohm’s mechanics from the perspective of Ludwik Fleck’s thought-collectives and shows how the thought-style of the scientific community limits the possible modes of thinking and what new possibilities for the construction of a new theory arise if these limits are removed.

Ludwik Fleck is known mainly for his pioneering studies of science as a social activity. This text investigates a different aspect of Fleck’s epistemological thought—his engagement with normative aspects of medicine and public health and their political underpinnings. In his sinuous professional trajectory, Fleck navigated between two distinct thought styles: fundamental microbiological research and practice-oriented investigations of infectious diseases. Fleck’s awareness of tensions between these two approaches favored the genesis of his theoretical reflections. At the same time, his (...) close observation of medical and epidemiological practices led him to the conclusion that collectively produced scientific facts are situated and fragile. Thought collectives, Fleck explained, can err or yield to external pressures, with potentially disastrous consequences. While Fleck the reflexive experimental scientist has been creatively translated into the science studies idiom, Fleck the reflexive practical microbiologist and public health expert still awaits inspired translation. (shrink)

Two lines of investigation into the nature of mental content have proceeded in parallel until now. The first looks at thoughts that are attributable to collectives, such as bands' beliefs and teams' desires. So far, philosophers who have written on collective belief, collective intentionality, etc. have primarily focused on third-personal attributions of thoughts to collectives. The second looks at de se, or self-locating, thoughts, such as beliefs and desires that are essentially about oneself. So far, philosophers who have (...) written on the de se have primarily focused on de se thoughts of individuals. This paper looks at where these two lines of investigations intersect: collective de se thoughts, such as bands' and teams' beliefs and desires that are essentially about themselves. There is a surprising problem at this intersection: the most prominent framework for modeling de se thoughts, the framework of centered worlds, cannot model a special class of collective de se thoughts. A brief survey of this problem's solution space shows that collective de se thoughts pose a new challenge for modeling mental content. (shrink)

The relation between the digital and the collective has become an urgent contemporary question. These collected essays explore the implications of this relation, around the theme of #NousSommes. This hashtag marks the point where the «personal» modalities of social media have become embroiled in collective expressions of unity, solidarity and resistance. As this volume demonstrates, the impact of this cannot be isolated to the internet, but affect philosophy, literature, cinema, politics and the public space itself. The contributors approach (...) the issue of #NousSommes from a diverse range of disciplines and methodologies, bringing out both the continuity and discontinuity with other forms of collective expression. Important contemporary philosophers such as Nancy, Derrida and Deleuze are engaged here, as are issues of ecology, community, automation, postcolonial identity and addiction. Featuring eight academic essays and an interview, this volume testifies to the importance of French philosophy and culture in understanding the digital and the collective today. (shrink)

_The first book length-work on Afa Ajura and translation of his complete poems_ This is the first English translation of and commentary on the collected poems of Alhaj Yūsuf Ṣāliḥ Ajura (1910–2004), a northern Ghanaian orthodox Islamic scholar, poet, and polemicist known as Afa Ajura, or “scholar from Ejura.” The poems, all handwritten in Arabic script, mainly in the Ghanaian language of Dagbani and also Arabic, explore the author’s socio‑religious beliefs. In the accompanying introduction, the translator examines the diverse themes (...) of the poems and how they challenge Tijāniyyah Sufi clerics and traditional practices such as idol worship. (shrink)

Bringing research on collective memory together with research on episodic future thought, Szpunar and Szpunar :376–389, 2016) have recently developed the concept of collective future thought. Individual memory and individual future thought are increasingly seen as two forms of individual mental time travel, and it is natural to see collective memory and collective future thought as forms of collective mental time travel. But how seriously should the notion of collective mental (...) time travel be taken? This article argues that, while collective mental time travel is disanalogous in important respects to individual mental time travel, the concept of collective mental time travel nevertheless provides a useful means of organizing existing findings, while also suggesting promising directions for future research. (shrink)

_The first book length-work on Afa Ajura and translation of his complete poems_ This is the first English translation of and commentary on the collected poems of Alhaj Yūsuf Ṣāliḥ Ajura (1910–2004), a northern Ghanaian orthodox Islamic scholar, poet, and polemicist known as Afa Ajura, or “scholar from Ejura.” The poems, all handwritten in Arabic script, mainly in the Ghanaian language of Dagbani and also Arabic, explore the author’s socio‑religious beliefs. In the accompanying introduction, the translator examines the diverse themes (...) of the poems and how they challenge Tijāniyyah Sufi clerics and traditional practices such as idol worship. (shrink)

(Third edition with additions) -/- This is a collection of short stories centering around the protagonist character, Kingfisher, originally written in Vietnamese by myself. -/- The book aims to introduce international readers to snippets of Vietnamese culture through the ordinary yet humorous life of the bird village. -/- The first 15 of these short stories were published in the Khoảng Lặng (Quiet Moment) column of the Vietnamese magazine Kinh Tế và Dự Báo (Economy and Forecast Review) from 2017 to 2019. (...) -/- However, this is the first time that the collection of all the Kingfisher stories has been published in its entirety, covering stories that have not been published elsewhere, including new stories written during 2023-2024. -/- The stories of Kingfisher are full of humor and satire while also deep in social commentary. I hope that the book brings readers joy and some food for thought, for beyond satire is genuine contemplation of the humanistic values in our lives. -/- Hanoi, August 21, 2024 -/- Quan-Hoang Vuong -/- (Incld. Artworks by Bui Quang Khiem and Dam Thi Thu Ha). (shrink)

This is an introduction to collective intentionality. It discusses collection action and intention, collective belief, distributed cognition, collective intentionality and language, conventions and status functions, institutions and social ontology, and collective responsibility.

The sixth volume of the Collected Works of Micha/l Kalecki, one of the twentieth-century's pre-eminent economists, contains his empirical studies of the capitalist economy, published primarily in pre-war Poland. The first part of the book collects together reviews of business conditions in commodity markets, studies of the structure and operations of large companies and cartels, and articles on international economic relations. These studies, written between 1928 and 1935, demonstrate Kalecki's keen insight into the international consequences of the Great Crisis of (...) 1929-33, and into the developments in Nazi Germany. The second part contains Kalecki's papers on the methodological problems of examining business fluctuations and on constructing indicators of economic trends. Part 3 comprises, Kalecki's estimates of the national income in Poland and of its structure. These studies, conducted between 1931 and 1935, were unique at the time in taking into account the distribution of aggregate income between the main social classes. The editorial notes and annexes at the end of the volume not only provide invaluable background information and explanatory glosses on the main text, but also give invaluable insights into the development of Kalecki's thought. (shrink)

I argue that culpable ignorance can be irreducibly collective. In some cases, it is not fair to expect any individual to have avoided her ignorance of some fact, but it is fair to expect the agents together to have avoided their ignorance of that fact. Hence, no agent is individually culpable for her ignorance, but they are culpable for their ignorance together. This provides us with good reason to think that any group that is culpably ignorant in this irreducibly (...) collective sense is non-distributively collectively responsible for subsequent unwitting acts and consequences. (shrink)

Thought and Social Engagement in the Mexican-American Philosophy of John H. Haddox : A Collection of Critical Appreciations.

Written by an eminent authority on the Renaissance, this collection of essays focuses on topics such as humanist learning, humanist moral thought, the diffusion of humanism, Platonism, music and learning during the early Renaissance, and ...

Sometimes it seems intuitively plausible to hold loosely structured sets of individuals morally responsible for failing to act collectively. Virginia Held, Larry May, and Torbj rn T nnsj have all drawn this conclusion from thought experiments concerning small groups, although they apply the conclusion to large-scale omissions as well. On the other hand it is commonly assumed that (collective) agency is a necessary condition for (collective) responsibility. If that is true, then how can we hold sets of (...) people responsible for not having acted collectively? This paper argues that that loosely structured inactive groups sometimes meet this requirement if we employ a weak (but nonetheless non-reductionist) notion of collective agency. This notion can be defended on independent grounds. The resulting position on distribution of responsibility is more restrictive than Held's, May's or T nnsj 's, and this consequence seems intuitively attractive. (shrink)

Where are we? -- How did we get here? -- The millennial vision -- Where do we go? -- Psychic energy -- The North American continent -- Governance -- The university -- The corporation -- Religion -- The historical mission of our time.

The Collected Works of Spinoza provides, for the first time in English, a truly satisfactory edition of all of Spinoza's writings, with accurate and readable translations, based on the best critical editions of the original-language texts, done by a scholar who has published extensively on the philosopher's work. This first volume contains Spinoza's single most important work, the Ethics, and four earlier works: the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, Descartes' (...) "Principles of Philosophy," and Metaphysical Thoughts. Also included are Spinoza's letters from the periods when these works were being written. The elaborate editorial apparatus—including prefaces, notes, glossary, and indexes—assists the reader in understanding one of the world's most fascinating, but also most difficult, philosophers. Of particular interest is the glossary-index, which provides extensive commentary on Spinoza's technical vocabulary. A milestone of scholarship more than forty-five years in the making, The Collected Works of Spinoza is an essential edition for anyone with a serious interest in Spinoza or the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Edwin Cannan, prodigious author and scholar whose name is inextricably linked with two great economic institutions, Adam Smith and the London School of Economics , probably had his greatest success as a professor. He nurtured a generation of scholars, teachers and writers at the LSE during his three decades as a dominant figure in economics there, from when the school opened in 1895 until the spring term of 1926 when he retired. Cannan was almost solely responsible for the gradual change (...) of direction of the economic thought of the LSE from Marshallian economics to classical liberalism. For this he was very much admired; at his death the student paper wrote: 'His influence was truly remarkable. To the outside world, and to his students, whether specialists in economics or not, he typified the School'. Among other accomplishments throughout his life, Cannan contributed twenty-five entries to the original Palgrave's Dictionary of Poitical Economy and between 1895 and 1935 had sixty book reviews published in The Economic Journal . This collection brings together Cannon's major contributions to the theory of distribution, quantity theory and the definition of "Classical Economics" as well as touching on his life at a more personal level in the articles and reminiscences written by scholars and friends. (shrink)

This chapter develops the concept of heterogeneous political space as an alternative to the exclusively human political sphere which dominates Western political thinking about collective action and justice. The aim is to make evident that capacities for action are constituted in heterogeneous milieus and to argue that insofar as political thought does not register this it is inadequate to thinking justice and flourishing in a world where ecological change renders human and nonhuman modes of life increasingly precarious. Heterogeneous (...) political spaces are constituted by compositions of material, affect and desire which are occluded by humanist and individualist theories of action that theorise collective action at the register of a macro-political order made up of unified rational subjects with clear intentions and commitments. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concepts of following and assembling enable accounts of a molecular or micro-political register composed of het- erogeneous collectivities in processes of composition. In their insistence that human action cannot be separated from the productions of nature, we find that heterogeneity, rather than human plurality, is given as a condition of action. Conceiving of political action in terms of heterogeneity brings into view the processes by which capacities for political action are constituted by non- human forces, entities and elements. It focuses attention on that in virtue of which political action occurs, rather than on the intentional aspect of actions which aim to achieve an individualised interest (whether it be the interests of a human individual or individuated group). Heterogeneous political space complexifies our thinking about political action and diffuses the agency of political subjects so as to render our thinking more adequate in several sig- nificant regards. It provides a conceptual resource that brings the diverse human-nonhuman entanglements to the fore and thus acknowledges the differing ways that capacities for political action are constituted in different assemblages that always cmprise nonhumans. This disrupts the liberal, humanist view of politics where nonhumans are excluded from the domain of action and appear only as passive resources to be exploited for human plans and actions. Further, by challenging the view of the more-than-human world as passively ‘standing-reserve’ for the purposes of human agents, the concept of heterogeneous political space invites a critical questioning whether the conception of political space as exclusively human is capable of attending to issues of ecological justice where the well-being of humans and ecosystems is inextricable. In short, when the more-than-human world is excluded from conceptions of political space neither the needs of nonhumans (plants, animals, ecosystems, waterways) nor the constitution of human cap- acities in relation with nonhumans (co-habitation, dependence, care) register as politically significant. This, in effect, obscures the ways that different human-nonhuman assemblages increase and diminish capacities for action. (shrink)

This is the third of four volumes presenting all of Francis Ellingwood Abbot's major published articles. Any scholar or library interested in American philosophy, religious thought, and social and intellectual history should find this edition of his essays a useful addition to the collection. Francis E. Abbot was a noted American philosopher and champion of Free Religion. He was a member of C.S. Peirce's Metaphysical Club, the first American philosopher to support Charles Darwin, the founding editor of The Index, (...) a founder of the Free Religious Association, and the founding President of the National Liberal League of America. In addition to over six hundred articles, he was the author of Scientific Theism (1885), The Way Out of Agnosticism, Or The Philosophy of Free Religion (1890), and The Syllogistic Philosophy, or Prolegomena to Science (1906). (shrink)

This volume constitutes the largest collection of writings by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben hitherto published in any language and all but one appear in English for the first time. The essays consider figures in the history of philosophy (Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza, Hegel) and twentieth-century thought (Walter Benjamin, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, the historian Aby Warburg, and the linguist J.-C. Milner). They also examine several central concerns of Agamben: the relation of linguistic and metaphysical categories; messianism in Islamic, Jewish, and (...) Christian theology; and the state and future of contemporary politics. Despite the diversity of the texts collected here, they show a consistent concern for a set of overriding philosophical themes concerning language, history, and potentiality. (shrink)

While memory is conceptualized predominantly as an individual capacity in the cognitive and biological sciences, the social sciences have most commonly construed memory as a collective phenomenon. Collective memory has been put to diverse uses, ranging from accounts of nationalism in history and political science to views of ritualization and commemoration in anthropology and sociology. These appeals to collective memory share the idea that memory ‘‘goes beyond the individual’’ but often run together quite different claims in spelling (...) out that idea. This paper reviews a sampling of recent work on collective memory in the light of emerging externalist views within the cognitive sciences, and through some reflection on broader traditions of thought in the biological and social sciences that have appealed to the idea that groups have minds. The paper concludes with some thoughts about the relationship between these kinds of cognitive metaphors in the social sciences and our notion of agency. (shrink)

This volume of Bertrand Russell's _Collected Papers_ finds Russell focused on writing _Principia Mathematica_ during 1905–08. Eight previously unpublished papers shed light on his different versions of a substitutional theory of logic, with its elimination of classes and relations, during 1905-06. A recurring issue for him was whether a type hierarchy had to be part of a substitutional theory. In mid-1907 he began writing up the final version of _Principia_, now using a ramified theory of types, and eleven unpublished drafts (...) from 1907-08 deal with this. Numerous letters show his thoughts on the process. The volume's 80-page introduction covers the evolution of his logic from 1896 until 1909, when volume I of _Principia _went to the printer. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance a counterexample to the collective agency thesis.

This thesis argues for the fundamental importance of the opposition between holistic and reductionistic world-views in economics. Both reductionism and holism may nevertheless underpin laissez-faire policy prescriptions. Scrutiny of the nature of the articulation between micro and macro levels in the writings of economists suggests that invisible hand theories play a key role in reconciling reductionist policy prescriptions with a holistic world. An examination of the prisoners' dilemma in game theory and Arrow's impossibility theorem in social choice theory sets the (...) scene. The prisoners' dilemma epitomises the collective irrationality coordination problems lead to. The source of the dilemma is identified as the combination of interdependence in content and independence in form of the decision making process. Arrovian impossibility has been perceived as challenging traditional views of the relationship between micro and macro levels in economics. Conservative arguments against the possibility in principle of a social welfare function are criticised here as depending on an illicit dualism. The thesis then reviews the standpoints of Smith, Hayek and Keynes. For Smith, the social desirability of individual self-seeking activity is ensured by the 'invisible hand' of a god who has moulded us so to behave, that the quantity of happiness in the world is always maximised. Hayek seeks to re-establish the invisible hand in a secular age, replacing the agency of a deity with an evolutionary mechanism. Hayek's evolutionary theory, criticised here as being based on the exploded notion of group selection, cannot underpin the desirability of spontaneous outcomes. I conclude by arguing that Keynes shares the holistic approach of Smith and Hayek, but without their reliance on invisible hand mechanisms. If spontaneous processes cannot be relied upon to generate desirable social outcomes then we have to take responsibility for achieving this ourselves by establishing the appropriate institutional framework to eliminate macroeconomic prisoners' dilemmas. (shrink)

Why would the work of the 17th century philosopher Benedict de Spinoza concern us today? How can Spinoza shed any light on contemporary thought? In this intriguing book, Moira Gatens and Genevieve Lloyd show us that in spite of or rather because of Spinoza's apparent strangeness, his philosophy can be a rich resource for cultural self-understanding in the present. _Collective Imaginings_ draws on recent re-assessments of the philosophy of Spinoza to develop new ways of conceptualising issues of freedom and (...) difference. This ground-breaking study will be invaluable reading to anyone wishing to gain a fresh perspective on Spinoza's thought. (shrink)

Following the thematic divisions of the first three volumes of Alfred Schutz's Collected Papers into The Problem of Social Reality, Studies in Social Theory and Phenomenological Philosophy, this fourth volume contains drafts of unfinished writings, drafts of published writings, translations of essays previously published in German, and some largely unpublished correspondence. The drafts of published writings contain important material omitted from the published versions, and the unfinished writings offer important insights into Schutz's otherwise unpublished ideas about economic and political theory (...) as well as the theory of law and the state. In addition, a large group contains Schutz's reflections on problems in phenomenological philosophy, including music, which both supplement and add new dimensions to his published thought. All together, the writings in this volume cover Schutz's last 15 years in Europe as well as manuscripts written after his arrival in the USA in 1939. Audience: Students and scholars of phenomenology, social theory and the human sciences in general. (shrink)

Collectives are familiar items in Wyclif's ontology. They are characterized as aggregates – aggregata – and this is the technical term I first took to be a trustworthy lexical indicator for collectives in Wyclif. But his use of that technical term turned out to be way too wide, for aggregata are all over the place in Wyclif. Here are some examples. Wyclif calls aggregates, in logic: propositions, truths, and inferences; in metaphysics: individual substances, relations, mixed bodies, integral wholes and universals; (...) in ethics: passions, virtues and vices, but also sins, and so on and so forth. So while the term aggregatum does indeed catch all the collectives, it appears also to designate many items that, at least prima facie, are not collectives. In this paper, I will first briefly evaluate the reasons given for considering Wyclif's mereology as being deviant; second, I will consider the objection of infinite regress addressed to the wyclifian theory of the aggregate man; third, I will try to connect Wyclif's mereology with two other central aspects of his thought, namely is broader metaphysics and his Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

Meditations.--Some views on Paul Deussen's "Elements of metaphysics."--The fundamentals of Vedanta.--Uma's mirror.--The drum-beat of angels.--Heroes of ancient Ind.--The spirit of Vedic Ind.--Was Śaṅkara a crypto-Buddhist?--Vedic support for non-dualism.--The system of Ramanuja with side-lights on those of Madhava and Śaṅkara.--The system of Sankhya.--The system of thought revealed in the Bhagavad-gītā.--The philosophy of Advaita or non-dualism.--"Tiger" Varadachar.

It is natural to think of political philosophy as being concerned with reflection on some of the ways in which groups of human beings come together to confront together the problems that they face together: in other words, as the domain, par excellence, of collective action. From this point of view it might seem surprising that the notion of collective obligation rarely assumes centre-stage within the subject. If there are, or can be, collective obligations, then these must (...) surely constrain the ways in which we can act collectively. Indeed, one might even suspect that considerations about collective obligations ought to play a central role in demarcating the form that any legitimate form of political organization ought to take. -/- Elsewhere I have argued that we have good reasons for accepting the existence of global collective obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole.(Wringe 2006, 2010, forthcoming, under review) For example, the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution to a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. Call such an obligation the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions.’ I shall also examine a significant challenge to this line of argument, which I call the ‘Pluralist Challenge’ One might suppose that the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions’ could be met by providing strategic support to attempts to modify and extend existing international institutions. After all, creating new institutions is a difficult matter: perhaps it would be better, especially where stringent obligations are concerned, to concentrate on those institutions which we already have. On the other hand, existing international institutions are subject to a range of significant moral and ethical criticisms. It would simply be naïve to suppose that their existence of such institutions is based on an international consensus about what justice requires; and it is not clear how we could motivate individuals who have severe ethical reservations about the existence of such institutions, or why we should wish to. This suggests that those who think that there are global collective obligations, and that such obligations should play an important role in shaping how we think of international distributive justice are faced with a significant dilemma: either support a program of extending and strengthening existing institutions in a way which risks entrenching some existing forms of injustice; or commit oneself to a program of attempting to build new institutions which will have to compete with those institutions we have already and which are unlikely to be in a position to meet help us to discharge our collective obligations at any point in the near future. Neither option seems satisfactory. I shall argue that our response should be to look for plausible ethical constraints on how international institutions should be developed, and suggest that these constraints are likely to take a cosmopolitan form. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse is one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied philosophy with Husserl and Heidegger at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin. Marcuse's critical social theory ingeniously fuses phenomenology, Freudian thought and Marxist theory; and provides a solid ground for his reputation as the most crucial figure inspiring the social activism and New Left politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The largely unpublished work collected in this volume makes clear the continuing relevance (...) of Marcuse's thought to contemporary issues. The texts published here, dealing with concerns during the period 1942-1951, exhibit penetrating critiques of technology and analyses of the ways that modern technology produces novel forms of society and culture with new modes of social control. The material collected in _Technology, War and Facism_ provides exemplary attempts to link theory with practice, to develop ideas that can be used to grasp and transform existing social reality. _Technology, War and Fascism_ is the first of six volumes of Herbert Marcuse's Collected Papers to be edited by Douglas Kellner. Each volume is a collection of previously un-published or uncollected essays, unfinished manuscripts and letters by one of the greatest thinkers of our time. (shrink)

This collection assembles some of Herbert Marcuse’s most important work and presents for the first time his responses to and development of classic Marxist approaches to revolution and utopia, as well as his own theoretical and political perspectives. This sixth and final volume of Marcuse's collected papers shows Marcuse’s rejection of the prevailing twentieth-century Marxist theory and socialist practice - which he saw as inadequate for a thorough critique of Western and Soviet bureaucracy - and the development of his revolutionary (...) thought towards a critique of the consumer society. Marcuse's later philosophical perspectives on technology, ecology, and human emancipation sat at odds with many of the classic tenets of Marx’s materialist dialectic which placed the working class as the central agent of change in capitalist societies. As the material from this volume shows, Marcuse was not only a theorist of Marxist thought and practice in the twentieth century, but also proves to be an essential thinker for understanding the neoliberal phase of capitalism and resistance in the twenty-first century. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s philosophy in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century philosophy while also providing important analyses of his anticipatory theorization of capitalist development through a neoliberal restructuring of society. The volume concludes with an afterword by Peter Marcuse. (shrink)

According to Wringe 2006 we have good reasons for accepting the existence of Global Collective Obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole. One such reason is that the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. However, obligations of this sort would be of little interest – (...) either theoretical or practical – if they did not give rise, either directly or indirectly, to any kinds of reasons for individuals to behave in certain ways. -/- In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. My argument for this conclusion involves two steps. In the first step, I address a general question about how collective obligations can give rise to individual obligations without being reducible to them, and which obligations they give rise to. Here I give a Kant-inspired argument, based on the principles that ‘ought implies can’ and that the content of the moral law is given by reflecting on how agents should legislate in a kingdom of ends, which is designed to show that collective obligations can give rise to individual obligations. In the second step I apply this principle to the case of global forward-looking obligations. (shrink)

Collective memory is thought to be something “more” than a conglomeration of personal memories which compose it. Yet, each of us, each individual in every society, remembers from a personal point of view. And if there is memory beyond personal experience through which collective identities are configured, in what “place” might one legitimately situate it? In addressing this question, this article examines the political significance of the distinction between two levels of what are often lumped together under (...) the term of “collective memory”: memories that are retained through the direct experience of groups or associations of a limited size and those that are rarely the object of direct experience constituting the events marking the identities of mass societies. (shrink)

Several important questions in applied ethics – like whether to switch to a plant-based diet, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or vote in elections – seem to share the following structure: if enough people ‘cooperate’ and become vegan for example, we bring about a better outcome; but what you do as an individual seems to make no difference whatsoever. Such collective action problems are often thought to pose a serious challenge to consequentialism. In response, I defend the Reactive Attitude (...) Approach: rather than focus only on the deontic status of (non-)cooperative acts – as existing consequentialist responses mostly do – consequentialists should also focus on when to praise or blame individuals. For example, even if your veganism does not change the overall outcome, consequentialists might still recommend praising you for your cooperative behavior. I make a consequentialist case for including praise and blame in our ethical practices around collective action and argue that doing so helps us capture important intuitions. I develop and defend these arguments by drawing on recent instrumentalist theories of blame and responsibility. (shrink)

Since the Korean Philosophy of Education Society was established in 1964, the question regarding the nature of Philosophy of Education as a modern discipline has always been a vexing question to mo...

Religion and Public Reasons collects the theological work of John Finnis, spanning his contribution to such foundational issues as the justification for belief in revelation and moral-theological methodology; to the role of religion in public reason and law; and to major controversies within Catholic thought and practice since the 1960s.

During his undergraduate years (1896-1899) at Basel University, Jung delivered lectures to his student fraternity, the Zofingia. Dwelling on theology, psychology, spiritism, and philosophy, the Zofingia Lectures illuminate Jung's later thought.

The thought and work of the Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) is widely acknowledged as the culmination point of the contribution of the theologians and jurists of the so-called School of Salamanca to the development of modern Western law. This collection of studies on the legal work of Suárez explores some of his major forays into the law. Both his theoretical system-building as well as his interventions in practical questions are covered. Next to discussions on the nature of law and (...) its different categorisations, they extend to various subbranches of the law including family law, property law, the law of obligations, criminal law and international law. Contributors are: Dominique Bauer, Daniel Schwartz, João Manuel Azevedo Alexandrino Fernandes, Lisa Brunori, Wim Decock, Bart Wauters, Gaëlle Demelemestre, and Jean-Paul Coujou. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the largest collection of writings by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben hitherto published in any language. With one exception, the fifteen essays, which reflect the wide range of the author’s interests, appear in English for the first time. The essays consider figures in the history of philosophy and twentieth-century thought. They also examine several general topics that have always been of central concern to Agamben: the relation of linguistic and metaphysical categories; messianism in Islamic, Jewish, and (...) Christian theology; and the state and future of contemporary politics. Despite the diversity of the texts collected here, they show a consistent concern for a set of overriding philosophical themes concerning language, history, and potentiality. In the first part of the book, Agamben brings philosophical texts of Plato and Benjamin, the literary criticism of Max Kommerell, and the linguistic studies of J.-C. Milner to bear upon a question that exposes each discipline to a limit at which the possibility of language itself is at stake. The essays in the second part concern a body of texts that deal with the structure of history and historical reflection, including the idea of the end of history in Jewish and Christian messianism, as well as in Hegel, Benjamin, and Aby Warburg. In the third part, the issues confronted in the first and second parts are shown to be best grasped as issues of potentiality. Agamben argues that language and history are structures of potentiality and can be most fully understood on the basis of the Aristotelian theory of _dynamis_ and its medieval elaborations. The fourth part is an extensive essay on Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”. (shrink)

Objective To determine the attitudes of Egyptian patients regarding their participation in research and with the collection, storage and future use of blood samples for research purposes. Design Cross-sectional survey. Study population Adult Egyptian patients (n=600) at rural and urban hospitals and clinics. Results Less than half of the study population (44.3%) felt that informed consent forms should provide research participants the option to have their blood samples stored for future research. Of these participants, 39.9% thought that consent forms (...) should include the option that future research be restricted to the illness being studied. A slight majority (66.2%) would donate their samples for future genetic research. Respondents were more favourable towards having their blood samples exported to other Arab countries (62.0%) compared with countries in Europe (41.8%, p<0.001) and to the USA (37.2%, p<0.001). Conclusions This study shows that many individuals do not favour the donation of a blood sample for future research. Of those who do approve of such future research, many favour a consent model that includes an option restricting the future research to the illness being studied. Also, many Egyptians were hesitant to have their blood samples donated for genetic research or exported out of the Arab region to the USA and European countries. Further qualitative research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of our results. (shrink)

J.S. Mill's deep interest in French intellectual, political, and social affairs began in 1820 when, in his fourteenth year, he went to France to live for a year with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham. French became his second language, and France his second home, where he died and was buried in 1873. His interest in history began even earlier when, as a child of seven, he tried to imitate his father's labours on the History of British India; though he (...) never wrote a history in his maturity, study of the past remained a passion and helped shape the philosophy of history that informed his views of society and ethics. His intense interest in contemporary French politics also led him to seek connections between historical developments and present trends, both seen by his from a Radical perspective approproate to what he believed to be an age of transition. The English historians of France, including Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle, as well as the French, some of whom were themselves political figures, are judged by their historical methods, but those methods are seen as having practical effects in shaping as well as revealing the mind of the times. This volume brings together for the first time the essays, running from 1826 to 1849, that meld these abiding interests. They give as well insights into Mill's personal aspirations, his developing view of comparative politics and sociology, his concern for freedom, and his feminism. During these years Mill worked on a published his System of Logic, Book VI of which shows in condensed form the results of the speculations here developed; reading these essays with that work, which made his reputation as a philosopher, enables one to see the effects of romanticism on analytic thought in a way not as clearly evident even in Mill's Autobiography. Independently important, then, the essays in this volume also enable us to interpret anew the practical and theoretical concerns fundamental to his formative years and maturity. John C. Cairns' Introduction demonstrates how the essays reveal, through their reactions to the Revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848, and to French historiography, politics, and thought, the effect of France on Mill's ideas, and also the way in which his other concerns influenced his reactions to France. The texts, with the variants and notes that are the hallmark of this edition, are described in John M. Robson's Textual Introduction, which explains the editorial principles and methods. (shrink)