The late Vivienne Westwood sketched a role for fashion that elevates it from the prosaic to the status of art, as something important, life-enhancing, and worthy of pursuit. Here, a philosophical treatment of Westwood’s vision of fashion that does justice to the artistic and life-enhancing value that fashion can realise is offered, using an emergent theory in contemporary analytic aesthetics. The virtue theory of art delineates the intrinsic worth of art in terms of the opportunities it provides for us to (...) exercise and cultivate virtues such as courage, self-expression, imagination, wit, or authenticity. Our engagement with art can subsequently be genuinely life-enhancing in lieu of the constitutive role the virtues play in living well. The present study takes Westwood’s claims as a jumping-off point, considering how they speak not just to her own designs but to our relationship with our clothes more broadly. Fashion is defended as a practice that performs this function in analogous ways to other genres of art and thus has clear artistic value as well as enables us to live well. Given this potential, just as Westwood claimed, there are reasons to perform the practice well because it has importance for the ways in which it can realise artistic value and aid us in living well. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Simone de Beauvoir Luce Irigaray Colette Guillaumin Hélène Cixous Julia Kristeva Monique Wittig Sarah Kofman Michèle Le Doeuff Christine Delphy Conclusion.

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Cet article expose, à partir de deux cas, certaines difficultés de l’adoption. Il vise à montrer le décalage entre le désir des adoptants et la réalité parfois très dure qu’ils vont devoir affronter. Surtout lorsqu’il s’agit d’enfants de plus de cinq ans, porteurs d’un passé traumatique qui reste non dit. La création de liens forts se fait cependant au milieu de ce vécu difficile et, dans le meilleur des cas, les parents y jouent alors un rôle de soignants.

As the new Cell-free DNA (Cf-DNA) prenatal screening test for Down syndrome was being introduced into the UK’s fetal anomaly screening program, Down syndrome charities had an opportunity to participate. An experience of co-production where we were the minority voice then followed. This paper explores that process and our experience as a charity. Institutional and societal structures meant that it was difficult to be heard and a significant amount of bias was noted within the program. Consequently, our viewpoints were often (...) considered and then dismissed. However, at times we were listened to, and feel that there were some valuable changes made resulting from our involvement. The end product was far from reflective of all that we stand for, and there are still lessons to be learned in England about the need to place a higher value on minority voices of lived experience in a co-production exercise. (shrink)

An ethic of care acknowledges the centrality of the role of caring relationships in moral education. Care ethics requires a conception of ?care? that differs from the quotidian use of the word. In order to teach care ethics more effectively, this article discusses four interrelated ways that teachers? understandings of care differ from care ethics: (1) conflating the term of reference ?care? with its quotidian use; (2) overlooking the challenge of developing caring relationships; (3) tending toward monocultural understandings of care; (...) and (4) separating affect and intellect. Awareness of these conceptions of care supports teacher educators to teach care ethics in more meaningful and relevant ways. We explore stories and their dramatization as a medium to facilitate effective and in-depth teaching of care ethics. (shrink)

I examine the consistency between contemporary environmentalist ideals and Buddhist philosophy, focusing, first, on the problem of value in nature. I argue that the teachings found in the Pāli canon cannot easily be reconciled with a belief in the intrinsic value of life, whether human or otherwise. This is because all existence is regarded as inherently unsatisfactory, and all beings are seen as impermanent and insubstantial, while the ultimate spiritual goal is often viewed, in early Buddhism, as involving a deep (...) renunciation of the world. Therefore, the discussion focuses mostly on the Mahāyāna vehicle, which, I suggest has better resources for environmentalism because enlightenment and the ordinary world are not conceived as antithetical. Still, many contemporary green ideas do not sit well with classical Mahāyāna doctrines. Mahāyāna philosophers coincide in equating ultimate reality with ‘emptiness,’ and propose knowledge of this reality as a final soteriological purpose. Emptiness is generally said to be ineffable, and to involve the negation of all views. An important question is how to reconcile environmentalism with the relinquishing of views. I consider several prevalent themes in environmentalism, including the philosophy of ‘Oneness,’ and other systems that are often compared with Buddhism, like process thought. Many of these turn out to have more in common with an extreme view that Buddhism seeks to avoid, namely, eternalism. I attempt to outline an environmental position that, like the doctrine of emptiness, traverses a Middle Path between eternalism and nihilism. I conclude by proposing that emptiness could be regarded as the source of value in nature, if it is seen in its more positive aspect, as ‘pliancy.’ This would imply that what Buddhist environmentalists should seek to protect is not any being in its current form, nor any static natural system, but the possibility of adaptation and further evolution. (shrink)

I examine whether certain aspects of early Buddhist doctrine are compatible with ascribing value to nature by focusing in particular on the doctrine of the Three Marks of Existence. This portrays the world as characterised by suffering, impermanence, and by 'not-self'. From the perspective of environmental philosophy each of these is problematic, either because nature is viewed negatively, or else because only nibbāna is valued positively, and this is understood to entail a repudiation of the world. I argue against such (...) interpretations and show that the doctrine of not-self militates against any attribution of value, whether positive or negative. This disposes of the prevalent charge that the doctrines imply a negative view of nature. (shrink)

In this article, I defend Buddhism from Paul Waldau’s charge of speciesism. I argue that Waldau attributes to Buddhism various notions that it does not necessarily have, such as the ideas that beings are morally considerable if they possess certain traits, and that humans, as morally considerable beings, ought never to be treated as means. These ideas may not belong in Buddhism, and for Waldau’s argument to work, he needs to show that they do. Moreover, a closer look at his (...) case reveals a more significant problem for ecologically minded Buddhists—namely that the Pāli texts do not seem to attribute intrinsic value to any form of life at all, regardless of species. Thus, I conclude that rather than relying on Western concepts, it may be preferable to look for a discourse from within the tradition itself to explain why Buddhists ought to be concerned about the natural world. (shrink)

I consider the issue of the self and its relation to the environment, focusing on the accounts given in ecofeminism and deep ecology. Though both stress the relatedness of the human self to nature, these accounts differ in various ways. Ecofeminism stresses the value of personal relations with particular others, whereas deep ecology argues that we should expand our sense of self to include all natural others and the whole of nature. Deep ecology’s views on the self, which are loosely (...) based on scientific ecology, are examined further and I argue that the implications are that selves are not to be seen as static things but rather as processes, and as constituted by their relations with others. This understanding of the self, I argue, enriches both deep ecology and ecofeminism’s claims on selfhood, and will enable the resolution of some of the difficulties they perceive in each other’s account. (shrink)

On imagine trop souvent que les caractères " naturels " (le sexe, la race, par exemple) " tombent sous le sens ", sont des évidences inquestionnables. Tout au plus admet-on que les sociétés manipulent un peu tout cela, qu'il en résulte des différences, bonnes ou mauvaises, c'est selon... Pourtant, ne serait-ce pas déjà une manipulation que de prétendre certains caractères " naturels "? Le " naturel " ne serait-il pas une interprétation, bref un " artifice ", ancré dans de très (...) particulières relations sociales où certains sont assignés à l'état d'objet? Cet ouvrage associe la description d'une réalité matérielle quotidienne dans ses formes les plus banales (conversations de bistrot, scènes de rue, faits divers) et l'analyse précise des systèmes idéologiques qui prétendent expliquer cette réalité. (shrink)

In spite of the numerous efforts made to control their transmission, parasite schistosomes still represent a serious public health concern and a major economic problem in many developing countries. Praziquantel (PZQ) is the drug of choice for the treatment of schistosomiasis and the only one that is available for mass chemotherapy. However, its widespread use and its inefficacy on juvenile parasites raise fears that schistosomes will develop drug resistance, and make the development of alternative drugs highly desirable. Protein tyrosine kinases (...) (PTKs) are key molecules that control cell differentiation and proliferation and they already represent important targets for molecular cancer therapy. The recent characterization in Schistosoma mansoni of several cytosolic and receptor PTKs, with properties similar but also divergent from their vertebrate counterparts, opens new perspectives for the development of novel strategies in chemotherapy of schistosomiasis, which could be based on the use of parasite‐specific tyrosine phosphorylation inhibitors. BioEssays 29:1281–1288, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Le monde latin tardo-antique a rencontré des difficultés à s’approprier la diversité des théories visuelles grecques. L’impression reste qu’au brouillage conceptuel s’ajoute l’imprécision lexicale. La synthèse néoplatonicienne qui assimile la lumière platonicienne au diaphane aristotélicien provoque une confusion entre brillance et transparence. Saint Augustin présente la vision comme un acte orienté de l’œil à l’objet. Ensuite apparaît un deuxième mouvement de la vision, de l’objet vers l’œil. Jean Scot Erigène, inspiré par les Pères grecs, ne crée certes pas un lexique (...) scientifique, mais réussit à élaborer un lexique unifié et structuré, entièrement tourné vers l’expression de la théologie du Dieu-lumière. (shrink)

Most restoration projects are designed to approximate the species composition and ecotypes ecologists and historians determine were present in an area at some point in the historical past. In most cases, although somewhat arbitrary, the specific time chosen is based on an understanding of historic species composition and anthropogenic disturbances.Although restoring an area to the estimated, historical vegetation types is widely accepted, the exclusory nature of the restoration process often actively eliminates not just invasive species, but also non-invasive, nonnative species (...) as well as displaced native species. These exclusory activities echo patterns of domination and degradation that led to a need for restoration in the first place. Although the domination present in restoration stems from an earnest desire to repair harms inflicted by human carelessness, it at the same time enforces a human conception of the ideal landscape. Attending to ecofeminist concepts such as inclusivism and pluralism, and embracing their rejection of dualistic thinking and the logic of domination demands an expanded tolerance within the practice of ecological restoration. An expanded ecofeminist conceptualization of restoration, a restorashyn, attempts to reduce the presence of overt human domination of the land. Doing so may ultimately mean that the species composition of an ecofeminist restorashyn will not be purely native, but may instead include a diverse mix of both native and non-invasive, nonnative species. (shrink)

Dans la première moitié du xii e siècle, les chartrains créent un lexique spécialisé pour l’optique en sélectionnant des termes sans connotation théologique et en leur ajoutant un sens géométrique. Grâce à Constantin l’Africain, ils y intègrent l’ophtalmologie. Alors que ce lexique est utilisé par les traducteurs gréco-latins, les traducteurs arabo-latins, à l’exception de l’Émir Eugène de Sicile, ignorent largement ces spécialisations sémantiques. L’hétérogénéité des choix des traducteurs réintroduit ainsi une incertitude lexicale qui nécessite une clarification des concepts et une (...) sélection des termes. Dépendant de l’évolution générale du lexique philosophique, la fixation du vocabulaire de l’optique est loin d’être achevée à la fin du siècle. (shrink)

This paper discusses findings from a study funded by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (NI) to explore the promotion of gender equity in the classroom and the extent to which initial teacher training and in-service courses address gender issues. Data from a questionnaire survey of 344 teachers and the qualitative dimensions of the study suggest that teachers are generally aware of gender stereotypes in the classroom and that, despite their lack of training in gender issues, where appropriate, most attempt (...) to challenge this type of behaviour. Concern was expressed with the role of teachers in unconsciously perpetuating stereotypes and the extent to which equality issues are directed more towards girls than boys. (shrink)

Chaque fois que nous chantons dans le choeur ou jouons dans l'orchestre, comme lorsque nous pénétrons dans un monument fédérant l'espace urbain, tout notre être s'éprouve soudain d'une façon inédite et multi-dimensionnée. Nous contemplons alors un espace-temps rendu holistique, tout en détaillant les singularités linéaires de mouvements spiralés rythmiques, mélodiques et harmoniques, dont la synergie provoquera, par rebond, notre accession à une dimension d'ouverture, d'écoute et d'être, d'autant plus supérieure qu'y est intimement présente la dimension communautaire. Ainsi apprenons-nous, par et (...) au sein de l'invariant et du géométrisme qui structurent toute oeuvre d'art, à penser de façon entière et globalisée, à travers un espace mental infiniment élargi – particulièrement à l'altérité, seule apte à rassembler et fonder tout l'ensemble de notre activité à tous les plans, du plus physique au plus conceptuel et de l'idée à sa dimension la plus spirituelle. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage propose une exploration de l'aventure doctorale dans le regard de celles et ceux qui la vivent, les doctorant·e·s, au travers du prisme des émotions. Il aborde, dans une perspective psychopédagogique, les défis inhérents à cette formation exigeante dont l'une des finalités est la construction individuelle et sociale des connaissances. À partir de deux constats préoccupants - le taux d'abandon élevé et l'état de santé critique des doctorant·e·s - l'ouvrage questionne les conditions individuelles et situationnelles qui soutiennent ou entravent (...) le processus d'apprentissage et d'appropriation créative, en présumant que le bien-être constitue la pierre angulaire de la (trans)formation. Après quelques balises théoriques, des éclairages sur l'expérience doctorale sont amenés en deux volets complémentaires. Le premier dresse un panorama international de sept tendances issues de 70 recherches réalisées au cours des vingt dernières années. Le deuxième présente les résultats de l'étude longitudinale menée par l'autrice entre 2016 et 2017 auprès de 26 doctorant·e·s d'une université suisse. Les leviers et les freins du quotidien sont décrits à partir de 256 évènements signifi catifs. Puis, 26 vignettes d'évènements particulièrement (dé)mobilisateurs illustrent comment ces doctorant-e-s se (trans)forment durant leurs activités au contact de leur environnement. L'ouvrage se termine par une réfl exion critique sur l'accompagnement du doctorat et la culture pédagogique dans laquelle il s'inscrit. Des recommandations sont proposées à l'usage des actrices et acteurs de la formation doctorale, pouvant inspirer plus largement celles et ceux de la formation post-obligatoire"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Michael Morris’ claim, that the Tractatus view involves holding that the possibility of truth-functional combination is prior to the possibility for sentential constituents to combine with one another. I provide an alternative interpretation in which I deny the presence of any distinction in the Tractatus between these two possibilities. I then turn to Adrian Moore’s ‘disjunctivist’ account of sentencehood, itself inspired by the Tractatus view. I argue that Moore’s account need not involve a commitment (...) to the kind of priority Morris describes, and that it need not involve a commitment to transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Most restoration projects are designed to approximate the species composition and ecotypes ecologists and historians determine were present in an area at some point in the historical past. In most cases, although somewhat arbitrary, the specific time chosen is based on an understanding of historic species composition and anthropogenic disturbances.Although restoring an area to the estimated, historical vegetation types is widely accepted, the exclusory nature of the restoration process often actively eliminates not just invasive species, but also non-invasive, nonnative species (...) as well as displaced native species. These exclusory activities echo patterns of domination and degradation that led to a need for restoration in the first place. Although the domination present in restoration stems from an earnest desire to repair harms inflicted by human carelessness, it at the same time enforces a human conception of the ideal landscape. Attending to ecofeminist concepts such as inclusivism and pluralism, and embracing their rejection of dualistic thinking and the logic of domination demands an expanded tolerance within the practice of ecological restoration. An expanded ecofeminist conceptualization of restoration, a restorashyn, attempts to reduce the presence of overt human domination of the land. Doing so may ultimately mean that the species composition of an ecofeminist restorashyn will not be purely native, but may instead include a diverse mix of both native and non-invasive, nonnative species. (shrink)

Cochlear implants electrically stimulate surviving auditory neurons in the cochlea to provide severely or profoundly deaf people with access to hearing. Signal processing strategies derive frequency-specific information from the acoustic signal and code amplitude changes in frequency bands onto amplitude changes of current pulses emitted by the tonotopically arranged intracochlear electrodes. This article first describes how parameters of the electrical stimulation influence the loudness evoked and then summarizes two different phenomenological models developed by McKay and colleagues that have been used (...) to explain psychophysical effects of stimulus parameters on loudness, detection, and modulation detection. The Temporal Model is applied to single-electrode stimuli and integrates cochlear neural excitation using a central temporal integration window analogous to that used in models of normal hearing. Perceptual decisions are made using decision criteria applied to the output of the integrator. By fitting the model parameters to a variety of psychophysical data, inferences can be made about how electrical stimulus parameters influence neural excitation in the cochlea. The Detailed Model is applied to multi-electrode stimuli, and includes effects of electrode interaction at a cochlear level and a transform between integrated excitation and specific loudness. The Practical Method of loudness estimation is a simplification of the Detailed Model and can be used to estimate the relative loudness of any multi-electrode pulsatile stimuli without the need to model excitation at the cochlear level. Clinical applications of these models to novel sound processing strategies are described. (shrink)

Despite the successes, and the considerable and continuing ethical disputes regarding wolf reintroduction in the United States, no clear, cogent, theoretically based ethical examination of the wolf reintroductions has yet been completed. Ecological feminist thought, particularly as articulated by Karen J. Warren, presents one way to create such an ethical assessment. Applying ecological feminist theories to wolf reintroduction also generates an intriguing instance of theoretical application in the “real world” and sheds insight on the pragmatic value of ecological feminist thought. (...) While ecofeminism does not give a definitive and decisively defensible position concerning wolf reintroduction, it does offer a repeatable framework and set of conditions by which one can assess environmental practice and policy, evidencing yet another example of the relevance of environmental ethics for the assessment of environmental policy. (shrink)

Despite the successes, and the considerable and continuing ethical disputes regarding wolf reintroduction in the United States, no clear, cogent, theoretically based ethical examination of the wolf reintroductions has yet been completed. Ecological feminist thought, particularly as articulated by Karen J. Warren, presents one way to create such an ethical assessment. Applying ecological feminist theories to wolf reintroduction also generates an intriguing instance of theoretical application in the “real world” and sheds insight on the pragmatic value of ecological feminist thought. (...) While ecofeminism does not give a definitive and decisively defensible position concerning wolf reintroduction, it does offer a repeatable framework and set of conditions by which one can assess environmental practice and policy, evidencing yet another example of the relevance of environmental ethics for the assessment of environmental policy. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years the diversity of higher education faculty in the mathematical, physical, computer, and engineering sciences has advanced very little at 4-year universities in the United States. This is despite laws and policies such as affirmative action, interventions by universities, and enormous financial investment by federal agencies to diversify science, technology, mathematics, and engineering career pathways into academia. Data comparing the fraction of underrepresented minority postdoctoral scholars to the fraction of faculty at these institutions offer a straightforward (...) empirical explanation for this state of affairs. URM postdoc appointments lag significantly behind progress in terms of both undergraduate and Ph.D.-level STEM student populations. Indeed, URM postdoc appointments lag well-behind faculty diversity itself in the MPCES fields, most of which draw their faculty heavily from the postdoctoral ranks, particularly at research-intensive universities. Thus, a sea-change in how postdocs are recruited, how their careers are developed, and how they are identified as potential faculty is required in order to diversify the nation’s faculty, and particularly the R1 MPCES professoriate. Our research shows that both Ph.D. students and postdocs benefit from intentional structure at various levels of their respective “apprentice” experiences, a factor that we believe has been neglected. Several key structural approaches are highly effective in these regards: A collaborative approach in which leading research universities collectively identify outstanding URM candidates; Faculty engagement in recruiting and supporting these postdocs; Inter-institutional exchange programs to heighten the visibility and broaden the professional experiences of these postdocs; Community-building activities that create a sense of belonging and encourage continuing in academia for each cohort; and Continuing research based on outcomes and new experimental approaches. The California Alliance, consisting of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, and Stanford, has been engaged in such a program for almost a decade now, with most of the California Alliance URM postdocs now in tenure track positions or on the path toward careers as faculty at research intensive institutions. If this approach was brought to scale by involving the top 25 or so URM Ph.D.-producing R1 institutions in the MPCES fields, about 40% of the national URM postdoctoral population in these fields could be affected. Although this impact would fall short of bringing URM MPCES faculty ranks up to full representation of the United States population as a whole, it would vastly improve the outlook for URM students and their aspirations to take on leadership roles as scientists and engineers. (shrink)

Le sens commun actuel s’évertue à faire des féministes un groupe militant uniquement composé de femmes, malgré la réémergence d’associations féministes mixtes depuis le milieu des années 1990. Le beau livre d’Alban Jacquemart apporte alors une réponse positive et éclairée à la question suivante : peut-on être homme et militant féministe? L’ouvrage est issu de la thèse de sociologie menée par Alban Jacquemart sous la direction de Rose-Marie Lagrave et récompensée par le Prix de la thèse sur...

L'article décrit et expose les résultats de deux séries d'expériences de coulée de figurines en bronze suivant la méthode de la fonte à la cire perdue. Ces expérimentations avaient pour but d'essayer de reproduire les procédés d'élaboration et de coulée utilisés à l'époque minoenne et de préciser leur rôle et leur influence sur l'apparence finale des objets.

No centro do presente artigo está a problemática kierkegaardiana do possível e do impossível, ou seja, a coexistência dos opostos como explicitação do paradoxo, uma das figuras matriciais do Absurdo. Para Kierkegaard, o homem singular vê-se confrontado com o Paradoxo precisamente na medida em que a sua existência não cai sob o domínio da metafísica e do estético. Por outras palavras, o paradoxo invade a existência humana no momento em que se trata do paradoxo absoluto, escândalo para o Judeu, loucura (...) para o Grego, absurdo para a Razão. O artigo mostra, contudo, que antes de se confrontar com o Paradoxo, o existente precisa de aprender a esperar, malgrado o absurdo, na certeza de que tudo é possível a Deus. Porém, a experiência do Paradoxo implica percorrer um caminho prévio. Por outras palavras, é necessário aprender a experimentar a "condensação do possível", seja sob a forma de melancolia seja sob a forma do escrúpulo, de modo a poder desesperar da ideia do possível. Mostra-se assim a capacidade inovadora de Kierkegaard, mesmo sabendo nós que o desespero constitui um tema filosófico clássico já deste a Antiguidade. O que Kierkegaard faz, porém, é colocar em movimento uma dialéctica em que o jogo dos opostos se organiza em diversas figuras precárias, sempre incertas e fluentes e que se escalonam segundo degraus múltiplos de intensidade. Ora é precisamente graças a este jogo de oposições que no pensamento do Solitário de Copenhaga se articulam, ainda que de forma frágil, o finito e o infinito, o temporal e o eterno, a possibilidade e a necessidade. /// At the center of the present article is the kierhegaardian approach to the dialectic of the possible and the impossible, whose co-existence gives evidence to the Paradox, one of the figures of the Absurd. For Kierkegaard, the singular human being finds herself confronted with the Paradox precisely in the measure in which her existence does not fall under the dominion of metaphysics and of the aesthetical. The paradox invades human existence when it becomes absolute, i.e., when for the Jew it becomes Scandal, for the Greek Madness and for Reason the Absurd. The article shows, however, that before confronting itself with Paradox, the existent needs to learn how to hope by virtue of the absurd that everything is possible to God. In fact, the experience of the Absurd must be anteceded by a preparatory way. In other words, it is necessary to learn how to experience a "condensation of the possible", being it under the form of melancholy or under the form of scruple, so that the existent comes to the point of despairing of the very idea of the possible. In this way, the article demonstrates the innovative capacity of Kierkegaard, even if we know that despair constitutes a classical theme in philosophy since Antiquity. But Kierkegaard put into action a dialectic in which the play of the opposites becomes organized in different figures, always uncertain and fluid, which can be ordered in accordance with multiple degrees of intensity. But it is precisely due to this game of oppositions that the thought of the Solitary of Copenhagen comes to articulate, however in a subtle form, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, possibility and necessity. (shrink)

This book surveys the vast body of medieval Jewish philosophy, devoting ample discussion to major figures such as Saadiah Gaon, Maimonides, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daoud, and Gersonides, as well as presenting the ancillary texts of lesser known authors. Sirat quotes little-known texts, providing commentary and situating them within their historical and philosophical contexts. A comprehensive bibliography directs the reader to the texts themselves and to recent studies.

Substantivalists believe that spacetime and its parts are fundamental constituents of reality. Relationalists deny this, claiming that spacetime enjoys only a derivative existence. I begin by describing how the Galilean symmetries of Newtonian physics tell against both Newton's brand of substantivalism and the most obvious relationalist alternative. I then review the obvious substantivalist response to the problem, which is to ditch substantival space for substantival spacetime. The resulting position has many affinities with what are arguably the most natural interpretations of (...) special and general relativity. I move on to consider and reject two recent antisubstantivalist lines of thought. The interim conclusion is that the best argument for relationalism is an appeal to Ockham's razor. However, for this to be successful there must be genuine relationalist theories that share the theoretical virtues of their substantivalist rivals but without the additional ontological commitment. The bulk of the paper is therefore an investigation of various concrete relationalist proposals. I distinguish three options for the relationalist in the face of the success of Galilean invariant physics and trace how these generalise to relativistic physics. One of the options is particularly promising but, since its basic objects end up being spacetime points, this does not help the prospects of relationalism as traditionally conceived. I end with some reflections on the fate of substantivalism in the aftermath of the Hole Argument, concluding that we have as yet to be given good reasons to abandon the natural, substantivalist interpretation of current physics. (shrink)

English has plural terms as well as singular terms. But our standard formal languages, e.g., the predicate calculus, feature only singular terms. How can the plural idiom be formalized?‘Changing the subject’ is by far the most common plurals strategy among both philosophers and linguists: a plural term is replaced by a singular term standing for some complex object that ‘contains’ the individuals to which the plural term alludes. For example, one might simply replace ‘A, B imply C’ with ‘{A, B} (...) implies [singular] C’. We uncover a surprising variety of ways to change the subject, of ever‐increasing complexity and ingenuity. Our question is whether any can made to work. (shrink)

Eric Voegelin holds that the platonic dialogue Gorgias is a battleground in which a struggle for the soul of the younger generation is at stake. The rhetorician and the philosopher compete for their influence over Athenian youth: against the teaching of political success stands the teachings of the "substantial". But as Voegelin shows, this is not a fight between equals, between equivalent or really disputable options. Instead, it is an opposition between what could be called the decadent representation of a (...) tradition and a revolution incarnated by Socrates. A revolution about the meaning of politics as a privileged space of realization of what is human, which contrasts with the sophistic instrumentalization. And, as the fragments about tyranny show, if tyranny is fearsome, it is so because it entails the irruption of the "limitless" individual into politics, and consequently carries the rupture of the organic links which build up the community. But Socrates demands more than the restauration of these links: he fights for the building of a new political self. (shrink)