Presents an interpretation of the famous engraved title page of Hobbes's Leviathan, in which the ‘person’ of the state is depicted as a colossal figure composed of smaller individual figures. It argues that the origins of this design can be found in an optical device developed by the French scientist Jean François Niceron, which used a specially cut lens to create a single composite figure out of separate smaller figures; and it explores the significance of this for Hobbes's theory (...) of ‘representation’. (shrink)

Essays and accompanying bibliographies survey recent (to 1990) studies of Boethius' 6th-century Latin work as it was translated into Old English (primarily King Alfred), medieval German, medieval French, and Middle English (primarily Chaucer). Each of the four chapters is an independent treatment, b.

Discusses Hobbes's relationship with the French mathematician Gilles Personne de Roberval, with whom he became closely associated in Paris during the 1640s. It examines a text that, commonly assumed to be a statement of Roberval's own views, may rather have been a description of the views of Hobbes. The degree to which Hobbes and Roberval were able to assimilate elements of skepticism is also discussed, particularly in relation to the different ways in which they reacted to the experimental evidence (...) for the production of a vacuum in the late 1640s. (shrink)

In 1677-8 Robert Boyle fell victim to a French confidence trickster, Georges Pierre des Clozets, who claimed to belong to a secret society of alchemists, 'the Asterism'; the leader of the Asterism was described as the 'Patriarch of Antioch', resident in Constantinople. New evidence shows that Georges Pierre had contrived to publish two short articles about this 'Patriarch' in a Dutch newspaper, and that one of these was given to Boyle to corroborate Pierre's claims. These articles provide further information (...) about the nature of Pierre's invention. Most importantly, they show that his 'Patriarch of Antioch' was modelled on, and explicitly connected to, a contemporary alchemist in whom Boyle already had an interest: Francesco Giuseppe Borri. (shrink)

French end-of-life law aims at protecting patients from unreasonable treatments, but has been used to force caregivers to prolong treatments deemed unreasonable. We describe six cases (five intensi...

This article is aimed at introducing a French discourse analysis model, e.g. the ‘star model’, initiated by the LAA team led by Robert Vion in Aix-en-Provence, to English-speaking researchers. It will be argued that language activity is multi-dimensional and can be traced at various heterogeneous levels of speech productions belonging to macro as well as micro orders. Speakers achieve different varieties of positioning which result in negotiating an interactional space within a pre-given situation. The model is precisely designed to (...) offer a unified and comprehensive view of such heterogeneous phenomena in constant interconnection. In this study, we also intend to illustrate our approach through the analysis of two different corpora. Speakers’ strategies under extreme conditions will be analysed; the various sequences used were taken from a special corpus which we were asked to study as part of a national research programme. In order to illustrate interactional space shifts, we will also use the transcript of a meeting which took place between a patient and a medical investigator in a hospital in Marseilles. (shrink)

In 2001, France became one of the few countries to require corporate social responsibility reporting through its Nouvelles Régulations Économiques #2001-420. However, initial compliance with the statute was low, a factor implying the law lacked normativity. In this exploratory study, we attempt to determine whether there is movement toward normativity by examining the change in CSR disclosure from 2004 in comparison to 2010 for a sample of 81 publicly traded French firms. We measure both the space and the quality (...) of CSR disclosures, including in the latter a measure based on informational quality attributes as discussed by the International Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and the Global Reporting Initiative. We find significant increases in the space allocated to CSR disclosure, as well as some evidence of increased quality; although the informational quality of the disclosures remains quite low and fewer firms are including negative performance information in their reports. Finally, we document that differences in disclosure space and quality in 2004 appeared to be associated with legitimacy-based variables and that those relations remain largely unchanged in 2010. As such, it appears that the NRE’s goals of increased transparency remain unmet. (shrink)

Film and the Emotions explores the complicated relationship between filmed entertainment, such as movies and television shows, and our capacity to feel emotions. This volume of The Midwest Studies in Philosophy covers topics such as the role of imagination in our capacity to respond emotionally to films, how emotions felt in response to films relate to emotions felt about real events, and the moral implications of responding emotionally to fictions, among others. This collection includes nineteen original articles from experts on (...) film and emotion, including Noel Carroll, Gregory Currie, Susan Feagin, Stacie Friend, Robert Hopkins, Peter Lamarque and Peter Goldie, Derek Matravers, Carl Plantinga, and Murray Smith. (shrink)

There is a debate over whether actions that resist devaluation are primarily habit- or goal-directed. The incentive habit account of compulsive actions has received support from behavioral paradigms and brain imaging. In addition, the self-reported Creature of Habit Scale has been proposed to capture inter-individual differences in habitual tendencies. It is subdivided into two dimensions: routine and automaticity. We first considered a French version of this questionnaire for validation, based on a sample of 386 undergraduates. The relationship between two (...) dimensions of habit and the risk of substance use disorder and impulsive personality traits was also investigated. COHS has good psychometric properties with both features of habits positively associated with an Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory score. Besides, the propensity to rely more on routines was associated with lower levels of alcohol abuse and nicotine use, suggesting that some degree of routine might act as a protective factor against substance use. In contrast, a high automaticity score was associated with an increased risk of harmful alcohol use. These results demonstrate that the COHS is a valid measure of habitual tendencies and represents a useful tool for capturing inter-individual variations in drug use problems in undergraduates. (shrink)

This event-related potential (ERP) study examined the impact of phonological variation resulting from a vowel merger on phoneme perception. The perception of the /e/–/ε/ contrast which does not exist in Southern French-speaking regions, and which is in the process of merging in Northern French-speaking regions, was compared to the /ø/–/y/ contrast, which is stable in all French-speaking regions. French-speaking participants from Switzerland for whom the /e/–/ε/ contrast is preserved, but who are exposed to different regional variants, (...) had to perform a same-different task. They first heard four phonemically identical but acoustically different syllables (e.g., /be/–/be/–/be/–/be/), and then heard the test syllable which was either phonemically identical to (/be/) or phonemically different from (/bε/) the preceding context stimuli. The results showed that the unstable /e/–/ε/ contrast only induced a mismatch negativity (MMN), whereas the /ø/–/y/ contrast elicited both a MMN and electrophysiological differences on the P200. These findings were in line with the behavioral results in which responses were slower and more error-prone in the /e/–/ε/ deviant condition than in the /ø/–/y/ deviant condition. Together these findings suggest that the regional variability in the speech input to which listeners are exposed affects the perception of speech sounds in their own accent. (shrink)

This paper proposes new ways of characterizing eighteenth-century French Cartesianism. Besides two widely-accepted elements—the belief in “strict mechanism” and the idea that to demonstrate in physics does not involve mathematics, but reference to mechanical models—I add two more, hitherto neglected, features. First, a strong emphasis on experimentalism, namely the view that experiments are crucial to natural-philosophical practice. Second, an epistemological thesis that I call “conjecturalism,” which consists in doubting that natural philosophy would attain an ultimate truth on the nature (...) of things. To explore these facets of Cartesianism, I focus on the works of the Jesuit Noël Regnault. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the circumstances of Noël Coypel’s appointment as rector of the French Academy in Rome and to trace the route of his didactic journey from Paris to Rome with the Prix de Rome scholars entrusted to him. The paper is an attempt to answer the following questions: why a more difficult route through the Alps was chosen, in what way was the journey educational, and what role did the documents given to Coypel (...) play in securing the expedition. The article is based on an analysis of administrative records during the reign of Louis XIV, lists of superintendents and directors of the French Academy in Rome, accounts of royal buildings, and minutes of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. The paper uses the analytical method, the comparative method, the synthetic method, source criticism, argumentum ex silentio inference, and the geographical method when discussing the itinerary. Although the trip was purposeful and related to Coypel’s new position, he designed it in such a way as to not so much get to the destination quickly, but to show his students as much as possible. Coypel introduced the royal scholars to masterpieces of painting and sculpture at centers along a route through Dijon, Lyon, Chambéry, the Mont Cenis Pass, Turin, Milan, Bologna and Florence. The crossing of the Alps, though dangerous, was most often chosen because of the artistic reputation of the cities there. The trip was educational at the expense of comfort or safety. Coypel, as a guide and teacher led his charges by overseeing their learning during and through the journey. Wandering to the Eternal City was part of a painter’s education in the seventeenth century and was part of Coypel’s didactic work allowing young people to be inspired by direct exposure to masterpieces. The journey had an eminently didactic and artistic character, but also an initiatory one, as it gradually initiated and prepared the students for the experience of Rome, the center of artistic life at that time. (shrink)

Y a-t-il une psychanalyse chrétienne? Cette question a-t-elle un sens? Un croyant souffrant doit-il ou non s'assurer que son psychanalyste est lui-même croyant pour protéger sa foi? Autrement dit, comment l'analyse intègre-t-elle ou modifie-t-elle une donnée religieuse? Faire une analyse, c'est accepter de traverser le tragique de sa propre vie. En raison du dévoilement de la vérité que ce processus met en œuvre, le patient voit se dégager devant lui la perspective d'un désir dont la nouvelle mesure est infinie. Ce (...) désir avait été comblé par des objets qui, jusque-là, semblaient le satisfaire. Puis, le symptôme surgit, déstabilise, perturbe les petits arrangements que le patient s'était autorisés. Première ou dernière scène de son tragique? Dans le huis clos théâtral qu'est la séance analytique, le patient-acteur reprend et parle toute son histoire. Comme à son insu, il se voit contraint de redéfinir ce qui donne sens à sa vie : sens religieux? sens éthique? Bref, tout ce qui échappe à l'analyse et que, paradoxe imprévisible, elle évoque et convoque... Pourtant, un point restera toujours aveugle pour lui, à l'instar d'Œdipe qui, les yeux crevés, poursuit son chemin. C'est peut-être en ce même point - tragique-aveugle - que l'homme reconnaît sous une lumière nouvelle que son histoire personnelle rejoint la détresse commune et ordinaire de toute l'humanité. (shrink)

Noel Malcolm, one of the world's leading experts on Thomas Hobbes, presents a set of extended essays on a wide variety of aspects of the life and work of this giant of early modern thought. Malcolm offers a succinct introduction to Hobbes's life and thought, as a foundation for his discussion of such topics as his political philosophy, his theory of international relations, the development of his mechanistic world-view, and his subversive Biblical criticism. Several of the essays pay special (...) attention to the European dimensions of Hobbes's life, his sources and his influence; the longest surveys the entire European reception of his work from the 1640s to the 1750s. All the essays are based on a deep knowledge of primary sources, and many present striking new discoveries about Hobbes's life, his manuscripts, and the printing history of his works. Aspects of Hobbes will be essential reading not only for Hobbes specialists, but also for all those interested in seventeenth-century intellectual history more generally, both British and European. (shrink)

Jonathan I. Israel claims that Christian ‘controversialists’ endeavoured first to obscure or efface Spinozism, materialism, and non-authoritarian free thought, and then, in the early eighteenth century, to fight these openly, and desperately. Israel appears to have adopted the view of enlightenment as a battle against what Voltaire has called ‘l’infâme’, and David Hume has labelled ‘stupidity, Christianity, and ignorance’. These authors’ barbs were launched later in the century, however, in the period of the high Enlightenment, following polarizing controversies of mid-century. (...) This chapter argues that many Enlightenment figures, including Hume and Voltaire, were far more involved within a culture in the second quarter of the century that was less divided against Christian interlocutors, less rigid, and more complex than these two wished to suggest, in retrospect, after mid-century. A Christian literary and scientific circle was productive and prominent in French Enlightenment culture, particularly in the personages of François Prévost, Pierre Desfontaines, Samuel Formey and Noël Pluche, and in the pages of ubiquitous journals and occasional publications. Many of the Catholics among these lumières held the education and retained the status of ‘abbé’, a title with prophylactic properties that legitimated expansive inquiry – into topics such as libertinism and atheism – and facilitated in-print exchanges with Voltaire and other less orthodox figures. This wing of the Enlightenment developed a culture that reflected, and sometimes promoted, Christian theology – especially in the tradition of natural theology – and displayed broadly Christian and politically conservative values. The latter aspect served in part to motivate concerted efforts toward their marginalization by others, but the French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century’s second quarter was actually very mixed, and not so very radical; rather, it became polarized at mid-century, and in retrospect, the Christians of this wing were written out of the history by the likes of Voltaire and Hume. (shrink)

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total childcare is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is 'on the cards'. We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, (...) robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care. (shrink)

According to spacetime state realism, the fundamental ontology of a quantum mechanical world consists of a state-valued field evolving in four-dimensional spacetime. One chief advantage it claims over rival wave-function realist views is its natural compatibility with relativistic quantum field theory. I argue that the original density operator formulation of SSR cannot be extended to QFTs where the local observables form type III von Neumann algebras. Instead, I propose a new formulation of SSR in terms of a presheaf of local (...) state spaces dual to the net of local observables studied by algebraic QFT. 1Introduction2Spacetime State Realism in Quantum Field Theory 2.1Equivalence thesis3Entanglement and the Type III Property 3.1No-Go Lemma 13.2No-Go Lemma 24State Space Axioms for Quantum Field Theory 4.1Revised equivalence thesis5Discussion. (shrink)

Standard approaches to ontological simplicity focus either on the number of things or types a theory posits or on the number of fundamental things or types a theory posits. In this paper, I suggest a ground-theoretic approach that focuses on the number of something else. After getting clear on what this approach amounts to, I motivate it, defend it, and complete it.

This article examines the philosophical and theological nuances in the works of Étienne Pascal and Étienne Noël, focusing on their interpretations of Saint Augustine and Jean Duvergier de Hauranne. It explores the concept of antithesis (ἀντίθεσις) in both rhetorical and philosophical contexts, drawing upon Platonic and Aristotelian texts. The article highlights the use of antithesis in Augustine’s explanation of evil and its integration into the universal order, connecting this to 17th-century French thought, especially in relation to Blaise Pascal’s ideas (...) on rhetoric. A critical analysis of Étienne Pascal’s letter to Father Noël is presented, emphasizing his understanding of rhetorical figures, notably metaphor and antithesis, and their theological implications. The discussion extends to Saint-Cyran’s interpretation of Augustine, particularly concerning ecclesiastical guidance and priesthood preparation. The article concludes by underscoring the complex interplay between language, thought, and faith in these historical contexts. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes concepts created by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with worlds imagined by Ursula Le Guin in a performance of ‘rhizosemiotic play’ that explores some possible ways of generating and sustaining what William Pinar calls ‘complicated conversation’ within the regime of signs that constitutes an increasingly internationalized curriculum field. Deleuze and Guattari analyze thinking as flows or movements across space. They argue, for example, that every mode of intellectual inquiry needs to account for the plane of immanence upon (...) which it operates—the preconceptual field presupposed by the concepts that inquiry creates. Curriculum inquiry currently operates on numerous nationally distinctive planes of immanence. I argue that the internationalization of curriculum studies should not presume a singular transnational plane of immanence but, rather, envisage a process performed by curriculum scholars with the capacities and competencies to change planes—to move between one plane of immanence and another and/or to transform their own planes. My essay is a ‘narrative experiment’ that takes seriously Deleuze’s argument that a work of philosophy should be, in part, a kind of science fiction, and also takes inspiration from Le Guin’s science fictional stories of ‘changing planes’ to generate productive and disruptive transnational agendas in curriculum inquiry. (shrink)

Prescriptive rules guide human behavior across various domains of community life, including law, morality, and etiquette. What, specifically, are rules in the eyes of their subjects, i.e., those who are expected to abide by them? Over the last sixty years, theorists in the philosophy of law have offered a useful framework with which to consider this question. Some, following H. L. A. Hart, argue that a rule’s text at least sometimes suffices to determine whether the rule itself covers a case. (...) Others, in the spirit of Lon Fuller, believe that there is no way to understand a rule without invoking its purpose — the benevolent ends which it is meant to advance. In this paper we ask whether people associate rules with their textual formulation or their underlying purpose. We find that both text and purpose guide people’s reasoning about the scope of a rule. Overall, a rule’s text more strongly contributed to rule infraction decisions than did its purpose. The balance of these considerations, however, varied across experimental conditions: In conditions favoring a spontaneous judgment, rule interpretation was affected by moral purposes, whereas analytic conditions resulted in a greater adherence to textual interpretations. In sum, our findings suggest that the philosophical debate between textualism and purposivism partly reflects two broader approaches to normative reasoning that vary within and across individuals. Keywords: , the concept of law, rules, legal psychology, Hart, Fuller. (shrink)

This study provides a comparison of the ethical perceptions of managers and non-managers, including professionals, teachers, sales persons and clerks, as well as technical and plant workers. Data of working individuals were collected in Hong Kong in the form of questionnaires which contain vignettes of questionable ethical issues. Factor analysis was used to identify the major ethical dimensions which were then used as the basis of comparison. Regression analyses were used to study the effect of various variables on ethical perceptions (...) in terms of the identified dimensions. Our study reviews that managers tend to possess deontological views that are more ethical than that found in other occupations. The gap between managers and professionals in perceiving unethical behavior is narrower compared to that between the former and individuals in other occupations. The acceptability of unethical behavior tends to decline with income. Besides, there are indications that people working in non-profit organizations tend to have higher ethical standards. Based on our results, recommendations are made to improve the ethical culture of organizations. (shrink)

Plans to automate killing by using robots armed with lethal weapons have been a prominent feature of most US military forces? roadmaps since 2004. The idea is to have a staged move from ?man-in-the-loop? to ?man-on-the-loop? to full autonomy. While this may result in considerable military advantages, the policy raises ethical concerns with regard to potential breaches of International Humanitarian Law, including the Principle of Distinction and the Principle of Proportionality. Current applications of remote piloted robot planes or drones offer (...) lessons about how automated weapons platforms could be misused by extending the range of legally questionable, targeted killings by security and intelligence forces. Moreover, the alleged moral disengagement by remote pilots will only be exacerbated by the use of autonomous robots. Leaders in the international community need to address the difficult legal and moral issues now, before the current mass proliferation of development reaches fruition. (shrink)

Jill North argues that Hamiltonian mechanics provides the most spare -- and hence most accurate -- account of the structure of a classical world. We point out some difficulties for her argument, and raise some general points about attempts to minimize structural commitments.

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total childcare is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is ‘on the cards’. We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, (...) robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care. (shrink)

The statue and the lump of clay that constitutes it fail to share all of their kind and modal properties. Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue is not the lump. Question: What grounds the kind and modal differences between the statue and the lump? In virtue of what is it that the lump of clay, but not the statue, can survive being smashed? This is the grounding problem. Now a number of solutions to the grounding problem require that we substantially (...) revise our view of reality. In this paper, I provide a solution to this problem that does not require such a revision. I then show how my solution to the grounding problem can solve a related problem and answer a related question. The upshot is that the solution I offer is not only non-revisionary, but also fruitful. (shrink)

Understanding Ethics introduces the frameworks of moral philosophy to analyse contemporary moral issues and perennial human dilemmas.While the early chapters ...

Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in (...) having their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified? (shrink)

We created Justice: The Game, an educational, role-immersion game designed to be used in philosophy courses. We seek to describe Justice in sufficent detail so that it is understandable to readers not already familiar with role-immersion pedagogy. We hope some instructors will be sufficiently interested in using the game. In addition to describing the game we also evaluate it, thereby highlighting the pedagogical potential of role-immersion games designed to teach political philosophy. We analyze the game by drawing on our observations (...) as designers and playtesters of Justice, along with feedback from students obtained in focus-groups conducted shortly after playtesting ended. We present evidence that Justice, compared to conventional instructional methods alone, plausibly enhances student learning of philosophical skills and content by requiring them to practice those skills and put their content-area knowledge to use in a highly-motivating and engaging context. (shrink)

W. Matthews Grant's "Dual Sources Account" aims at explaining how God causes all creaturely actions while leaving them free in a robust libertarian sense. It includes an account of predestination that is supposed to allow for the possibility that some created persons ultimately spend eternity in hell. I argue here that the resources Grant provides for understanding why God might permit created persons to end up in hell are, for two different reasons, insufficient. I then provide possible solutions to these (...) two problems, compatible with Grant's account overall, that help show why God might allow hell. (shrink)

The idea that choreographic movements communicate to audiences by kinetic transfer is a commonplace among choreographers, dancers, and dance educators.1 Moreover, most dance lovers can cite their own favorite examples—the bounciness of the Royal Danish Ballet, the stomping of Bharata Natyam performers, the stag leaps in the thundering Greek chorus in Martha Graham’s Night Journey, or the contagious rhythmic transfer that takes over our feet when we watch classic tap dancers like Buster Brown. The perceptual capacity for kinetic transfer was (...) succinctly identified and theorized by John Martin. He called this capacity metakinesis. Martin was influenced by Theodor Lipps’s earlier theory of empathy. Lipps introduced his notion of empathy as a way to characterize our muscular responses to the perceived internal dynamics of inanimate objects under stress and tension, for example, weight-bearing columns and cantilevered boulders. Martin argued analogously about dance. -/- In what follows, we explore and evaluate three general challenges to the existence and significance of kinetic transfer in dance: challenges to the very possibility of kinesthetic understanding in dance, questions about the relevance of kinetic transfer to explanations of artistic communication in dance, and concerns about the relevance of kinetic transfer to evaluative questions germane to dance appreciation. We do not subscribe to every aspect of Martin’s story. Nevertheless, we think that Martin was exceedingly prescient. His speculations appear to be supported by recent research in neuroscience and psychology.We feel as a result that Martin’s comments are highly suggestive of what might be going on in ordinary dance consumers (or at least moderately informed ones). Critically, however, we do not model these contributions in terms of a discrete, stand-alone kinesthetic sense as Martin did. Rather, we argue that metakinesis and kinetic transfer refer to a general crossmodal sensorimotor perceptual capacity that contributes to our understanding and experience of actions in everyday contexts. Nor do we claim that audiences recognize and understand dance solely on the basis of kinetic transfer. Rather, we argue that this sensorimotor capacity is a contributing factor in our perceptual engagement with dance works, one of a range of tools ready to hand to choreographers and dancers for conveying information critical to the content of their works. (shrink)

In this paper, I both propose and discuss a novel account of truthmaking. I begin by showing what truthmaking is not: it is not grounding and it is not correspondence. I then show what truthmaking is by offering an account that appeals both to grounding and what I call ‘deep correspondence’. After I present the account and show that it is an account that unifies, I put it to work by showing how it can overcome an objection to truthmaking, how (...) we can get truthmaking from correspondence, what it says about truthmaker necessitation, and how it can explain a connection between truthmaker maximalism and pluralism about truth. (shrink)

The article sets out to develop the concept of attention as a key aspect to building the possible therapeutics that Bernard Stiegler’s recent works have pointed to (The Automatic Society, 2016, The Neganthropocene, 2018 and Qu’appelle-t-on Panser, 2018). The therapeutic aspect of pharmacology takes place through processes that are neganthropic; therefore, which attempt to counteract the entropic nature of digital technologies where there is flattening out to the measurable and the calculable of Big Data. The most obvious examples of this (...) flattening out can be seen in relation to the use of natural language processing technologies for text interpretation and the use of text analytics alongside student analytics. However, the process of exosomatisation of knowledge takes place in forms of hypomnesic tertiary retentions or digital technologies. The loss of knowledge is inherent to these processes of exteriorisation, this loss of knowledge takes place through a process proletarianisation which Marx had pointed to in the Grundisse (1939). The therapeutic gesture is, therefore, an intrinsically educational one, where the loss of knowledge of the pharmacological nature of digital technologies is counteracted by other forms of knowledge construction that can be enabled by digital technologies. Hence, there is a profound educational gesture necessary to enable the re-harnessing of technology to enable the therapeutics. This paper will argue that the positive re-harnessing, the therapeutics, can take place through the development of new forms of neganthropic gestures which can be afforded by the development of specific forms of digital technologies. These also enable a contributive research process whereby the rationalisation of the production of knowledge within the university can be challenged by collaborative, interpretative processes of knowledge production. (shrink)

Among the most well-known accounts of events is Jaegwon Kim’s exemplification theory, which identifies each event with a property exemplification. Two of the most influential rival event theorists have urged rejecting exemplificationism on the basis of the charge that it ultimately conflates events with facts [Lombard : Events: A Metaphysical Study. Routledge & Kegan Paul; Bennett :Events and their Names. Hackett Publishing Company]. In response, I offer a detailed examination of Lombard and Bennett’s arguments that exemplificationism undermines the event/fact distinction. (...) I then develop and defend a modified version of Kim’s account that overcomes this objection, and so constitutes a more plausible exemplification theory of events. (shrink)

Truthmaker says that things, broadly construed, are the ontological grounds of truth and, therefore, that things make truths true. Recently, there have been a number of arguments purporting to show that if one embraces Truthmaker, then one ought to embrace Truthmaker Maximalism—the view that all non-analytic propositions have truthmakers. But then if one embraces Truthmaker, one ought to think that negative existentials have truthmakers. I argue that this is false. I begin by arguing that recent attempts by Ross Cameron and (...) Jonathan Schaffer to provide negative existentials with truthmakers fail. I then argue that the conditional—if one embraces Truthmaker, the one ought to embrace Truthmaker Maximalism—is false by considering worlds where very little, if anything at all, exists. The conclusion is that thinking that negative existentials do not have truthmakers, and therefore rejecting Truthmaker Maximalism, need not worry Truthmaker embracers. (shrink)

As I will use the term, an object is a mereological sum of some things just in case those things compose it simply in virtue of existing. In the first half of this paper, I argue that there are no sums. The key premise for this conclusion relies on a constraint on what, in certain cases, it takes for something to ground, or metaphysically explain, something else. In the second half, I argue that in light of my argument against sums, (...) Universalism, which is perhaps the most widely accepted answer to the Special Composition Question, is false. (shrink)

Higher courts sometimes assess the constitutionality of law by working through a concrete case, other times by reasoning about the underlying question in a more abstract way. Prior research has found that the degree of concreteness or abstraction with which an issue is formulated can influence people's prescriptive views: For instance, people often endorse punishment for concrete misdeeds that they would oppose if the circumstances were described abstractly. We sought to understand whether the so-called ‘abstract/concrete paradox’ also jeopardizes the consistency (...) of judicial reasoning. In a series of experiments, both lay and professional judges sometimes reached opposite conclusions when reasoning about concrete cases versus the underlying issues formulated in abstract terms. This effect emerged whether participants reasoned with broad principles, such as human dignity, or narrow rules, and was largest among individuals high in trait empathy. Finally, to understand whether people reflectively endorse the discrepancy between abstract and concrete resolutions, we examined their reactions when evaluating both, either simultaneously or sequentially. These approaches revealed no single pattern across lay and expert populations, or exploratory and confirmatory studies. Taken together, our studies suggest that empathic concern plays a greater role in guiding the judicial resolution of concrete cases than in illuminating judges' professed standards—which may result in concrete decisions in violation of their own abstract principles. (shrink)

These essays are the fruit of many years' research by one of the world's leading Hobbes scholars. Noel Malcolm offers not only succinct introductions to Hobbes 's life and thought, but also path-breaking studies of many different aspects of his political philosophy, his scientific and religious theories, his relations with his contemporaries, the sources of his ideas, the printing history of his works, and his influence on European thought.