"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with (...) the essential and the profound." -- Time Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a defining figure of the twentieth century; a philosopher, Christian, resistance fighter, anarchist, feminist, labor activist and teacher. She was described by T. S. Eliot as "a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints," and by Albert Camus as "the only great spirit of our time." Originally published posthumously in two volumes, these newly reissued notebooks, are among the very few unedited personal writings of Weil's that still survive (...) today. Containing her thoughts on art, love, science, God and the meaning of life, they give context and meaning to Weil's famous works, revealing a unique philosophy in development and offering a rare private glimpse of her singular personality. (shrink)

Simone Weil is one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century. Her writings encompass an extraordinary breadth of subjects, including philosophy, religion, sociology, and politics. A political activist and resistance fighter, her accomplishments are even more astonishing in light of her death in 1943 at the age of thirty-four. Whilst Weil was concerned with deep philosophical questions - the nature of human thought and human faculties, the limits of language, and thought's contact with reality through mediation, science (...) and beauty - the full significance of her work has frequently been obscured by her categorization as a purely religious writer or Christian mystic. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an expertly edited anthology of her most important writings, presenting Weil's philosophy as it relates to politics, the nature of work, human nature in its duality, necessity, beauty and goodness. D. K. Levy and Marina Barabas have translated all the extracts anew, including translations of important notes and references missing from existing English language editions of Weil's work. Following an extensive introduction by D. K. Levy which places Weil's life and thought in context, each section opens with a short introduction situating the chosen passages within Weil's oeuvre. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an outstanding starting point for anyone seeking an introduction to Weil's philosophy, and also essential reading for students and scholars of Weil's thought in related disciplines. (shrink)

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals.

Simone Weil's Leçons de Philosophie are derived from a course she taught at the lyce;e for girls at Roanne in 1933-4. Anne Reynaud-Gue;rithault was a pupil in the class; her notes are not a verbatim record but are a very full and, as far as one can judge, faithful rendering, often catching the unmistakable tone of Simone Weil's voice as well as the force and the directness of her thought. The lectures form a good general introduction to philosophy, (...) ranging widely over problems about perception, mind, language, reasoning and problems in moral and political philosophy too. Her method of presentation is a characteristic combination of abstract argument, personal experience and literary or historical reference. Peter Winch points out in his introduction to the book some of the more systematic connections in her philosophical work (and between this philosophical work and her other concerns), and makes a number of suggestive comparisons between Simone Weil and Wittgenstein. The translation is by Hugh Price from the Plon edition of 1959. Dr Price has added some notes to explain references in the text that might be unfamiliar to English speaking students beginning philosophy. (shrink)

This thesis defends egalitarianism about knowledge and belief, on which neither is understood in terms of the other, from what I call the abductive argument. This argument is meant to favour views opposed to egalitarianism: doxasticism, on which knowledge is understood in terms of belief, and epistemicism, on which belief is understood in terms of knowledge. The abductive argument turns on the idea that doxasticism and epistemicism, by contrast with egalitarianism, explain certain data about knowledge and belief. I argue, however, (...) that no versions of doxasticism and epistemicism currently on offer are preferable to egalitarianism on abductive grounds. As part of my argument, I also defend the claim that knowledge, by contrast with belief, is an attitude to a fact and explore the implications of this claim for doxasticism and epistemicism. (shrink)

Van Vugt, van der Velde, and collaborators show how cognitive architectures can implement verbal theories of psychiatric problems. They show how one theory of depressive rumination can be implemented in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture by changing the contents of its simulated memory. These manipulations of memory habits lead the model to show impairments in a sustained attention task‐‐a plausible impairment given that people who suffer from depression have concentration complaints.

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

Rumination is a process of uncontrolled, narrowly focused negative thinking that is often self-referential, and that is a hallmark of depression. Despite its importance, little is known about its cognitive mechanisms. Rumination can be thought of as a specific, constrained form of mind-wandering. Here, we introduce a cognitive model of rumination that we developed on the basis of our existing model of mind-wandering. The rumination model implements the hypothesis that rumination is caused by maladaptive habits of thought. These habits of (...) thought are modeled by adjusting the number of memory chunks and their associative structure, which changes the sequence of memories that are retrieved during mind-wandering, such that during rumination the same set of negative memories is retrieved repeatedly. The implementation of habits of thought was guided by empirical data from an experience sampling study in healthy and depressed participants. On the basis of this empirically derived memory structure, our model naturally predicts the declines in cognitive task performance that are typically observed in depressed patients. This study demonstrates how we can use cognitive models to better understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying rumination and depression. (shrink)

自史蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking) 的暢銷科普著作《時間簡史》(以下簡稱《簡史》) 在上世紀八十年代末問世以來，至今天二十一世紀，華人基督教界就他宇宙無起點的論述仍有相當之評論，但可惜對評論未有綜合分析。評論者因寫作目的，也甚少交代霍金宇宙學的來龍去脈。故本文嘗試略述霍金宇宙學的歷史 背景及發展經過，繼而舉出華人基督教界的評論，帶出其獨特性，並提出商確的地方，以反省未來可行路向。.

Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these considerations was conducted in order to identify and (...) differentiate between the conceptualisations of autonomy. In 33 articles on the ethics of nudging, we identified 280 autonomy considerations, which we labelled with 790 unique autonomy codes and grouped under 61 unique super-codes. Finally, we formulated three general conceptualisations of autonomy. Freedom of choice refers to the availability of options and the environment in which individuals have to make choices. Agency involves an individual's capacity to deliberate and determine what to choose. Self-constitution relates to someone's identity and self-chosen goals. In the debate about the ethics of nudging, authors refer to different senses of autonomy. Clarifying these conceptualisations contributes to a better understanding of how nudges can undermine or, on the other hand, strengthen autonomy. (shrink)

Philosophe politique et intellectuel engage dans la vie des idées aux Etats-Unis comme dans le monde, Michael Walzer est l'un des penseurs de la société parmi les plus stimulants a l'époque contemporaine. Son oeuvre défriche des pistes nouvelles de réflexion dans les domaines du politique, de la justice sociale, de la morale ou de l'identité culturelle. En même temps, Walzer, dont la pensée s'est forgée lors des luttes pour l'égalité des droits civiques aux USA et contre la guerre du Vietnam (...) dans les années 1960, poursuit une activité féconde d'animation du débat public à travers sa revue Dissent. Dans cet essai, Simon Wuhl a souhaité éclairer une autre dimension de la pensée de Michael Walzer : la relation étroite avec la pensée juive, dont les potentialités d'universalisation sont une référence majeure dans la plupart de ses écrits. Qu'elle s'exprime ouvertement comme dans son article emblématique sur " Les deux universalismes ", ou en arrière-fond comme dans son livre plus théorique sur les Sphères de justice, l'empreinte du judaïsme est toujours présente dans son oeuvre pour éclairer les grandes questions de société. Faisant par ailleurs retour, dans certains de ses travaux, sur les textes de base du judaïsme, Walzer mobilise les ressources méthodologiques des sciences humaines pour les soumettre à une relecture critique. (shrink)

Encountering Derrida explores the points of engagement between Jacques Derrida and a host of other European thinkers, past and present, in order to counter recent claims that the era of deconstruction is finally drawing to a close. The book rereads Derrida in order to renew deconstruction's various conceptions of language, poetry, philosophy, institutions, difference and the future. This impressive collection of essays from the world's leading Derrida scholars re-evaluates Derrida's legacy and looks forward to the possible futures of deconstruction by (...) confronting various challenges to Derrida's thought. Collectively, the essays argue that Derrida must be read alongside others , an approach that produces some surprising new accounts of this challenging critical thinker. _ _. (shrink)

Is it tautological to call an action "wrongful discrimination?" Some philosophers and political theorists answer this question in the affirmative and claim that the term "discrimination" is intrinsically evaluative. Others agree that "discrimination" usually conveys the action’s moral wrongness but claim that the term can be used in a purely descriptive way. In this paper, we present two corpus studies and two experiments designed to test whether the folk concept of discrimination is evaluative. We demonstrate that the term has undergone (...) a historical development and is nowadays no longer used purely descriptively. Further, we show that this evaluation cannot be cancelled without yielding a contradiction. We conclude that the descriptive use of "discriminatory" is a thing of the past. (shrink)

The adoption of experimental methods from economics, in particular script-enactment, performance-related payment, and the absence of deception, will turn experimental social psychology into a trivial science subject. Such procedures force participants to conform to a normative expectation that they must behave rationally and in accordance with their self-interest. The self-fulfilling prophecy inherent in these procedures makes it more difficult to conduct innovative social-psychological research.

This study was designed to test three competing hypotheses (impaired configural processing; impaired Theory of Mind; atypical amygdala functioning) to explain the basic facial expression recognition profile of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In Experiment 1 the Ekman and Friesen (1976) series were presented upright and inverted. Individuals with ASD were significantly less accurate than controls at recognising upright facial expressions of fear, sadness and disgust and their pattern of errors suggested some configural processing difficulties. Impaired recognition of inverted (...) facial expressions suggested some additional difficulties processing the facial features. Unexpectedly, the clinical group misidentified fear as anger. In Experiment 2 feature processing of facial expressions was investigated by presenting stimuli in a piecemeal fashion, starting with either just the eyes or the mouth. Individuals with ASD were impaired at recognising fear from the eyes and disgust from the mouth; they also confused fearful eyes as being angry. The findings are discussed in terms of the three competing hypotheses tested. (shrink)

Studies on age-related differences in risk perception in a real-world situation, such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak, showed that the risk perception of getting COVID-19 tends to decrease as age increases. This finding raised the question on what factors could explain risk perception in older adults. The present study examined age-related differences in risk perception in the early stages of COVID-19 lockdown, analyzing variables that can explain the differences in perception of risk at different ages. A total of 1,765 adults (...) aged between 18 and 87 years old completed an online survey assessing perceived risk severity and risk vulnerability of getting COVID-19, sociodemographic status, emotional state, experience relating to COVID-19, and physical health status. Results showed that the older the participants, the lower the perceived vulnerability to getting COVID-19, but the higher the perceived severity. Different predictors explain the perception of risk severity and vulnerability at different ages. Overall, self-reported anxiety over the pandemic is a crucial predictor in explaining risk perceptions in all age groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the empirical findings are discussed. (shrink)

Although it is argued that social justice is a core concern for the discipline, nursing has not generally played a leadership role in the responses to many of the greatest social problems of our time. These include the accelerated rate of climate change, pandemic threats, systemic racism, growing health and social inequities, and the regulation of new technologies to ensure an equitable future ‘for all.’ In nursing codes of ethics, administration, education, policies, and practice, social justice is often claimed to (...) be a core value, yet it is rarely contextualized by philosophical or theoretical underpinnings. It appears that nurses’ commitment to social justice may stem more from a penchant for ‘doing good’ than an attempt to explore, understand, and enact what is meant by social justice from an ontological, epistemological, and methodological perspective. We contend that the dominance of a human science perspective in nursing contributes to a narrow definition of health and relegates many issues central to social justice to the margins of nurses’ care. In this article, we explore how the focus on ‘the human’ in the human science perspective may not only be limiting the capacity of nurses to develop strategies to adequately address social injustice, but in some instances, direct nurses to contribute to their very reproduction. We suggest that a critical interrogation of this human‐centric hegemony can identify avenues of rupture and introduce posthumanism as an additional philosophical perspective for consideration to help bridge the human‐social divide. (shrink)

The classic approaches -- Correspondence -- Coherence -- Pragmatism -- Deflationism -- Tarski and the semantic theory of truth -- Summary of part I -- Varieties of enquiry -- Truths of taste; truth in art -- Truth in ethics -- Reason -- Religion and truth -- Interpretations.

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

Which political principles should govern global politics? In his new book, Simon Caney engages with the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars in order to examine some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Are there universal civil, political, and economic human rights? Should there be a system of supra- state institutions? Can humanitarian intervention be justified?

Is what's true ultimately relative to your point of view? So that what's true as viewed from over here might be false if viewed from over there? In this article, Simon Blackburn grapples with the suggestion that what's true is ultimately just a matter of perspective.

Simon J. Evnine explores the view that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are. Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a (...) detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. He then extends this account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events. (shrink)

What would it mean to apply quantum theory, without restriction and without involving any notion of measurement and state reduction, to the whole universe? What would realism about the quantum state then imply? This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate these questions. The contributors broadly agree on the need, or aspiration, for a realist theory that unites micro- and macro-worlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if unitary quantum evolution has (...) unrestricted application, and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real, then this universe emerges from the quantum state as one of countless others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result, they argue, is many worlds quantum theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. No other realist interpretation of unitary quantum theory has ever been found. Others argue in reply that this picture of many worlds is in no sense inherent to quantum theory, or fails to make physical sense, or is scientifically inadequate. The stuff of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained, nor are the worlds precisely defined; ordinary ideas about time and identity over time are compromised; no satisfactory role or substitute for probability can be found in many worlds theories; they can't explain experimental data; anyway, there are attractive realist alternatives to many worlds. Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They consider questions of ontology - the existence of worlds; probability - whether and how probability can be related to the branching structure of the quantum state; alternatives to many worlds - whether there are one-world realist interpretations of quantum theory that leave quantum dynamics unchanged; and open questions even given many worlds, including the multiverse concept as it has arisen elsewhere in modern cosmology. A comprehensive introduction lays out the main arguments of the book, which provides a state-of-the-art guide to many worlds quantum theory and its problems. (shrink)

Our engagement with time is a ubiquitous feature of our lives. We are aware of time on many scales, from the briefest flicker of change to the way our lives unfold over many years. But to what extent does this encounter reveal the true nature of temporal reality? To the extent that temporal reality is as it seems, how do we come to be aware of it? And to the extent that temporal reality is not as it seems, why does (...) it seem that way? These are the central questions addressed by Simon Prosser in Experiencing Time. He defends the B-theory of time, according to which the apparently dynamic quality of change, the special status of the present, and even the passage of time are all illusions. Prosser goes on to explore solutions to certain puzzles raised by experiences of temporal features such as changes, rates, and durations, and in doing so sheds light on broader issues in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In both political science and political theory, democratization has largely been considered a problem for non-liberal democratic countries. Drawing on Chinese political thinker Jiwei Ci’s writings on freedom, democracy, agency, plausibility, and legitimacy, I critically reconstruct Ci’s theory of democratization and his method of theorizing. I argue that a normative account of democratization is embedded in Ci’s political thought, which is based upon a philosophical anthropology of the modern man and focuses on broadening political possibilities in a given society. Ci’s (...) theory allows us to think about democratization beyond the binary of democracy and authoritarianism, as his theory places democratization as an inherent and persistent challenge for all political communities. (shrink)

Biography of the paleontologist, priest, writer, and co-discoverer of Peking man who developed a theory claiming to unify cosmic evolution and Christianity.

This article proposes a retheorisation of Rawlsian civil disobedience through examining the burdens we expect people to bear when they practice civil disobedience, focussing specifically on marginalised groups. First, I consider public concerns over civil disobedience, to elicit the idea of an ‘authentic civil disobedience’. I then assess the claim that civil disobedience occurs within a ‘nearly just’ society in order to recognise the more complex position of marginalised civil disobedients. This allows me to frame any criteria we theorise for (...) civil disobedience as a wicked problem. Next, I examine one particular criterion dominant within the literature: that to be interpreted as civil disobedience, disobedients must show a willingness to suffer the legal consequences – and so, must not act anonymously. I claim that this asks too much of civil disobedients in a marginalised context and conclude civil disobedience theory needs retheorising to consider when and why anonymity is acceptable. (shrink)

Scientific realism driven by inference to the best explanation (IBE) takes empirically confirmed objects to exist, independent, pace empiricism, of whether those objects are observable or not. This kind of realism, it has been claimed, does not need probabilistic reasoning to justify the claim that these objects exist. But I show that there are scientific contexts in which a non-probabilistic IBE-driven realism leads to a puzzle. Since IBE can be applied in scientific contexts in which empirical confirmation has not yet (...) been reached, realists will in these contexts be committed to the existence of empirically unconfirmed objects. As a consequence of such commitments, because they lack probabilistic features, the possible empirical confirmation of those objects is epistemically redundant with respect to realism. (shrink)