Newcomers and more experienced feminist theorists will welcome this even-handed survey of the care/justice debate within feminist ethics. Grace Clement clarifies the key terms, examines the arguments and assumptions of all sides to the debate, and explores the broader implications for both practical and applied ethics. Readers will appreciate her generous treatment of the feminine, feminist, and justice-based perspectives that have dominated the debate.Clement also goes well beyond description and criticism, advancing the discussion through the incorporation of a broad range (...) of insights into a new integration of the values of care and justice. Care, Autonomy, and Justice marks a major step forward in our understanding of feminist ethics. It is both direct and helpful enough to work as an introduction for students and insightful and original enough to make it necessary reading for scholars. (shrink)

The modal collapse argument states that the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity entails that God necessarily creates whatever he creates and also that all creatures necessarily perform whatever actions they perform. In response to these objections, many authors argue that God’s willing to create this precise world and God’s knowing everything about individual creatures are at least partially extrinsic or Cambridge properties (i.e., the truthmaker of the respective propositions is, in part, a fact about something contingent other than God). This (...) paper argues for a general view of action, in which such properties can turn out to be at least partially extrinsic. Section 1 explains why responding to the modal collapse argument requires that part of the truthmaker relating God to contingent facts be extrinsic to God, and that it is only in this part that contingency lies. Section 2 argues that this can be generally so in certain class of causal relations, where the agent remains intrinsically the same no matter the precise effect produced. Section 3 shows that free volition is at some level one of those relations, and section 4 offers some brief remarks about the difficulties that still remain in the case of knowledge. (shrink)

The basic thesis of this essay is that the progressive development of any discipline is propelled by incessant constructive criticisms, creative emendation and articulate reconstruction of established positions and received opinions in the discipline. Accordingly, the essay argues that the method and canons of Conversational Philosophy are very significant to the progressive development of African philosophy. This is because they are fundamentally articulated to promote the constructive criticism, creative emendation, and articulate reconstruction of established positions or received opinions in African (...) philosophy. It buttresses this point using Mesembe Edet’s conversation with Innocent Onyewuenyi on the question of the African belief on reincarnation. This choice stems from the explicit admittance of Edet that his conversation with Onyewuenyi adopts the method of conversationalism and the method of conversationalism is undergirded by the canons of CP. Specifically, this essay explicates how the conscious adoption of conversationalism and adherence to the canons of CP enabled Edet to engage Onyewuenyi in a very critical and creative conversation on the African belief in reincarnation which eventually led to a novel reconceptualization of reincarnation in African philosophy. It unveils the significance of conversationalism and the canons of CP in practice. It is therefore a conversational, expository and argumentative essay. Keywords : Conversationlism, Conversational Philosophy, Interrogative theory, Onyewuenyi, Reincarnation. (shrink)

Heroes may be brave, but not all of those who act bravely are necessarily heroes. Confucius is one of the most important figures in Chinese history, the philosopher-founder of an intellectual, ethical tradition that has shaped a quarter of the world's population. Often overlooked outside his native country, Jonathan Clements reveals Confucius to be an outspoken and uncompromising man, and places him within the context of China of 2,500 years ago. Confucius, a contemporary of Buddha, was the illegitimate son of (...) a retired soldier and a teenage concubine. He had a passionate belief in respect for others and it was this belief which underpinned his life and teachings. He advised the famous figures of his day, gaining their respect, and also the undying enmity of those whose paths he crossed. He was equally proud of both achievements, saying that if the evil people of the world liked him, he was doing something wrong. Confucius established many ideas that are taken for granted today. His theories became the foundation of one of the world's first civil services and established enduring social structures throughout Asia. In collating and refining the words of earlier, forgotten thinkers, he also preserved elements of China's prehistoric culture, and its ancient religion of ancestor-worship. (shrink)

Para o autor, o tema das relações entre ciência e espiritualidade merece renovado espaço ante o grande público e, não menor, no ambiente escolar ou familiar. Para ele, pessoas sábias, e não apenas letradas, partem para a aventura de desbravar tanto o mundo exterior da ciência quanto o mundo interior do espírito humano. Clemente acredita que na sociedade do conhecimento e da informação em que se vive, aprendem-se tantas coisas, muitas das quais de parco sentido e propósito. Mas é preciso (...) atravessar o rio da vida com segurança. Ciência e transcendência, para o autor, quando integradas, constituem a via disponível ao ser humano para conhecer a verdade e o bem, anseios maiores que, no íntimo, todos têm. (shrink)

In this paper, we point out that explainability is useful but not sufficient to ensure the legitimacy of algorithmic decision systems. We argue that the key requirements for high-stakes decision systems should be justifiability and contestability. We highlight the conceptual differences between explanations and justifications, provide dual definitions of justifications and contestations, and suggest different ways to operationalize justifiability and contestability.

Quiconque considère la résurgence du cynisme à la Renaissance pénètre un domaine vaste, mais laissé en friche par les philosophes et délaissé des littéraires. Quelques exemples suffisent à en évaluer l'étendue : reconnaître Diogène dans le Christ et faire - subrepticement - du premier des Adages un adage diogénique ; s'assimiler à Diogène roulant son tonneau pour illustrer la fabrique du Tiers Livre ; attaquer saint Augustin pour son incapacité à comprendre l'impudeur des cyniques ; souhaiter comme idéal pour l'homme (...) de n'être "serf de personne". Voilà quatre positions où l'on aura reconnu Erasme, Rabelais, Montaigne ainsi que La Boétie et qui attestent que, si le cynisme est bien une philosophie de la Renaissance, il a aussi été un formidable moyen de penser et de parler à neuf. Alors que le bien-dire envahit l'espace public, le dire vrai des cyniques, incisif, est apte à façonner des formes littéraires inédites et à procurer de nouveaux moyens critiques. Contre ceux qui pensent conforter la morale avec des discours bien-pensants, Diogène n'affirmait-il pas, crânement, que l'exercice de la vertu n'est pas pour les pisse-froid, qu'on peut être obscène et vertueux, violent et pédagogue, tout en restant "joyeux entre mille"? (shrink)

Essays discuss reason, self-control, self-definition, time, cause and effect, accidents, and responsibility, and explain why people want free will.

The first part of this paper proposes a precise definition of what a worldview is, and why there is a necessity to have one. The second part suggests how to construct integrated scientific worldviews. For this attempt, three general scientific approaches are proposed: the general systems theory as the endeavor for a universal language for science, a general problem-solving approach and the idea of evolution, broadly construed. We close with some remarks about limitations of scientific worldviews.

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1106, Page 536-553, July 2022.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Psychologists have emphasized children's acquisition of information through firsthand observation. However, many beliefs are acquired from others' testimony. In two experiments, most 4yearolds displayed sceptical trust in testimony. Having heard informants' accurate or inaccurate testimony, they anticipated that informants would continue to display such differential accuracy and they trusted the hitherto reliable informant. Yet they ignored the testimony of the reliable informant if it conflicted with what they themselves had seen. By contrast, threeyearolds were less selective in trusting a reliable (...) informant. Thus, young children check testimony against their own experience and increasingly recognise that some informants are more trustworthy than others. (shrink)

In November 1996, Catherine Clément and Julia Kristeva began a correspondence exploring the subject of the sacred. In this collection of those letters Catherine Clément approaches the topic from an anthropologist's point of view while Julia Kristeva responds from a psychoanalytic perspective. Their correspondence leads them to a controversial and fundamental question: is there anything sacred that can at the same time be considered strictly feminine? The two voices of the book work in tandem, fleshing out ideas and (...) blending together into a melody of experience. The result is a dialogue that delves into the mysteries of belief -- the relationship between faith and sexuality, the body and the senses -- which, Clément and Kristeva argue, women feel with special intensity. Although their discourse is not necessarily about theology, the authors consider the role of women and femininity in the religions of the world, from Christianity and Judaism to Confucianism and African animism. They are the first to admit that what they have undertaken is "as impossible to accomplish as it is fascinating." Nevertheless, their wide-ranging and exhilarating dialogue succeeds in raising questions that are perhaps more important to ask than to answer. (shrink)

Differences in difficulty between isomorphs of the Tower of Hanoi are generally explained in terms of differences in processing loads required by the different versions Kotovsky & Fallside, 1989 . Our claim is that the general knowledge about an action, activated by the context, is what guides the elaboration of problem representation. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated the context using four isomorphs. The results support the hypothesis: the selection of the adequate point of view on the action depends on (...) the context, and is a crucial step in the elaboration of problem representation. The more difficult versions are those that require abandoning the first point of view and selecting a new one. (shrink)

Bien que l’ayant rencontré parfois à Paris, je ne fis réellement connaissance de Daniel Charles qu’à partir du moment où il fut nommé professeur à la faculté de lettres de Nice et s’installa dans sa villa d’Antibes. Il y organisait des soirées et des dîners mémorables, préparés par sa femme Jacqueline qui avait le quadruple avantage d’être charmante, québécoise, pianiste et excellente cuisinière. Nous ne tardâmes pas à devenir intimes. L’origine de notre amitié fut...

As a maverick philosopher unafraid of challenging the ideas and methods of his colleagues, Clément Rosset's work attempts to connect sometimes-lofty academic philosophy with the concerns of everyday life. For decades, he has worked to illuminate some of the most obscure metaphysical issues, often using popular film, theatre, novels, and comic books to illustrate his ideas, and as a result he has gained a reputation as both a happy sage and a singular mind. In The Real and Its Double, (...) expertly translated by Chris Turner, Rosset takes on the question of the Real and humanity's natural ability to sidestep and bypass it. The key to this type of evasion, Rosset suggests, is a certain form of oracular thinking that lies buried in the origins of Western metaphysics and psychology. Here, Rosset eschews the prolix and paradoxical psychological theories of Derrida and Lacan in favor of an exceptional lucidity that speaks to his Nietzschean-tragic love of life. If good philosophy can be defined as expressing complicated things in a simple way, then here, in one of his best-known works, Rosset has proven himself a master. (shrink)

Social learning is likely to include affective processes: it is necessary for newcomers to discover what value to attach to objects, persons, and events in a given social environment. This learning relies largely on the evaluation of others’ emotional expressions. This study has two objectives. Firstly, we compare two closely related concepts that are employed to describe the use of another person’s appraisal to make sense of a given situation: social appraisal and social referencing. We contend that social referencing constitutes (...) a type of social appraisal. Secondly, we introduce the concept of affective social learning with the hope that it may help to discriminate the different ways in which emotions play a critical role in the processes of socialization. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze, les vampires, Emil Cioran, Samuel Beckett, le dandysme, Friedrich Nietzsche, Raymond Roussel, Casanova, Arthur Schopenhauer, Jean-Luc Godard, Goscinny & Uderzo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Le réel, le double, l’illusion, le tragique, la joie, la musique, la philosophie, la politique, le péché, l’enseignement. Faits divers sont les miscellanées de Clément Rosset : le répertoire désordonné et jubilatoire de ses passions et de ses dégoûts, de ses intérêts et de ses bâillements, de ses tocades et de ses coups (...) de sang – ainsi que de la prodigieuse liberté de ton et de pensée avec laquelle il les exprime et les pense. Un des philosophes, un des écrivains les plus singuliers de notre temps revisite les coulisses de son œuvre. Et vous êtes invités. (shrink)

The field of computational law has increasingly moved into the focus of the scientific community, with recent research analysing its issues and risks. In this article, we seek to draw a structured and comprehensive list of societal issues that the deployment of automatically processable regulation could entail. We do this by systematically exploring attributes of the law that are being challenged through its encoding and by taking stock of what issues current projects in this field raise. This article adds to (...) the current literature not only by providing a needed framework to structure arising issues of computational law but also by bridging the gap between theoretical literature and practical implementation. Key findings of this article are: (1) The primary benefit (efficiency vs. accessibility) sought after when encoding law matters with respect to the issues such an endeavor triggers; (2) Specific characteristics of a project—project type, degree of mediation by computers, and potential for divergence of interests—each impact the overall number of societal issues arising from the implementation of automatically processable regulation. (shrink)

Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, Daniel Dennett asserts in this first full scale presentation of...

In the last 25 years, several philosophers and scientists have challenged the historical consensus that nonhuman animals cannot be moral agents. In this article, I examine this challenge and the debate it has provoked. Advocates of animal moral agency have supported their claims by appealing to non-rationalist accounts of morality and to observations of animal behavior. Critics have focused on the dangers of anthropomorphism and have argued that we cannot know animals’ states of mind with any certainty. Despite the strengths (...) of the arguments for animal moral agency, the critics’ skeptical counter-challenges seem to bring this debate to a stalemate. However, I suggest that recent philosophical work focusing on personal experiences with animals may reveal a way to dissolve skeptical concerns and offer new insights about the role of animals in morality. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. Non-reductionists (...) believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children’s attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism. (shrink)

The overlap between virtue epistemology and the philosophy of education has been dominated by discussions of the epistemic qualities of good learners, that is, the intellectual virtues that must be nurtured in students. Not much has been said about the epistemic qualities of good teachers expressed in virtue-theoretic terms. This paper offers a preliminary account of such qualities, which are designated as pedagogical virtues. I use Battaly's pluralist conception of intellectual virtue as a starting point, then describe a pedagogical virtue (...) as an intellectual virtue with an other-regarding success or motivational component. I end with an elucidation of the pedagogical versions of two mainstream intellectual virtues, perseverance and inquisitiveness. (shrink)

El modernismo es una teoría de la relación del arte con su medio, y en ningún lugar se ve esto más claro que en el pensamiento de Clement Greenberg. Greenberg fue probablemente el crítico de arte más influyente del siglo xx, uno de los responsables del reconocimiento del impresionismo abstracto y de la pintura de campos de color, así como del desplazamiento del centro del mundo del arte desde París a Nueva York. Su práctica como crítico de arte estaba, además, (...) fundada en una ambiciosa teoría del modernismo artístico y, en particular, pictórico. “Towards a Newer Laocoön”, aparecido originalmente en 1940 y que se publica aquí por primera vez en español, forma parte del puñado de ensayos imprescindibles para comprender su pensamiento estético. (shrink)

Kirby and Paris have exhibited combinatorial algorithms whose computations always terminate, but for which termination is not provable in elementary arithmetic. However, termination of these computations can be proved by adding an axiom first introduced by Goodstein in 1944. Our purpose is to investigate this axiom of Goodstein, and some of its variants, and to show that these are potentially adequate to prove termination of computations of a wide class of algorithms. We prove that many variations of Goodstein's axiom are (...) equivalent, over elementary arithmetic, and contrast these results with those recently obtained for Kruskal's theorem. (shrink)

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, now a global health crisis, has surprised health authorities around the world. Recent studies suggest that the measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak have generated issues throughout the population. Thus, it is necessary to establish and identify the possible risk factors related to the psychosocial and psychophysiological strain during the COVID-19 outbreak. The present extensive literature review assesses the social, psychological, and physiological consequences of COVID-19, reviewing the impact of quarantine measures, (...) isolation, vast human loss, social and financial consequences in the family’s economies, and its impact on the psychological health of the population. We also discussed the effect of psychophysiological factors, considering the impact of physical inactivity and modifications in nutritional habits, at psychological and physiological levels. The present review includes an actualized to date bibliography, articles for which were methodologically analyzed to verify they met the standards of quality and scientific accuracy. Authors understand the pandemic as a multifactorial event for which only a profound and extensive analysis would lead to better compression and efficient intervention in the near future. (shrink)

In this work, Colleen Clements presents her case for the need to subject the field of bioethics to a critical external analysis apart from the current postmodern assumptions. Clements argues that, since the 1970s, bioethics has refuted human values in favour of political consensus building. This failure to recognize basic human values in the ethical critique of modern medicine has lead to a dehumanization of the medical system by the field. Clements proceeds to advocate a naturalistic theory of bioethics that (...) reinstates primary human values. (shrink)