This article explores the darker side of appeals to justice and social justice within liberal settings, particularly the US academy, where these terms are frequently mobilized to counter decolonial knowledge formations and aspirations. The authors draw from Frantz Fanon's critique of justice in colonial settings to demonstrate ways in which the coloniality of justice appears in the context of debates regarding the design and implementation of an Ethnic Studies requirement at the California State University and the California Community College Systems. (...) They view the decolonial pedagogy and epistemology of Ethnic Studies as an important dimension of the search for decolonial justice. (shrink)

In this engaging study, the authors put casuistry into its historical context, tracing the origin of moral reasoning in antiquity, its peak during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and its subsequent fall into disrepute from the mid-seventeenth century.

The decay and the restoration of civilization.--Civilization and ethics.

Rationalists often argue that empiricism is incoherent and conclude, on that basis, that some knowledge is a priori. I contend that such arguments against empiricism cannot be parlayed into an argument in support of the a priori since rationalism is open to the same arguments. I go on to offer an alternative strategy. The leading idea is that, instead of offering a priori arguments against empiricism, rationalists should marshal empirical support for their position.

In this comment to Kehrer (2014) the relevance of atheistic argumentation in the domain of ethics as an important part of religion is sketched.

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, (...) Number 3. (shrink)

The study of race and racism is an area of growth in philosophy. The quantity of research published under the banner of ‘the philosophy of race’ is increasing; research monographs and edited collections are appearing in greater numbers, and there is even a noticeable though still lamentably small increase in the number of professional posi- tions being advertised in the philosophy of race. However, one notable feature of this research is how much it focuses upon the racial context of the (...) USA. Most of its active and prominent researchers are based in the USA, nearly all new posts with designated research specialisms in race are at universities in the USA, and most of its key research questions are framed in the racial idiom and social context of the contemporary USA. In many respects, this is a good thing: if the philosophy of race cannot find fertile ground in the USA, there is little hope of it flourishing anywhere. However, this emphasis on the US context may have a negative side too. (shrink)

Contemporary scholarship tends to view Albert Camus as a modern, but he himself was conscious of the past and called the transition from Hellenism to Christianity “the true and only turning point in history.” For Camus, modernity was not fully comprehensible without an examination of the aspirations that were first articulated in antiquity and that later received their clearest expression in Christianity. These aspirations amounted to a fundamental reorientation of human life in politics, religion, science, and philosophy. Understanding the (...) nature and achievement of that reorientation became the central task of _Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism_. Primarily known through its inclusion in a French omnibus edition, it_ _has remained one of Camus’ least-read works, yet it marks his first attempt to understand the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity as he charted the movement from the Gospels through Gnosticism and Plotinus to what he calls Augustine’s “second revelation” of the Christian faith. Ronald Srigley’s translation of this seminal document helps illuminate these aspects of Camus’ work. His freestanding English edition exposes readers to an important part of Camus’ thought that is often overlooked by those concerned primarily with the book’s literary value and supersedes the extant McBride translation by retaining a greater degree of literalness. Srigley has fully annotated _Christian Metaphysics_ to include nearly all of Camus’ original citations and has tracked down many poorly identified sources. When Camus cites an ancient primary source, whether in French translation or in the original language, Srigley substitutes a standard English translation in the interest of making his edition accessible to a wider range of readers. His introduction places the text in the context of Camus’ better-known later work, explicating its relationship to those mature writings and exploring how its themes were reworked in subsequent books. Arguing that Camus was one of the great critics of modernity through his attempt to disentangle the Greeks from the Christians, Srigley clearly demonstrates the place of _Christian Metaphysics_ in Camus’ oeuvre. As the only stand-alone English version of this important work—and a long-overdue critical edition—his fluent translation is an essential benchmark in our understanding of Camus and his place in modern thought. (shrink)

A Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Szent-Györgyi concerns himself with the underlying forces and conditions that have prevented the realization of the higher possibilities of the American Dream, and, by extension, of all mankind. He addresses himself especially to the youth of the world in his attempt to show how man, the more he progresses technologically, seems the more to regress psychologically and socially, until he resembles his primate ancestors in a state of high schizophrenia. The fundamental question asked by this (...) book is: Why is it that most of the scientific research that is done to elevate human life serves in the end to destroy it? That this phenomenon exists is unarguable. How to alter it is the problem the author tackles. He finds the possibility, indeed the instrument of our survival, in our youth. Dr. Szent-Györgyi calls upon youth the world over to organize and exercise their power to create a new world. He implores them not to waste their energies in petulance and frustration-the world is ripe for the radical changes needed for man's survival, and for youth to fritter away their opportunity would be to compound the tragedy and seal the fate of mankind. Born into the fourth generation of a noted family of scientists in Hungary, Albert Szent-Györgyi decided at an early age to devote his life to biological research. As a medical student he required international recognition for his studies in microscopic anatomy. The First World War, which he spent in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, caused a break in his career. After the war he left his devastated country to work for ten years in various countries, notably Germany, Holland, England and the United States. He then returned to his native Hungary to help rebuild science there. In 1937, he won the Nobel Prize for his studies on metabolism and for the discovery of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). He soon found himself in conflict with the growing movement of Nazism, was arrested, escaped, and was hunted for years by the secret service of Hitler. After World War II, disappointed by Soviet colonialism and the terrorist methods of Stalin, he left Hungary and found refuge at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (shrink)

Il testo riproduce il discorso pronunciato da Schweitzer, nell’aprile 1957, dai microfoni di Radio Oslo. Prendendo l’avvio dai test americani e so­vie­tici con bombe all’idrogeno dei primi anni ’50, Schweitzer ricostruisce bre­ve­mente la storia delle scoperte e degli impieghi dell’energia atomica e il­lustra gli effetti della radioattività esterna e interna sul corpo umano e ani­male, compresi i presumibili effetti teratogeni sulle generazioni future. L’in­tento dell’appello è richiamare l’opinione pubblica alla sua re­spon­sa­bi­lità e alla sua forza: soltanto un’opinione pubblica correttamente informata (...) e fortemente determinata è in grado di ottenere dai governi la messa al ban­do degli ordigni nucleari.The text reproduces the Schweitzer’s speech in April 1957 from Radio Oslo. Beginning from American and Soviet tests with hydrogen bombs in 1954-1955, Schweitzer reconstructs briefly the history of discoveries and u­ses atomic energy’s and shows effects of external and internal ra­dio­ac­ti­vity on human and animal body, included presumable teratogenic effects on future generations. The speech’s purpose is to call public opinion to her res­ponsibility and her power: only a public opinion correctly informed and stron­gly determined can obtain from governments the nuclear device’s ex­clu­sion. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article answer what could be the distinction that the Stoics established between philosophy and the kata philosophian logos, according to the report by D.L., VII, 39-41. In this place I distance from the scholars who consider that the distinction is ontological, this is, that the kata philosophian logos refers to the discursive presentation of Stoic dogmas, whose nature is incorporeal, while the philosophy refers to a disposition of the soul, whose nature is corporeal. I rather propose that both are (...) dispositiones or states of the rational part of the soul and that the difference is in the degree of perfection that they have accomplished. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article maintains that in Stoicism physics depends epistemologically on ethics because the theological theses (which are part of stoic physics) about that the gods are beneficial and care about human beings depend on knowledge of the ethical realm of philosophy to be sustained or established forcefully. It is possible appreciate that dependence in the response Stoics would have given to the criticism of other philosophical schools to some of the Stoic theological theses. This is not a minor issue, (...) because the question about whether there are foundational relationships between ethics and physics or not depends on it. The proposal in this article intends to support the negative answer to this question under discussion in contemporary studies on Stoicism. (shrink)

The so-called problem of mental causation as discussed in the recent literature raises three central challenges for an adequate solution from a physicalist perspective: the threat of epiphenomenalism, the problem of externalism (or the difficulty in accounting for the causal efficacy of extrinsic mental properties) and the problem of causal exclusion (or the threat of over determination). We wish to account for mental causationas a real phenomenon within a physicalistic framework without accepting epiphenomenalism or overdetermination. The key ideas of our (...) proposal are an internal realism of causation combined with a relative notion of individuating events. We are arguing?contra Davidson?tha there is no absolute notion of events (neither as types nor as tokens) but rather one which is relative to explanatory interests and our intuitions concerning a relevant spatial and temporal overlap. Furthermore, we are presupposing a metaphysics of internal realism: We can only characterize entities by means of concepts produced within our epistemological framework. Physical concepts and mental concepts crossclassify the world as it is. Relying on this framework we try to explain how mental causation can be adequately described: Although mental concepts are not reducible to physical concepts and mental event-tokens may be different from "underlying" physical event-tokens, mental events are real phenomena that are realized by physical phenomena in special context conditions. (shrink)

Competitive Governments, explores in a systematic way the hypothesis that governments are internally competitive, that they are competitive in their relations with each other and in their relations with other institutions in society which, like them, supply consuming households with goods and services. Breton contends that competition not only serves to bring the political system to an equilibrium, but it also leads to a revelation of the households' true demand functions for publicly provided goods and services and to the molding (...) of a link between the quantities and the qualities demanded and supplied and the tax prices paid for these goods and services. In the real world where information is costly, the links may not be first-best, but they will be efficient if competition is vigorous. (shrink)