Long considered to be an impenetrable, hermetic treatise, Walter Benjamin's The Origin of German Tragic Drama has rarely received the attention it deserves as a key text, central to a full understanding of his work. In this critically acclaimed study, distinguished Benjamin scholar Beatrice Hanssen unlocks the philosophical and ethical dimensions of his thought with great clarity and sophisitication.

Béatrice Longuenesse presents an original exploration of our understanding of ourselves and the way we talk about ourselves. In the first part of the book she discusses contemporary analyses of our use of 'I' in language and thought, and compares them to Kant's account of self-consciousness, especially the type of self-consciousness expressed in the proposition 'I think.' According to many contemporary philosophers, necessarily, any instance of our use of 'I' is backed by our consciousness of our own body. For Kant, (...) in contrast, 'I think' just expresses our consciousness of being engaged in bringing rational unity into the contents of our mental states. In the second part of the book, Longuenesse analyzes the details of Kant's view and argues that contemporary discussions in philosophy and psychology stand to benefit from Kant's insights into self-consciousness and the unity of consciousness. The third and final part of the book outlines similarities between Kant's view of the structure of mental life grounding our uses of 'I' in 'I think' and in the moral 'I ought to, ' on the one hand; and Freud's analysis of the organizations of mental processes he calls 'ego' and 'superego' on the other hand. Longuenesse argues that Freudian metapsychology offers a path to a naturalization of Kant's transcendental view of the mind. It offers a developmental account of the normative capacities that ground our uses of 'I, ' which Kant thought could not be accounted for without appealing to a world of pure intelligences, distinct from the empirical, natural world of physical entities. (shrink)

Many philosophers as well as many biological psychologists think that recent experiments in neuropsychology have definitively discredited any notion of freedom of the will. I argue that the arguments mounted against the concept of freedom of the will in the name of natural causal determinism are valuable but not new, and that they leave intact a concept of freedom of the will that is compatible with causal determinism. After explaining this concept, I argue that it is interestingly related to our (...) use of the first person pronoun “I.” I discuss three examples of our use of “I” in thought and language and submit a few questions I would like neuropsychologists to answer concerning the brain processes that might underlie those uses. I suggest answering these questions would support the compatibilist notion of freedom of the will I have offered in part 1 of the paper. (shrink)

This interview with M. Beatrice Fazi explores in detail her work on computation. Focusing in particular upon her recent publications, it covers the themes of contingency and indeterminacy. The questions explore Fazi’s perspectives on computational aesthetics, abstraction and experience. Through an interrogation of the conceptual insights that Fazi’s recent work offers, the interview outlines an agenda for future work in the philosophy of computation and sets forward a series of conceptual policies for seeing the digital, software and data in (...) a fresh light. (shrink)

"Kant and the Capacity to Judge" will prove to be an important and influential event in Kant studies and in philosophy.

Up to the present, there have not been any specific norms regarding medically assisted human reproduction in Romanian legislation. Due to this situation the general legislation regarding medical assistance, the Penal and Civil law and the provisions of the Code of Deontology of the Romanian College of Physicians are applied to the field of medically assisted human reproduction. By analysing the ethical and legal conflicts regarding medically assisted human reproduction in Romania, some characteristics cannot be set apart because they derive (...) from religious, cultural and socio-economic aspects. In this article the authors identify the development stages of medically assisted human reproduction in Romania, beginning from these characteristics and insisting upon the failure of the legal system in this specific field. The authors consider that the law regarding medically assisted human reproduction cannot be effective because it did not take into account the ethical and cultural aspects that might appear. Furthermore, in this framework of the legal process, no public debate involving the representatives of civil society was undertaken although the Council of Europe Oviedo Convention approved by our country according to law no. 17/2001 stipulated exactly this working method. Content Type Journal Article Pages 4-13 Authors Beatrice Ioan, PHD, MD, MA IN BIOETHICS, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania Vasile Astarastoae, PHD, MD, JD, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania Journal Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics Online ISSN 2043-0469 Print ISSN 1028-7825 Journal Volume Volume 14 Journal Issue Volume 14, Number 2 / 2008. (shrink)

L’objectif de cette communication est d’aborder la question des revues scientifiques du point de vue des chercheurs : dans quelle mesure le système de publication est-il contraignant pour l’activité scientifique et à quel point lui est-il, dans le même temps, indispensable ?\nL’empreinte du système de publication sur l’activité des chercheurs peut s’observer au moins à\ntrois niveaux. Tout d’abord, dès leur apparition, les publications scientifiques ont été le lieu de la mise en place d’une « technologie littéraire », d’une standardisation progressive (...) du mode de présentation des\nrésultats de la recherche, participant ainsi de manière essentielle au processus de légitimation\ndes savoirs scientifiques. Parallèlement, mais sur un plan plus général, le développement d’un\nmarché de l’édition scientifique a contribué à l’organisation de la sphère scientifique en spécialités\net en disciplines, avec leurs frontières et leurs propres normes. Enfin, que ce soit lors de leurs\néchanges, dans le cadre de leurs collaborations mais aussi pour l’évaluation de leurs travaux, les\npublications sont fortement impliquées dans la pratique quotidienne des scientifiques. L’activité\nde publication est alors l’occasion de multiples régulations du travail collectif des chercheurs.\nQuelles sont les transformations que le développement de l’édition numérique peut entraîner à\ntous ces niveaux ? (shrink)

Der Forschung gelaufig ist die Rede von einer ersten (5./4. Jh. v. Chr.) und der sog. Zweiten Sophistik (2. Jh. n. Chr). Aber auch die Literatur des Hellenismus und der fruhen Kaiserzeit kennt zahlreiche Sophisten. Der Sophist, verstanden als (schlechter) Lehrer und Redner, Gegenspieler des Philosophen oder Vertreter der griechischen Bildung, bildet deshalb den Dreh-und Angelpunkt der Beitrage, die Schlaglichter auf Orte, Methoden und Personen der Bildungsvermittlung werfen. Die Beitrage zeigen, wie pagane und judische Denker, Platoniker und Stoiker Bildung als (...) Weg zum richtigen Welt- und Gottesverstandnis verstehen. Mit Beitragen von: Christian Fron, Marco Galli, Johann Goeken, Stefanie Holder, Alexandra Michalewski, Peter Scholz, Paul Schubert, Gregory E. Sterling, Werner Urbanz, Beatrice Wys. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 62, Issue 1, Page 70-83, March 2021.

Expressing ‘essence’ in the translation and commentary of Timaeus by Calcidius depends on Platonist terminology which is not completely stabilised. We will see how, in his translation, Calcidius translated Greek words as οὐσία or φύσις, but also how he used the word substantia whereas there was no expression of essence in the Greek text. The Latin commentator used both essentia and substantia, but the latter quite often. However, in doing so, he weakened the meaning of the word substantia. Lastly, Calcidius (...) translated into Latin and used Greek no‑Platonist expressions with a very specific signification of ‘essence’. (shrink)

Desde los primeros años de su reflexión, Agustín entiende la "memoria" como una potencia operativa del alma. No la concibe simplemente como "almacén" de datos pasados, sino que, más bien, la presenta como centro "ordenador" y "coordinador" de los procesos psíquicos. En los escritos primeros, Agustín resalta la capacidad de la memoria para contraer y dilatar, tanto en relación con la "actio" con la que el alma mueve al cuerpo ("De immortalitate animae), cuanto en relación con la percepción como actividad (...) cognitiva ("De musica"). A partir de aquellos, la memoria viene presentada como una potencia implicada en actividades múltiples: en la formación de las imágenes de objetos percibidos ("phantasiai"), en su fijación, en la reevocación de objetos percibidos en el pasado (recordatio) y en la creación de imágenes de cosas jamás percibidas, sobre la base de recuerdos genéricos (phantasmata). En el curso de su reflexión, Agustín delinea progresivamente el carácter plurifuncional de la memoria, llegando a definirla en el "De Trinitate" como "cogitandi modus". (shrink)

Medical science is advancing all the time. Researchers are constantly trying to find new ways to help people to have long and healthy lives. Thanks to their work, doctors today can cure diseases, lessen pain, replace unhealthy limbs or organs, and help infertile couples have children. Doctors can even keep seriously ill people alive against all odds. But not everyone is enamored with advances in medicine. They question whether it is appropriate to prolong life in all cases, or believe that (...) certain treatments have been developed unethically. This book looks at how the ways that doctors treat the sick are developed, and examines some of the questions that are raised by advances in medical science. (shrink)

This paper investigates the link between the total bivariate risk premium and the sum of partial bivariate risk premia. Whereas in the case of small risks, the non interaction between risks is a sufficient condition to obtain the equality between the total risk premium and the sum of partial risk premia, the paper shows that this condition is not sufficient for large risks. The non interaction between risks occurs in two cases: if risks are independent or if individual's marginal utility (...) of one good is independent of the endowment in the other. Without restriction on the utility function, none of these two conditions is sufficient for large risks. If attention is restricted to preferences that exhibit constant absolute risk aversion, the non variability of the marginal utility of good one with respect to variations in endowment in the other remains a sufficient condition, while the independence between risks does not. (shrink)

Cet article traite des enjeux réels et pragmatiques des modes d’adresse et de désignation des femmes dans le processus de légitimation à être des personnes comme les autres. L’article s’intéresse ici aux modalités performatives du traitement de ces questions en milieu institutionnel, administratif, juridique qui passent parfois par des sanctions financières, comme cela est par exemple le cas, à un niveau global et reconnu, pour le non-respect de la loi sur la parité par les partis politiques. La discrimination langagière, linguistique, (...) des femmes est un phénomène acculturé et donc rendu invisible, qui ne peut être brisé dans sa circularité que par le fait de le rendre visible à travers des relevés et analyses de certains de ces phénomènes qui font leur quotidien. Diverses analyses de faits administratifs discriminants envers les femmes illustrent la nécessité et les difficultés d’un changement de paradigme – à savoir, en effet, les femmes sont des Humains comme les autres. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza las variedades y la función de la imitación literaria (mu‘āraḍa) en al-Andalus a partir de dos poemas que Ibn Darrāj al-Qasṭallī (m. 421/1030) dedicó a sus mecenas al-Ḥājib al-Manrṣūr y al-Mundhir b. Yaḥyā. El primero de ellos imita un poema de Abū Nuwās, en competición poética explícita con el mismo. El segundo es una imitación no reconocida como tal del poema de al-Mutanabbī sobre la batalla de al-Ḥadath, que se invoca como “vocabulario de un segundo poder más (...) elevado” para convertir la celebración de una victoria militar en la de una boda. al-Qasṭallī utilizó este segundo poema como estrategia ideológica para defender la diplomacia pacífica que su mecenas mantenía con dos vecinos cristianos de Zaragoza con los que formaba una coalición contra una tercera facción cristiana. Con él respondía a la crítica de la que esta política era objeto entre ciertos musulmanes. Ambas imitaciones muestran la considerable libertad que Ibn Darrāj se tomó a la hora de desarrollar los temas presentes en sus sub-textos. (shrink)

Der Teppich der Kultur und Sprache, der Praxen und Normen, der Ideen, Geschichte und Wissenschaften, der den Hintergrund unserer Gegenwart bildet, ist an vielen Stellen zerschlissen und in einem Zustand der Auflösung begriffen. Unser ganzes Handeln ist darauf gerichtet, diesen Teppich zu restaurieren. Vor welchem Hintergrund ist Handeln uns möglich und wie ist dieser Handlungshintergrund offen für unsere handelnde Einflussnahme? Dieses Buch untersucht Als-ob-Strukturen nach Hans Vaihinger und fügt sie ein in die Rekonstruktion gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit nach John R. Searle, denn (...) ein heuristischer Fiktionsbegriff ist zur Erklärung des Handlungshintergrundes unerlässlich. (shrink)

The article reconstructs three key concepts of Hans Vaihinger: the idea of mental fictions as self-contradictory, provisory, conscious, and purposeful; the law of the devolution of ideas stating that an idea oscillates between dogma, hypothesis, or fiction; and the underlying assumption about human consciousness that the psyche constructs thoughts around perceptions like an oyster produces a pearl. In a second, constructive part, these concepts are applied in a discussion of John Searle’s social ontologically extended theory of speech acts. The article (...) introduces the Vaihingerian as-if to Searle’s account of declarations. The explanatory work in a model of social reality as Searle has proposed it rests on the ability to show a necessary connection between collective and individual intentionality facilitated through linguistic structure. The methodological individualism of the model requires that motivational assumptions about collective structures be realized in individual brains. The as-if stance of the declarer provides just this connection. (shrink)