Christine Jean Thomas - Plato's Introduction of Forms - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 485-486 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Christine J. Thomas Dartmouth College R. M. Dancy. Plato's Introduction of Forms. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xii + 348. Cloth, $75.00. Russell Dancy's recent book could easily bear the title, 'A Socratic Theory of Definition'. The first two-thirds of the text (...) extract and examine various tenets of a "theory of definition" operative in a variety of Socratic dialogues. The bulk of the theory is captured in three conditions on adequacy for a definition : the definiens must be substitutable salve veritate for the definiendum; the.. (shrink)

This essay takes, as its starting point, Andreas Malm’s effort, in How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire, to legitimize and normalize property destruction in the context of the climate movement. The sabotage of energy infrastructures, I counter, cannot make sense, for it poses a threat to coherence, removing without replacing the material and discursive conditions that grant the climate movement its meaning and purpose within late capitalism and late liberalism. Recent protests entailing (...) the defacement of paintings share with ecocriticism an investment in an essentially liberal, pedagogical and moral covenant, one that urges witnesses to undergo an individual process of reflection in order to acquire or affirm values and priorities friendlier to the environment. Sabotage, by contrast, violates this covenant; blowing up a pipeline may be said to have met its goals by reducing and slowing the supply of oil, regardless of what the public learned from sabotage’s mediatization. Drawing on psychoanalytic accounts of aesthetic education, I argue that sabotage introduces absurdity into a category—action—that the climate movement otherwise insists is self-identical. Sabotage does this by subtracting the world wherein putatively future-bound actions, including having and raising a child, mean what they do. I test out this claim in a reading of Nell Zink’s novel The Wallcreeper and Benedikt Erlingsson’s film Woman at War (Kona fer í stríð), two absurdist comedies that formally amplify the semiotic crisis induced by sabotage and, in so doing, enable us to confront the necessary dislocation of politics from sense. (shrink)

"Exhalation," a 2008 science fiction short story by Ted Chiang, virtuoso of the genre and the form, begins with a truism, refuted: "It has long been said that air (which others call argon) is the source of life. This is not in fact the case, and I engrave these words to describe how I came to understand the true source of life and, as a corollary, the means by which life will one day end" (37). The narrator's promise is so (...) alluring—knowledge of life's origin, knowledge of its expiration, and knowledge of the relation between the two—that we may be forgiven for overlooking the parenthetical. Argon amounts to less than one percent of the air breathed within Earth's atmosphere. The narrator specifies that "others call... Read More. (shrink)

This article generates an affective hermeneutics of the political. The research question, What is feeling political? is, at first, refined through the oeuvre of political theorist Simone Weil, whose focus on experience, involvement and attention highlights the role of sentience in political life. The inescapable normativity of Weil’s texts calls for an alternative approach to the question at hand, one that acknowledges the inevitability of the phenomenon of feeling political. In order to produce such an approach, the realm in which (...) said phenomenon occurs is spatialized as an indefinite series of rhizomatic affective atmospheres in which the negotiation of one’s involvement, resistance, association, and isolation prompts a variety of orientations. The work of Lauren Berlant is subsequently considered as a means to stress the interplay between noise and ambience on one hand, and the notions of citizenship and community on the other. Ultimately, a reflection inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari emphasizes the humanist undertone of this investigation, reposing the question of feeling political as an ontological query. (shrink)

How films help us understand the inevitable death of Earth and humanity.

The Cratylus contains Plato's most extensive study of the relation of language to reality and to the pursuit of wisdom. Yet the dialogue has remained relatively neglected in efforts to understand Plato's deepest metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The blame for such neglect lies largely in the dialogue's extensive, difficult, even mysterious etymological section. Recent attempts to make sense of the bulk of the Cratylus are shedding much welcome light on the important roles that the etymological analyses play in the dialogue (...) and in Plato's philosophy more generally. The article outlines three strategies of interpretation before concluding with the author's own proposal. (shrink)

Whether or not conscious recollection in autobiographical memory is affected in schizophrenia is unknown. The aim of this study was to address this issue using an experiential approach. An autobiographical memory enquiry was used in combination with the Remember/Know procedure. Twenty-two patients with schizophrenia and 22 normal subjects were asked to recall specific autobiographical memories from four lifetime periods and to indicate the subjective states of awareness associated with the recall of what happened, when and where. They gave Remember, Know (...) or Guess responses according to whether they recalled these aspects of the event on the basis of conscious recollection, simply knowing, or guessing. Results showed that the frequency and consistency of Remember responses was significantly lower in patients than in comparison subjects. In contrast, the frequency of Know responses was not significantly different, whereas the frequency of patients’ Guess responses was significantly enhanced. It is concluded that the frequency and consistency of conscious recollection in autobiographical memory is reduced in patients with schizophrenia. (shrink)

Plagiarism and other transgressions of the norms of academic integrity appear to be a persistent problem among upper secondary students. Numerous surveys have revealed high levels of infringement of what appear to be clearly stated rules. Less attention has been given to students’ understanding of academic integrity, and to the potential misconceptions and false beliefs that may make it difficult for them to comply with existing rules and handle complex real-life situations.In this paper we report findings from a survey of (...) European upper secondary students’ views on issues relating to academic integrity. We relate these findings to the students’ training about academic integrity, self-reported level of questionable behavior and country of study.A total of 1654 students at 51 institutions located in 6 European countries participated in the study. The participants generally believed they had a good understanding of the rules applying to them and knew how to behave in compliance with norms of academic integrity. The results indicate, however, that often, in practice, this belief was mistaken. Many students had an inadequate understanding of core elements of academic integrity. They were uncertain about how to act, and they struggled in the handling of complex situations that require context-sensitive judgement. While some differences between countries were identified, they were modest and exhibited no clear pattern. Our results also suggest that reducing students’ level of uncertainty and, to a lesser degree, improving their level of knowledge could lead them to engage less in certain types of questionable behaviours. Surprisingly, the effect of academic training is modest and ambiguous. The study also confirms that perception of peer behaviour has the strongest association with student engagement in questionable behaviours. Thus, academic integrity at the upper secondary level cannot be explained simply in terms of individual ethics or knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Early in Plato’s Euthydemus, sophistical arguments threaten the intelligibility of the process of learning. According to M. M. McCabe, Socrates resists the sophists’ arguments by resisting their problematic replacement model of change. The replacement model proposes that one item (e.g., an unlearned one) is simply replaced with a nonidentical item (e.g., a learned one). Socrates is said to endorse a rival metaphysics of temporally extended, teleologically structured activities. The rival model allows an enduring subject to survive ‘aspect changes’ by (...) occupying distinct stages in a continuous, unified process. McCabe may be right that Socrates presupposes or favors a metaphysics of continuous, end-oriented activities. If so, there are independent reasons to strive to understand the teleological structure of the activity of learning. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that Socrates relies on such a metaphysics to resist the learning arguments at 275d—278d. I argue that Socrates appeals, instead, to the complexity of the learning process to recognize two distinct, yet related, uses of the term ‘learning.’ In order to resist the sophists’ arguments, Socrates recommends attending to ‘the correctness of names’. Socrates’s disambiguating response is sufficient to dissolve the sophistical arguments while remaining compatible with a variety of metaphysics of individuals and activities. (shrink)

The Eleatic Visitor speaks forcefully when he insists, ‘Necessarily, whenever there is speech, it is speech of something; it is impossible for it not to be of something’. For ‘if it were not of anything, it would not be speech at all; for we showed that it is impossible for there to be speech that is speech of nothing’. Presumably, at 263c10, when he claims to have ‘shown’ that it is impossible for speech to be of nothing, the Visitor is (...) referring back to the Parmenidean puzzles at Sophist 237ff. (shrink)

In organizational psychology the positive effects of democratically structured enterprises on their employees are well documented. However, the longstanding viability as well as economic success of democratic enterprises in a capitalistic market environment has long been contested. For instance, this has given rise to widespread endorsement of the “degeneration thesis” and the so-called “iron law of oligarchy”. By reviewing 77 qualitative studies that examined 83 democratic enterprises within the last 50 years, the present systematic review provides evidence that such enterprises (...) are able to economically survive and prosper. The majority of studied enterprises either resisted pressures toward degeneration or subsequently regenerated after undergoing degenerative processes. Only 9.5% fully degenerated in accordance with the degeneration thesis and the “iron law of oligarchy”, while 27.0% of the democratic enterprises showed diverse and mixed forms of degeneration tendencies, indicating that the notion of an “iron law” needs to be revised. Within the nine investigated cases of Mondragon not one single enterprise or group fully degenerated. Three cases showed degenerative tendencies, another three one degeneration tendencies and simultaneously regeneration, one case fully resisted degeneration tendencies and two cases regenerated. Further, this systematic review provides an overview of organizational and external conditions, non-/democratic or non-/participative practices and psychological phenomena that contribute to the degeneration, regeneration, or resistance to degeneration. The described examples of such practices may help practitioners to implement and maintain democratic structures and processes in contemporary organizations. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a philosophical and ethical reflection about quiet quitting as a tool of political resistance for nurses. Quiet quitting is a trend that gained traction on TikTok in July 2022 and emerged as a method of resistance among employees facing increasing demands from their workplaces at the detriment of their personal lives. It is characterised by employees refraining from exceeding the basic requirements outlined in their job descriptions. To understand why quiet quitting can be a tool (...) of resistance useful for nurses, we first draw on Frédéric Gros' concept of ‘surplus obedience’ and Michael Lipsky's notion of ‘routines and simplification strategies’ to highlight the ethical implications associated with nurses engaging in and sustaining harmful systems, such as the neoliberal healthcare system. Leaning again on Gros, we then propose that ‘obedience a minima’, a concept akin to quiet quitting, can serve as a method of ethical nursing resistance. After describing what the concept entails, we provide a discussion emphasising the potential of obedience a minima as a one method, among many, that can be leveraged by nurses to challenge and resist a system that prioritises financial considerations over patient wellbeing. The article concludes by reflecting on the ethical nature of resistance in the context of nursing, that is the act of obeying oneself and refraining from participating in systems that are detrimental to the lives of Others. (shrink)

In this dissertation I explore Plato's views about the nature of language and thought, and their relations to the world. Plato is sometimes thought to hold that meaningful terms do not require referents at all. Others argue that he holds a referential theory of meaning according to which the meaning of a term just is its referent. I reject both of these views, arguing that Plato thinks that a significant term must have a referent but that the referent of a (...) term does not exhaust its signification: there is also a descriptive component. On my view, Plato embraces a mixed account according to which naming and thought are descriptive and object dependent. Moreover, according to Plato, language is prior to thought, and the way the world is---what objects there are---ultimately determines what we can talk and think about. ;I focus on the Cratylus, Theaetetus and Sophist, the dialogues in which Plato develops his most sophisticated discussions of language and thought. In the Cratylus , Plato articulates an account of the signification of names, and he reveals his views about the nature and role of nominal definitions---the clusters of descriptions that linguistically competent speakers have in mind when they use terms from their language. A name signifies a nominal definition by convention; it signifies a real nature by nature. Plato defends an account of the necessary conditions on thought in the Theaetetus where the account of thought Plato ultimately embraces is not, as some have argued, a form of Russellian acquaintance. For Plato, thought is object dependent and at the same time conceptual. The commitment to object dependence and to the fundamental status of the world is evident in all three dialogues, but it is only explicitly defended in the Sophist. Plato argues that discourse and thought are hostage to what there is. Actual, countable objects determine the possible contents of language and thought. (shrink)

The interlocutors of Plato’s Cratylus agree that “it is far better to learn and to inquire from the things themselves than from their names”. Although surprisingly little attention has been paid to these remarks, at least some commentators view Plato as articulating a preference for direct, nonlinguistic cognitive access to the objects of inquiry. Another commentator takes Plato simply to recommend first-hand, yet linguistic, experience in addition to instruction from experts. This paper defends, in contrast to both interpretations, the view (...) that inquiry without names is dialectical, linguistic inquiry into metaphysical first principles. As such, inquiry without names is prior to inquiry from or through names. Inquiry without names is a form of transcendental metaphysics. (shrink)

Age‐related and cancer‐related epigenomic modifications have been associated with enhanced cell‐to‐cell gene expression variability that characterizes increased cellular stochasticity. Since gene expression variability appears to be highly reduced by—and epigenetic and phenotypic stability acquired through—direct or long‐range cellular interactions during cell differentiation, we propose a common origin for aging and cancer in the failure to control cellular stochasticity by cell–cell interactions. Tissue‐disruption‐induced cellular stochasticity associated with epigenetic drift would be at the origin of organ dysfunction because of an increase in (...) phenotypic variation among cells, ultimately leading to cell death and organ failure through a loss of coordination in cellular functions, and eventually to cancerization. We propose mechanistic research perspectives to corroborate this hypothesis and explore its evolutionary consequences, highlighting a positive correlation between the median age of mass loss onset (a proxy for the onset of organ aging) and the median age at cancer diagnosis. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, Plato's efforts at metaphysical explanation not only fail, they are nonsensical. In particular, Plato's appeals to Forms as metaphysically explanatory of the sensibles that participate in them is "empty talk" since "'participating' means nothing". I defend Plato against Aristotle's charge by identifying a particular, substantive model of metaphysical predication as the favored model of Plato's late ontology. The model posits two basic metaphysical predication relations: self-predication and participation. In order to understand the participation relation, it is important (...) first to understand how Plato's Forms are self-predicative paradigms. According to the favored model, Forms are self-predicative paradigms insofar as they are ideal, abstract encoders of structural essences. Sensibles participate in Forms by exemplifying the structures encoded in the Forms. Given plausible conditions on metaphysical explanation, Plato's appeals to abstract Forms as metaphysically explanatory of sensibles is a reasonable competitor for Aristotle's appeals to natural, substantial forms. At the very least, Plato's appeals to a participation relation are not empty. (shrink)

Socrates expresses at least some interest in the knowledge of knowledge as an ability “to divide things and say that one is knowledge and the other is not knowledge”. If Hugh Benson’s characteristically lucid and careful book succeeds in its portrayal of Socrates as epistemologist, then the Charmides text is perhaps more optimistic than is often conceded. For unlike Gregory Vlastos’s Socrates, who was “no epistemologist, ” Benson’s promises “a philosophically complex, fundamentally coherent, and remarkably influential model of knowledge, ” (...) a model Socrates arrives at, at least in part, by means of a reflective epistemological perspective. (shrink)

What is the meaning of language expressions and how to compute or calculate it? In this paper, we give an answer to this question by analysing the meanings of aspects and tenses in natural languages inside the formal model of an grammar of applicative, cognitive and enunciative operations , using the applicative formalism, functional types of categorial grammars and combinatory logic . In the enunciative theory and following , an utterance can be decomposed into two components: a modus and a (...) dictum . In GRACE, the modus is a complex operator applied to a proposition and is generated from more elementary operators of the categories of tense, aspect, and modality. The dictum is a proposition generated by a predicative relation. In this way, we can attribute a semantic meaning to different grammatical aspecto-temporal operators. The applicative expressions of CL can be easily translated into a functional programming language such as HASKELL or CAML. (shrink)

It has become a truism that the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) is necessary and must help guide technological developments. Numerous ethical guidelines have emerged from academia, industry, government and civil society in recent years. While they provide a basis for discussion on appropriate regulation of AI, it is not always clear how these ethical guidelines were developed, and by whom. Using content analysis, we surveyed a sample of the major documents (_n_ = 47) and analyzed the accessible information regarding (...) their methodology and stakeholder engagement. Surprisingly, only 38% report some form of stakeholder engagement (with 9% involving citizens) and most do not report their methodology for developing normative insights (15%). Our results show that documents with stakeholder engagement develop more comprehensive ethical guidance with greater applicability, and that the private sector is least likely to engage stakeholders. We argue that the current trend for enunciating AI ethical guidance not only poses widely discussed challenges of applicability in practice, but also of transparent development (as it rather behaves as a black box) and of active engagement of diversified, independent and trustworthy stakeholders. While most of these documents consider people and the common good as central to their telos, engagement with the general public is significantly lacking. As AI ethics moves from the initial race for enunciating general principles to more sustainable, inclusive and practical guidance, stakeholder engagement and citizen involvement will need to be embedded into the framing of ethical and societal expectations towards this technology. (shrink)

Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

In this commentary of Koonin’s target paper, we defend an extended view of CRISPR-Cas immunity by arguing that CRISPR-Cas includes, but cannot be reduced to, defence against nonself. CRISPR-Cas systems can target endogenous elements and tolerate exogenous elements. We conclude that the vocabulary of “defence” and “nonself” might be misleading when describing CRISPR-Cas systems.

Examines the relationship between the question of God and the destiny of metaphysics. Concept of the end of metaphysics; Ambiguous relation between phenomenology and metaphysics; Return of special metaphysics in phenomenology; Phenomenological figure of God. Examines the relationship between the question of God and the destiny of metaphysics. Concept of the end of metaphysics; Ambiguous relation between phenomenology and metaphysics; Return of special metaphysics in phenomenology; Phenomenological figure of God.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Metaphysics of Action The Explanation of Action The Psychology of Action References.

Volume 10, Issue 3, September 2019, Page 408-421.

“Classic,” serotonergic psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin are the objects of renewed attention in science and psychiatry. A recent spate of research has produced evidence that psychedelics might be safe and effective adjuncts to the treatment of mood and addictive disorders, agents of positive psychological change in healthy subjects, and valuable tools for studying the neural mechanisms of perception and cognition. This chapter surveys three philosophical debates that have arisen in response to this “renaissance” of psychedelic research. The (...) first concerns the mechanisms of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (“psychedelic therapy”): How, exactly, does psychedelic administration in controlled conditions cause lasting psychological benefits? The second concerns the implications of psychedelic research for the philosophy of mind: Does psychedelic evidence show that there can be conscious mental states lacking all forms of self-consciousness? The third concerns the epistemic status of the psychedelic state: Is it possible that certain kinds of knowledge, or other epistemic benefits, could be gained by undergoing a psychedelic experience? (shrink)

The integral role of royal women in political systems structured by diplomatic marriage is revealed in a series of legal verdicts from a case that involved the rulers of Late Bronze Age Ugarit, Amurru, and Ḫatti. These verdicts adjudicate the divorce, loss of political status, and execution of a royal woman who was the wife of the king of Ugarit, the daughter and sister of two successive kings of Amurru, and the granddaughter and niece of two successive Hittite Great Kings. (...) The undoing of her multivalent political status destabilized the regional and imperial system in which she was enmeshed. Protracted negotiations were required to restore equilibrium to the system. Examination of the rhetorical and legal strategies through which these negotiations took place reveals the extent to which the relative power of royal men depended on their relationships to royal women. (shrink)

The Postmodern explained to children : Correspondence 1982- 1985.