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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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.

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

From the 1981 “Sexuality and Solitude” to the 1982 “Le combat de la chasteté” to the 1984 History of Sexuality, Volume 2, Michel Foucault’s published works have long recognized the influence of the historian of late antiquity, Peter Brown. With the 2018 publication of Foucault’s draft of Les Aveux de la chair (Confessions of the Flesh) bearing no mention of Brown, the depth of this influence requires further elaboration. Despite Brown not appearing in the “Index of Modern Authors,” Confessions of (...) the Flesh reflects Foucault’s debt to Brown for his readings of Augustine of Hippo and his conceptualizations of sexuality and subjectivity. Analyzing archival evidence alongside biographical narratives helps us better understand Brown’s vital influence as Foucault was shifting his History of Sexuality project, his archival practices, and his genealogy of subjectivity. Appreciating the textual and conceptual engagement between Foucault and Brown thus illuminates not only Confessions of the Flesh as Volume 4 in the History of Sexuality series but also the conceptual and methodological developments of both scholars in their disciplinary intersections. (shrink)

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

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

The resting-state human electroencephalogram power spectrum is dominated by alpha and theta oscillations, and also includes non-oscillatory broadband activity inversely related to frequency. Gratton proposed that alpha and theta oscillations are both related to cognitive control function, though in a complementary manner. Alpha activity is hypothesized to facilitate the maintenance of representations, such as task sets in preparation for expected task conditions. In contrast, theta activity would facilitate changes in representations, such as the updating of task sets in response to (...) unpredicted task demands. Therefore, theta should be related to reactive control, while alpha may be more relevant to proactive control. Less is known about the possible relationship between 1/f activity and cognitive control, which was analyzed here in an exploratory fashion. To investigate these hypothesized relationships, we recorded eyes-open and eyes-closed resting-state EEG from younger and older adults and subsequently tested their performance on a cued flanker task, expected to elicit both proactive and reactive control processes. Results showed that alpha power and 1/f offset were smaller in older than younger adults, whereas theta power did not show age-related reductions. Resting alpha power and 1/f offset were associated with proactive control processes, whereas theta power was related to reactive control as measured by the cued flanker task. All associations were present over and above the effect of age, suggesting that these resting-state EEG correlates could be indicative of trait-like individual differences in cognitive control performance, which may be already evident in younger adults, and are still similarly present in healthy older adults. (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)

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)

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)

Thanks to his unsurpassed eye and his fearless willingness to take a stand, Clement Greenberg (1909 1994) became one of the giants of 20th century art criticism a writer who set the terms of critical discourse from the moment he burst onto the scene with his seminal essays Avant Garde and Kitsch (1939) and Towards a Newer Laocoon (1940). In this work, which gathers previously uncollected essays and a series of seminars delivered at Bennington in 1971, Greenberg provides his most (...) expansive statement of his views on taste and quality in art, arguing for an esthetic that flies in the face of current art world fashions. Greenberg insists despite the attempts from Marcel Duchamp onwards to escape the jurisdiction of taste by producing an art so disjunctive that it cannot be judged that taste is inexorable. He argues that standards of quality in art, the artist's responsibility to seek out the hardest demands of a medium, and the critic's responsibility to discriminate, are essential conditions for great art. The obsession with innovation the epidemic of newness leads, in Greenbergs view, to the boringness of so much avant garde art. He discusses the interplay of expectation and surprise in aesthetic experience, and the exalted consciousness produced by great art. Homemade Esthetics allows us particularly in the transcribed seminar sessions, never before published to watch the critics mind at work, defending (and at times reconsidering) his theories. His views, often controversial, are the record of a lifetime of looking at and thinking about art as intensely as anyone ever has. (shrink)

This article brings together two excerpts from the forthcoming book, The Weary Sons of Freud (Verso/new Left Books, 1987) by Catherine Clément, translated from the French by Nicole Ball. It also includes an edited version of the book's Introduction by Ann Rosalind Jones. Feminist Review would like to thank her for her help in editing this piece, and also Verso/new Left Books for permission to reproduce these extracts.

Interest in thought experiments (TEs) derives from the paradox: “How can findings that carry conviction result from a new experiment conducted entirely within the head?” Historical studies have established the importance of TEs in science but have proposed disparate hypotheses concerning the source of knowledge in TEs, ranging from empiricist to rationalist accounts. This article analyzes TEs in think‐aloud protocols of scientifically trained experts to examine more fine‐grained information about their use. Some TEs appear powerful enough to discredit an existing (...) theory—a disconfirmatory purpose. In addition, confirmatory and generative purposes were identified for other TEs. One can also use details in transcript data, including imagery reports and gestures, to provide evidence for a central role played by imagistic simulations in many TEs, and to suggest that these simulations can generate new knowledge using several sources, including the “extended application” of perceptual motor schemas, implicit prior knowledge, and spatial reasoning operations, in contrast to formal arguments. These sources suggest what it means for TEs to be grounded in embodied processes that can begin to explain the paradox above. This leads to a rationalistic view of TEs as using productive internal reasoning, but the view also acknowledges the historical role that experience with the world can play in forming certain schemas used in TEs. Understanding such processes could help provide a foundation for developing a larger model of scientific investigation processes grounded on imagistic simulation (Clement, 2008). (shrink)

: Standard ethical frameworks struggle to deal with transhumanism, ecological issues and the rising technodiversity because they are focused on guiding and evaluating human behavior. Ethics needs its Copernican revolution to be able to deal with all moral agents, including not only humans, but also artificial intelligent agents, robots or organizations of all sizes. We argue that embracing the complexity worldview is the first step towards this revolution, and that standard ethical frameworks are still entrenched in the Newtonian worldview. We (...) first spell out the foundational assumptions of the Newtonian worldview, where all change is reduced to material particles following predetermined trajectories governed by the laws of nature. However, modern physical theories such as relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and thermodynamics have drawn a much more confusing and uncertain picture, and inspired indecisive, subjectivist, relativist, nihilist or postmodern worldviews. Based on cybernetics, systems theory and the new sciences of complexity, we introduce the complexity worldview that sees the world as interactions and their emergent organizations. We use this complexity worldview to show the limitations of standard ethical frameworks such as deontology, theology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, evolutionary ethics and pragmatism. Keywords: Complexity, philosophy, ethics, cybernetics, transhumanism, universal ethics, systems ethics. (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)

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)

This paper aims at bridging a gap between the history of American animal behavior studies and the history of sociobiology. In the post-war period, ecology, comparative psychology and ethology were all investigating animal societies, using different approaches ranging from fieldwork to laboratory studies. We argue that this disunity in “practices of place” explains the attempts of dialogue between those three fields and early calls for unity through “sociobiology” by J. Paul Scott. In turn, tensions between the naturalist tradition and the (...) rising reductionist approach in biology provide an original background for a history of Edward Wilson’s own version of sociobiology, much beyond the William Hamilton’s papers usually considered as its key antecedent. Naturalists were in a defensive position in the geography of the fields studying animal behavior, and in reaction were a driving force behind the various projects of synthesis called “sociobiology”. (shrink)

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, (...) analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "cosmological natural selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of. (shrink)

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