The derivative is a basic concept of differential calculus. However, if we calculate the derivative as change in distance over change in time, the result at any instant is 0/0, which seems meaningless. Hence, Newton and Leibniz used the limit to determine the derivative. Their method is valid in practice, but it is not easy to intuitively accept. Thus, this article describes the novel method of differential calculus based on the double contradiction, which is easier to accept intuitively. (...) Next, the geometrical meaning of the double contradiction is considered as follows. A tangent at a point on a convex curve is iterated. Then, the slope of the tangent at the point is sandwiched by two kinds of lines. The first kind of line crosses the curve at the original point and a point to the right of it. The second kind of line crosses the curve at the original point and a point to the left of it. Then, the double contradiction can be applied, and the slope of the tangent is determined as a single value. Finally, the meaning of this method for the foundation of mathematics is considered. We reflect on Dehaene’s notion that the foundation of mathematics is based on the intuitions, which evolve independently. Hence, there may be gaps between intuitions. In fact, the Ancient Greeks identified inconsistency between arithmetic and geometry. However, Eudoxus developed the theory of proportion, which is equivalent to the Dedekind Cut. This allows the iteration of an irrational number by rational numbers as precisely as desired. Simultaneously, we can define the irrational number by the double contradiction, although its existence is not guaranteed. Further, an area of a curved figure is iterated and defined by rectilinear figures using the double contradiction. (shrink)

In the comedies of errors, and more precisely in the comedies of double, in which two identities become confused, the characters get into paradoxical situations reigned by the principle of contradiction. The classemic relationships that are based on the criterion of subjectivity are broken due to the intervention of the character appearing as the double, for the doubled and the double can appear as one subject or as two. In fact, in the added double one (...) + one equals one (1 + 1 = 1; Sosia + Mercury = Sosia) and in the split double one equals one + one (1 = 1 + 1; Philocomasium = Philocomasium + Dicea). In the modal oppositions of the alternative class (present | absent, to be | not to be) and in the aspectual oppositions of the sequential class (to arrive – to be in) the intrasubjective nature is cancelled; in the diathetic or complementary oppositions (to give .– to receive) the intersubjective relationship gets broken. Thus, it turns out that, due to the action of the double, a character can be present and absent at the same time, be and not be the same, be in a place before arriving there or have received what another has not yet given him. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe how expansive learning in organisations can become a resource for learning in a wider community of practice (CoP). The “developmental work research” approach (DWR) based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is beneficial for analysing and interpreting the requirements in a field of action. Engeström’s specific form of “action research” focuses on expansive learning in activity systems. However, complex socio-technical change processes cannot be initiated and managed by the local community of practise (...) alone. In order to establish the use of new tools, new methodologies or organisational solutions in a field of work, a double path of expansive learning is needed: Findings from the participative analysis and interpretation of contradictions in the local activity system have to be transferred to wider communities of practice. This paper illustrates a double path of expansive learning by presenting the experiences of research and development in machine and plant engineering companies in Germany. In the AQUIMO project, a project team has developed an adaptable software tool for multidisciplinary mechatronical engineering and created a related qualification program. The support from external social researchers has helped to initiate, disseminate and establish new ways to organise the division of labour in teams of engineers. (shrink)

This work tests two conflicting views about double standards: whether they reflect evolved sex differences in behavior or a manipulative morality serving male interests. Two questionnaires on jealous reactions to mild (flirting) and serious (cheating) sexual transgressions were randomly assigned to 172 young women and men. One questionnaire assessed standards for appropriate behavior and perceptions of how young women and men usually react. The second asked people to report how they had reacted or, if naive, how they would react. (...) The questions concerned anger at and blame of partner and rival and the self-oriented responses of loss of self-esteem, feelings of hurt, and fear of losing the partner. As predicted by the idea of manipulative morality, both sexes advanced sets of double standards that serve the interests of their own sex at the expense of the opposite sex. Much of the data contradict the idea of a match between double standards and evolved sex differences. First, subjects who set self-serving double standards did not perceive gender differences in jealous reactions. Second, there were few gender differences in judgments regarding jealous responses. Third, in contrast with the familiar double standard, women were more aggressively reactive to a flirting rival than men. Fourth, self-reports of the strength of aggressive jealous reactions suggest that women’s behavior is stronger than the prescriptions for it. These data suggest that double standards represent a communication strategy which assists men’s control of women. The data on jealous reactions were interpreted in terms of the degree of threat to fitness posed by infidelity in different situations. (shrink)

An integral part of the schooling of scientists, especially experimental ones, is the cultivation of the significance and role of scientific evidence. Naturally this schooling is not conducted in vacuuo. Budding scientists already have experiences of, and intuitions about, the use of evidence in everyday life. In this talk I take a sustained look at the relations between common-sense notions of evidence and scientific ones. Among other things, I argue that scientific notions of evidence and associated practices are in many (...) ways conservative extensions of what is best about our common-sense notions and practices. This contradicts a rather widely held but often tacit view that science and its notions are largely insular. (shrink)

Les Cahiers noirs de Martin Heidegger ont suscité des réactions si divergentes qu’il n’est pas illégitime de s’interroger sur la cause de cette plurivocité. Est-il possible qu’une série de textes produise des réactions si discordantes – de la minimisation à l’exaspération, du sarcasme à la caricature, du scandale à l’excommunication? Il est opportun de chercher dans les Cahiers noirs les racines de cette fragmentation. Cet article soutenir la thèse selon laquelle la structure et les contenus mêmes des Cahiers noirs porteraient (...) en eux une sorte de double contrainte entre le dessin antimétaphysique et la « rechute » dans une métaphysique puissance deux : une contradiction interne à la trame des Cahiers noirs, qui produit deux figures de pensée incompatibles entre elles mais qui représente le contenu philosophique le plus précieux de ces textes. (shrink)

The principal thesis in this review-essay is that the key linguistic terms in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre especially have two main meanings that appear at first sight to be almost in contradiction or opposed to each other. The reader of Fichte therefore has to work hard to overcome any apparent conflicts in the “double sense” of his philosophical terminology. Accordingly, I argue that Fichte’s linguistic method and use of language should be seen as part of his chief philosophical method of (...) synthesis, where we have to carry out a similar procedure and attempt to reconcile opposites using the power of the imagination. This thesis is put forward by means of a number of practical examples and in the context of some critical reflections on the recently published Cambridge Companion to Fichte, eds. David James and Günter Zöller. Review essay published in Volume 15 (December, 2017) of the journal Revista de Estud(i)os sobre Fichte (ed. Emiliano Acosta). (shrink)

N. Kamide introduced a pair of classical and constructive logics, each with a peculiar type of negation: its double negation behaves as classical and intuitionistic negation, respectively. A consequence of this is that the systems prove contradictions but are non-trivial. The present paper aims at giving insights into this phenomenon by investigating subsystems of Kamide’s logics, with a focus on a system in which the double negation behaves as the negation of minimal logic. We establish the negation inconsistency (...) of the system and embeddability of contradictions from other systems. In addition, we attempt at an informational interpretation of the negation using the dimathematical framework of H. Wansing. (shrink)

The article refers to Helena Eilstein’s views: her analysis of biblical contradictions and a limited moral relativism (similar observations made by Leszek Kołakowski are also evoked). It classifies the types of contradictions found in the Bible and suggests how to deal with them. At times the conceptual apparatus created in the philosophy of science is used and a connection to scientific cognition is made, for foundations of philosophy of science can influence the attitude towards biblical contradictions. It emphasizes the role (...) of individual attitudes and the psychological conditionality of taking moral decisions, as well as the importance of shaping moral sensitivity. Metaphors play a double role in the Bible. Firstly, metaphorical interpretations eliminate contradictions. Secondly, metaphors are useful for shaping moral sensitivity. (shrink)

This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ (...) discussions of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered. (shrink)

Symptoms of ConsciousnessIn this series of short essays, stories, poems, and personal observations, Robert A. Burton, neurologist and writer, uses both fiction and nonfiction to explore many paradoxes and contradictions inherent in scientific inquiry. A novelist as well as author of On Being Certain and A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind, Burton brings story to science and science to story.

One of Euthyphro's proposed definitions of to hosion says: '[T]he pious is what all the gods love...'. Scholarly analyses of Socrates' refutation of this definition have focused on its validity or even its 'truth'. By contrast, this paper restricts itself to the refutation's logical structure, particularly the way Socrates juxtaposes the agreed-upon premises to derive a double or 'chiastic' contradiction. In this article, I lay out the details of Socrates' ingenious logical construction, without regard to its validity or (...) fallaciousness, and argue that the chiastic contradiction alone makes possible Socrates' refutation of Euthyphro's claim to expertise in the realm of to hosion. (shrink)

I focus on the question as to what rationale could possibly underlie the doctrine of double effect or related principles. I first briefly review the correct critiques of the claim that people who intend some evil as a means to a good must be “guided by evil,” and that this is allegedly always wrong. I then argue that Quinn’s claim that violations of the DDE express certain negative attitudes of the agent and that agents violating the DDE must make (...) an additional morally problematic presumption regarding their victims is mistaken. Tadros claims that an agent violating the means principle must force his victims to adopt his goals. I demonstrate that the difference Tadros tries to construe between an agent inflicting intended harm and an agent inflicting merely foreseen harm is non-existent. Sarch’s official rationale for the DDE also fails to distinguish harming as a means from side-effect harming, and reformulations of his rationale that suggest themselves run into severe problems. Walen’s defense of the means principle in terms of the “restricting claims principle” and Øverland’s appeal to “moral obstacles” are susceptible to counter-examples and appear to be question-begging. Recently, Walen has offered a revised formulation of his Restricting Claims Principle, claiming that it overcomes counter-examples and explains the means principle. I will argue that it contradicts the means principle and does not overcome the counter-examples. Thus I conclude that so far we are still left without a reasonable rationale for the DDE or related principles. (shrink)

This intervention concerns the different statute of abstraction in Marx's work. By means of a critical confrontation with Chris Arthur's work, Finelli presents his thesis of the presence of a double theory and fuction of abstraction in Marx's work. In the early Marx, until the German Ideology, abstraction is, in accordance with the traditional meaning of this term, a product of the mind, an unreal spectre. More exactly, it consists in negating the common essence belonging to labouring humanity and (...) projecting it, as alienated universal, into the idea of philosophy, into the state of politics and into the money of the market. In the later Marx, the nature of abstraction is, rather than mental, practical. It is directly related to the quantity without quality of capitalist labour, and it is the product of the systemic connection of machines to labour-power. In contrast to Arthur, Finelli maintains that practical abstraction in the Marx of Capital is not located in the zone of exchange and the market, where there is the mediation of money. On the contrary, it is located in the zone of production, which, for Marx, is a social ensemble not mediated by money but by relations of technological domination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pour une histoire de la ‘double vérité’David PichéLuca Bianchi. Pour une histoire de la ‘double vérité’. Conférences Pierre Abélard. Paris: Vrin, 2008. Pp. 192. Paper, €18.00.Since the publication of the work of the Belgian medievalist Fernand Van Steenberghen, a solid consensus seems to have emerged in the community of historians of medieval philosophy: no scholar in the Middle Ages defended the so-called “doctrine of the (...) class='Hi'>double truth” that the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, had denounced in the prologue of his 1277 Condemnation. Moreover, how could a professional philosopher or theologian seriously contend that two contradictory statements are simultaneously true, one due to natural reason, and the other through the authority of faith? Therefore, the matter seemed settled and the file definitely closed: the double truth is nothing more than a “legend.” Yet the Italian medievalist Luca Bianchi’s in-depth critical analysis of the pseudo-historical evidence has now changed this. Without wanting to propose an entirely new interpretation of the historical ins and outs of this famous doctrine, Bianchi carries out a re-examination of the subject through a meticulous study of certain key texts that he has read in the light of a three-fold question: What impact did passages from Tempier’s decree on the “double truth” have on the medieval scholars themselves? Does the expression itself, ‘duplex veritas’, appear in some medieval documents? What were medieval thinkers’ attitudes in the face of philosophical arguments leading to conclusions contradicting the teachings of the Catholic faith?Due to space constraints, I will limit my discussion to Bianchi’s most crucial results. The answer to the first question (ch. 1) leads us in a surprising fashion to the famous Disputatio of Luther (1539). In this text, the father of the Reformation opposes the principle according to which what is true in theology must also be true in philosophy—a thesis whose paternity he attributes to Parisian theologians. Wanting to ensure the pre-eminence of faith-based teachings over all forms of human rationalization, Luther came to subscribe to a certain form of the double truth, since he claimed that what is absolutely true according to faith can be false and impossible from the perspective of philosophy. This explains his radical opposition to the “Parisian” principle that Bianchi calls “the principle of the oneness of truth.” We learn that some theologians in fifteenth- century Paris, notably Jean Gerson and Guillaume Baudin, were actually inspired by Tempier’s decree to defend some form of this principle.To respond to the second question (ch. 2), Bianchi first researched the electronic database Library of Latin Texts (CLCLT-6), and came up with “disappointing results”: no author uses the expression ‘duplex veritas’ in the relevant sense. Nevertheless, as imposing as it is, this database is not exhaustive, and Bianchi, well aware of this, extended his research by consulting other documents on paper, allowing him ultimately to reach a positive conclusion: the expression ‘duplex veritas’ appears in the course of a debate that took place around [End Page 99] 1470 on the subject of the truth-value of statements about future contingents. This debate involved a master of arts from Louvain, Pierre de Rivo, who considered it essential to distinguish between the truth of philosophers and the “popular” truth upheld by the churchmen, and a Parisian theologian whom we have already encountered, Guillaume Baudin, who invoked the “principle of the oneness of truth” to denounce the “double truth” that his adversary was promoting.From Bianchi’s multifaceted response to the third question (chs. 3–4), I can only present the groundswell. From the statutes promulgated by the Parisian Arts Faculty in 1272 up to the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, including the constitution Apostolici regiminis issued by the Fifth Lateran Council (1513), a significant evolution may be observed in the requirements academic and religious authorities imposed on professors of philosophy (as well as on scientists) in the western Christian world. Indeed, we may observe that these requirements correspond, first, to the obligation to counter, as far as possible, arguments that contradict faith, and then transform into the duty to commit to a strong... (shrink)

Comment la mondialisation artistique et la globalisation esthétique sont interprétées dans les écoles supérieures d’art? Par une réflexion sur la normalisation des pratiques artistiques du fait de la prédominance de certains modèles de réussites, par des conflits autour des traditions théoriques (pensées antiracistes, postcoloniales et décoloniales) et par une interrogation quant à la libéralisation du secteur éducatif. Cet article propose également un cadrage historique de l’arrivée de ces vocabulaires dans les écoles et de leur inscription dans débats idéologiques contradictoires. Il (...) évoque les effets concrets des savoirs tacites en éducation artistique sur l’évaluation des jeunes artistes en écoles. Comment éviter le double écueil d’une assignation racialisante des étudiant·es ou bien de son contraire, une politique de recrutement aveugle au racisme structurel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Double Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western DiscoursesSteven HeineDouble Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western Discourses. By Bernard Faure. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv + 174. Hardcover $49.50. Paper $21.95.In some ways, Double Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western Discourses by Bernard Faure seems quite different from other publications by this author, including several books that were also translated from (...) the French such as Visions of Power and Will to Orthodoxy, which have a specific focus on the practice of Chan or on gender issues in Buddhism. Double Exposure deals with broad, wide-ranging philosophical themes concerning Buddhist thought set in comparative contexts with Western intellectual history since the Enlightenment, especially continental European philosophy. Faure is well known from previous works for his extensive explorations of poststructural theory in examining historical and doctrinal buddhological issues. Clearly, however, this book was intended primarily not for Buddhist studies scholars but for an audience of French intellectuals and cultural critics, encompassing but more diverse than the academic community, who wish to understand how the discourse of Buddhism pertains to, yet remains distinct from, their own recent history of thought. Rather than citing a particular set of poststructural thinkers to illuminate Buddhism, Faure does the converse and uses Buddhism to make key points about the development of Western thought.At the same time, Double Exposure is consistent with and an extension of Faure's earlier books in that it tracks the role of the twofold or double in its various manifestations both in Buddhist thought and in methodological approaches to interpreting Buddhism. Faure is endlessly fascinated by and delights in exposing the fact that the Buddhist tradition, nwhich claims to espouse a standpoint of nondualism, invariably and inevitably divvies reality up into an endless series of polarities and paradoxes regarding the apparent oppositions or contradictions between the realms of nirvāṇa and samsāṃra, karmic causality and transcendence of karma, ultimate and mundane reality (or two levels of truth), and sudden and gradual enlightenment. He asserts: "The history of Buddhism... seems to be governed by what Bergson, in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, suggested calling the 'law of dichotomy,' a law which apparently brings about a realization, by a mere splitting, of tendencies which began by being two views, so to speak, of one and the same tendency" (p. 124). [End Page 178]In addition to Bergson, Faure cites classical notions like the Platonic division between the ideal form and the world of concrete forms, the two-faced Roman god Janus who rules over past and future, and the Manichaean split between good and evil. Faure also emphasizes more recent French thinkers and scholars, including Emile Beneviste, Nayla Farouki, Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Henri Micheaux, among others, who in probing the "diabolical" sense of truth versus error, which are considered eternal contraries in Western thought, especially in Christianity, are useful for discussing parallels and differences with Buddhism.Double Exposure also discusses interpretive debates about whether Buddhism should be seen as epitomizing agnosticism versus mysticism, pragmatism versus supernaturalism, or rationalism versus mythology, as well as conflicts in using the method of psychology as opposed to anthropology and the impact of hidden, or not-so-hidden Orientalist and reverse Orientalist tendencies. Perhaps the best organized chapter in the book is "The Major Schools" (chapter 5), which offers a quick but insightful overview of early Buddhist realism, Yogācāra idealism, the Mādhyamika middle way, and Chan's compromise between immanence and transcendence. The most imaginative section is "External Thought" (chapter 8), which delves into a vast array of topics. These range from Tantric sexuality as a form of spiritual energy and Diderot's view of the perpetual shifting of ordinary thought to Zongmi's image of the bright pearl as a metaphor for sudden realization compared with Paul Claudel's own pearl metaphor in Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher, which evokes a gradual path of self-understanding.I think Faure's main aim in all his many publications is to explore and expose the wedges, gaps, and inconsistencies, without making a judgment other than to underscore that what... (shrink)

Under the standard formulation of the Doctrine of Double Effect, an act is permissible only if it is the result of an intention to do good and not the result of an intention to do bad. Many find that this absurdly ties the act’s permissibility to the agent’s character and not to features of the act itself. In light of such criticism, some philosophers have reformulated the doctrine so that it holds that an act is permissible given that it (...) results from an intention to do good by some agent. I argue that this appeal to possible intentions to do good fails. There is no modal or moral reason to privilege intentions to do good over those to do bad, and without privileging them, this version of the Doctrine of Double Effect leads to contradiction. In many scenarios, if a possible intention to do good is considered to be sufficient for permissibility, then in that same scenario a possible intention to do bad should be sufficient for impermissibility. However, one and the same act can have both possible intentions to do good and possible intentions to do bad. Thus, the principle leads to the contradictory ruling that one and the same act is both permissible and impermissible. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘double-standard’ applied to male and female tourists’ sexual behaviour reflects and reproduces weaknesses in existing theoretical and commonsense understandings of gendered power, sexual exploitation, prostitution and sex tourism. It looks at how essentialist constructions of gender and heterosexuality blur understandings of sexual exploitation and victimhood and argues that racialized power should also be considered to explore the boundaries between commercial and non-commercial sex. This paper is based on ethnographic research on sexual–economic exchanges between tourist (...) women and local men and boys in the informal tourist economy in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. (shrink)

“Hooking up,” a popular type of sexual behavior among college students, has become a pathway to dating relationships. Based on open-ended narratives written by 273 undergraduates, we analyze how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date. In contrast to the sexual script which holds that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships, students generally accorded women sexual agency and desire in the hookup and validated men’s post-hookup (...) relationship interest. However, in explaining the sexless date, students typically reasoned the woman was being chaste and withholding sex to redeem her reputation whereas they often characterized the man’s abstinence in terms of a pity date. The findings underscore the tenacity of gendered sexual scripts around heterosexual dates and hookups but also reveal fissures and contradictions that suggest some changes to the sexual double standard. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pour une histoire de la ‘double vérité’David PichéLuca Bianchi. Pour une histoire de la ‘double vérité’. Conférences Pierre Abélard. Paris: Vrin, 2008. Pp. 192. Paper, €18.00.Since the publication of the work of the Belgian medievalist Fernand Van Steenberghen, a solid consensus seems to have emerged in the community of historians of medieval philosophy: no scholar in the Middle Ages defended the so-called “doctrine of the (...) class='Hi'>double truth” that the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, had denounced in the prologue of his 1277 Condemnation. Moreover, how could a professional philosopher or theologian seriously contend that two contradictory statements are simultaneously true, one due to natural reason, and the other through the authority of faith? Therefore, the matter seemed settled and the file definitely closed: the double truth is nothing more than a “legend.” Yet the Italian medievalist Luca Bianchi’s in-depth critical analysis of the pseudo-historical evidence has now changed this. Without wanting to propose an entirely new interpretation of the historical ins and outs of this famous doctrine, Bianchi carries out a re-examination of the subject through a meticulous study of certain key texts that he has read in the light of a three-fold question: What impact did passages from Tempier’s decree on the “double truth” have on the medieval scholars themselves? Does the expression itself, ‘duplex veritas’, appear in some medieval documents? What were medieval thinkers’ attitudes in the face of philosophical arguments leading to conclusions contradicting the teachings of the Catholic faith?Due to space constraints, I will limit my discussion to Bianchi’s most crucial results. The answer to the first question (ch. 1) leads us in a surprising fashion to the famous Disputatio of Luther (1539). In this text, the father of the Reformation opposes the principle according to which what is true in theology must also be true in philosophy—a thesis whose paternity he attributes to Parisian theologians. Wanting to ensure the pre-eminence of faith-based teachings over all forms of human rationalization, Luther came to subscribe to a certain form of the double truth, since he claimed that what is absolutely true according to faith can be false and impossible from the perspective of philosophy. This explains his radical opposition to the “Parisian” principle that Bianchi calls “the principle of the oneness of truth.” We learn that some theologians in fifteenth- century Paris, notably Jean Gerson and Guillaume Baudin, were actually inspired by Tempier’s decree to defend some form of this principle.To respond to the second question (ch. 2), Bianchi first researched the electronic database Library of Latin Texts (CLCLT-6), and came up with “disappointing results”: no author uses the expression ‘duplex veritas’ in the relevant sense. Nevertheless, as imposing as it is, this database is not exhaustive, and Bianchi, well aware of this, extended his research by consulting other documents on paper, allowing him ultimately to reach a positive conclusion: the expression ‘duplex veritas’ appears in the course of a debate that took place around [End Page 99] 1470 on the subject of the truth-value of statements about future contingents. This debate involved a master of arts from Louvain, Pierre de Rivo, who considered it essential to distinguish between the truth of philosophers and the “popular” truth upheld by the churchmen, and a Parisian theologian whom we have already encountered, Guillaume Baudin, who invoked the “principle of the oneness of truth” to denounce the “double truth” that his adversary was promoting.From Bianchi’s multifaceted response to the third question (chs. 3–4), I can only present the groundswell. From the statutes promulgated by the Parisian Arts Faculty in 1272 up to the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, including the constitution Apostolici regiminis issued by the Fifth Lateran Council (1513), a significant evolution may be observed in the requirements academic and religious authorities imposed on professors of philosophy (as well as on scientists) in the western Christian world. Indeed, we may observe that these requirements correspond, first, to the obligation to counter, as far as possible, arguments that contradict faith, and then transform into the duty to commit to a strong... (shrink)

Dialectic has a plurality of meanings which in some respects define the repertoire of possible ways of thinking offered to us by the philosophical tradition. These meanings range from dialectic’s identification with specious reasoning to a method for dissolving specious reasoning. They include its all but identification with logic, as in the Middle Ages, Kant’s view of dialectic in relation to the critique of illusion, when reason strays into contradiction in treating of transcendental objects. They include the Hegelian notion (...) of dialectic as articulating the process of development in being and in mind. Hegel’s successors, Marx notably, apply dialectic to historical process, as does Hegel himself. Dialectic is viewed with suspicion, both by analytical philosophers who often identify it with specious reasoning, pseudo-thinking, and by many of Hegel’s Continental successors who are critical of its imputed totalistic imperialism, an imperialism also imputed to the entire tradition of metaphysics. There are other senses of dialectic connected to Socratic maieutic, to the description of the highest philosophical thinking in Plato’s Republic, to the diaeretic method of the Sophist. (shrink)

This book explores some of the most pressing existential problems of our times, from climate change and social injustice, to the challenges of balancing personal needs against the needs of others. Pushing back against the tendency to think of dilemmas as clear-cut binary choices, anthropologist Michael Jackson shows us the ingenious ways dilemmas are addressed in non-Western traditions, as well as how they are reimagined and circumvented in a variety of contemporary settings. Each chapter examines a particular dilemma--from the apparent (...) contradictions between history and myth, fact and fiction, science and religion, to the land rights struggles of Indigenous peoples, to migrants from the Global South trying to sustain ties with their homelands while improving their lives abroad. Combining personal reflections with insights from a vast array of interlocutors, Jackson argues that the ways in which people endure dilemmas are as meaningful as the ways they attempt to resolve them"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This paper attempts to illuminate and interpret the contradictory portrait of God as both seen and unseen in the Torah. Thus Moses is commanded not to look on the face of God yet also praised for having spoken to God “face to face". We seek ways to reconcile the contradictory portraits of God through the use of the term “doubled-mindedness” in the theology of Jerome Gellman, in the logic of “thirdness” in C.S. Peirce’s semiotics, and in the use of both (...) particle and wave models in Einstein’s physics of light. The paper concludes by disusing the practical consequences of theological double-mindedness for the religious life and the philosophical meaning of redemption as the time when the contradiction of the unseen and seen God is resolved. (shrink)

Efforts to resolve the tension within the Christian moral theological tradition between just war theory and pacifism have so far not produced any broadly accepted resolution. Key sticking points lie both in the fact that even a just war typically involves the taking of human life, both combatant and civilian, and that the distinction between intentional and unintentional killing, so important to Christian moral reflection, is difficult to sustain in practice. Yet, with the prospect of the development of effective non-lethal (...) weapons, the path may be opened up to a genuine resolution of the tension. This article describes in general terms the way that such a development might be pursued, but also argues that the use of non-lethal weaponry would necessitate a re-interpretation of warfare as an exercise in a form of international policing. A number of potential criticisms of such a proposal are considered. (shrink)

The Ugaritic expression “Baal, son of Dagan” has been the subject of several studies which attempt to resolve the contradiction between the depiction of Baal as El’s son on the one hand and the expression “Baal, son of Dagan” on the other. Despite the paucity of literary evidence, the majority of scholars have identified Dagan with either El or Baal, consequently attributing a single “real” father to Baal. This paper suggests a new solution in light of the literary traditions (...) preserved in the Hurro-Hittite texts—contemporary with those from Ugarit—and the development of these traditions in the writings of Philo of Byblos. Both these texts describe the storm-god as having two fathers: the grain-god and the veteran god of the pantheon, the god of Heaven. Given the close relationship among Ugarit, the Hurrians, and the Phoenicians, it is difficult to regard this parallelism as coincidental. (shrink)

This article explores the ways in which Nietzsche’s conception of subjectivity, as rehearsed in The Birth of Tragedy, draws close to other modern models of split subjectivity as described by Hegel, Freud, or Althusser. Although the subjectivity depicted by Nietzsche is constituted in the tension between reaffirming and dissolving its boundaries, and this tension may seem to put the possibility of identity at risk, in effect individuation and dissolution function as symmetrical contraries. Rather than disrupting the boundaries of reason, the (...) Dionysian contributes to Apollonian equilibrium by temporarily destroying Apollonian rigidity, so that the polis can periodically overcome limitations, assimilate its others and gather new strength. Identity is thus seemingly reinforced through the controlled illusion of its shattering: it is protected from the irruption of real otherness. Unlike Nietzsche’s dialectical dramaturgy, Greek tragedy depicts an incipient rationality wounded by contradictions, institutionalizing conflict. Because of the ambiguity of the Greek tragic world, the fissures of its organizing powers and the ambivalent agency of tragic subjects, a parallel between Attic tragedy and modern subjectivity may illuminate the latter. (shrink)

Cornelius Castoriadis made a significant and distinctive contribution to the development of the notion of the dialectic of control. In the first instance, Castoriadis formulated an important reconceptualization and restatement of the Marxist conception of the central contradiction of capitalism. He argued that capitalism depended on the creativity of workers while excluding them from effective control. Similarly, Castoriadis sought to extend the Marxist analysis of those tendencies present within the structuration of the labour process that may prefigure a socialist (...) reorganization of production. Castoriadis’s analyses of capitalism during the phase of his involvement with Socialism or Barbarism are likewise informed by his assessment of state socialist regimes. In particular, this assessment provided important insights into the modalities of control in modern society and the complications of transcending forms of institutional domination in modernity. It will be argued that some of the distinctive intentions of Castoriadis’s later elucidation of the social imaginary can be traced to his interpretation of bureaucratic capitalism and that this is evident in his subsequent accounts of the capitalist imaginary. In his later theory, Castoriadis interprets the problem of the dialectic of control in terms of the relationship between instituting and instituted society. Castoriadis’s analysis of capitalism during the period of Socialism or Barbarism will be situated in the wider debates over capitalism at that time. Similarly, Castoriadis’s departure from some of the philosophical sources that influenced the development of the notion of the dialectic of control will be explored. (shrink)

La question de la liberté politique effective des hommes dans un monde globalisé travaille la crise de l’État-nation. Cette crise ne renvoie nullement à un déclin mais à une double contradiction, celle d’être à la fois le lieu de naissance de la liberté du citoyen et celui d’une volonté collective contrainte, pour ne pas dire contrariée dans certains cas. Il ne s’agit pas de louer ou blâmer la dynamique de la mondialisation mais d’en comprendre l’ambivalence dès lors que (...) l’on envisage l’alliance de la puissance et de la volonté comme facteur d’une liberté nationale plus effective au plan interne et dans l’ordre international. À la fois irréductible et dépassable, l’État-nation comme réalité critique surgit dans l’entre-deux-guerres dans les débats qui animent tous les milieux intellectuels, notamment catholiques comme en témoignent les positions clivées entre Joseph Delos et Gaston Fessard. Ce premier moment fonde les interrogations qui travaillent notre réflexion présente balancée entre la volonté de replacer les nations démocratiques au cœur de la marche globalisée du monde et la nécessité d’intégrations stratégiques régionales. (shrink)

Building on the notational principles of C. S. Peirce’s graphical logic, Pietarinen has tried to develop a propositional logic unfolding in the medium of sound. Apart from its intrinsic interest, this project serves as a concrete test of logic’s range. However, I argue that Pietarinen’s inaugural proposal, while promising, has an important shortcoming, since it cannot portray double-negation without thereby portraying a contradiction.

Vygotsky was a brilliant literary scholar whose role in psychology borrows substantially from his interests in and fascination with literature and theatre. The central question for Vygotsky’s theory was aesthetic synthesis – the emergence of generalized feelings in human life-experiences. The critical empirical example for the emergence of affective synthesis for Vygotsky was the short story by Ivan Bunin, ‘Legkoe dykhanie’. My task in this article is to analyse Vygotsky’s way of conceptualizing dialectical synthesis as a general psychological process. I (...) demonstrate that Vygotsky succeeded in locating the empirical phenomena where such syntheses can be observed, and proceeded halfway towards creating a general model of affective synthesis. Yet he failed to complete the task due to the limitations of the analogical transfer of the notion of short circuit into the psychological realm. The problem of synthesis remains unsolved up to the present day. Possible ways of solving it require formalization of the notion of double negation that has been used in dialectical philosophies, but has not been encoded into psychology’s research methodologies. (shrink)

Comment caractériser les contradictions entre l’État et la nation, tout en tenant compte du fait que la société réelle est divisée en classes? Ces éléments sont abordés sous l’angle des implications d’une politique de plein emploi, à partir des analyses de l’économiste marxiste polonais Michal Kalecki. L’idée d’une double nature de l’État, dont on trouve les prémisses chez Marx, est ensuite mobilisée pour articuler les notions d’État, de nation et de classes sociales. Enfin on s’interroge sur les enjeux actuels (...) de la politique économique face aux tendances qui sont censées éroder le rôle de l’État et des nations. (shrink)

Comment éviter les contradictions et les impasses de la double conscience inhérentes à la prise de parole depuis la subalternité? En s’appuyant sur les travaux de l’historien algérien Daho Djerbal, cet article d’Ulysse Rabaté instruit une lecture décoloniale des mobilisations dans les « quartiers populaires », depuis la marche pour l’égalité et contre le racisme de 1983 jusqu’à aujourd’hui. L’auteur, militant et chercheur en sciences politiques, propose de comprendre comment ces activismes des banlieues ou des cités, comme on les (...) a nommés, ont été marginalisés voire exclus du domaine de la politique légitime. (shrink)

One can often encounter claims that classical (Kolmogorovian) probability theory cannot handle, or even is contradicted by, certain empirical findings or substantive theories. This note joins several previous attempts to explain that these claims are unjustified, illustrating this on the issues of (non)existence of joint distributions, probabilities of ordered events, and additivity of probabilities. The specific focus of this note is on showing that the mistakes underlying these claims can be precluded by labeling all random variables involved contextually. Moreover, contextual (...) labeling also enables a valuable additional way of analyzing probabilistic aspects of empirical situations: determining whether the random variables involved form a contextual system, in the sense generalized from quantum mechanics. Thus, to the extent the Wang-Busemeyer QQ equality for the question order effect holds, the system describing them is noncontextual. The double-slit experiment and its behavioral analogues also turn out to form a noncontextual system, having the same probabilistic format (cyclic system of rank 4) as the one describing spins of two entangled electrons. (shrink)

Le principe de non-contradiction a depuis très longtemps étéreconnu comme le principe le plus fondamental de la pensée rationnelle. II est facile de l'énoncer sous sa forme symbolique: –. Ce principe pose que quelqu'un ne saurait affirmer en même temps une proposition et sa négation. Pour que ce principe ne demeure pas une exigence vide, il faut en outre que l'on puisse déterminer avec précision quelles sont les conditions de son application. Cette détermination des conditions d'application d'un principe commence (...) par la recherche des moyens par lesquels il est possible de démarquer, dans le champ de son application, ce qui en respecte l'énoncé de ce qui n'en respecte pas l'énoncé. Or si rien n'est plus facile que de formuler un précepte, rien, appa-remment, n'est plus difficile que de tracer une ligne nette entre ce qui se conforme au précepte et ce qui le transgresse. Bien qu'il soit l'assise la plus profonde de nos raisonnements, le principe de non-contradiction ne fait pas exception à ce constat. Son énoncé fait sans doute l'unanimité mais il est assez rare que l'on s'accorde, en dehors des disciplines formelles, sur ce qui constitue l'occurrence d'une contradiction. Cet accord sur ce qui constitue ou non l'exemple d'une contradiction m'apparaît faire défaut d'une façon particulièrement marquée en philosophic Cette situation pose un double problème. (shrink)

My essay ‘Weakening the ethical distinction between euthanasia, palliative opioid use and palliative sedation’ has recently generated some critique which I will attempt to address in this response. Regarding the empirical question of whether palliative opioid and sedative use shorten survival time, Schofieldet alraise the three concerns that my literature review contains a cherry-picking bias through focusing solely on the palliative care population, that continuous deep palliative sedation falls beyond the scope of routine palliative care, and that my research may (...) contribute to opiophobia and be harmful to palliative care provision globally. Materstvedt argues that euthanasia ‘ends’ rather than ‘relieves’ suffering and is not a treatment, and that the arguments in my essay are therefore predicated on a ‘category mistake’ and are a non-starter. Symons and Giebel both raise the concern that my Kantian and Millian interpretation of the Doctrine of Double Effect is anachronistic, and that when interpreted from the contemporaneous perspective of Aquinas it is a sound ethical principle. Giebel also argues that palliative opioid and sedative use do meet the Doctrine of Double Effect’s four criteria on this Thomistic account, and that it does not contradict the Doctrine of the Sanctity of Human Life. In this response I will explore and defend against most of these claims, in doing so clarifying my original argument that the empirical and ethical differences between palliative opioid/sedative use and euthanasia may not be as significant as often believed, thereby advancing the case for euthanasia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Evaluation of Implicit AnthropologiesJochen Fahrenberg (bio) and Marcus Cheetham (bio)Keywordsmind-body, philosophical assumptions, human natureThe three commentaries and the reviewer’s notes contain valuable reflections and expand on number of important points. There is general agreement that surprisingly little is known about psychologists’, psychotherapists’, clinicians’, and other professionals’ philosophical assumptions about human nature. It is conceivable that these implicit anthropologies represent a potential source of bias in research and practice (...) and that further research is therefore justified.Doctor Walach emphasizes the pluralism of world views, which is evident in the questionnaire response patterns. The findings contradict the assumption that monism, immanence, and a scientific worldview are predominant preconceptions. Instead, psychology students mostly favor ontological or methodological dualism, and con-firm that they have spiritual beliefs or indeed some belief in paranormal phenomena. From this, Dr. Walach extends his thought-provoking perspective to folk psychology, as opposed to mainstream psychology, and reflects on the influence of individual beliefs on scientific culture. It is especially from this perspective that the investigation of certain key concepts and belief systems should be given every encouragement.Doctors Wells and Rackley were particularly interested in the implicit anthropologies of clinicians. They are inclined to attribute individual differences in understanding and interaction with patients to “psychological” traits or to momentary experience rather than to philosophical beliefs. The latter view was supported by the majority of students in our investigation. With respect to psychotherapists and clinicians, our article contained only a short reference to the interviews conducted by Wider. The majority of the forty-two professionals taking part in this pilot study assumed that there may be such differential biases in their fields, but they conceded that the momentary clinical condition and pragmatic necessities would often override such biases. An empirical investigation to differentiate psychological, pragmatic–clinical, and philosophical factors and the associated bias would be an ambitious project; very careful interviews and perhaps participant observation would be necessary. But before undertaking such a study, further descriptive studies and the development of testable hypotheses are required.Doctor Brendel referred to the intricacies of the mind–body problem. We agree that many of the recent philosophical writings show nonreductive physicalism to be among the highly favored conceptions. (We do not know whether this discourse represents the majority opinion of philosophers, psychologists, clinicians, or even neuroscientists.) [End Page 213] The inclusion of this specific conception in the multiple-choice item list would require the inclusion of a specific vocabulary and some definitions that are controversial, even among the proponents of nonreductive physicalism. We decided to restrict the wide spectrum of concepts to five categories. Doctor Brendel goes on to voice explicit support for the conceptualization proposed by Horgan, who recommended a pragmatic approach and the use of double vocabularies. He suggests that context-related features in a given instance would suffice for selecting the most appropriate explanation. It is, however, conceivable that close examination of the decision process would reveal criteria containing or stemming from philosophical assumptions.Doctor Walach makes reference to the complementarity principle, which has a certain intellectual appeal when cross-category relationships are considered, and is not restricted to the domain of physics. Compared with a double-language dualism, the complementarity principle postulates that both frames of reference are fundamentally different in categories, exhaustive within their specific explanation scheme, but are essentially incomplete if, for example, brain and consciousness are viewed as a whole.Pertinent methodological aspects were already addressed in the article and endnote. However, the appropriateness of a questionnaire with which to assess philosophical standpoints will continue to be met with concern and require careful consideration. It is clear that there is no other practical method for gathering in a population like first-year students of psychology representative data about ontological beliefs, religious attitudes, or assumptions on human nature.Doctors Wells and Rackley noted discrepancies in the response to two items relating to spiritual existence after death and the cessation of consciousness with biological death. The two statements seem to be contradictory and the observed inconsistencies point to possible misunderstandings, response tendencies, context-dependent effects, or other shortcomings well-known in research using personality questionnaires. However, the assumed postmortal existence... (shrink)

A conventional experiment is proposed to resolve the realist/idealist debate by challenging the premise that double blinding and an attitude of objectivity in general deter the corroborative influence which preconceptions exert on perception. The possibility that objectivity enhances corroboration would not contradict empirical findings, and would account for the success of science.

Résumé Après une mise en perspective historique du processus de financiarisation, l’article prête plus particulièrement attention au rôle de la finance dans le gouvernement des externalités, et cela à un double niveau. 1?) Le premier a trait à la revanche des externalités négatives. La surexploitation de la planète résultant de deux siècles d’une croissance hyper-productiviste fait désormais peser sur l’économie mondiale une incertitude structurelle, qui pèse tant sur les prix des ressources non renouvelables que, plus fondamentalement, « sur le (...) prix de l’avenir tout court ». Or c’est la finance qui, faute de mieux, va être « sollicitée pour donner un prix au futur ». Ce constat est d’autant plus fort que le développement des activités visant à solder les externalités négatives est destiné à jouer nécessairement un rôle majeur dans la dynamique du capitalisme. Après la convention boursière Internet et celle immobilière, il est ainsi fort probable que la prochaine convention boursière porte sur les énérgies alternatives et les activités liées à la réparation des dégâts de la croissance. 2?) Le deuxième niveau concerne le rôle croissant des externalités positives liées au processus de production et de circulation des connaissances. Plus précisément, la révolution des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) et la montée de l’immatériel se traduisent par deux effets convergents et éminemment contradictoires, auxquelles la finance apporte une réponse. D’une part, les TIC permettent la numérisation et la codification de tout ce qui est répétitif dans l’activité mentale en dépréciant la valeur marchande de l’information. Or, et nous avons là une première contradiction, ces connaissances codifiées et numérisées (dites de niveau 1) présentent un problème majeur d’appropriation privative. Leur coût de production initial est certain. En revanche, leurs coûts marginaux sont très faibles ou nuls, ce qui rend de plus en plus difficile l’exécution des droits de propriété intellectuelle. D’autre part, ce même processus d’automatisation des activités mentales répétitives et de codification de la connaissance déplace le cœur de l’activité créatrice de valeur vers les connaissances tacites, difficilement codifiables : les connaissances dites de type 2, constituées par le triptyque créativité / intelligence / innovation. C’est le modèle paradigmatique du travail immatériel reposant « sur la coopération entre cerveaux travaillant sur ordinateur et reliés par le réseau (Internet). » Or l’assujettissement de cette forme de la coopération productive en réseau ne peut être qu’indirecte et formelle. Dans ce cadre, la finance est alors destinée à remplir toujours davantage deux fonctions structurelles. Elle seule permet de subsumer le travail immatériel, tout en actualisant l’évaluation à la juste valeur ( fair value ) des actifs immatériels, dans un contexte d’incertitude structurelle où la « valeur des biens connaissances oscille de rien à des valeurs incommensurables et à des prix de monopole qui sont des prix politiques ». (shrink)

Ce livre tente de montrer comment historiquement, en France, la constitution d'un dogme de la pensée philosophique et l'assujettissement de la philosophie à la politique vont de pair et sont tous deux à l'origine de la discipline philosophique. La philosophie au XIXe siècle en France semble ainsi se construire selon un double rapport, à la tradition philosophique d'une part, et au pouvoir politique de l'autre. Or les deux termes de ce rapport se situent à leur tour dans une relation (...) de dépendance - le rapport à l'histoire de la philosophie étant en réalité subordonné à une conception politique. Selon la conception politique qu'il s'agit de défendre ou de légitimer au présent, les usages de l'histoire de la philosophie s'avèrent très différents. Dès lors, comment interpréter les contradictions de l'histoire de la philosophie? Sur quels auteurs ou sur quelles traditions les différents courants philosophiques du XIXe siècle prennent-ils appui et dans quel but? Telles sont les questions qui ont guidé la lecture des textes de Victor Cousin et de Pierre Leroux et de la vive polémique qui les oppose. Elles ont permis de montrer comment l'usage de l'histoire de la philosophie constitue un révélateur de la finalité assignée à la philosophie. La confrontation des textes de ces deux auteurs fait ressortir d'une manière particulièrement aigüe un certain nombre des enjeux généraux impliqués par les rapports de la philosophie et de son histoire. Elle a donné lieu à l'élaboration d'un travail conceptuel de détail, dans un contexte historique particulièrement riche et occupant une position charnière : à la fois du point de vue de ce à quoi elle succède - la philosophie des Lumières et la Révolution française -, mais aussi de ce qu'elle instaure - à savoir l'institutionnalisation de l'enseignement philosophique en France. (shrink)

On cherche à mettre en perspective les divers ouvrages généraux de Geneviève Rodis-Lewis sur Descartes, « ses » Descartes, qui se reprennent et se corrigent sans se répéter ni se contredire, avec les trois images de Descartes qui dominent les études cartésiennes en France autour des années 1950 : « les » Descartes de Gouhier, d'Alquié et de Gueroult. La notion de développement semble un trait commun à l'objet étudié et à la méthode mise en œuvre pour l'approcher. 1 /Le (...) Colloque de Royaumont fait passer G. Rodis-Lewis d'une « petite querelle » avec P. Mesnard sur l'ordre des passions de l'âme à la « grande querelle » sur l'essence de la pensée, comme purement intellectuelle ou comme activité de la volonté. M. Gueroult, tout en le rejetant comme leibnizien et non cartésien, reconnaît l'importance de l' « embryon de conscience » mis en valeur par G. Rodis-Lewis. 2 / Désormais, elle ne cessera d'approfondir l'enquête sur « la première métaphysique de Descartes », celle de 1628-1630, méconnue à la fois par ceux qui refusent avec Gueroult tout ordre chronologique et par ceux qui le réduisent avec Alquié à une évolution unilatérale, les uns et les autres manquant ainsi le développement de la pensée de la liberté. 3 / On termine par le fragment du manuscrit Cartesius, que G. Rodis-Lewis a retraduit et dont elle a, la première, sinon la seule, dégagé l'importance. Sans se confondre avec la double définition de la liberté de la Méditation IV, ce passage l'anticipe et « il est difficile de se défendre de l'impression que voilà rembryon d'où sortira la pensée métaphysique de Descartes ». We try to put into perspective the various general books on Descartes by Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, her Descartes which are alluded to one another and are corrected without repetition or contradiction, with the three images of Descartes which are the most important of the Cartesion studies in France around the 1950's : Gouhier's, Alquie's and Gueroult's Descartes. The notion of development seems to be a common feature of the studied object and the method used to tackle it. 1 /Royaumont's Colloquium makes G. Rodis-Lewis pass from a « little quarrel » with P. Mesnard about the order of the passions of the soul to the « great quarrel » dealing with the essence of thought as purely intellectual or as an activity of the will. M. Gueroult, while rejecting the « embryo of conscience » emphasized by G. Rodis-Lewis as Leibnizian and non Cartesian, admits its importance. 2 /From then on, she kept on studying thoroughly the search for « Descartes' first Metaphysics », dated back to 1628-1630, unrecognised both by those, like Gueroult, who reject any chronological order and by those, like Alquié, who reduce it to a unilateral evolution, both of them thereby missing this way the development of the thought of freedom. 3 / We finish with the part of the Cartesius manuscript that G. Rodis-Lewis translated again. She was the first one, if not the only one, to show its importance. Without its being confused with the double definition of freedom of Meditation IV, this passage anticipates it and « it is difficult to avoid the impression that this is the embryo from which Descartes' metaphysical thought will emerge ». (shrink)

Bourdieu's work on modern cultural production has certain omissions. It fails to raise the possibility that authors such as Salman Rushdie, either writing from peripheral nations or from powerless minorities within a powerful nation, might be called `heroic modernists'. This would differentiate them from the routinized form of late 20th-century modernist avantgardism, which operates within the logic of the laws of the `restricted literary field' and contributes inadvertently to social reproduction rather than transformation. The argument of the article provides grounds (...) for seeing Rushdie as such a `heroic modernist'. The structural location for contemporary `heroic' modernism is linked to the particular position the writer occupies as a stranger or migrant. However, it is proposed that even writing such as Rushdie's, deriving as it does from the political good intentions of the radical, is constrained to establish itself within a highly competitive cultural field. The article asks whether the `double rupture' of the Verses - a rupture both with the bourgeois bestselling novel and with popular forms - is not the main source of those social contradictions on which the writer himself came to be so impaled. Not the least among such contradictions is the imperative for the purpose of literary distinction of the refusal of a traditional realist style, which led the author towards an ironic iconoclasm: a comic grotesque mode of subverting of the sacred. (shrink)

Il a existé un paradigme de la démarche dialectique en philosophie, illustré par une succession continue d'auteurs, entre Platon et Lacan. Ce paradigme concerne un noyau rationnel de la contradiction formé de trois temps : une double composante statique (structure) et dynamique (mouvement), ainsi que l'articulation de ces deux versants en un produit. C'est de ce paradigme de la contradiction dialectique que la philosophie en France ne semble plus avoir su faire usage dans la période consécutive à (...) 1968. L'usure de ce paradigme d'origine judaïque, grecque, française et germanique aurait alors cédé la place à l'invasion des variantes d'un hyper-empirisme anglo-américain, scientiste, opportuniste et niveleur. Ce mouvement aurait été servi en France par l'expansion de l'idéologie structuraliste postérieure aux années 60. Lacan semble à peu près le seul parmi ses contemporains à avoir maintenu et enrichi les traits de ce paradigme dialectique par sa démarche de pensée, sous forme d'un hypermodèle transdialectique 2/3/4. Le désenchantement à l'égard de ce paradigme se perçoit de façon significative dans le remarquable panorama qui a été produit de la philosophie française entre 1960 et 2000 par Alain Badiou (2008, 2013). Le déclin de ce paradigme comporte le corollaire d'un effacement de l'humanisme européen traditionnel, dont relèvent à la fois la mise en question de la psychanalyse, l'intrusion d'un mode de pensée convenant à l'homme cybermachine, et la nouvelle nosologie biologisante en psychiatrie. Ce livre est écrit en jumelage avec un second, intitulé Althusser et quelques autres, Notes de cours 1958-1959 : Hyppolite, Badiou, Lacan, Hegel, Marx, Alain, Wallon. (shrink)

Joaquin Segura. Untitled (fig. 40) . 2007 continent. 1.2 (2011): 117-124. The interview that follows is a dialogue between artist and gallerist with the intent of unearthing the artist’s working strategies for a general public. Joaquin Segura is at once an anomaly in Mexico’s contemporary art scene at the same time as he is one of the most emblematic representatives of a larger shift toward a post-national identity among its youngest generation of artists. If Mexico looks increasingly like a foreclosed (...) home burning to the ground, Segura could likely be the one walking away, charred matchstick between thumb and forefinger and shit-eating grin on his face. His corrosive attacks on institutions, ideologies, and power reflect a deep general distrust of authority, increasingly evident within the work of younger Mexican artists. It is perhaps most directly the result of President Calderon’s deeply unpopular war against the cartels but no doubt equally the product of decades upon decades of rampant corruption and errant policy within Mexico. Brett W Schultz (BWS): A recurring—if not dominant—theme within your current work and investigation explores ideological extremism in reaction to some perceived political and economic disenfranchisement, especially that espoused and practiced by right-wing groups in United States. That's exactly why I thought of you when I was approached to contribute a piece to an issue on the subject of the moraine—taken metaphorically here to signify a certain set of beliefs that have resurfaced within mainstream American culture in the wake of a probably over-exaggerated political sea-change, marked by Obama's election. You're a Mexican artist who now lives and works in Guadalajara, far from the border cities where such concerns would seem more likely to be relevant to a contemporary artist; of course, you're even farther from the culture that birthed this nature of extremism. What interests you so intensely about this movement, if we can call it that? Joaquin Segura (JS): I think there are several seminal points that you touch on in this particular question. There's a very specific set of interests that make me address the socio-political issues I've been dissecting through my practice in the last few years. First of all, I don't really consider myself a 'mexican' artist. As I've made clear in the past, I don't really believe in the notion of 'identity' or the idea of 'nation', which I find totally laughable and heartwarmingly passé. I'm convinced that these are totally outdated models of understanding our differences and similarities, expanding our already immense and irreconcilable cultural abysses instead of bringing them together, thus resulting in their total dispersion among the complex and extremely arbitrary weaving of contemporary social nucleii. Pretty much a frankly bad joke, if I may say so. The fact that I live and work in Mexico is a completely random geographical and temporal factor, which of course affects what I think and what I do, but I've chosen not to be limited by this specific circumstance. In the past, while working abroad, I've taken advantage of this preconception of Mexico—to be more exact, pretty much all of Latin America—as one of the last barbaric bastions of western civilization. Totally amusing, if you ask me about it. I consider my practice to be, among other things, a gonzo strategy of deceit: there are quite a few roles you can adopt in this approach that may actually reveal themselves to be a privileged vantage point. In my experience, the gentle savage is one of the most effective ones to establish my standing position. Thus, I'm a mexican artist if I need it to prove my point. If it's not necessary in a specific circumstance, I'm not. Quite simple, I think. Said in other words, it's just an ace I can play to win a particular match. It has worked so far, at least for me. L: Hey, America… , 2009. R: The Inaugural Address , 2009. I am interested in the nature of power and the rise and fall of totalitarian ideological and political apparatuses nowadays. But I guess, going even further, I'm essentially fascinated by the fissures and contradictions that have made these structures spectacularly crumble to the ground. I do believe extreme ideologies have played a crucial role in the globalization of socio-political crisis. In the end, our world is nothing more than a fading monument to all things gone wrong—the inspiring triumph of failure, in every sense. I see this as an exciting parable. And of course, it is an undeniable fact that the US, through their influence in world economy, international policies and general attitude towards the rest of the planet is the largest structure waiting to collapse. I think we are all secretly awaiting that moment of splendor, even americans. It'll be disastrous and as nasty as it can get, but it will also be liberating and incredibly inspirational. Not just because it’s the US but because it'll prove that absolutely everything is susceptible to fall. And not only that, most importantly, it would confirm that radical change may actually be possible and not just one more of the unfulfilled promises modernity has left us to struggle with on our own. BWS: I want to talk first about two of your works in particular: Hey, America... and The Inaugural Address . I feel like your more recent work has a subtle —or even hidden—sinisterness, but these two works are perfect examples of how brutally confrontational your earlier work has been. When we showed Hey, America... at Mexico City's Zona Maco art fair in 2010, there were at least a couple visitors to our stand who were absolutely ready to punch me in my gringo face for having done so. Certainly the shock value of these works is crucial to their central ideas, but can you tell me more about your intentions and how these works relate to your general oeuvre? JS: So funny. Perhaps we do deserve to be punched in the face. I think that's what I'm sometimes looking for, but I hardly ever get it. I do think of such works as some sort of logical trap, a somewhat perverse ambush waiting for someone to walk into head-on. I think what I tried to do with those two specific works, as well as some other past projects, is just emphasize issues or themes that do disturb or make me uneasy and restless. I consider my essential intention a need to make clear that we do not have to look the other way, ignore or forget. We must address, understand and solve these manifestations of senseless violence and absurdity because if we don't confront them this way, they'll end up consuming us. In other words, I do consider these works as a personal need of coming to terms with the nonsense of the world we all are living in. I don't particularly consider myself to be someone with a clear set of beliefs. Perhaps my only certainty would be that everything is there to be denied, demolished and obliterated—even my supposed unquestionability of that particular 'dogma.' My practice is a reflection of that paradox, and I do think that's how these two pieces relate to a wider body of work. Every democratic system and so-called developed contemporary society is deeply flawed on the inside, and that is because each has swept things under the rug. Of course, there's tolerance, good will and eagerness to make a difference but there's also hatred, pain and fear lingering all around. We must learn to relate to both sides of the spectrum. In a way, I approach the themes behind these particular works in what I think to be a non-biased, somewhat 'neutral' way. I do think there's an encryption process going on in the way I work, some sort of formal refinement of this somewhat outrageous content. A digest of infamy, if we can refer to it that way. It is up to the individual experiencing the work to decide which way these pieces lean. They can easily be seen from both positions and I'm ok with that. If you look closely at these works, there's nothing that establishes an unrelenting position—neither support nor rejection. I don't want my personal political views to directly set an agenda for the spectator as that’s essentially propaganda, which is one of the things I absolutely despise. To sum it up, I strive for the spectator to complete the piece in that sense. The work then becomes a reflection of his or her own contradictions, a playground of the mind. I'm interested in achieving a deadpan and deadlock state in the observer. So, in a way, those visitors threatening to beat the shit out of you unconsciously became that particular issue the work is alluding to. Just blind and senseless reaction to god knows what people feel must be defended, the overwhelming virtue of ambiguity. Beautiful. Perhaps you can also think of my practice as a uber-sophisticated and snobbish version of Punk'd. And you wouldn't be far from what I'm trying to convey. Untitled (Disturbance Scenarios #2) . 2010. BWS: To me, an important transitional marker in the overall trajectory of your work is the series, Disturbance Scenarios , which evokes a similar generalized state of panic, paranoia, and impending doom through its incorporation of sensationalist newspaper headlines, yet also suggests this slyly mysterious meta-narrative via the context in which the newspaper itself is placed. How did you arrive at this series and why did you choose photorealistic painting as the medium for it? JS: I consider this series to be a by-product of the process I follow when making work. I spend an important part of my time just doing research, going through documentation and accumulating visual or historical references for the themes or episodes I'm interested in, in that particular moment. These are, of course, valuable assets that connect among themselves in a mysterious and almost undetectable manner, sometimes a few years between one and the other. I've employed similar production strategies in the past, in ongoing series like Random Moments of Urban Decay , in which I document what I consider to be physical traces of ethnic, religious or ideological violence in the form of text graffiti, invisibly scattered in different cities of the world, mostly in the US. Disturbance Scenarios was started in early 2010, following a particularly intense period of traveling here and there that lasted for most of the year. I've always felt compelled by text, as I find quite intriguing the idea of how words can create equally intense evocations of what I call a mental panorama of uneasiness than those produced by aesthetically-charged imagery; of course, if handled right. I have a close relationship to print media—due both to my academic background and to my attraction to its ubiquity and almost unlimited influence, which in the end, is nothing else but power—so I found myself with a growing archive of newspaper headlines snapshots from cities like Melbourne, Auckland, London, and LA. Going through them, I noticed that they had in common a very specific thematic slant: they were all about some sort of conflict: energy crisis, political unrest, local episodes of domestic violence, you name it. So as you very well put it, I felt they all connected through this feeling of anxiety and anguish and I decided to start thinking of them as a body of work. Basically, I felt an interest in creating what I think of as my personal fragmented prefigurements of the end of civilization. There were few elements on the shots that could give away its actual location, geographically speaking, and I liked that. I find this sensation of vagueness and uncertainty quite alluring. The more subtle, the more perverse. The formal resolution of the series—as photo-realistic painting—is linked to my intention of creating distance between me as the artist and the themes I work with. I rarely execute my own work, and that is more a personal choice as I'm more interested in the ideas I mingle with than in the actual outcome of that process, understood as an "art-object" with certain market value. I did some tests with light-jet prints of those snapshots and I found them devoid of that nightmarish, disturbing indistinctness that I felt was so important for them to be able to project the turmoil I experienced upon encountering them and in conceiving of them as a series. So I thought that photorealistic painting would be an interesting resource to play with, as I hardly had worked with that medium before because of my lenient animosity toward painters and their craft. So they were executed like that and I think it turned out to be just right. Homemade (Napalm #2) . 2010. BWS: Though Disturbance Scenarios remains ongoing, it's an interesting contrast to another series of yours, Homemade, which are these beautifully banal photographs of the ingredients used to make improvised explosives. Whereas Disturbance Scenarios still confronts the viewer aggressively with its visual emphasis on loaded texts, in Homemade , you've dropped the surface-level bravado entirely. They're pieces that require explanation to someone not already versed in the fine art of amateur explosive-making. You weren't known for subtlety in your past work; why this change in direction? JS: I'm personally convinced that these are just two angles of the same conceptual preoccupation. I mentioned before my obsession with the idea of encryption. I'm quite enticed by how these processes of translation can politically and semantically alter and deviate purportedly subversive materials such as the ones these works allude to. I do think subversion is futile. I was really troubled by that thought for some time, but I think now I understand that it's not really that important. What is really significant is to elaborate on these alternate views, to envision and refine possible escape routes. It doesn't really matter if they go nowhere, but that is because nothing really matters. A "mute" artwork is a notion that captivates me. When you look at the works you mention, you know there's something off, but it's not fully clear how and why that is. I rely on that insecurity—on that moment of hesitation. And that can also be achieved through an approach like the one I'm now interested in. Let's just call it a smoke screen, a surrogate ruse to get to the same point: to talk about impotence and defeat in contemporary life. The notion that readily accessible information is actually a weapon is a double-edged fallacy: sure, you can make use of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, but that doesn't set you free because freedom is impossible. Still, that doesn't mean you can't blow up stuff during the process, metaphorically or not. I didn't understand the nature of subtlety before. I used to think that you needed to be loud and manifest anger and unconformity in the most aggressive manner possible. Then I finally realized that you can actually permeate and rarify a battleground—because after all, this is low-intensity war—if you actually aim at silently building up the contradictions and making the symbolic value of ideas and acts clash within themselves. Or perhaps it is that I am just getting old. I guess I used to be an angry kid until recently. Now I think of myself as a disenchanted post-teenager, and of course that reflects in my work and my approach to art-making. Kind of a rite of passage and I laugh at it because, overall, it has been overwhelmingly fun. And that doesn't mean that I'm not ready to stick it in someone or something's face again if I feel like it. BWS: You're now taking the subtlety of the Homemade series even further with your newest series, Definitive Reader For a Botched Revolution , in which you photograph a series of politically-charged books side-on, negating their content entirely—essentially reducing them to purely aesthetic objects in which the subject matter is only revealed in the title of the work. Can you talk about the ideas behind this series? Furthermore, is your recent interest in this idea of the "botched revolution" an indication of a general attitudinal or philosophical shift you've since adopted? JS: This new series of works is the logical outcome of a brief period I went through. Probably the last couple years, in which due to a number of circumstances that don't really have to do with my art-making, I was forced to renegotiate my ideas, my beliefs and practically everything that surrounds me. It was quite distressful and turbulent, but in the end, I think it was also almost epiphanic. I came to terms with myself and now I'm calm and serene. That is, of course, my personal take on it but I mention it because I do think it's important to address this shift you mention. The idea of an artwork as a container for latent revelations enthralls me quite a bit. That's how I see these particular works: art as an incendiary agent. It's up to the artist and the spectator to do whatever they please with it. I think the detachment and almost surgical cleanliness from the Definitive Reader series is also my take at poking fun of the way some art is totally innocuous and uncompromising. These images may be pleasing to the eye, but there's something twisted and rotten within them, well hidden beneath. You'll either see it or not, but without a doubt, it will not cancel its presence. This series is intrinsically linked to Homemade . I'm pretty much horsing around with similar ideas and statements here. And well, yes, I do think any revolution is a botched one. There's nothing too heavy about their own downfall. Decay and breakdown are here and will not go away. Perhaps we must learn to embrace them in one way or another, for our own sake. L: Untitled (T.A.Z.). R: Untitled (United States Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects) . 2011. BWS: Finally, let's discuss the near future. You've got an upcoming solo show at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [SAPS] in Mexico City this summer. What can we expect from that? What else do you have planned? JS: I'll go and get seafood as soon as I'm done with this interview. It's pretty good here in Guadalajara. That's my top priority at this very moment. About my solo project at SAPS, it's due to open in late July. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm still closely working with the curator on the general feel for the show but I can say that it'll be more of a revision of past works that have not been shown in Mexico City except for a couple pieces. It definitely won't be a showcase for new projects, although we may include one or two previously unseen works. What you can expect is a rereading of what I've been working on during the past few years. In a way, that's exciting to me because for some reason I don't really care about, I'm not that active in Mexico City even though that's where I lived and work for years. I've hardly shown there after my solo project at Yautepec in February of 2010. It'll be nice to see how it all comes together and I'm more thrilled about it because I totally love the space and I think they're doing an excellent job with their programming and its direction. And in a certain way it feels like going back home. About everything else, I need a period to reflect and fully understand what I've been thinking and working on. I've got a few group shows here and there: New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne are the ones happening soon. I will present my censored project Untitled ( Gringo Loco ) as part of the programming of the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, two years after being escorted at gunpoint from the installation site by police sent by the extreme right-wing mayor of the city, which I found pretty amusing for an otherwise typical Saturday afternoon. I'm also involved in a couple "curatorial" projects. In my case, "curatorial" means that I help put together stuff I like and I'm interested in. One of them will open in late September of 2011 at Arena Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, and I will work with three of whom I consider to be some of the best artists in a lively and active scene such as the one here in Guadalajara. But most importantly, I've been doing heavy research so there are also a number of projects that I've yet to finalize. That'll be my main focus during the rest of the year, even though I really enjoy procrastination. There'll be time for that later. Or maybe not. We'll see. About Joaquin Segura The action, installation, intervention and photographic work of Joaquin Segura (b. Mexico City, 1980) has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some spaces that have featured his work include La Panaderia, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Centro de la Imagen and Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City; El Museo del Barrio and apexart, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and Palace Adria in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2008 and 2009, Segura was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY and at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. He is represented YAUTEPEC in Mexico City and by Arena Mexico Arte Contemporáneo in Guadalajara. Further Reading Joaquin Segura’s website YAUTEPEC artist page for Joaquin Segura Capps, Kriston. “ID-ENTITY: Washington, DC.” ART PAPERS . 2009. (shrink)

The management of an infant after a decision to withdraw active treatment creates dilemmas. Both lingering death and active killing are undesirable, but palliative interventions can hasten death. We investigated what staff on our neonatal unit thought were the limits of acceptable practice and why. We administered a structured interview to elucidate their views, and asked them to justify their answers. The interviews were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. A total of 25 participants (15 nurses and 10 doctors) were recruited. 80% (...) emphasized the importance of pain relief following withdrawal, 60% mentioned meeting parental needs at that time. 76% agreed that death can be a desired consequence of withdrawal, yet 52% felt that death should never be hastened. 96% felt that morphine is acceptable after withdrawal, and 72% would give a higher than normal dose if necessary. 56% would stop paralysis at extubation but not reverse it, while 24% would continue paralysis. 16% would consider a drug that ended life instantly in some cases. A wide variety of views emerged, but there were two main positions, a cautious majority, and a more proactive minority. Apparent contradictions within the majority position could be explained using the doctrine of double effect and the acts and omissions distinction. (shrink)

Introduction. The trial; the right to a lawyer; double jeopardy; the electoral college; the senate; presidential pardon; judicial review; lifetime appointment; campaign finance reform; the right to political leave; the democratized corporation -- The right to a lawyer -- Abolish double jeopardy -- Empower the jury -- The electoral college -- Abolish presidential pardon -- Abolish the Senate -- Limit the power of the Supreme Court -- Abolish lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices -- Reduce private money in (...) election campaigns -- Expand the right to run for political office -- Expand employee rights -- The contradictions of libertarianism. (shrink)

Being and Negativity. The Thinking of the Subjective-Objective in Merleau-Ponty and GrimaldiThe thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty is distinguished at the outset from that of Nicolas Grimaldi as much by their methodological commitments as by the place each one accords to time. Nevertheless, their adoption of a double point of view on the human being – as at the same time consciousness and object – justifies bringing them together. Confronted to its full extent, the problem of the subjective-objective implies the (...) development of a monistic ontology and authorizes the critique that Merleau-Ponty and Grimaldi both address to Sartre and Bergson. In thinking a negativity internal to Being, the two authors come to restore an authentic passivity of mind, inaccessible to the dialectic of being and nothingness. Their philosophical paths diverge conclusively in the solution each brings to this common problem : whereas Merleau-Ponty only sees an apparent contradiction in the duality of points of view, one that is to be lifted by reworking them, Grimaldi’s realism maintains the contradiction at the heart of a substantial unity conceived as time.Essere e negatività. Il pensiero del soggettivo-oggettivo in Merleau-Ponty e GrimaldiIl pensiero di Maurice Merleau-Ponty e di Nicolas Grimaldi si distinguono, ad un primo sguardo, sia per la loro presa di posizione metodologica che per il ruolo che rispettivamente accordano al tempo. Ciononostante, la loro presa in considerazione di un doppio punto di vista sull’uomo – compreso alo stesso tempo come coscienza e come oggetto – giustifica un loro confronto. Affrontato in tutta la sua ampiezza, il problema del soggettivo-oggettivo implica lo sviluppo di un’ontologia monista ed autorizza le critiche che Merleau-Ponty e Grimaldi rivolgono entrambi a Sartre e Bergson. Pensando ad una negatività interna all’Essere, i due autori giungono a restaurare una passività autentica dello spirito, inaccessibile alla dialettica tra essere e niente. In definitiva, le due vie filosofiche considerate in questo saggio divergono rispetto alla soluzione che essi forniscono a questo problema comune : mentre Merleau-Ponty vede nella dualità dei punti di vista una mera contraddizione apparente che si tratta di eliminare riformulandoli, il realismo grimaldiano mantiene la contraddizione inseno ad un’unità sostanziale concepita in termini di tempo. (shrink)

Officials in a democratic state should be its society's loyal servants, bound to respect the law. They are also bound to be loyal for the supervisors, and obedient to their orders. The Author analyzes legal regulation concerning conflicts which arise from that „double loyalty” of the officials, especially when the orders they are given contradict legal regulation or principles of ethic they find binding.

One hundred years after the October Revolution, we can try to make an assessment of its outcomes and heritage. But if we just focus on the construction of a post-capitalistic society, of socialism, our evaluation will be partial, incomplete and unable to allow an understanding of the past and the current times. So, we have to tackle this issue from a double perspective: looking to the construction of socialism but looking also to the struggle against colonial domination, against imperialism. (...) The result of a reflection on these two levels is on one side that the movement started from the October Revolution led to the vanishing of the colonial classic system, and on the other side that the construction of socialism is a troubled process of political, economical and intellectual apprehension that is unavoidably full of contradictions. This process is still in progress – in China, for instance. On the other hand, today neocolonialism carries on the tradition of exploitation and domination, generating the premises of a new large-scale war. The construction of a post-capitalistic society is once again strictly connected with the cause of peace. (shrink)