Proofs and Refutations is essential reading for all those interested in the methodology, the philosophy and the history of mathematics. Much of the book takes the form of a discussion between a teacher and his students. They propose various solutions to some mathematical problems and investigate the strengths and weaknesses of these solutions. Their discussion raises some philosophical problems and some problems about the nature of mathematical discovery or creativity. Imre Lakatos is concerned throughout to combat the classical picture of (...) mathematical development as a steady accumulation of established truths. He shows that mathematics grows instead through a richer, more dramatic process of the successive improvement of creative hypotheses by attempts to 'prove' them and by criticism of these attempts: the logic of proofs and refutations. (shrink)

We analyzed the patients’ perception of prenatal diagnosis of fetal cardiac pathology, and the reasons for choosing to continue with pregnancy despite being eligible to receive a medical termination of pregnancy. We also identified the challenges, the motives interfering in decision-making, and the consequences of the decisions on pregnancy, child and mother. This descriptive, prospective and longitudinal study was conducted in France, amongst pregnant women who wished to continue their pregnancy despite an unfavorable medical advice. Socio-demographic data were collected through (...) a questionnaire. Such questionnaire covered information assessing the parents/mother’s perception of prenatal diagnosis, and medical termination of pregnancy, their interpretation of the established diagnosis and their motives for not considering pregnancy termination. 72 eligible patients were analyzed over one year: mean age 33 ± 6.89 years, 47 patients had already given birth to ≥1 healthy child. Mean gestational age at the detection of fetal cardiac pathologies was 30 ± 4.37 weeks of amenorrhea. Patients decided to keep the child after 3 ± 1.25 consultations. 56 patients made their decision with their husbands and 16 made their decision alone. Reasons for declining the medical termination were culpability and responsibility, ideologies and convictions, mistrust and hope. Newborns of 67 patients died with a mean survival duration of 38 days. Patient informed consent should be sought before any decision in neonatology, even if conflicting with the medical team’s knowledge and the pregnant mother’s benefits. Decisions to accept or decline pregnancy termination depend on the patients’ psychological character, ideologies, convictions, and mistrust in the diagnosis/prognosis, or hope in the fetus survival. (shrink)

Can we ever truly answer the question, “Who am I?” Moderated by Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics), neuro-philosopher Elie During (University of Paris, Ouest Nanterre), cognitive scientist David Jopling (York University, Canada), social psychologist Timothy Wilson (University of Virginia),and ethicist Frances Kamm (Harvard University) examine the difficulty of achieving genuine self-knowledge and how the pursuit of self-knowledge plays a role in shaping the self.

_Focused on existentialism, this issue explores current writers, thinkers, and texts affiliated with the movement_ In 1948, _Yale French Studies_ devoted its inaugural issue to existentialism. This anniversary issue responds seventy years later. In recent years, new critical and theoretical approaches have reconfigured existentialism and refreshed perspectives on the philosophical, literary, and stylistic movement. This special issue restores the writers, thinkers, and texts of the movement to their subversive strength. In so doing, it illustrates existentialism’s present relevance, revealing how the (...) concerns of the past urgently bristle into our own times. (shrink)

A review on the educational experience of students with disabilities, based on qualitative and quantitative surveys, questions the stated objectives of inclusive education policies. These studies show a more favourable experience in the specialized classe, due to a deteriorated relationship to schooling in the regular classroom and a sense of isolation and incompetence developed faced of difficulties. Research conducted in a bilingual French sign language-French written device, in secondary school with deaf and hearing students schooled together in the regular classroom, (...) suggests other stories. The way in which school and teaching situations are conducted within this aid system, engages these students in a rewarding and capaciting experience, to be a recognized student in the classroom and among peers. Learning French sign language, the work of translators at the linguistic as well as pedagogical and educational level, the supporting role of auxiliary teaching systems, participate in the process of accessing school situations, especially to educational accessibility, thus providing students with a space of opportunity to attend school. (shrink)

In 1986, Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his victory over “the powers of death and degradation, and to support the struggle of good against evil in the world.” Soon after, he and his wife, Marion, created the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. A project at the heart of the Foundation’s mission is its Ethics Prize—a remarkable essay-writing contest through which thousands of students from colleges across the country are encouraged to confront ethical issues of personal (...) significance. The Ethics Prize has grown exponentially over the past twenty years. “Of all the projects our Foundation has been involved in, none has been more exciting than this opportunity to inspire young students to examine the ethical aspect of what they have learned in their personal lives and from their teachers in the classroom,” writes Elie Wiesel. Readers will find essays on Bosnia, the genocide in Rwanda, sweatshops and globalization, and the political obligations of the mothers of Argentina’s Disappeared. Other essays tell of a white student who joins a black gospel choir, a young woman who learns to share in Ladakh, and the outsize implications of reporting on something as small as a cracked windshield. Readers will be fascinated by the ways in which essays on conflict, conscience, memory, illness, and God overlap and resonate with one another. These essays reflect those who are “sensitive to the sufferings and defects that confront a society yearning for guidance and eager to hear ethical voices,” writes Elie Wiesel. “And they are a beacon for what our schools must realize as an essential component of a true education.”. (shrink)

Einstein Versus Bohr is unlike other books on science written by experts for non-experts, because it presents the history of science in terms of problems, conflicts, contradictions, and arguments. Science normally "keeps a tidy workshop." Professor Sachs breaks with convention by taking us into the theoretical workshop, giving us a problem-oriented account of modern physics, an account that concentrates on underlying concepts and debate. The book contains mathematical explanations, but it is so-designed that the whole argument can be followed with (...) the math omitted. Professor Sachs' story begins with classical and nineteenth century physics, describes the early discoveries in particle theory, and introduces the "old" quantum theory, which evolved into the quantum mechanics of the Copenhagen School. Such important ideas as the Einstein Photon Box experiment and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, and Schrodinger's Cat Paradox are clearly expounded, followed by a completely fresh explanation of relativity in conceptual terms, showing how apparent paradoxes can be removed by Einstein's own interpretation, especially that of his later years. Professor Sachs gives a detailed comparison of the fundamentals of the quantum and relativity theories, suggesting how the contradictions might be resolved. In an epilogue, he makes suggestions, with reference to religious notions, Taoism, and Buber's theory of I-Thou, for generalizing Einstein's approach beyond physics. (shrink)

This book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some cliche;s about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture (“faith and reason,” or “idealism and materialism”). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think “in a new key.” Double Exposure is somewhat (...) of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western “spirituality.” Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes. (shrink)

The Jewish Question in the Pages of Contimporanul. It is my interest to investigate how one of the Romanian leading interwar avant-garde magazines, Contimporanul (1922-1932), tackled the Jewish question. In this respect, I will consider the various standpoints the contributors took on the matter, presenting it in all its facets and complexity, as both a political and a cultural phenomenon. The analysis of the numerous articles covering the Jewish question, its causes and consequences, is meant to illustrate the sensibility Contimporanul (...) demonstrates in regard to the Jewish question. Finally, I will conclude that, as in all matters covered, the magazines’ ideological position is democratic – For its contributors’ main claim is that the young Romanian state should prove itself to be united, modern, democratic based on the principles of integration and plurality, and not a nation-state based on ethnic and religious discrimination. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that if ontological disputes turn out to be verbal they ought to be dismissed. I dissociate the semantic question concerning the verbalness of ontological disputes from the pragmatic question on whether they ought to be dismissed. I argue that in the context of ontological disputes ontologists ought to be taken to communicate views with conflicting ontological commitments even if it turns out that on the correct view of semantics they fail to literally-express their disagreement. I argue, (...) that is, against dismissing ontological disputes on grounds of verbalness. This serves to discharge the ongoing debate on the verbalness of ontological disputes from the metaontological consequences typically associated with it. (shrink)

In this book, Eli Hirsch focuses on identity through time, first with respect to ordinary bodies, then underlying matter, and eventually persons.

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article addresses a) the extent to which the familiar term “Buddhist quietism” is legitimate, b) the use of the term by Jesuit missionaries in Asia at the time that Catholic quietism was briefly flourishing in Europe, and c) the use of the term in the European philosophical controversy over Spinozism. Faure argues that, in most cases, the European critique of Buddhism was aimed at European (...) enemies. Chan Buddhism in China and Zen in Japan came to be associated with nihilism as well as quietism, and the association proved resilient down into the twentieth century, but the Jesuit critique has a peculiar provenance. The Jesuits in China borrowed arguments against Buddhism from neo-Confucianist allies, yet the Confucian critique of Buddhism was itself indebted to arguments that had been directed by Buddhist schools against one another. Certain Chan schools had accused other Chan schools of quietism and nihilism, and Western scholars even in the later twentieth century have taken sides in these disputes as well. However, Faure argues, the “no-thought” of Chan is not the “blank slate” of Christian quietism, on which God engraves his will and blessings. Nor does Buddhist quietism lead to the extasis of mystical union. Moreover, Buddhism was perceived by East Asian rulers mainly as an ideological weapon and only secondarily as a soteriological doctrine. Indeed “warrior monks” in Japan formed bands that attacked all who threatened their interests, and the country could not be unified under Tokugawa rule until this activist Buddhism was quelled. The article concludes with an expression of admiration for quietism and a wish that there might be more of it in Buddhism now. (shrink)

In this thought-provoking book, Eli Foster Ritter explores the relationship between moral and civil law, arguing that they are different aspects of the same fundamental system of justice. With insightful analysis and persuasive argumentation, Ritter challenges readers to reconsider their assumptions about the nature of law and the role it plays in society. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in (...) the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Eli Alshanetsky considers how we make our thoughts clear to ourselves in the process of putting them into words and examines the paradox of those difficult cases where we do not already know what we are struggling to articulate.

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on (...) how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)

Kant’s The Critique of Judgment laid the groundwork of modern aesthetics when it appeared in 1790. Eli Friedlander’s reappraisal emphasizes the internal connection of judgment and meaning, showing how the pleasure in judging is intimately related to our capacity to draw meaning from our encounter with beauty.

Este ensayo propone un esbozo de análisis temporal de un momento político relevante en la historia mundial del siglo XX, la Unidad Popular chilena (1970-973). Para ello, se hace una revisión de una parte de la literatura secundaria sobre esta experiencia, a partir de dos conceptos forjados que hemos propuesto para indagar la politicidad del tiempo: batallas cronopolíticas y momentum. Este último es entendido como la dinámica de un tempo social donde se puede actuar, ya sea en su capacidad de (...) mantenerse en la duración u orientar cambios a través de un impulso. Se concluye que el proyecto de la Unidad Popular buscó acelerar el momentum expansivo de esta fase de la historia chilena, lo que provocó discronías y desinscronías que obligaron a la contraofensiva reaccionaria a romper con este momentum. (shrink)

In recent years, inter-medial studies have attracted increasing attention in arts theory. The notion of 'inter-mediality' presupposes that each established art - such as theatre, painting, and cinema - indicates the existence of a particular medium, which preserves its distinct features in translations from art to art and, especially, in its combinations with others in single works. Nonetheless, this field of research is presupposed already in the traditional studies of 'ekphrasis', which focus on the verbal accounts of nonverbal works of (...) art; and in Wagner's notion of Gesamtkuntswerk. This renewed interest generated new fields of research, such as (a) the likelihood of the arts reflecting common grounds; (b) the necessity of a shared metalanguage; (b) the possibility of inter-medial translation; and (d) the inter-medial coexistence within a single work of art, without hindering the reading, interpreting and experiencing abilities of receivers. In honor of Eli Rozik, Ph.D., professor emeritus, former head of the Department of Theatre Studies, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Tel Aviv University, this collection provides overviews of all these theoretical issues, and tackles the contemporary practical questions that arise from attempts to transgress the boundaries between the established disciplines of arts studies. Considering first the theoretical aspects of inter-art, inter-mediality, and nonverbal literacy, Exploring the Common Grounds of the Arts goes on to discuss by means of performance analysis; dialogues between the arts within a single work; and correspondences between visual and auditory stimuli in musical contexts. It concludes with a discussion of practical examples of inter-mediality in religious representations, official processions, and public performances. (shrink)

According to the Counterfactual Comparative Account of harm and benefit, an event is overall harmful for a subject to the extent that this subject would have been better off if it had not occurred. In this paper we present a challenge for the Counterfactual Comparative Account. We argue that if physical processes are chancy in the manner suggested by our best physical theories, then CCA faces a dilemma: If it is developed in line with the standard approach to counterfactuals, then (...) it delivers that the value of any event for a subject is indeterminate to the extreme, ranging from terribly harmful to highly beneficial. This problem can only be avoided by developing CCA in line with theories of counterfactuals that allow us to ignore a-typical scenarios. Doing this generates a different problem: when the actual world is itself a-typical we will sometimes get the result that the counterfactual nonoccurrence of an actual benefit is itself a benefit. An account of overall harm bearing either of these two implications is deficient. Given the general aspiration to account for deprivational harms and the dominance of the Counterfactual Comparative Account in this respect, theorists of harm and benefit face a deadlock. (shrink)

In this incisive new work, Eli Friedlander demonstrates that Walter Benjamin's entire corpus, from early to late, comprises a rigorous and sustained philosophical questioning of how human beings belong to nature. Across seemingly heterogeneous writings, Friedlander argues, Benjamin consistently explores what the natural in the human comes to, that is, how nature is transformed, actualized, redeemed, and overcome in human existence. The book progresses gradually from Benjamin's philosophically fundamental writings on language and nature to his Goethean empiricism, from the presentation (...) of ideas to the primal history of the Paris arcades. Friedlander's careful analysis brings out how the idea of natural history inflects Benjamin's conception of the work of art and its critique, his diagnosis of the mythical violence of the legal order, his account of the body and of action, of material culture and technology, as well as his unique vision of historical materialism. Featuring revelatory new readings of Benjamin's major works that differ, sometimes dramatically, from prevailing interpretations, this book reveals the internal coherence and philosophical force of Benjamin's thought. (shrink)

What determines the degree to which some event harms a subject? According to the counterfactual comparative account, an event is harmful for a subject to the extent that she would have been overall better off if it had not occurred. Unlike the causation based account, this view nicely accounts for deprivational harms, including the harm of death, and for cases in which events constitute a harm rather than causing it. However, I argue, it ultimately fails, since not every intrinsically bad (...) state that is counterfactually dependent on an event contributes to its degree of harm. So while the causation based account is too restrictive, the counterfactual comparative view is not restrictive enough. In light of this, I suggest an alternative, explanation based account of overall harm, according to which the degree to which some event is harmful for a subject is determined by the degree to which (crudely) the states explained by it are overall more intrinsically bad than intrinsically good for her. (shrink)

When philosophers consider factors compromising autonomy in consent, they often focus solely on the consent-giver’s agential capacities, overlooking the impact of the consent-receiver’s conduct on the consensual character of the activity. In this paper, I argue that valid consent requires justified trust in the consent-receiver to act only within the scope of consent. I call this the Trust Condition (TC), drawing on Katherine Hawley’s commitment account of trust. TC constitutes a belief that the consent-receiver is capable and willing to act (...) as we expect from them. If such trust is not warranted, I argue, consent lacks the appropriate normative grounds. After establishing TC, I explore its application in the sexual arena, asserting that due to the non-contractual dimensions of sexual activity — such as the dynamic nature of sexual desires and the absence of external factors effectively binding sexual partners to the terms of consent—trust is warranted in sexual consent by means of care. I define care as a special sensitivity and attention toward the partner’s will and discuss how this approach leads to safer intimate relationships in practice. (shrink)

What position does take on Justice and why?

Dix thèses de débat sur un sujet éternel. Le regard d'un historien doublé de celui d'un citoyen-soldat : "La guerre a accompagné toute ma vie, elle a pénétré ma façon de m'exprimer et de penser.".

v. 1 Depuis les origines jusqu'au VXII siècle.--v. 2. Philosophie du XVII et du XVIII siècle. Commencement du XIX siècle.--v. 3. Philosophie du XIX siècle (suite).