One of the most provocative claims in current climate ethics is that we ought to have fewer children, because procreation brings new people into existence and thereby causes large amounts of additional greenhouse gas emissions. The public debate about procreation and climate change is frequently framed in terms of the question of whether people may still have any children at all. Yet in the academic debate it is a common position that, despite the large carbon impact of procreation, it is (...) still permissible to have one or two children per couple, if having children is needed for the parents' lives to go well. In this article, we propose a defence and a principled formulation of this procreative prerogative: agents are permitted to procreate if the goods that procreation provides are essential to their lives going well and cannot be replaced by other goods, nor be realized by lower‐emissions alternatives. This principle implies that procreative decisions require case‐by‐case assessment in which agents' self‐reflection, individual circumstances, and social context play a significant role. (shrink)

How do opinion diversity and belief polarisation affect epistemic group decision-making, particularly if decisions must be made without delay and on the basis of permissive evidence? In an agent-based model, we track the consistency of group opinions aggregated through sentence-wise majority voting. Simulations on the model reveal that high opinion diversity, but not polarisation, incurs a significant inconsistency risk. These results indicate that epistemic group decisions based on permissive evidence can be particularly difficult for diverse groups. The results also improve (...) our understanding of what can reasonably be expected of expert groups, and where expert advice might have limits. (shrink)

A new, expanded, and reorganized edition of a collection of texts that present a fuller scope to Guattari's thinking from 1977 to 1985. This new edition of Soft Subversions expands, reorganizes, and develops the original 1996 publication, offering a carefully organized arrangement of essays, interviews, and short texts that present a fuller scope to Guattari's thinking from 1977 to 1985. This period encompasses what Guattari himself called the “Winter Years” of the early 1980s—the ascent of the Right, the spread of (...) environmental catastrophe, the rise of a disillusioned youth with diminished prospects for career and future, and the establishment of a postmodernist ideology that offered solutions toward adaptation rather than change—a period with discernible echoes twenty years later. Following Semiotext's release last season of the new, expanded edition of Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972–1977, this book makes Guattari's central ideas and concepts fully available in the format that had been best suited to Guattari's temperament: the guerrilla-styled intervention of the short essay and interactive dialogue. This edition includes such previously unpublished, substantive texts as “Institutional Intervention” and “About Schools,” along with new translations of “War, Crisis, or Life” and “The Nuclear State,” interviews and essays on a range of topics including adolescence and Italy, dream analysis and schizo-analysis, Marcel Proust and Jimmy Carter, as well as invaluable autobiographical documents such as “I Am an Idea-Thief” and “So What.”. (shrink)

As a scientific discipline and profession, law has been for centuries at the heart of social and political power of many Western societies. Professors of law, as influential representatives of the profession, are important powerbrokers between academia, politics and the corporate world. Their influence is based on scientific reputation, institutional mandates inside and outside academia or privileged network connections with people in powerful positions. In this study, based on a full sample of all Swiss law professors in the years 1957, (...) 1980 and 2000, we contrast two theories of the distribution of power among law professors: Bourdieu’s thesis on the trade-off between scientific reputation and -academic institutional power vs. the thesis of an opposition between a group of established incumbents and socio-demographically marginal challengers who try to gain access to the profession. We show that among Swiss law professors the endowment with scientific capital is not opposed to the possession of institutional power within academia. Our findings reveal rather an opposition between a challenging group of professors devoid of resources and an incumbent fraction with a high amount of scientific, institutional and social capital alike. In the conclusion we discuss a series of explanations of this specific power structure, including the specific status scientific reputation and social capital can have for law professors. (shrink)

Contre la metaphysique: questions de methode / par Felix Le Dantec,...Date de l'edition originale: 1912Collection: Bibliotheque de philosophie contemporaineCe livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.Les oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont ete (...) numerisees par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp: //gallica.bnf.fr/ark: /12148/bpt6k5477903d. (shrink)

There is widespread intuition that historical injustices require reparations. This paper considers one philosophical problem for reparations: the Nonidentity Objection. The Objection states that present agents are not owed reparations for historical injustices because without the historical injustice they would not exist. I show the Objection only challenges the possibility of reparations for historical injustice if we adopt a particular model of reparative justice that takes someone experiencing harms to be a necessary condition for reparative justice. Instead, if we adopt (...) a different model of reparative justice based on relational wrongdoing, we can avoid the Objection. I defend my solution by considering the Nonidentity Objection in detail. I show that it challenges harm-based models of reparative justice regardless of the account of harm that the Objection uses. And I demonstrate that common objections to wrong-based solutions to the general nonidentity problem do not apply in the case of historical injustice. I conclude by sketching challenges my wrong-based model faces and argue that despite these challenges we ultimately have reason to prefer it over harm-based ones. (shrink)

This contribution examines the relevance of the concept “limit situation” in relation to aging and old age in a geriatric psychotherapy setting. The idea is to bring together concepts from phenomenology and the philosophy of age with methods from the field of qualitative social research. Experiences of groundlessness are viewed through the lens of Karl Jaspers’ terminology, leading to conceptualizing a dynamic of stabilizing beliefs yielding in the context of aging and old age. The results promise to contribute to psychotherapy (...) research and explore new ways for employing phenomenological ideas in clinical practice and research. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that we ought to have fewer children in order to reduce our contribution to climate change. Proponents of this view generally hold a moderate version of the view, according to which it is still permissible to have one or two children per couple. One recent exception is Chad Vance’s paper “Procreation is Immoral on Environmental Grounds” in this journal, in which he argues that procreation is always, or almost always, morally impermissible. I argue, first, that Vance (...) is mistaken in conceding that his radical position holds only if individual acts of procreation can make a difference, rather than being only a causally insignificantly contribution to collective harm. Instead, given his assumptions, he should hold on to the radical view that we ought to have no children at all. Second, I argue against Vance’s strongest argument for his radical view. Vance argues that procreation harms others, and that obligations to avoid harming rule out the demandingness considerations that are used to support a permission to have one or two children. However, contrary to paradigmatic cases of harming, any procreation-related harms result not only from procreators’ actions, but also from our collective failures to rapidly reduce emissions. This complex causal structure undermines Vance’s rejection of demandingness considerations. I conclude that the moderate view that we may have one or two children per couple survives Vance’s criticism. (shrink)

In the Roman time, Azania and its capital Rhapta had cultural and economic connections with diverse civilizations of the world, including those in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, India, the Far East, and the deep interior of Africa. Information about Azania was first provided by the Romans – Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemy, and sources such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Apart from the Romans, other people of the Middle East, including the Homerites or Himyarites, were found (...) to have lived and traded in Azania. Pliny the Elder reported that Azanian received spices from the Far East and sent them to the Great Lakes’ region where they were ferried via the Nile to the Mediterranean basin. The Periplus also reported other exported and imported trade goods. Indian and Chinese records provided evidence of connections with Azania. The most recent evidence of these connections is archeological. Materials recovered include beads and ceramics from Rome, the Middle East, and India. Archeology of submerged Rhapta also uncovered architectural remains of Roman technology. Material remains from the deep interior of Africa have been found on the coast of Azania. Roman connections with the deep interior of Africa are believed to have created caravan routes that facilitated cultural and technological exchanges. (shrink)

Social science research, whether observational or interventional, is confronted with situations where the dignity of participants and respect for cultural practices can be seriously affected. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, we will reflect on the ethical challenges facing social science research with special consideration of research in contexts of vulnerability. Secondly, we will propose the Kantian sense of respect as a normative framework to guide social science research.

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar as características do modelo sócio-formativo para a construção e o desenvolvimento de sociedades sustentáveis no ensino universitário. O artigo aponta que as universidades da América Latina precisam de redesenhar os seus currículos, incluindo a abordagem socio-formativa, para formar indivíduos capazes de resolver problemas emergentes como os danos ambientais e a perda da ética. A socioformação promove o aperfeiçoamento integral do aluno, a resolução de problemas contextuais e o pensamento crítico. Além disso, permite a articulação (...) de diferentes áreas de conhecimento para abordar problemas interdisciplinares; enfatiza as competências emocionais e sociais, a reflexão e a participação do aluno na sua aprendizagem; e promove a identificação e resolução colaborativa de problemas reais através de projectos formativos. A análise conclui que a socioformação gera resultados em estudantes e professores, reforça o funcionamento da universidade e forma indivíduos que aplicam os seus conhecimentos para resolver problemas de forma ética. (shrink)

Wittgenstein was hostile towards set theory; see his remark in §22 of RFM II: ‘I believe and hope that a future generation will laugh at this hocus pocus’. At the same time, he says that what philosophy owes set theory is ‘tremendous’ and that this is something ‘deep’. I want to clarify these two statements and to reconcile them. The hocus‐pocus remark is mainly directed at the temptation to talk about an own world of sets, focussing on extensions and thereby (...) forgetting the actual mathematical manoeuvres leading to them. Wittgenstein does not shy away from using set‐theoretical symbols and expressions, but he regularly deprives them of their genuine set‐theoretical character. When speaking of the ‘depth’ we encounter with regard to set theory, what he means is the depth explained in PI §111: It arises ‘through a misinterpretation of our forms of language’, and this is particularly so in set theory. (shrink)

« The vertigo of an alternative Japanese path: Tokyo renounces its role as Eastern capital of occidental capitalism and becomes instead, the Northern capital of the emancipation of the Third World. ».

No hay caracterización del republicanismo que no mencione la virtud cívica. Sin embargo, no siempre es clara la ubicación de la virtud en el entramado de la filosofía política republicana. Tomaré como punto de partida la reflexión de Rawls. Su temor es que la defensa de lo que la democracia necesita, la virtud cívica, ponga en peligro la libertad. Es lo que llamaré el «problema (de Rawls) con la virtud». Un problema que, a su parecer, compromete seriamente al republicanismo. Por (...) mi parte, intentaré mostrar que, en realidad, se trata de un problema del liberalismo que apunta directamente a una bien conocida tensión entre los derechos y la democracia, cuya única «solución liberal» pasa por atrincherar los derechos «frente a la democracia», excluyendo el compromiso ciudadano. En la segunda parte mostraré que el problema es real, pero que no afecta a todos los republicanismos y argumentaré que «el problema de Rawls» afecta, fundamentalmente, a aquel republicanismo que hace de la «realización ciudadana» su objetivo, que busca, por así decir, maximizar la virtud. No sucede lo mismo con aquel otro que otorga a la virtud un carácter instrumental. En la parte final precisaré esa idea de republicanismo que otorga tanto a la virtud como a la democracia un papel instrumental en lo que realmente importa: la libertad. (shrink)

This essay reviews the model of power from Maturana, Canetti, Foucault, and Zizek, in order to think the relationship between the State, freedom and decent society.

We argue that Reasons Fundamentalism, as defended by T.M. Scanlon, faces two important difficulties—one ontological, the other epistemological—namely theontological proliferation problemand thereliability challenge.We suggest that formal constructivism can avoid these difficulties, and that Scanlon would do well to adopt it. We also show that Scanlon’s three main objections to this view depend either on a misunderstanding of what formal constructivism is or on a question-begging argument in favour of realism.

L'article propose de commenter le rapprochement entre l'architecture et ce que les anglophones nomment Wearability. Pour ce que ce thème à double entrée renvoie à la question de l'habiter dans et avec la technologie connectée, à l'instar d'un vêtement (tendant à la combinaison spatiale), il fut choisi de l'approcher par le biais de l'expérience vécue et de l'organiser à partir de deux expositions récentes, à Paris et à New York, afférentes à la problématique des campements. Quand la première permet de (...) discuter combien les moindres équipements portables ont le potentiel à accompagner une remise en question de l'architecture comme infrastructure du monde, la seconde offre de découvrir que l'émergence d'une nouvelle idée de l'architecture en elle-même portable amène réciproquement à déranger ce qui fait dès lors office d'infrastructure technologique (et commerciale) de nos habitats. Il en est de la possibilité de préserver, à l'échelle de la personne, de toujours pouvoir choisir de porter (tirant profit de la polysémie de ce verbe) les récentes poussées technologiques, ou non. (shrink)

This paper argues that slips present a problem for reductive intellectualism. Reductive intellectualists (e.g., Stanley and Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011, 2013; Brogaard 2011) argue that knowledge how is a form of knowledge that. Consequently, knowledge how must have the same epistemic properties as knowledge that. Slips show how knowledge how has epistemic properties not present in knowledge that. When an agent slips, she does something different from what she intended; nonetheless, the performance is guided by her knowledge how. This reveals (...) a divide between the knowledge that actively guides behaviour: the knowledge how that the agent applies sub-consciously; and the knowledge how she intends to guide her behaviour in the first place, which she is under the illusion of acting on even as she slips. I argue that this divide between two levels of knowledge how operative in the slip case has no parallel when it comes to knowledge that. Therefore, knowledge how cannot be reduced to knowledge that. (shrink)

La familia Murcia de la Llana desarrolló a lo largo de casi un siglo una de las tareas más significativas y a su vez más desconocidas dentro del complicado proceso por el que un manuscrito debía transcurrir hasta abandonar la imprenta: la corrección de libros. Por sus manos pasaron la mayor parte de los escritos del siglo XVII, muchos de los cuales alcanzarían posteriormente un éxito sin precedentes, caso del Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes. Este estudio se articula en base (...) a una serie de noticias documentales, muchas inéditas, que intentan esclarecer la compleja relación de parentescos, así como interesantes datos sobre el oficio de corrector general de libros. (shrink)

The threat of terrorism once again raises some of the classic questions about constitutionalism: is it possible for constitutions to do what they aim to do—channel and control political power in such a way as to make it safe and beneficent for those under its rule but also competent to govern? Does not terrorism reraise the Schmittian problem of “the exception”, i.e., the situation of emergency that necessarily escapes all constitutional limitations? Although they did not face the problem of terrorism (...) as we know it, the American founders developed three different models of constitutionalism, embodying three different ways of responding to emergent circumstances and yet remaining bound to the constitutionalist aspiration. We develop the main outlines of the three models both conceptually and historically and show how they continue to be relevant to current discussions of constitutionalism in the age of terror. Finally, we make a tentative effort to judge which of the three models is most able to do what constitutions should do in difficult times. (shrink)