Francis Fukuyama's controversial new book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, has elicited varied reactions, but like it or not, it seems likely to be influential. Here are three opinions. —Ed.

Concerning beauty, order, harmony, design.--Concerning moral good and evil.

Why do some types of settings and some combinations of sensory information induce a sense of dread in humans? This article brings empirical evidence from psychological research to bear on the experience of horror, and explains why the tried-and-true horror devices intuitively employed by writers and filmmakers work so well. Natural selection has favored individuals who gravitated toward environments containing the “right” physical and psychological features and avoided those which posed a threat. Places that contain a bad mix of these (...) features induce unpleasant feelings of dread and fear, and therefore have become important ingredients of the settings for horror fiction and films. This article ap­plies McAndrew and Koehnke’s theory of creepiness to the study of classic horror settings and explores the role played by architecture, isolation, association with death, and other environmental qualities in the experience of creepiness and dread. (shrink)

This paper investigates the strange case of an argument that was directed against a positivist verification principle. We find an early occurrence of the argument in a talk by the phenomenologist Roman Ingarden at the 1934 International Congress of Philosophy in Prague, where Carnap and Neurath were present and contributed short rejoinders. We discuss the underlying presuppositons of the argument, and we evaluate whether the attempts by Carnap (especially) actually succeed in answering this argument. We think they don’t, and offer (...) instead a few sociological thoughts about why the argument seems to have disappeared from the profession’s evaluaton of the positivist criterion of verifiability. (shrink)

Fair Governance: The Enforcement of Morals is a study of legal interference with individual preferences and will canvass the interdisciplinary literature in economics, psychology, philosophy, and law. It discusses the particular conditions necessary for the state to legally interfere with our freedom of choice, whether it be to either satisfy our individual pursuit of happiness or to prevent us from making immoral choices. Relatively few philosophers know much of the parallel literature on this central problem of ethics; while many legal (...) scholars are acquainted with the psychological literature on judgment biases, they are frequently unfamiliar with the philosophical literature on perfectionism. Francis H. Buckley carefully links these two notions of state power with recent empirical literature on judgment biases and happiness studies and surveys the literature, arguing for a nuanced form of social perfectionism, one which seeks to promote the kind of liberal nationalism found in the United States. (shrink)

Land of Israel.—The Jordan and the Eastern Tribes.—The Northern Tribes.—The Central Tribes.—The Southern Tribes.—Mosaic Agriculturalism.—The Levites.—Polygamy.—The Neighbouring Nations.

Un admirable récit-reportage (1938) où l'auteur, qui a pris part à la guerre civile espagnole dans les rangs des milices anarchistes du POUM, raconte la lutte anti-franquiste mais aussi et surtout l'annihilation du POUM par les communistes espagnols. De ces événements devaient surgir le pessimisme de Orwell et sa hantise du totalitarisme, traits marquants de la suite de son oeuvre (##La ferme des animaux##, ##1984##).

An analysis of Steve Fuller’s social epistemology and epistemic agency.

This qualitative study was positioned within an emerging scientific field concerned with the interaction between biblical text and the psychological profile of the preacher. The theoretical framework was provided by the sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking (SIFT) approach to biblical hermeneutics, an approach rooted in reader-perspective hermeneutical theory and in Jungian psychological type theory that explores the distinctive readings of sensing perception and intuitive perception, and the distinctive readings of thinking evaluation and feeling evaluation. The empirical methodology was provided by (...) developing a research tradition concerned with applying the SIFT approach to biblical text. In the present study, a group of 17 Anglican clergy were invited to work in psychological type-alike groups to explore two of the biblical passages identified by Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary for the Feast of Christ the King. Dividing into three workshops, according to their preferences for sensing and intuition, the clergy explored Psalm 93. Dividing into three workshops, according to their preferences for thinking and feeling, the clergy explored John 18:33–37. The rich data gathered from these workshops supported the hypothesis that biblical interpretation and preaching may be shaped by the reader’s psychological type preference and suggested that the passages of scripture proposed for the Feast of Christ the King may be a joy for intuitive thinking types, but a nightmare for sensing feeling types. Contribution: Situated within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the SIFT method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. Employing this method, the present study contributes to the fields of homiletics and hermeneutics by demonstrating how some readers (sensing types) may struggle more than others (intuitive types) to interpret the scripture readings proposed by the lectionary for the Feast of Christ the King. (shrink)

Against the position of professor rex martin ("the review of metaphysics," xxv, December 1971) it is argued that there is a conceptual link between disobedience and destruction of authority, As socrates argues; that socrates does not take obedience to law to be an absolute principle of action; that socrates in the two dialogues about his trial does not contradict himself on the question of obedience to the court; that socrates' argument from piety does not undermine his arguments from injury and (...) agreement. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

In this paper, I first review previous interpretations of Wittgenstein's remarks on private language, revealing their inadequacies, and then present my own interpretation. Basing mainly on Wittgenstein's notes for lectures on private sensations, I establish the following points: ‘remembering the connection right’ means ‘reidentifying sensation-types’; the reason for ‘no criterion of correctness’ is that nothing, especially no inner mechanisms nor external devices, can be utilised by the private speaker to tell whether some sensations are of one type or different types; (...) and private names are not really names, private language is not really a language, therefore, private language is a grammatical illusion. My interpretation has the advantage of being able to reconcile Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, which is to dissolve philosophical problems by rearranging grammatical facts, with his actual philosophical practice, at least in the case of private language. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans la revue Projet n° 273, p. 35-42, en mars 2003. Il remet en question avec efficacité et élégance un certain nombre d'idées reçues, de clichés et de généralisations abusives concernant les évolutions contemporaines des régimes temporels. À lire absolument. L'individualisme contemporain serait-il la nouvelle maladie de nos sociétés, comme le laisse entendre le discours sur la crise du lien social ? Répondre à cette question suppose que l'on conçoive précisément ce que signifie (...) - (...) Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the prologue of the Old French Partonopeus de Blois. The author analyses the narrator's style of writing and argues that he puts the receivers at the very centre of the experience, relying on them to analyse the material with his subtle help. The author argues that it is therefore not the intrinsic nature — good or bad — of the story which is important, but what the receivers may gain from it. Via a series of reworkings, (...) the creator of Partonopeus orients the reception of the story and establishes his narrative style by an innovative use of literary tradition. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the persistence of conciliarist constitutionalism down into the seventeenth century, and on the particular way in which the Gallican author, Edmond Richer (1559-1631), framed it in his sweeping and influential critiques of the papalist ecclesiology. In the tradition established by his fifteenth- and sixteenth-century predecessors in the Parisian theology faculty, Richer's formulation of conciliar theory was essentially political in nature. As a result, it lent itself readily to use in the cause of constitutionalist aspiration by such (...) eighteenth-century critics of French monarchical policy as Nicolas Le Gros and Gabriel-Nicolas Maultrot. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Cette investigation, qui se veut radicale et diversifiée de la canonique du dialogue, réunit les éléments d'une nouvelle analytique de la communication. « Copyright Electre » Pages de début Avertissement I - Un programme de recherche philosophique (...) II - Dialogue, dialogisme, interlocution III - Les illusions de l'alternance IV - Renforcement du modèle V - Un langage libéré des contraintes de l'interlocution : l'idéographie frégéenne VI - Croyance commune et croyance communiquée VII - La structure inter-rogative du questionnement VIII - Notion D'a priori communicationnel IX - Prolégomènes à une philosophie du dialogue X - Objections et réponses XI - La controverse méta-théorique XII - La communicabilité et la question critique Épilogue Notes Ouvrages cités ouconsultés Index des noms propres Pages de fin. (shrink)

Post-modernist thought represents the latest skeptical turn in a revolution going back to the overthrow of speculative thought in and after Hegel's time, whose principal phases are traced from its dogmatic origins in 19c scientism and absolutism, through the 20c. schools of meta-philosophy, to the explicitly post-philosophical positions of Derrida, Rorty and others who would finally abandon or suspend all engagement with the tradition of philosophical reason. The progress toward this denouement has brought with it progressive distortion of the understanding (...) of classical philosophical arguments on their own terms, an understanding which now needs to be recovered from a standpoint that takes account of the legacy of the ultra-philosophical critique but now knows it as itself limited. (shrink)

The guides are shirt-pocket sized, easily folded, laminated for durability, and easy to read.

People with cognitive impairments often have difficulties formulating, understanding, or articulating decisions that others judge reasonable. The frequent response shifts decision-making authority to substitutes through advance directives of the person or guardianship orders from a court. The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities defends supported decision-making as an alternative to such forms of supplanted decision-making. But supported decision-making raises both metaphysical questions—what is required for a decision to be the person’s own?—and epistemological questions: how do we know what (...) persons judge to be their good, when they have difficulty conceptualizing and articulating? It raises practical questions, too, such as protection against risks of exploitation. This article uses a non-discrimination account of legal personhood drawn from the CRPD to explore how common features of decisions employed by people without cognitive disabilities are important in supported decision-making too. These features include prostheses, guardrails, relationships, and social contexts. (shrink)

Focuses on the enduring side of philosophical positions from the viewpoints of theology, science, literature, and social and political philosophy. Emphasizes the conflict and continuity of human values.