In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic GroundsGilbert LepadatuAlejandro A. Vallega. Heidegger and the Issue of Space: Thinking on Exilic Grounds. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 202. Cloth, $55.00.As the author himself clarifies, this book is not a rehearsing of what Heidegger says, or a commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time. It is rather an "engagement with issues essential to his (...) thought." And the essential issue with which Vallega is primarily concerned is the issue of space. What is indeed interesting about Vallega's engagement with Heidegger is the way in which he understands to approach spatiality: spatiality as a figure of alterity indicating the "exilic" character of thinking. If "exile" refers to one having to live outside his country of origin, "exilic," by contrast, refers to that specific experience where one not only has to live beyond his source of identity, but has no possibility of returning to his origins, anddue precisely to this becomes open to transformations that may lead to new possibilities of being. And by alterity of thinking Vallega refers to that aspect of thinking which, although constitutive of the very nature of thinking, has always been suspended or covered over in the determinations of thinking as provided by traditional metaphysics, and as such functions as a challenging and distressing limit to thinking itself.More specifically, in taking up the question of being, Vallega tells us, thinking becomes an issue for itself in its temporality or finitude, and is forced to reach a limit requiring an [End Page 217] engagement with issues that can no longer be addressed in terms of a traditional philosophical discourse. It is this loss of a familiar ground, the adaptive transformation called for by such a loss, the intimation of new unsuspected resources for thinking, all occurring out of thought's new awareness of its own finitude, that Vallega refers to by the name "exilic." Vallega's proposal thus is that spatiality as a figure of alterity indicates the exilic character of thought.It is unclear to what extent exilic experience can be thought of in terms other than Heidegger's. Vallega spends a great deal talking about alterity ascan be taken to arise within Heidegger, but the only conceptual apparatus available to him isprovided actually by Heidegger. The way he defines "exilic" is greatly, if not totally, dependent on Heidegger's interpretation of the attempt to overcome traditional ontology. I have my doubts that the rather exotic or quixotic term "exilic" brings something significantly new to the table. Exilic thought and alterity of thinking are based on Heidegger's fundamental insight that metaphysics has forgotten being, has forgotten the fundamental dimensions of temporality and finitude. It seems to me that what Vallega calls "exilic" is just a recasting in different terms, or a new term for one aspect of, Heidegger's engagement with the finitude of thinking. To say that the exilic character of Heidegger's thinking lies in the fact that Heidegger's critique of traditional ontology cannot go back to metaphysical origins and is as such open to "a thought to come," and to localize where this actually happens, does not appear to me to be a significant philosophical gain. Whether "exilic" experience and "alterity" of thinking bring anything new to what Heidegger has already thought of the overcoming of metaphysics should remain an open question, as should remain the question whether the recasting of Heidegger's struggling with the issue of finitude in terms of alterity of thinking or exilic experience is truly an engagement with "issues essential to his thought."Regardless of the issue of alterity and exilic thought, the book is still an excellent detailed analysis of how spatiality reveals the limits of traditional ontology as exemplified by Plato and Aristotle, and Heidegger's temporal ontology, and the difficulties, made apparent by such limits, facing the attempt of thinking being and thinking in their essential finitude. Vallega's undeniable merit lies, in my view, in his tracing Heidegger's own engagement with the issue of spatiality as a limit of his discourse on temporality and in showing how concretely spatiality figures in... (shrink)

This essay begins with a critique of the Critical-Logical model dominant in contemporary argumentation theory. The concerns raised stem primarily from considerations brought by several feminist thinkers including Carol Gilligan, Karen Warren, Deborah Tannen and, most especially, Andrea Nye. It is argued that, in light of these considerations, and concerns of essentialism or non-essentialism notwithstanding, that the Critical-Logical model is liable to dis-enfranchise a significant part of the population with regard to modes and styles of reasoning. The solution is found (...) in coalescent reasoning, an approach to argumentation that focuses on finding agreement rather than emphasizing disagreement and criticism. (shrink)

An analysis of the counter-intuitive properties of infinity as understood differently in mathematics, classical physics and quantum physics allows the consideration of various paradoxes under a new light (e.g. Zeno’s dichotomy, Torricelli’s trumpet, and the weirdness of quantum physics). It provides strong support for the reality of abstractness and mathematical Platonism, and a plausible reason why there is something rather than nothing in the concrete universe. The conclusions are far reaching for science and philosophy.

Just as there was a vogue at one time for identifying thinking either with mere processions or with more or less organised processions of images, so there is a vogue now for identifying thinking with something oddly called ‘language’, namely with more or less organised processions of bits of French or English, etc.

Natural normativity describes the means whereby social and cultural controls are placed on argumentative behaviour. The three main components of this are Goals, Context, and Ethos, which combine to form a dynamic and situational framework. Natural normativity is explained in light of Pragma-dialectics, Informal Logic, and Rhetoric. Finally, the theory is applied to the Biro-Siegel challenge.

An analysis of the physical implications of abstractness reveals the reality of three interconnected modes of existence: abstract, virtual and concrete, corresponding in physics to information, energy and matter. This triple-aspect monism clarifies the ontological status of subatomic quantum particles. It also provides a non-spooky solution to the weirdness of quantum physics and a new outlook for the mind-body problem. The ontological implications are profound for both physics and philosophy.

Positions in dialogic dispute are presented enthymematically. It is important to explore the position the disputant holds. A model is offered which relies on the presentation of a counter-example to an inferred missing premiss. The example may be: [A+J embraced as falling under the rule; [A-] rejected as basically changing the position; or, [R] rejected as changing the proffered missing premiss. In each case the offered model indicates the next appropriate action. The focus of the model is on uncovering the (...) position actually held by the disputant as opposed to identifying the "logically correct" enthymematic premiss. (shrink)

Geron recently announced that it had begun enrolling patients in the world's first-in-human clinical trial involving cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This trial raises important questions regarding the future of hESC-based therapies, especially in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. We address some safety and efficacy concerns with this research, as well as the ethics of fair subject selection. We consider other populations that might be better for this research: chronic complete SCI patients for a safety trial, subacute (...) incomplete SCI patients for an efficacy trial, and perhaps primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) patients for a combined safety and efficacy trial. (shrink)

We provide a Hilbert-style axiomatization of the logic of , as well as a two-dimensional semantics with respect to which our logics are sound and complete. Our completeness results are quite general, pertaining to all such actuality logics that extend a normal and canonical modal basis. We also show that our logics have the strong finite model property and permit straightforward first-order extensions.

Over the past 60 years there have been tremendous advances made in Argumentation Theory. One crucial advance has been the move from the investigation of static arguments to a concern with dialogic interactions in concrete contexts. This focus has entailed a slow shift toward involving both non-logical and non-discursive elements in the analysis of an argument. I argue that the traditional attitude Informal Logic has displayed toward emotion can be and ought be moderated. In particular, I examine the role of (...) emotion in everyday argumentation, and how Informal Logic can encompass it alongside the more traditional logical mode of communication. (shrink)

Much recent work in the study of popular culture has emphasized the extent to which it is not only a site of signifying practices, myths, meanings and identifications, but also an arena of intensities, of affective flows and corporeal state-changes. From this perspective, many areas of popular culture (from calisthenics to social dance to video gaming) can be seen as sites at which rich and complex—if sometimes dangerous—processes of embodied learning/teaching take place. By comparison, the world of formal education can (...) seem hopelessly clumsy in its inattention to such issues. From a personal perspective, I can attest that nothing surprises my students more than when I try to get them to think about the ergonomics of studying, or advise them that getting some exercise and cutting down on sugar will probably improve their work as much as further studying will, or when I advise graduate students that their mood and physical state will make as much difference to the quality of their lectures as will their level of formal preparation; and yet experience has convinced me of the accuracy of these assertions. I would aver that I have learned more about successful lecturing—in particular about the improvisational skill of ‘reading’ a room, and adjusting an affective–informational flow accordingly—from DJing in dance clubs than from any formal training in pedagogy that I have received. What conclusions could be drawn from these observations, and how do they relate to existing strands of pedagogic theory? These are the questions which this article will ultimately seek to address. (shrink)

Informal Logic, Argumentation Theory and Artificial Intelligence.

The article reviews selected points arising from the quaestio disputata on the relation between philosophy and the sciences, published in this journal in September 2003 and then some weeks later treated in an open forum by professors and students of the Gregorian Faculty of Philosophy. The central issue emerging from the discussion was that of organizing the different modes of rational discourse in a manner that respects the specific methods of each, while remaining attentive to the unity of human thought (...) and practical action. The later Wittgenstein took care to avoid mixing different types of discourse, while Carnap acknowledged the inevitability of including consideration of the psychP as an essential procedural step in every theoretical construct in the sciences. Maréchalian transcendental philosophies and Husserlian phenomenologies both insist that human subjectivity is more than functional, since it lies at the origin of rational activity. Thus, science draws attention to subjectivity, but a viable theory must still specify the status of actions proper to the latter. (shrink)

Some years ago, Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist, nailed the divide between scientists who conduct research on animals in the hope of advancing medical knowledge and people who object to that work for being immoral and inhumane. They are “like two different nations, nations locked in a long, bitter, seemingly intractable political standoff,” she wrote in her 1994 book, The Monkey Wars. The two sides certainly have been like nations locked in a long, bitter standoff. That standoff has (...) seemed intractable. But when Blum talked to people on both sides, she found glimmers of hope—a few individuals willing to listen to one another and find common ground. “When they can be freely heard,” she concluded, “then we will have progressed to another place, beyond this time of hostilities.” Today, while we are not yet beyond hostilities, we have progressed to another place. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’interroger la compréhension par Hegel de sa propre pensée comme « fin » de l’histoire de la philosophie. Il montre tout d’abord de quelle manière cette compréhension est bien incontestable chez Hegel. Il entreprend ensuite d’analyser la signification essentielle, mais éminemment complexe que revêt la notion de fin ici en question. Il cherche enfin à établir que loin d’être le gage d’un dogmatisme intempérant, la position de fin de la philosophie que Hegel impute à sa pensée (...) est au contraire l’expression de son antidogmatisme résolu qui entend restituer la vérité à son essence dynamique et inquiète, et, de là, à son historicité foncière.This article sets out to inquire into Hegel’s understanding of his own thought as the “end” of the history of philosophy. It shows firstly how Hegel unquestionably understood his philosophy this way. It then sets out to analyse the essential, but highly complex meaning taken on by the concept of “end” in question here. It seeks finally to establish that, far from being a token of immoderate dogmatism, the view of being the end of philosophy which Hegel attributes to his thought is, on the contrary, the expression of his resolute opposition to dogmatism which seeks to restore truth to its dynamic and restless essence, and hence to its fundamental historicity. (shrink)

Comment la Francophonie est-elle perçue dans l'Algérie d'aujourd'hui ? Certes, comme ailleurs, Francophonie n'y est pas francophilie, car l'Algérie a développé depuis longtemps, et encore plus depuis 1830, des racines du côté d'une identité arabo-islamique. Toutefois le français, langue d'oppression coloniale, y est aussi langue d'ouverture à la modernité, de libération des tabous traditionnels. Le pouvoir politique a utilisé cette quête légitime d'une identité autre que française pour tenter d'imposer un monolinguisme arabe. La tendance actuelle de retour au français, dans (...) l'écrit et dans l'oral, se fait dans une perspective multilingue, qui rend sa place au français, mais aussi aux langues maternelles berbère et arabe parlé. Toutefois la francophonie sera d'autant mieux acceptée qu'elle saura laisser sa place à la langue arabe internationaleHow is Francophony perceived in the Algeria of today? Admittedly, like in other parts of the world, Francophony is not a kind of “francophilia” because Algeria has long developed the roots of its Arabo-Islamic identity and to an even greater extent since 1830. However for Algerians, while French is the language of colonial oppression, it is also the language of modernity and of a liberation from traditional taboos. The political authorities have used this legitimate search for a non-French identity to try to impose an Arabic monolingualism. The current tendency to return to French, both written and spoken, is carried out from a multilingual standpoint which gives French is its place back alongside the country’s native languages, Berber and spoken Arabic. However Francophony will be accepted more favourably if it is able to leave its place to the international Arabic language. (shrink)

Around 1907, 1987, and 2007 Japan faced a crossroads in defining internationalism and Asianism, determining their relative priorities, and assessing their relevance for national identity. Similarities can be found in the far-reaching changes occurring in Japan's external environment in the three periods and in the importance of setting a new direction for strategic thinking. Misjudgments in the first two periods are reviewed in order to draw lessons for responding to today's challenges. A distorted outlook on internationalism led to rejection of (...) shifts in US thinking welcomed elsewhere in the global community. Now as attention focuses on debates over the Six-Party Talks as a test of internationalization and over the East Asian Community and regionalism as a test of Asianism, it is possible that the riveting impact of the issue, as with the issue 20 years earlier, will remain a symbol that trumps a strategic approach toward Asia at a moment of far-reaching regional reorganization. Shortcomings in dealing with the concepts internationalism and Asianism are connected; at the very time the Japanese struggle with one, they are also at an impasse over the other. The same set of factors may be at work: an absence of agreed principles on which to anchor foreign policy; fragmented strategic thinking that loses sight of interconnections and the big picture; and national identity that excessively separates Japan from global forces that transform politics and society and that narrowly compartmentalize the historical developments that shaped relations with Asian countries without capturing the fundamental regional dynamics. (shrink)