Objective: Basic temporal dysfunctions have been described in patients with schizophrenia, which may impact their ability to connect and synchronize with the outer world. The present study was conducted with the aim to distinguish between interval timing and synchronization difficulties and more generally the spatial-temporal organization disturbances for voluntary actions. A new sensorimotor synchronization task was developed to test these abilities. Method: Twenty-four chronic schizophrenia patients matched with 27 controls performed a spatial-tapping task in which finger taps were to be (...) produced in synchrony with a regular metronome to six visual targets presented around a virtual circle on a tactile screen. Isochronous (time intervals of 500 ms) and non-isochronous auditory sequences (alternated time intervals of 300/600 ms) were presented. The capacity to produce time intervals accurately versus the ability to synchronize own actions (tap) with external events (tone) were measured. Results: Patients with schizophrenia were able to produce the tapping patterns of both isochronous and non-isochronous auditory sequences as accurately as controls producing inter-response intervals close to the expected interval of 500 and 900 ms, respectively. However, the synchronization performances revealed significantly more positive asynchrony means (but similar variances) in the patient group than in the control group for both types of auditory sequences. Conclusion: The patterns of results suggest that patients with schizophrenia are able to perceive and produce both simple and complex sequences of time intervals but are impaired in the ability to synchronize their actions with external events. These findings suggest a specific deficit in predictive timing, which may be at the core of early symptoms previously described in schizophrenia. (shrink)

"Open Democracy envisions what true government by mass leadership could look like."—Nathan Heller, New Yorker How a new model of democracy that opens up power to ordinary citizens could strengthen inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability in modern societies To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative (...) democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people—with the right suit, accent, wealth, and connections—are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the lost openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy in which power is genuinely accessible to ordinary citizens. Hélène Landemore favors the ideal of “representing and being represented in turn” over direct-democracy approaches. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Landemore recommends centering political institutions around the “open mini-public”—a large, jury-like body of randomly selected citizens gathered to define laws and policies for the polity, in connection with the larger public. She also defends five institutional principles as the foundations of an open democracy: participatory rights, deliberation, the majoritarian principle, democratic representation, and transparency. Open Democracy demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, today more than ever, urgently needed. (shrink)

The maze and the masses -- Democracy as the rule of the dumb many? -- A selective genealogy of the epistemic argument for democracy -- First mechanism of democratic reason: inclusive deliberation -- Epistemic failures of deliberation -- Second mechanism of democratic reason: majority rule.

This paper takes stock of a recent but growing movement within the field of deliberative democracy, which normatively argues for the epistemic dimension of democratic authority and positively defends the truth-tracking properties of democratic procedures. Authors within that movement call themselves epistemic democrats, hence the recognition by many of an ‘epistemic turn’ in democratic theory. The paper argues that this turn is a desirable direction in which the field ought to evolve, taking it beyond the ‘fact of disagreement’ that had (...) previously blocked the conceptual road to acknowledging more than intrinsic properties to democratic decision procedures. The paper shows how two authors in particular – Joshua Cohen and David Estlund – have successfully lifted the Rawlsian requirement of epistemic abstinence and defends epistemic democrats and the implications of the epistemic turn in democratic theory against various misconceptions. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of the epistemic properties of inclusiveness in the context of democratic deliberative assemblies and derives the implications of this argument in terms of the epistemically superior mode of selection of representatives. The paper makes the general case that, all other things being equal and under some reasonable assumptions, more is smarter. When applied to deliberative assemblies of representatives, where there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be included in the group, (...) the argument translates into a defense of a specific selection mode of participants: random selection. (shrink)

This book combines loosely "autobiographical" texts by two of the most influential French intellectuals of our time. "Savoir," by Hélène Cixous is an account of her experience of recovered sight after a lifetime of severe myopia; Jacques Derrida's "A Silkworm of One's Own" muses on a host of motifs, including his varied responses to "Savoir.".

Consensus plays an ambiguous role in deliberative democracy. While it formed the horizon of early deliberative theories, many now denounce it as an empirically unachievable outcome, a logically impossible stopping rule, and a normatively undesirable ideal. Deliberative disagreement, by contrast, is celebrated not just as an empirically unavoidable outcome but also as a democratically sound and normatively desirable goal of deliberation. Majority rule has generally displaced unanimity as the ideal way of bringing deliberation to a close. This article offers an (...) epistemic perspective on this question of consensus versus disagreement. For ensuring the production of better decisions, we argue, the normative appeal of consensus varies depending on the deliberative task – whether it entails problem solving or prediction. We argue that in pure problem-solving contexts, consensus retains a strong normative appeal and forms the ideal deliberative outcome of deliberation. In contrast, on predictive tasks, consensus should generally not be used as a stopping rule noris it likely to be epistemically desirable as an outcome. Instead deliberators may be better served by ending the deliberation with a form of deliberative disagreement we call ‘positive dissensus’, which paves the way for more accurate aggregate predictions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe idea that the crowd could ever be intelligent is a counterintuitive one. Our modern, Western faith in experts and bureaucracies is rooted in the notion that political competence is the purview of the select few. Here, as in my book Democratic Reason, I defend the opposite view: that the diverse many are often smarter than a group of select elites because of the different cognitive tools, perspectives, heuristics, and knowledge they bring to political problem solving and prediction. In this (...) essay I defend my epistemic argument against proceduralist democrats; the value of model thinking against empiricists; the bracketing of fundamental value diversity against critics who see such diversity as an essential feature of politics; the intelligence of the masses in the face of voter ignorance and systematic biases; and the normative priority of democracy over market mechanisms. I also consider challenges to my use of Hong and Page's formal results, the epistemically proper selection method for representatives, and the role of deliberation in problem solving. I finally chart three avenues for further research. (shrink)

The use of information technology in linguistic research gave rise in the 1950s to what is known as Natural Language Processing, but that framework was created without paying due attention to the need for logical reconstruction of linguistic concepts which were borrowed directly from barely formalised structural linguistics. The Computer-aided Acquisition of Semantic Knowledge project based on the Knowledge Discovery in Databases technology enabled us to interact with computers while gathering and improving our knowledge about languages. Thus, with the help (...) of data mining tools, as a result of revisiting two sorts of generally admitted linguistic theories, we succeeded in improving these local linguistic approaches by proposing to unify the Associative Semantics theory with the Meta-Informative Centering theory. The resulting Distributed Grammar program treats, in addition to the above types of information, the third one, para-information which – despite many studies – had no uniform theoretical background in general linguistics. This DG program aims to lay the foundations for creating the theoretical background of Conceptual Linguistics. (shrink)

The task of being oneself lies at the heart of human existence and entails the possibility of not being oneself. In the case of schizophrenia, this possibility may come to the fore in a disturbing way. Patients often report that they feel alienated from themselves. Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that schizophrenia sometimes has been described with the heideggerian notion of inauthenticity. The aim of this paper is to explore if this description is adequate. We discuss two phenomenological accounts of (...) schizophrenia: Binswanger’s account of schizophrenia as a form of inauthenticity and Blankenburg’s account of schizophrenia as a loss of common sense, which seems construable as a loss of inauthenticity. We argue that the accounts are highlighting aspects of the same underlying phenomenon, viz. schizophrenic autism. Moreover, we argue that Binswanger’s description of schizophrenia as a form of inauthenticity is inadequate and we discuss experiences of self-alienation in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Who can say "I am Jewish?" What does "Jew" mean? What especially does it mean for Jacques Derrida, founder of deconstruction, scoffer at boundaries and fixed identities, explorer of the indeterminate and undecidable? In _Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint_, French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous follows the intertwined threads of Jewishness and non-Jewishness that play through the life and works of one of the greatest living philosophers. Cixous is a lifelong friend of Derrida. They both grew (...) up as French Jews in Algeria and share a "belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging"--not Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In Derrida's family "one never said 'circumcision'but 'baptism,'not 'Bar Mitzvah'but 'communion.'" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls a "Jewish Saint." An intellectual contemporary of Derrida, Cixous's ideas on writing have an affinity with his philosophy of deconstruction, which sought to overturn binary oppositions--such as man/woman, or Jew/non-Jew--and blur boundaries of exclusion inherent in Western thought. In portraying Derrida, Cixous uses metonymy, alliteration, rhyme, neologisms, and puns to keep the text in constant motion, freeing language from any rigidity of meaning. In this way she writes a portrait of "Derrida in flight," slipping from one appearance to the next, unable to be fixed in one spot, yet encompassing each point he passes. From the circumcision act to family relationships, through Derrida's works to those of Celan, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais, Cixous effortlessly merges biography and textual commentary in this playful portrait of the man, his works, and being (or not being) Jewish. (shrink)

La maladie rénale chronique est une maladie somatique grave qui se caractérise par la diminution du fonctionnement des reins. Le travail proposé a pour objectif de réfléchir au vécu psychique du couple quand l’un des deux souffre d’une telle maladie. Qu’en est-il notamment de la place du traitement pour le conjoint? Il s’agit dans ce texte de s’intéresser à l’amélioration de la prise en charge des personnes malades, mais aussi des proches et plus particulièrement des conjoints. La méthodologie est là (...) qualitative et fait suite à des suivis psychothérapeutiques de conjoints de malades atteints d’une maladie rénale chronique mais aussi de malades eux-mêmes abordant la question de leur couple. Rendre les soins psychiques plus accessibles aux conjoints devient un enjeu majeur de nos dispositifs de soins au sein des services hospitaliers. (shrink)

Η στήλη που δημοσιεύεται εδώ ανακαλύφθηκε το 2003 στη Δεξαμενή του Ινωπού στη Δήλο, όπου είχε επαναχρησιμοποιηθεί ως οικοδομικό υλικό, και φέρει το ψήφισμα του Ινωπού. Μπορούμε να δείξουμε, ξαναδιαβάζοντας τους λογαριασμούς των Ιεροποιών, ότι το όνομα Ινωπός αναφέρεται στην ίδια τη Δεξαμενή - η οποία από τυπολογική άποψη είναι μια κρήνη - και όχι στο ρέμα του Ινωπού. Το κείμενο παρουσιάζει άλλωστε μια δυσκολία, καθώς εμπεριέχει αντιφατικές ενδείξεις για τη χρονολόγησή του. Μπορούμε να υποθέσουμε ότι πρόκειται για ένα ελληνιστικό (...) αντίγραφο ενός αρχαιότερου κανονισμού, ο οποίος χρονολογείται στην κλασική εποχή. Στην περίπτωση αυτή πρέπει να δεχθούμε ότι οι πρώτες εργασίες διαμόρφωσης της Δεξαμενής του Ινωπού ανέρχονται σε εποχή παλαιότερη από αυτήν που πιστεύαμε μέχρι σήμερα. (shrink)

Depuis la Renaissance, une série de textes témoignent de l’intérêt des artistes pour l’informe, d’un passage du Traité de la peinture de Léonard de Vinci à Degas, Danse, Dessin de Valéry. Léonard de Vinci, Alexander Cozens ou Paul Valéry proposent des « exercice[s] par l’informe», selon l’expression de Valéry. Il s’agit bien d’« exercice[s] », d’activités répétées pour aiguiser les facultés de l’esprit. Ces exercices s’adressent avant tout aux artistes et plus particulièrement aux dessinateurs et aux peintres ; ils constituent (...) une préparation à la création artistique. Ils n’ont généralement pas pour but d’appréhender l’informe ; c’est pourquoi Valéry emploie la tournure « exercice[s] par l’informe» : travailler l’informe est un moyen, une activité qui a le plus souvent pour fin une œuvre qui manifeste un rapport renouvelé aux formes. Comme les « exercices spirituels » dont Pierre Hadot a montré l’importance dans la philosophie antique, ces exercices reposent sur une pratique plutôt que sur une théorie ; comme eux, ils engagent l’esprit — l’entraînement d’une faculté particulière réclame en fait le concours de plusieurs. Cette pratique, qui n’est jamais définitivement acquise, doit par conséquent être répétée. En effet, chacun de ces exercices possède une fonction critique et la critique doit être reconduite tant que perdure l’habitude ou l’illusion qu’elle combat. La différence essentielle tient à la visée de l’exercice : les pratiques que nous étudierons ne tendent pas à réformer le mode de vie du sujet et ainsi à transformer le sujet lui-même, mais à produire une œuvre. Vinci, Cozens et Valéry proposent des exercices artistiques. Si l’exercice spirituel est « une pratique destinée à opérer un changement radical de l’être », selon l’expression d’Hadot, l’exercice artistique possède sans doute un but plus modeste : il vise à développer les facultés fondamentales pour la création artistique, telles que l’imagination, « les capacités d’invention », selon l’expression de Cozens, ou la sensibilité. Les exercices spirituels tendent à apprendre à vivre, tandis que les exercices artistiques ont pour but d’apprendre à créer. Parmi ceux-ci, les exercices par l’informe se distinguent par leur radicalité. D’abord, ils jouent souvent un rôle liminaire : ils exercent l’esprit et dans certains cas le corps en vue de la première étape de la création artistique, l’invention. Mais surtout, ils exercent des facultés fondamentales pour la création artistique, en particulier dans le domaine des arts visuels, pour lesquels écrivent non seulement Vinci et Cozens mais aussi Valéry : les exercices par l’informe ont pour enjeu non seulement d’apprendre à créer, mais aussi d’apprendre à voir. (shrink)

Das Problem der Religionsphilosophie im Rahmen des kritischen Systems--Religion und Theologie im System Kants.

Hélène Landemore ,Aude Bandini | : Cet article présente les bases d’un argument épistémique en faveur de la démocratie définie comme procédure de décision collective. Il explore également les implications d’un tel argument épistémique par rapport à d’autres justifications établies de la démocratie, par rapport aux explications scientifiques de ses succès empiriques, et en termes de politiques publiques à mener. En ce qui concerne l’argument épistémique proprement dit, il repose sur le concept de « raison démocratique », autrement dit (...) l’intelligence collective des individus dans le domaine politique, et propose, de manière contre-intuitive, que la raison démocratique est davantage tributaire de la diversitécognitive des individus qui prennent par aux décisions que de leurs aptitudes personnelles. Généralement, l’argument de la raison démocratique complète les arguments procéduraux basés sur l’équité et l’égalité pour offrir une explication fonctionnaliste complète de la démocratie. Pour finir, cet article défend l’idée de réformes institutionnelles favorisant la participation citoyenne dans le processus de prise de décision collective. | : This paper presents the foundations of a systematic epistemic case for democracy as a collective decision-rule and explores the implications of this epistemic claim for normative justifications of democracy, scientific explanations of its empirical success, and policy reforms. As far as the epistemic case is concerned, the paper proposes an account based on the concept of “democratic reason,” or the collective intelligence of the people in politics. The paper argues that, counter-intuitively, democratic reason is more a function of the cognitive diversity of the individuals taking part in the decision than of their individual ability. As an account of democracy’s epistemic benefits, the argument from democratic reason supplements procedural accounts based on fairness and equality to provide a complete functionalist explanation of democracy. Finally, the argument supports policy reforms increasing citizens’ participation in the collective decision-process. (shrink)

This book uncovers and explores the constant tension between the historical and the transcendental that lies at the heart of Michel Foucault's work. In the process, it also assesses the philosophical foundations of his thought by examining his theoretical borrowings from Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who each provided him with tools to critically rethink the status of the transcendental. Given Foucault's constant focus on the question of the possibility for knowledge, the author argues that his philosophical itinerary can be understood (...) as a series of attempts to historicize the transcendental. In so doing, he seeks to uncover a specific level that would identify these conditions without falling either into an excess of idealism or of materialism. The author concludes that, although this problem does unify Foucault's work and gives it its specifically philosophical dimension, none of the concepts successively provided manages to name these conditions without falling into the pitfalls that Foucault originally denounced as characteristic of the "anthropological sleep"--various forms of confusion between the historical and the transcendental. Although Foucault's work provides us with a highly illuminating analysis of the major problems of post-Kantian philosophies, ultimately it remains aporetic in that it also fails to overcome them. (shrink)

In the burgeoning debate about neuroscience’s role in contemporary society, the issue of brain optimization, or the application of neuroscientific knowledge and technologies to augment neurocognitive function, has taken center stage. Previous research has characterized media discourse on brain optimization as individualistic in ethos, pressuring individuals to expend calculated effort in cultivating culturally desirable forms of selves and bodies. However, little research has investigated whether the themes that characterize media dialogue are shared by lay populations. This article considers the relationship (...) between the representations of brain optimization that surfaced in a study of British press coverage between 2000 and 2012 and interviews with forty-eight London residents. Both data sets represented the brain as a resource that could be manipulated by the individual, with optimal brain function contingent on applying self-control in one’s lifestyle choices. However, these ideas emerged more sharply in the media than in the interviews: while most interviewees were aware of brain optimization practices, few were committed to carrying them out. The two data sets diverged in several ways: the media’s intense preoccupation with optimizing children’s brains was not apparent in lay dialogue, while interviewees elaborated beliefs about the underuse of brain tissue that showed no presence in the media. This article considers these continuities and discontinuities in light of their wider cultural significance and their implications for the media–mind relationship in public engagement with neuroscience. (shrink)

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, an important conceptual battleground for democratic theorists ought to be, it would seem, the capitalist firm. We are now painfully aware that the typical model of government in so-called investor-owned companies remains profoundly oligarchic, hierarchical, and unequal. Renewing with the literature of the 1970s and 1980s on workplace democracy, a few political theorists have started to advocate democratic reforms of the workplace by relying on an analogy between firm and state. To (...) the extent that a firm is an organization comparable to the state, it too ought to be ruled along democratic lines. Our paper tests the robustness of the analogy between firm and state by considering six major objections to it: the objection from a difference in ends, the objection from shareholders’ property rights, the objection from worker’s consent, the objection from workers’ exit opportunities, the objection from workers’ expertise, and the objection from the fragility of firms. We find all of these objections wanting. While the paper does not ambition to settle the issue of workplace democracy at once, our goal is to pave the way for a more in-depth study of the ways in which firms and states can be compared and the possible implications this may have for our understanding of the nature of managerial authority and the governance of firms. (shrink)

Dans le cadre de la Théorie de la Relation Interlocutive, nous proposons que l’interprétation sémantique et pragmatique de excuse me et sorry, qui ne sont pas, par essence, des marqueurs d’excuse, s’effectue en fonction de deux types de relation interlocutive différents qui conduisent à plusieurs interprétations possibles d’un événement perturbateur. Excuse me est considéré comme marqueur duophonique, c’est-à-dire comme une forme qui impose un désaccord entre un pôle émetteur et un pôle récepteur. On pourra y voir une demande de coopération (...) de l’allocutaire par politesse, pour tenter de réparer un manquement à l’étiquette, ou, bien au contraire, un moyen d’accentuer la nature conflictuelle d’une situation dans un contexte autre qu’un contexte d’excuse. A l’inverse, nous faisons l’hypothèse que sorry est une forme monophonique qui s’emploie pour rétablir l’harmonie interlocutive entre les deux pôles. Avec ce marqueur, la coopération de l’allocutaire est considérée comme acquise, ce qui a pour effet de minimiser le conflit dans des situations d’excuse ou autres. (shrink)

Le livre de Sarah Gutsche-Miller, issu d’une thèse soutenue en 2010, explore l’histoire et l’esthétique du ballet de music-hall dans les trois principaux établissements parisiens, les Folies-Bergère, le Casino de Paris et l’Olympia, entre 1871 et 1913. D’une grande qualité, il va assurément contribuer à combler des lacunes importantes dans l’histoire de la danse et dans celle des music-halls, plus largement dans l’histoire culturelle de Paris à la fin du xixe siècle. Les études sur le music-h...

Individuals’ spatial position is affected by social factors. The majority of studies correlating spatial position and social factors have used methods with drawbacks. A more complete method was developed by Dolado & Beltran (2011) in captive animals. The present study aimed to apply a modified version of this method in two semi-free-ranging macaque groups. The proposed method divides group’s surroundings into different subareas, selecting different points in each subarea and calculating the coordinates of these points. We filmed each group and (...) analyzed the videos using an activated time transition recording to determine the individuals’ coordinates. With these data, we calculated spatial variables, allowing us to obtain groups’ spatial patterns. The current method improves on previous procedures and could be applied to larger study areas and groups than the method of Dolado & Beltran (2011), thus representing a viable option for studying spatial distribution patterns in semi-free-ranging macaque groups. (shrink)

Trade secret theft is a problem that almost all organizations face. The greatest threat is employee mobility and potential unethical post-employment behavior. This study investigates the role of individual personality traits in judgments about trade secret misappropriation. Our hypotheses were tested in three studies addressing three different situational contexts: current employees, employees about to be laid off, and students who had quit their job. Relationships were estimated with robust regression. The results show that some personality traits predict judgment about another (...) person's trade secret misappropriation, and that the situational context in which individuals formulate their ethical judgment moderates the impact of personality traits on ethical judgment. (shrink)

Tout en accordant à Roland Barthes sa critique de la tautologie, n’est-il pas possible de trouver dans ses textes des formes non stériles de tautologie?

El filósofo español José Ortega y Gasset y su traductora al alemán Helene Weyl intercambiaron correspondencia entre los años 1923 y 1946. José Ortega y Gasset y Helene Weyl formaron parte de dos grandes comunidades de intelectuales europeos: Ortega, representante de la filosofía académica en España y Helene Weyl, representante de una intelectualidad vivida más allá de cualquier corsé academicista. Su correspondencia documenta el desarrollo de dos grandes espíritus europeos así como la singular intersección de estos dos mundos y culturas (...) a través de un momento histórico difícil y turbulento del siglo XX. (shrink)

_Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing_ is a poetic, insightful, and ultimately moving exploration of 'the strange science of writing.' In a magnetic, irresistible narrative, Cixous reflects on the writing process and explores three distinct areas essential for 'great' writing: _The School of the Dead_--the notion that something or someone must die in order for good writing to be born; _The School of Dreams_--the crucial role dreams play in literary inspiration and output; and _The School of Roots_--the importance of (...) depth in the 'nether realms' in all aspects of writing. Cixous's love of language and passion for the written word is evident on every page. Her emotive style draws heavily on the writers she most admires: the Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector, the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, the Austrian novelists Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard, Dostoyevsky and, most of all, Kafka. (shrink)

Bien que l’incinération soit une pratique funéraire de plus en plus fréquente en France, les enfants endeuillés restent souvent privés d’explication sur ce rituel, comme si celui-ci était plus traumatique et difficile à aborder que l’inhumation. L’article fait l’hypothèse que les théories thanatologiques infantiles présentent des spécificités dans de tels contextes. Cette réflexion s’appuie sur l’expérience clinique de l’auteur auprès d’enfants endeuillés et plus particulièrement sur le suivi de trente-six enfants de moins de 10 ans dont un proche a été (...) incinéré. Après un rappel de la place de l’incinération dans la culture française, l’article montre comment les enfants se représentent l’incinération en fonction de leur âge. Enfin, il aborde des perspectives pour la prise en charge de ces enfants et le soutien à leurs proches. (shrink)