The public/private dichotomy has long been the object of considerable attention for feminists. We argue that, by focusing their attention on a divide which has declined in importance, feminists may fail to keep up with the current means by which sexual inequalities are perpetuated. Furthermore, by concentrating on this divide feminists risk reproducing such dichotomous thinking in their own work, discursively perpetuating that which they had initially hoped to displace. We begin by surveying feminist critiques of the public/private dichotomy, consider (...) recent moves to go beyond critique, yet suggest that the dichotomy continues to be a framing concern within feminist work. We then survey the way in which space has been understood within geography, and consider the implications of adopting a relational conception of space for analysis of public and private in political theory. We offer a broader framework for examining the ways in which sexual inequalities are reproduced in contemporary society. We therefore open up the possibility that over time inequalities may be mediated to a greater or lesser degree by spatial divisions. This places a further pressure on the assumption that the public/private divide, or some variation thereof, must be at the heart of feminist theorizing. (shrink)

In ____Bodies That Matter,__ Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in _Gender_ _Trouble,_ Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She (...) offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in _Gender Trouble_ and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. (shrink)

Judith Butler follows Edward Said's late suggestion that through a consideration of Palestinian dispossession in relation to Jewish diasporic traditions a new ethos can be forged for a one-state solution. Butler engages Jewish philosophical positions to articulate a critique of political Zionism and its practices of illegitimate state violence, nationalism, and state-sponsored racism. At the same time, she moves beyond communitarian frameworks, including Jewish ones, that fail to arrive at a radical democratic notion of political cohabitation. Butler engages thinkers (...) such as Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Mahmoud Darwish as she articulates a new political ethic. In her view, it is as important to dispute Israel's claim to represent the Jewish people as it is to show that a narrowly Jewish framework cannot suffice as a basis for an ultimate critique of Zionism. She promotes an ethical position in which the obligations of cohabitation do not derive from cultural sameness but from the unchosen character of social plurality. Recovering the arguments of Jewish thinkers who offered criticisms of Zionism or whose work could be used for such a purpose, Butler disputes the specific charge of anti-Semitic self-hatred often leveled against Jewish critiques of Israel. Her political ethic relies on a vision of cohabitation that thinks anew about binationalism and exposes the limits of a communitarian framework to overcome the colonial legacy of Zionism. Her own engagements with Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish form an important point of departure and conclusion for her engagement with some key forms of thought derived in part from Jewish resources, but always in relation to the non-Jew. Butler considers the rights of the dispossessed, the necessity of plural cohabitation, and the dangers of arbitrary state violence, showing how they can be extended to a critique of Zionism, even when that is not their explicit aim. She revisits and affirms Edward Said's late proposals for a one-state solution within the ethos of binationalism. Butler's startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to realize the ethical and political ideals of living together in radical democracy. (shrink)

Is the ability to speak a language an acquired skill? Leading proponents of the generative approach to human language—notably Chomsky (2000) and Pinker (2003)—have argued that the thesis that language capacities are skills is hopelessly confused and at odds with a range of empirical evidence, which suggests that human language capacities are grounded in a biologically inherited set of language instincts or a Universal Grammar (UG). In this paper, we argue that resistance to the claim that human language capacities are (...) skills has been fostered by naïve and implausible conceptions of the nature of skilled action. Correcting these misconceptions about the nature of skilled action breathes new life into the old idea that human language competences are particular kinds of skills and does so in a way that is fully consistent with appeals to the central importance of UG, broadly construed. More generally, we argue that by taking human language capacities to be skills, we capture what is right about the generative program while at the same time avoiding its most serious pitfalls. (shrink)

In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, were all secondary flowerings of the original Israelite vision. Now, in (...) The Great Transformation , Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal “Axial Age” can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times. Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action. In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of intelligent social behavior among non-human animals for philosophical theories of communication. Using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys as a case study, I argue that interpersonal communication (or what I call “minded communication”) can and does take place in the absence of the production and recognition of communicative intentions. More generally, I argue that evolutionary theory provides good reasons for maintaining that minded communication is both temporally and explanatorily prior to the use of (...) communicative intentions. After developing these negative points about the place of communicative intentions in detail, I provide a novel alternative account according to which minded communication is characterized in terms of patterns of action and response that function to coordinate the representational mental states of agents. I show that an account which centers on patterns of representational coordination of this sort is well suited to capture the theoretical roles associated with minded communication and that it does so in a way that provides a good fit with comparative facts about the presence of minded communication among non-human animals. (shrink)

D. M. Armstrong; II—Does Knowledge Entail Belief?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 June 1970, Pages 21–36, https://doi.org/10.109.

Vulnerability and resistance have often been seen as opposites, with the assumption that vulnerability requires protection and the strengthening of paternalistic power at the expense of collective resistance. Focusing on political movements and cultural practices in different global locations, including Turkey, Palestine, France, and the former Yugoslavia, the contributors to Vulnerability in Resistance articulate an understanding of the role of vulnerability in practices of resistance. They consider how vulnerability is constructed, invoked, and mobilized within neoliberal discourse, the politics of war, (...) resistance to authoritarian and securitarian power, in LGBTQI struggles, and in the resistance to occupation and colonial violence. The essays offer a feminist account of political agency by exploring occupy movements and street politics, informal groups at checkpoints and barricades, practices of self-defense, hunger strikes, transgressive enactments of solidarity and mourning, infrastructural mobilizations, and aesthetic and erotic interventions into public space that mobilize memory and expose forms of power. Pointing to possible strategies for a feminist politics of transversal engagements and suggesting a politics of bodily resistance that does not disavow forms of vulnerability, the contributors develop a new conception of embodiment and sociality within fields of contemporary power. -/- Contributors. Meltem Ahiska, Athena Athanasiou, Sarah Bracke, Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Basak Ertür, Zeynep Gambetti, Rema Hammami, Marianne Hirsch, Elena Loizidou, Leticia Sabsay, Nükhet Sirman, Elena Tzelepis. (shrink)

I There are a great many ways in which a thing can be good. What counts as a way of being good? I leave it to intuition. Let us allow that being a good dancer is being good in a way, and that so also is being a good carpenter. We might group these and similar ways of being good under the name activity goodness, since a good dancer is good at dancing and a good carpenter is good at carpentry. (...) Everything good at doing something D is good in a way, and for each activity D, being good at D-ing falls into the class of ways of being good which I call activity goodness. Again, let us allow that being a good hammer is being good in a way, and that so also is being a good butter knife. We might group these ways of being good under the name equipment goodness, since a good hammer is good for use in hammering nails and a good butter knife is good for use in buttering bread. Everything good for use in achieving a purpose P is good in a way, and for each purpose P, being good for use in achieving P falls into the class of ways of being good which I call equipment goodness. Again, let us allow that tasting good is being good in a way, and so also are looking good, sounding good, and so on. The class here is aesthetic goodness. Is all goodness goodness-in-a-way? Intuitively, the answer is yes: it seems right to think that everything is good only insofar as it is good in one or more ways. (shrink)

Recently, amid growing awareness that computer algorithms are not neutral tools but can cause harm by reproducing and amplifying bias, attempts to detect and prevent such biases have intensified. An approach that has received considerable attention in this regard is the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology, which aims to contribute to both the critical analysis of (dis)values in existing technologies and the construction of novel technologies that account for specific desired values. This article provides a brief overview of the key (...) features of the Value Sensitive Design approach, examines its contributions to understanding and addressing issues around bias in computer systems, outlines the current debates on algorithmic bias and fairness in machine learning, and discusses how such debates could profit from VSD-derived insights and recommendations. Relating these debates on values in design and algorithmic bias to research on cognitive biases, we conclude by stressing our collective duty to not only detect and counter biases in software systems, but to also address and remedy their societal origins. (shrink)

This paper contributes data from Paraguayan Guaraní (Tupí-Guaraní) to the discussion of how temporal reference is determined in tenseless languages. The empirical focus of this study is on finite clauses headed by verbs inflected only for person/number information, which are compatible only with non-future temporal reference in most matrix clause contexts. The paper first explores the possibility of accounting for the temporal reference of such clauses with a phonologically empty non-future tense morpheme, along the lines of Matthewson’s (Linguist Philos 29:673–713, (...) 2006 ) analysis of a similar phenomenon in St’át’imcets (Salish). This analysis is then contrasted with one according to which temporal reference is not constrained by tense in Paraguayan Guaraní, but only by context and temporal adverbials. A comparison of the two analyses, both of which are couched in a dynamic semantic framework, suggests empirical and theoretical advantages of the tenseless analysis over the tensed one. The paper concludes with a discussion of cross-linguistic variation of temporal reference in tensed and tenseless languages. (shrink)

Focusing on the new theories of human motivation that emerged during the transition from feudalism to the modern period, this is the first book of new essays on the relationship between politics and the passions from Machiavelli to Bentham. Contributors address the crisis of moral and philosophical discourse in the early modern period; the necessity of inventing a new way of describing the relation between reflection and action, and private and public selves; the disciplinary regulation of the body; and the (...) ideological constitution of identity. The collection as a whole asks whether a discourse of the passions might provide a critical perspective on the politics of subjectivity. Whatever their specific approach to the question of ideology, all the essays reconsider the legacy of the passions in modern political theory and the importance of the history of politics and the passions for modern political debates. Contributors, in addition to the editors, are Nancy Armstrong, Judith Butler, Riccardo Caporali, Howard Caygill, Patrick Coleman, Frances Ferguson, John Guillory, Timothy Hampton, John P. McCormick, and Leonard Tennenhouse. (shrink)

The DSM–5 characterizes mental disorders as significant disturbances in cognition, emotion, or behavior. But what might unite the disturbances on this list? We hypothesize that mental disorders can all be meaningfully characterized as failures of attention. We understand these as failures to distribute attention in the way one has most reason to, and we include both failures of tendency and of ability. We discuss six examples of mental disorders and offer a preliminary gloss of how to recast each as centrally (...) involving a failure of attention. We close by highlighting theoretical and practical upshots of our proposal. (shrink)

In her article “Turning the Trolley,” the author of this comment argued that the bystander may not turn the trolley onto one to save five. Lecture I argued that this view is mistaken. This comment contends that Lecture I’s arguments do not succeed. In this response to the second Tanner Lecture, the text then argues that the Lecture II’s reasoning depends on an unacceptable view of moral theorizing. In an addendum, this comment defends the claim that if you think the (...) bystander may turn the trolley onto one to save five when the two tracks are not connected, then good sense requires you to think that he may do so when the two tracks are connected. (shrink)

While many are born into prosperity, hundreds of millions of people lead lives of almost unimaginable poverty. Our world remains hugely unequal, with our place of birth continuing to exert a major influence on our opportunities. -/- In this accessible book, leading political theorist Chris Armstrong engagingly examines the key moral and political questions raised by this stark global divide. Why, as a citizen of a relatively wealthy country, should you care if others have to make do with less? (...) Do we have a moral duty to try to rectify this state of affairs? What does 'global justice' mean anyway - and why does it matter? Could we make our world a more just one even if we tried? Can you as an individual make a difference? -/- This book powerfully demonstrates that global justice is something we should all be concerned about, and sketches a series of reforms that would make our divided world a fairer one. It will be essential introductory reading for students of global justice, activists and concerned citizens. (shrink)

This study examines the importance of microcultural differences on perceived ethical problems. This study also sought to identify the relationship between perceived ethical problems and value orientations as shown in the Hunt and Vitell's (1993) General Theory of Marketing Ethics. The data was collected from 173 Javanese, 128 Batak, and 170 Indonesian-Chinese marketing managers in Indonesia. The results indicate that, (1) Religious Value Orientation is positively related to the perceived ethical problems scores, and (2) there are significant differences among the (...) three ethnic microcultural groups relative to their perceived ethical problems scores. These results imply that acculturation training program for expatriates should include aspects of microcultures and ethical perceptions held by the local managers. The establishment of ethical corporate culture and formalised codes of conduct are recommended for future ethics training. (shrink)

Soldiers hold special ethical obligations to prioritise care for those closest to them when dealing with combat casualties. This obligation draws on the unique, personal relationships already established, which soldiers have with their comrades. These relationships arguably overrule the need for impartiality barring only a significant difference in the severity of injuries. The bonds of fraternity deserve moral recognition that is not reflected in current conceptions of battlefield medical care. However, an ethics of care (or care ethics) approach does not (...) reject care for enemies but suggests that extension to them occurs when there is no significant difference in severity to comrades first. It also calls on a different form of care called ethical caring, which as opposed to natural caring requires introspection on behalf of the caregiver. Ethics of care distinguishes treatment of the enemy from emotionally detached positions. Emotional detachment rejects the call to care and denies the development of a relationship, which is a foundational principle of care ethics. (shrink)

In Morality by Degrees, Alastair Norcross presents contextualist accounts of good and right acts as well as harm and free will. All of his analyses compare what is assessed with “the appropriate alternative,” which is supposed to vary with context. This paper clarifies Norcross's approach, distinguishes it from previous versions of moral contextualism and contrastivism, and reveals difficulties in adequately specifying the context and the appropriate alternative. It also shows how these difficulties can be avoided by moving from contextualism to (...) a kind of contrastivism that does not claim that any alternative is or is not appropriate or relevant. (shrink)

An exploratory survey was conducted to determine if there are differences in ethical decisions by business students based upon cultural backgrounds. Students' responses to a vignette concerning advertising of cigar products in a variety of different media provided evidence of significant cultural differences between three groups of students from different geographical locations within the United States. This article suggests that the presumption that an individuals ethical beliefs and behaviors do not change after childhood may be in error.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Uses of EqualityThe following exchange between Judith Butler (who at the time was in Irvine, California) and Ernesto Laclau (in Essex, England) took place during the months of May and June of 1995. Ernesto Laclau, born in Argentina, is well known for his Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, published in 1985 in collaboration with Chantal Mouffe. The work starts off by critically examining the concept of “hegemony” within (...) a Marxist tradition, and it ends by proposing a socialist strategy that not only takes into account the criticism posited against the Marxist tradition of the last three decades, but also the emergence of new social and political fronts. Hegemony manifests a motive that is felt in the background of the following discussion: a politics of “radical democracy” (a term introduced in the book) should aspire to preserve the conflictive character of all social processes if it intends to avoid becoming a totalitarian system. In other words, a politics of a “radical democracy” should remain faithful to the dictum stated by the German poet Paul Celan: “build on inconsistencies.” It is evident that Laclau and Judith Butler, the North American author of Gender Trouble (1990) and its sequel, Bodies That Matter (1993), share this position. In these works, Butler advocates the reactivation of the concept of “interpellation” in order to expose the ways in which any given subject is “engendered.” The performative constitution of a subject, according to Butler, is defined through a reiterative convocation or “interpellation,” which continuously exhorts the subject to adhere to a gender norm. Not all sequences and efforts at interpellation, however, are completely successful; hence the need for notions of “deviations” in contrast to the norm. This theoretical standpoint facilitated a deconstruction of social gender norms and addressed issues raised by the gay and lesbian communities. In Bodies That Matter, however, a growing emphasis was placed on the articulation of the task at hand within a broader field of the democratic claims of minorities. Here, references to Mouffe and Laclau and to the concepts of “articulation” and “hegemony” were increasingly necessary.The link between Butler and Laclau was extended by the dialogue that follows. An example of this is the notion that all identities constitute themselves by differentiation. However, differentiation immediately implies antagonism. Identities exist because there are differences in strength, antagonism, and finally, in hegemony. According to both Butler and Laclau, the social constitutes itself as the space in which hegemonic relations unfold. Nevertheless, it is characteristic of any hegemonic position to never gain stability: any hegemonic position is always exposed to the risk of being subverted. Thus the recurrence of two issues that play a role in the following discussion: the existence of hegemonic relations and, hence, exclusion, found in the social domain. But since no particular exclusion is based on “the nature of things,” or can be ultimately justified, no exclusion can be definite, and no politics can achieve a final form. It is within the gap between the recognition that exclusion always exists in the social domain, and the rupture it provokes—that is to say, between the affirmation that no situation is purely structured and that no structure formation is ever complete—that perhaps the program of radical democracy unfolds.Equality, as a signifier and as a thing—if it exists—was the topic proposed to Butler and Laclau: their dialogue exceeds our original expectations.Reinaldo Laddaga [End Page 3]What’s the political value, today, of the use of the signifier “equality”? Considering the poststructuralist elaboration of “difference,” how does “equality” work today in gender and/or race politics? “Difference” has been, for more than a decade, the key word for a certain number of programs related to radical democracy. Certainly, “difference” has given space to the constitution of new types of social solidarity. Recently, however, some reservations on the extension of the term have been published. Chantal Mouffe—in her introduction to Dimensions of Radical Democracy—has stated that “all differences cannot be accepted” in order “for pluralism to be made compatible with the struggle against inequality.” Mouffe doesn’t clarify, in this particular text, the criteria with which to discriminate between “acceptable” and “nonacceptable” (or, maybe, “pertinent” and... (shrink)

In this article I examine the relation between the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze by looking at the way in which they refer to Henri Bergson’s time theory. Although Merleau-Ponty develops some fundamental Bergsonian insights on the nature of time, he presents himself as a critical reader of the latter. I will show that although Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Bergson differs fundamentally from Deleuze’s interpretation, Merleau-Ponty’s “corrections” of Bergson’s theory fit Deleuze’s reading of Bergson very well. This indicates a (...) similarity with respect to what is at stake in the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Hence the critical reference that Deleuze makes to Merleau-Ponty’s conception of cinema and thus of movement is not justified, but is the result of a selective and prototypical reading of the early Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Avec son livre La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen réalise, de façon magistrale, deux objectifs. D’abord, il met en lien la pensée de deux philosophes qui sont à première vue très éloignés l’un de l’autre. Il s’agit de Félix Guattari et de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Traditionnellement, Merleau-Ponty est considéré comme le philosophe du corps, tandis que Guattari est connu comme le philosophe du corps sans organes. Merleau-Ponty est un phénoménologue, tandis que Guattari prétend abandonner le point de vue du sujet. Kristensen démontre (...) avec succès quel est le terrain commun des deux auteurs : la critique de la conception psychanalytique du sujet.Le deuxième objectif du livre découle directement du premier : présenter au lecteur une alternative à la conception intimiste de la subjectivité, soit comprendre la subjectivité comme fondamentalement parcourue par une altérité. Merleau-Ponty a été l’un des premiers, à l’instar de Paul Schilder, à mettre l’accent sur le caractère collectif et intersubjectif de cette altérité. Guattari a compris que cette altérité possède des sédiments politiques et historiques.With his book La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen accomplishes two goals in a masterly way. First, he links the works of two philosophers who are very different at first sight: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Félix Guattari. Traditionally, Merleau-Ponty is considered the philosopher of the body, whereas Guattari is known as the philosopher of the body without organs. Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist, whereas Guattari pretends to abandon the point of view of the subject. Kristensen identifies the common ground of the two authors: the criticism of the psychoanalytical conception of the subject.The second goal of the book derives directly from the first: present the reader with an alternative for the intimate conception of subjectivity, that is, present him or her with the idea that subjectivity is always characterized by an alterity. Merleau-Ponty, following the example of Paul Schilder, has been one of the first to stress the collective and intersubjective nature of this alterity. Guattari has understood that this alterity has political and historical sediments.Con il suo libro La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen realizza magistralmente due obiettivi. Innanzitutto, egli mette in relazione il pensiero di due filosofi a prima vista molto distanti tra loro: Félix Guattari e Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Se tradizionalmente Merleau-Ponty è considerato il filosofo del corpo, Guattari è invece noto come il filosofo del corpo senza organi. Merleau-Ponty è un fenomenologo, mentre il pensiero di Guattari intende abbandonare il punto di vista del soggetto. Kristensen propone allora di leggere la critica della concezione psicoanalitica del soggetto come terreno comune tra i due autori. Il secondo obiettivo del libro discende direttamente dal primo: presentare al lettore un’alternativa alla concezione intimista della soggettività, ovvero concepire la soggettività come fondamentalmente percorsa da un’alterità. Merleau-Ponty è tra i primi, sulla scorta di Paul Schilder, a porre l’accento sul carattere collettivo e intersoggettivo di questa alterità. Dal canto suo, Guattari ha compreso che questa alterità possiede dei sedimenti politici e storici. (shrink)

The Science Museum, London, has recently acquired four fragments of a portable sundial with associated calendrical gearing. All the fragments are made of low zinc brass of substantially the same composition. The sundial is of a type known in other examples, some the products of recent archaeological excavations and all dated to the Late Antique or Early Byzantine period. Dating by the place names included in the latitude table, by the style of the heads of the planetary gods used to (...) identify the days of the week, and by the style of the script, all indicate that the instrument dates from the late fifth century of the Christian era or the first half of the sixth.The gearing, of which two arbors survive, carrying four toothed wheels and one ratchet, seems to have resembled that of a calendrical device described by al-Bīrūnī in about AD 1000. Like al-Bīrūnī's device and the geared calendar associated with a Persian astrolabe of AD 1221/2 now in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, the Byzantine instrument displayed the shape of the Moon and its age in days. Probably the calendar further resembled its Islamic counterparts in also displaying the positions of Sun and Moon in the Zodiac.The emergence of Byzantine mathematical gearing indicates that the Hellenistic tradition attested by the Antikythera machine continued to be active in the Byzantine period, and suggests that it may have influenced the Islamic tradition. Once again an artefact has shown up the inadequacy of the evidence derived from literary sources. (shrink)

Revenant sur la question des vérifacteurs, D. Armstrong demande ici d'abord comment concilier le maximalisme et la relation de nécessitation. L'A. examine quel sens métaphysique donner à la notion d'implication, et s'il y a un sens à admettre une contingence de re. Il traite à ce niveau des possibilités pures, examine le cas des aliens chez David Lewis, puis pose la question de savoir s'il est contingent de dire qu'il y a de l'être plutôt que rien. L'exposé le conduit (...) à traiter du cas des vérifacteurs pour les vérités nécessaires, mais adopte une thèse possibiliste pour les sujets de la science démonstrative. Il se clôt par un examen du genre de nécessité transcatégorielle qui est implicite à la généralisation des vérifacteurs. The A. wants to reconcile maximalisme about truthmakers and the relation of necessitation. He investigates the metaphysical sense of the implication and whether one can admit de re contingency. He examines the pure possibilities and the case of alien properties according with David Lewis and studies whether it is contingent that there is something rather than nothing. He analyses the truthmakers of necessary truths and adopts a possibilist thesis for matters of demonstrative science. He concludes with the transcategorial necessity which is implicit in the generalization of truthmakers. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the dominant discourse of our day is econ omic universalism. This has translated comfortably from modernity to postmodernity. Within this discourse real differences and inequalities are homogenized by narratives such as those of choice and diversity. I shall question this in two ways: first, by borrowing from French post- structuralism to rename the discourse a 'masculine economy', and thus to invoke a 'feminine economy' both as a philosophical structure of difference and as a deliberate (...) introduction of the body; second, by analysing economic narratives concerning women's work which tend to flatten out difference altogether or recast it as (well-advised) choice. Within this economic language game, I shall try to emphasize material differences and inequalities, in other words, I shall borrow from the language of opposition. I claim that only the asymmetrical oscillation between difference and opposition can attempt to prevent either one falling back into some kind of more or less comfortable universalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:No Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye: Transgression and Masculinity in Bataille and FoucaultJudith Surkis (bio)In August 1963 Critique published an “Hommage à Georges Bataille,” a special issue commemorating the death of its founder. How did the volume’s contributors go about the seemingly tricky business of pledging fealty to the philosopher of sovereignty? How did they profess loyalty to, in effect recognize, the sovereign subject known to (...) insistently refuse masterful identity?Apparently undisturbed by this difficulty, the articles written by Bataille’s acquaintances—Alfred Metraux, Michel Leiris, Raymond Queneau, André Masson, and Jean Piel amongst them—establish an explicitly fraternal relation to their contemporary. Piel begins his homage with an account of their initial encounter chez Queneau in 1927, noting his “impression of extraordinary fraternity, an impression which, through our last meeting days before his death, never diminished” [721]. Intermingling intellectual and personal history, these occasional pieces remember Bataille in a variety of contexts: the awakening of his interest in ethnology and work on Documents in the 1920s, his early “confrontations” with Hegel and work on Critique sociale and Contre-attaque in the 1930s, his sensitivity to events and developments in post-World-War-II Europe. While significantly diverse in focus, these articles manifest a similar approach, at once biographical and autobiographical, detailing the unfolding of shared intellectual amitié in favorite cafés, apartments, and studios. Bataille emerges here as a historical subject whose interests and investments, while multiple and, to use Leiris’s metonym, even “impossible,” are repeatedly linked to a variety of intellectual and political milieux.Michel Foucault’s “Preface to Transgression” assumes a more reverential tone than the pieces written by members of Bataille’s own generation. While framed as an explicit “homage” in its recognition of a certain debt to Bataille, Foucault’s essay also plays upon the contradiction of pledging loyalty to a “sovereign” who repeatedly renounces his own claim to mastery. Bataille’s death becomes an occasion on which to herald the “breakdown” and “shattering” of the masterful philosophical subject conventionally assumed to be in control of the “natural” language of dialectics [42–43]. For Foucault, a new possibility for philosophy is seen to arise in “the non-dialectical language of the limit which arises only in transgressing the one who speaks” [44], a transgression repeatedly performed, according to Foucault, in Bataille’s own writing and metaphorically enacted in and by his death. Bataille had, after all, proclaimed in the conclusion to Erotism: “To give transgression to philosophy as a foundation (it is the approach of my thought)...” Bataille’s theory of transgression aims to evoke a “world of play” in which “philosophy disintegrates” [275]. Yet, if the disintegration of philosophy in and through transgression is already Bataille’s “project,” we might inquire into why Foucault frames his article as a preface. [End Page 18]In introducing this presumably already achieved transgression, the “Preface” affects a curious, alternating temporality, a certain confusion of anteriority and posteriority. 1 At once following and preceding Bataille, Foucault remains out of sync and hence unable to coincide with Bataille in the shared amitié inscribed by the author’s contemporaries; it would appear that this generational gap introduces a certain shift in the recollection of Bataille’s legacy. Following in his footsteps, Foucault appropriates one of Bataille’s own disorienting gestures—the tactical use of prefaces, itself mentioned in the “Preface” [43]—in order to dislodge Bataille from his anterior position; instead, Bataille comes to epitomize the transgression predicted by Foucault’s “philosophical” preface. Bataille’s (and, by implication, Foucault’s own) “location” becomes confused and obscured; as I hope to show, Foucault is invested in achieving this state of indeterminacy for both himself and Bataille.To honor Bataille in death assumes a double significance for Foucault: it represents a “transgression of the philosopher’s being” which “has sent us to the pure transgression of his texts” [40] and simultaneously allows Foucault to sacralize Bataille. “Pure transgression” becomes liberated from the historically located being of the philosopher. And further, since the language of transgression is linked by Foucault to the “death of God,” Bataille becomes, in a sense, “deified” in the announcement and celebration of... (shrink)

In Moral Knowledge?: New Readings in Moral Epistemology, editors Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Mark Timmons bring together eleven newly written essays by distinguished moral philosophers exploring the nature and possibility of moral knowledge. Each essay represents a major position within the exciting field of moral epistemology in which a proponent of the position presents and defends his or her view and locates it vis-a-vis competing views. The first chapter, written by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, provides a framework for understanding the basic (...) concepts and viewpoints in moral epistemology and presents a limited skeptical challenge to the justification of moral beliefs. The following essays represent various options in response to moral skepticism. Peter Railton and Simon Blackburn take different stances on moral truth and realism, Robert Audi defends a version of intuitionism, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord adopts coherentism, while R.M. Hare combines elements of both foundationalism and coherentism. Richard Brandt discusses the relevance of empirical science to moral knowledge, Christopher Morris develops a contractarian account of moral justification, and David Copp bases moral knowledge on rational choices by societies. Margaret Urban Walker aruges for a feminist perspective on moral knowledge, and Mark Timmons expounds contextualism in moral epistemology. The lively and clear selections do not presuppose specialized knowledge of philosophy, and the philosophical vocabulary used throughout the anthology is uniform, in order to facilitate understanding by those not familiar with the field. The first chapter includes a sustained critical discussion of the major views represented in the following chapters, thereby furnishing beginning students with appropriate background to understand the selections. The volume is further enhanced by an index and an extensive bibliography, which is divided into sections corresponding to the chapters of the book. Moral Knowledge provides the most up-to-date work on moral knowledge and justification and serves as an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate courses. (shrink)