This article aims to demonstrate that a careful examination of Peirce's original manuscripts shows that there are five main periods in Peirce's evolution in his mathematical and philosophical conceptualizations of continuity. The aim of this article is also to establish the relevance of Peirce's reflections on continuity for philosophers and mathematicians.

This remarkable book is the most comprehensive study ever written of the history of moral philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its aim is to set Kant's still influential ethics in its historical context by showing in detail what the central questions in moral philosophy were for him and how he arrived at his own distinctive ethical views. The book is organised into four main sections, each exploring moral philosophy by discussing the work of many influential philosophers of the (...) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In an epilogue the author discusses Kant's view of his own historicity, and of the aims of moral philosophy. In its range, in its analyses of many philosophers not discussed elsewhere, and in revealing the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy, this is an unprecedented account of the evolution of Kant's ethics. (shrink)

One of the major concerns of advocates of common morality is that respect for cultural diversity may result in moral relativism. On their part, proponents of culturally responsive bioethics are concerned that common morality may result in moral imperialism because of the asymmetry of power in the world. It is in this context that critics argue that global bioethics is impossible because of the difficulties to address these two theoretical concerns. In this paper, I argue that global bioethics is possible (...) if we adopt a culturally responsive and self-critical attitude towards our moral values and those of others. I use the example of women’s reproductive autonomy in indigenous African culture to show that the difference between the leading Euro-American and indigenous African construal of autonomy is that the former ascribes greater weight on individual self-determination while the latter emphasizes responsibilities towards the community. One develops dignity in virtue of their capacity for communing with others. Hence, women have rights, but as members of the community, they also have obligations including the duty to procreate. The involvement of the family in reproductive decisions does not contravene women’s dignity and human rights. In applying the principle of autonomy in this communitarian context, one has to be sensitive to these ontological and moral specificities. The aim of global bioethics should not be to reach common grounds at all costs; any common norms should be the result of a negotiated democratic dialogue between cultures and not the result of imposition by the preponderant culture(s). (shrink)

Living in the Borderland addresses the evolution of Western consciousness and describes the emergence of the "Borderland," a spectrum of reality that is beyond the rational yet is palpable to an increasing number of individuals. Building on Jungian theory, Jerome Bernstein argues that a greater openness to transrational reality experienced by Borderland personalities allows new possibilities for understanding and healing confounding clinical and developmental enigmas." "Living in the Borderland challenges the standard clinical model, which views normality as an absence of (...) pathology and which equates normality with the rational. Jerome S. Bernstein describes how psychotherapy itself often contributes to the alienation of Borderland personalities by misperceiving the difference between the pathological and the sacred. The case studies included illustrate the potential this has for causing serious psychic and emotional damage to the patient." "This challenge to the orthodoxies and complacencies of western medicine's concept of pathology will interest Jungian Analysts, Psychotherapists, Psychiatrists and other physicians, as well as educators of children. (shrink)

However one conceives of the relation between a sign and its significate, referring is a communicative act in which a speaker must intentionally direct the attention of an interlocutor to some object, event, or state of affairs that the speaker has in mind. This article examines the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of acts of referring, with special concern for the possible nature of sign-significate relationships. Findings from developments psychology indicate that a group of abilities and skills underlie the ability to refer. (...) Infants follow the gaze of others to objects of attention, and enjoy joint attention with others. Interactions with caregivers in routines well known to the child enable her to achieve joint attention with the adult on a particular ingredient in the routine. In this way, the ability to refer develops from certain "language games ", interactions that combine goal-seeking and joint attention. (shrink)

A puzzling finding from research on strategic decision making concerns the effect that predictions have on future actions. Simply stating a prediction about an opponent changes the total probability (pooled over predictions) of a player taking a future action as compared to not stating any prediction. These interference effects are difficult to explain using traditional economic models, and instead these results suggest turning to a quantum cognition approach to strategic decision making.

In this highly original study, Jerome Christensen reconstructs the career of a representative Enlightenment man of letters, David Hume. In doing so, Christensen develops a prototype for a post-structuralist biography. Christensen motivates the interplay between Hume’s texts as arguments and as symbolic acts by conceiving of Hume’s literary career as an adaptive discursive practice, the projected and performed narrative of his social life. Students and scholars of eighteenth-century English and French literature, feminist studies, political theory and history, philosophy, and intellectual (...) history will welcome this unprecedented and challenging view of David Hume and his times. (shrink)

The defence of necessity has had a long, though confused, legal career. Like self-defence, consent, duress, insanity and mistake of law, necessity is rooted in moral intuitions about when conduct which causes harm to another's person or property is not wrong, or should be tolerated, permitted or praised. If a man is literally starving to death and steals a loaf of bread, we are reluctant to say that his extreme circumstances should make no difference at all to the way we (...) treat him at trial. And if two men, adrift at sea, are clinging to a log which can only support the weight of one, we are once again reluctant to say that if one pushes the other off the log, it is just a case of murder. These intuitions are deepseated; but it is extremely difficult to articulate the defence they seem to support, or to isolate the circumstances which mark the difference between a situation where the defence ought to apply and where it ought not. (shrink)

A thematic reading guide for the Great books of the Western world series.

CHAPTER ONE Plato IT is a mark of wisdom in Greek political thought that the form and content of education receive primary consideration from those who are ...

Prologue: retrospective and prospective -- The ethics of enough -- Real and apparent goods -- Wrong desires: pleasure, money, fame, and power -- Right desires: the totum bonum and its constituents -- Fundamental errors in moral philosophy -- Necessary but not sufficient -- Epilogue: transcultural ethics.

In view of recent research can we continue to argue for a superiority over other animals that justifies dominating and exploiting them? This question, now “in the center of ethical discussion,” invites us to “radically reconsider the terms of ethical inquiry” (Rolston 1993, 382). Those terms now include the feelings biophilia and biophobia as well as compassion, sympathy, and empathy. Are we prepared to value not only reason but also emotions that connect us to other animals? If we are to (...) save ourselves and our planet, we need a more interdisciplinary model of ethics that includes “emotive” as well as analytic ethics. Derrida’s “L’Animal que donc je suis (ti suivre)” (1997) combines them, citing literature to demonstrate the role of feelings in situation-specific ethics. Though he does not use E.O Wilson’s terminology, Derrida suggests that what blocks biophilia is an apparently instinctive, superstitious fear of animals that has expanded into what we now call biophobia. Ultimately, Derrida focuses on a new experience of compassion that can bring about the political change needed to save our planet. (shrink)

Le Code civil français, depuis juin 2013, permet aux couples de même sexe de se marier, d’adopter conjointement, et de recourir à l’adoption de l’enfant du conjoint. Malgré ces changements juridiques considérables, nombre de situations parentales sont difficilement prises en considération. Tel est le cas, par exemple, lorsque des couples de femmes recourent à une reproduction assistée avec don de sperme ou lorsque des couples d’hommes recourent à une gestation pour autrui, tous ces couples ayant élaboré conjointement le projet de (...) fonder une famille. Le choix du nom de famille et du prénom de leur enfant est alors une occasion d’affirmer le statut parental des deux membres du couple de même sexe. L’examen précis de quelques situations laisse entrevoir les pratiques spécifiques de ces couples mais aussi les différences entre couples de pères et couples de mères. Si les enquêtes disponibles montrent qu’en France les mères se soucient rarement de transmettre leur nom à leur enfant, les mères lesbiennes y portent au contraire une grande attention et vont même jusqu’à quelquefois donner en premier le nom de la mère non biologique. Les familles qu’elles composent ont ceci de particulier qu’à condition que l’état civil le leur permette, elles favorisent la transmission des noms féminins. (shrink)

Résumé L’interprétation serait un point qui divise les arts. À l’encontre de cette idée, l’auteur pose un principe d’équivalence entre les arts qui n’est plus fondé sur des questions de définition des « pratiques artistiques » mais sur leur mode de diffusion. Le concert, le spectacle, le cinéma, l’édition d’un livre trouvent alors leur contrepartie dans le monde des arts plastiques avec l’exposition. L’exposition est en outre le point de rencontre de différentes formes d’interprétation : celle de l’artiste, celles de (...) ses médiateurs, celles des spectateurs. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living systems are based on sensors and actuators, with a diversity of network protocols and vendors. This commonly leads to the introduction of gateways or middlewares into the technical infrastructure in order to address interoperability issues. The xAAL framework presented in this paper aims to provide interoperability and to redesign such “gateways” into well-defined functional entities communicating with each other via a lightweight message bus over IP. Each entity may have multiple instances, may be shared between several boxes, (...) and may be physically located in any box. Thanks to the distributed architecture of the system, each home automation vendor may peacefully provide its own xAAL box without revealing details of its technology. Also, several applications may be plugged together on the xAAL bus without getting bored with underlying heterogeneity. Moreover, the management of the dynamicity allows sensors or applications to enter and leave the system at any time. (shrink)

Education has always been at the heart of most, if not all, human endeavours. This explains the growing interest of many scholars in educational issues. Self-Reliance, one of Emerson’s most impressive and influential works, provides an outstanding contribution to education in general and particularly to the personal development of individuals in society. The relevance of the educational values addressed in Self-Reliance makes it an appropriate context for academic reflection. This paper scrutinises the educational dimension of Emerson’s work with a focus (...) on language didactics. My concern is to provide evidence that the educational values expressed instruct didactics. The study of Self-Reliance reveals the expression of some values, the main ones being trust, responsibility, commitment, creativity, autonomy, independence, self-esteem, self-determination, self-evaluation, and individual talents. By reflecting on their educational dimension with a focus on their didactic implications I come to conclude that even though didactics does not draw directly on Emerson’s educational philosophy, it integrates some aspects, notably the values referred to in this paper. (shrink)

Résumé — L’Encyclopédie hégélienne n’indique pas ce que devrait être une philosophie systématique, mais rend ce système effectif. Et, pourtant, sa présentation rigoureuse, sous forme de paragraphes, accepte le voisinage intermittent et désordonné d’un certain nombre de remarques, munies du laissez-passer tout relatif que leur offre leur brièveté, et récusant souvent par leur longueur cette justification même. On tente d’abord ici de saisir l’origine des remarques, en s’intéressant aux différents voisinages du système encyclopédique : la parole philosophique et populaire, le (...) parcours phénoménologique, les explications préliminaires, les esquisses d’encyclopédie non publiées et l’énigmatique « encyclopédie autre, habituelle » à laquelle se réfère régulièrement Hegel. Le désordre des remarques s’explique alors par la rencontre entre différents ordres .On en déduit finalement qu’il y a place chez Hegel pour une logique de la non-rigueur, qui fonde l’invention des remarques, en acceptant toutes les rencontres. Cette logique révèle, selon ses propres termes, les parentés et les divergences entre les connaissances non philosophiques et la pensée pure ; elle assure la brièveté et la complétude de l’exposition. Bref, elle réalise toutes les exigences d’une encyclopédie philosophique, elle la fait être.Die hegelianische Enzyklopädie weist nicht darauf hin, wie eine systematische Philosophie beschaffen sein sollte, sondern sie verwirklicht dieses System selbst. Ihre strenge Darstellung, organisiert inParagraphen, lässt das zeitweilig unterbrochene und ungeordnete Nebeneinander zahlreicher Anmerkungen zu. Deren Kürze verleiht ihnen auf befremdliche Art einen Freibrief, eine Rechtfertigung, die jedoch durch die Länge einiger Anmerkungen zurückgewiesen wird. Der vorliegende Artikel versucht zunächst, den Ursprung dieser Anmerkungen zu erfassen, indem er sich den verschiedenen Nebenbereichen des enzyklopädischen Systems zuwendet : der philosophischen und der populären Rede, dem phänomenologischen Verlauf,den vorläufigen Erklärungen, den unveröffentlichten Entwürfen der Enzyklopädie und schliesslich der rätselhaften « anderen, gewöhnlichen Encyclopädie », auf die sich Hegel regelmässig bezieht. Im Lichte dieser Beziehungen erklärt sich die Unordnung der Anmerkungen alsdann als das Ergebnis eines Zusammentreffens unterschiedlicher Ordnungen .Aus diesen Untersuchungen ergibt sich die Feststellung, dass Hegel einen Platz einräumt für eine Logik der Nicht-Strenge, die die Erfindung der Anmerkungen begründet, indem sie ein jegliches Zusammentreffen zulässt. Diese Logik enthüllt, nach ihren eigenen Worten, die Verwandtschaften und Abweichungen zwischen den nicht-philosophischen Kenntnissen und dem reinen Denken ; sie sichert die Kürze und die Vollkommenheit der Ausführungen. Kurz gesagt, sie erfüllt alle Anforderungen einer philosophischen Enzyklopädie, sie verwirklicht ihr Sein. (shrink)

Les travaux de Polanyi et Veblen permettent de comprendre quelques mécanismes du Capital comme imago. Ils s'inscrivent ainsi contre les théories économiques libérales les plus modernes appliquées à l'histoire, complexes théoriques qui participent de la projection d'un Capital idéal dans les sociétés passées.

Much of our understanding of human thinking is based on probabilistic models. This innovative book by Jerome R. Busemeyer and Peter D. Bruza argues that, actually, the underlying mathematical structures from quantum theory provide a much better account of human thinking than traditional models. They introduce the foundations for modelling probabilistic-dynamic systems using two aspects of quantum theory. The first, 'contextuality', is a way to understand interference effects found with inferences and decisions under conditions of uncertainty. The second, 'quantum entanglement', (...) allows cognitive phenomena to be modeled in non-reductionist ways. Employing these principles drawn from quantum theory allows us to view human cognition and decision in a totally new light. Introducing the basic principles in an easy-to-follow way, this book does not assume a physics background or a quantum brain and comes complete with a tutorial and fully worked-out applications in important areas of cognition and decision. (shrink)

In ‘Rethinking Disease’, Powell and Scarffe1 propose what in effect is a modification of Jerome Wakefield’s2 3 harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) of medical (including mental) disorder. The HDA maintains that ‘disorder’ (or ‘disease’ in Powell and Scarffe’s terminology) is a hybrid factual and value concept requiring that a biological dysfunction, understood as a failure of some feature to perform a naturally selected function, causes harm to the individual as evaluated by social values. Powell and Scarffe accept both the HDA’s evolutionary (...) biological function component and its incorporation of a value component. Their proposed ‘new twist’ is to revise the value component: ‘Our proposed definition of disease is as follows: a biomedical state is a disease only if it implicates a biological dysfunction that is, or would be, properly disvalued’. So, they propose that a disorder is a ‘properly disvalued dysfunction’ rather than a ‘harmful dysfunction’, an approach they term ‘thickly normative’ in contrast to the thin normative approach of the HDA. There has been a surge of interest recently in better understanding the ‘harm’ component of the HDA. Powell and Scarffe’s analysis is a helpful contribution to this discussion. We focus here exclusively on their proposal regarding the analysis of the concept of disorder and ignore many important related issues that the authors address, ranging from prioritising resource allocation between disorders and non-disorders to whether the concept of disorder should be replaced by a generic welfarist concept. The resolution of these additional issues depends on first understanding ‘disorder’. The authors’ proposed changes to the HDA also deserve evaluation because the HDA, which has been endorsed by leading nosologists,4 plays an influential role in nosological debate across categories of disorder ranging, for example, from sexual paraphilias5 to psychopathy.6 A basic problem is that Powell and Scarffe misinterpret …. (shrink)

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...