A milestone in the development of post-war Marxist thought.

Two essays, one by Althusser, the other by Balibar which were presented as papers at a seminar on Marx's "Capital" at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1965, and included al.

Recent downward trends in corporate giving have renewed interest in the factors that shape corporate philanthropy. This paper examines the relationships between charitable contributions, firm size and industry. Improvements over previous studies include an IRS data base that covers a much broader range of firm sizes and industries as compared to previous studies and estimation using an instrumental variable technique that explicitly addresses potential simultaneity between charitable contributions and profitability. Important findings provide evidence of a cubic relationship between charitable giving (...) and firm size and evidence of strong industry effects. The plus-minus-plus regression coefficient sign pattern for the cubic firm size model suggests that small and large firms give more relative to total receipts with lower giving ratios among medium size firms. One interpretation for this finding is that small firms are close to the communities they serve while high visibility creates a need for large firm philanthropy. Strong industry effects provide evidence of inter-industry differences in giving culture and/or different public relations requirements across industries. (shrink)

Reply to John Lewis: Note on "The critique of the personality cult". Remark on the category "Process without a subject or goal(s)"--Elements of self-criticism: On the evolution of the young Marx.--Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? "Something new".

Among his own posthumously released drafts, one, at least, is incontestably neither mistake nor out-take: the text of his lecture course on Machiavelli, ...

Empathy remains poorly understood, under-theorized, and subject to conflicting and opportunistic uses. Its systematic role in human experience has not been analyzed and interpreted from top to bottom. In this book, the author attempts to provide such an analysis in the philosophical traditions of hermeneutics, phenomenology, analytic philosophy of language, and psychoanalysis. applying his interpretation of empathy to the philosophical issues of intentionality, the emotions, and the checkered transformations of empathy itself. In doing so the author aims to rescue empathy (...) from the margins of intelligibility and reveal its central role in our understanding of the emotions, the integrity of our relations with others, and human community (“intersubjectivity”). -/- The work draws on both the Anglo-American (“analytic”) tradition of ordinary language philosophy and the continental ones of phenomenology and hermeneutics. This work follows the movement of empathy from the periphery of ethics, aesthetics, and theory of mind to a key place in establishing and maintaining the integrity and emotional equilibrium of dynamic interrelations with other individuals. Beginning with the philosophical infrastructure of the hermeneutics of empathy, this work thoroughly explains the complex architecture of empathy, tracing it downward through the levels of authentic human interrelations, empathy with unexpressed emotions, the empathic penetrability of cognitively impenetrable affect, the first-ever intentional analysis of both the empathizer and the “empathasand” in interrelation, and the hermeneutic infrastructure. The consequences of empathy are exposed in the context of the emotions, cognitive impenetrability, empathy and altruism, and the intentionality of empathy as accessed through language and story telling. Drawing on the multi-method approach of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and story telling, this work demonstrates that empathy forms the foundation for community in ways not clearly appreciated in the on-going debate. In a bootstrap operation that is guided by Heidegger’s call for a “special hermeneutic of empathy,” this work achieves a delicate balancing act of unpacking the rich intellectual traditions from which empathy - the phenomenon itself, not the concept - emerged historically. The result is an exposure of the deep structure of empathy as a fundamentally human capability for creating possibilities of community and human relations. (shrink)

Phenomenological psychiatry has suffered from a failure to translate its insights into terms specific enough to be applied to psychiatric diagnosis or to be used in contemporary research programs. This difficulty can be understood in light of the well-known tradeoff between reliability and validity. We argue, however, that with sufficient ingenuity, phenomenological concepts can be adapted and applied in a research context. Elsewhere, we have described a phenomenologically oriented conception of schizophrenia as a self- or ipseity-disorder with two main facets: (...) decline in the sense of existing as a subject of awareness (diminished self-affection) and heightened awareness of aspects of experience that would normally remain tacit or presupposed (hyperreflexivity). This approach is consistent with Minkowski, Blankenburg, and Kimura and offers one possible synthesis of their views. Here we describe two areas of empirical research that are congruent with, or actually inspired by, a phenomenological approach emphasizing such disorders of consciousness and self-experience: (1) Phenomenologically oriented, interview studies show that, whereas negative-symptom patients generally deny any diminishment of affect and thinking, they do describe qualitative alterations of experience suggestive of hyperreflexivity and diminished self-affection. (2) Another line of research suggests that the early detection of schizophrenic symptoms may be enhanced by adopting a phenomenological approach. (shrink)

In a recently proposed interpretation of quantum mechanics, U. Mohrhoff advocates original and thought-provoking views on space and time, the definition of macroscopic objects, and the meaning of probability statements. The interpretation also addresses a number of questions about factual events and the nature of reality. The purpose of this note is to examine several issues raised by Mohrhoff's interpretation, and to assess whether it helps providing solutions to the long-standing problems of quantum mechanics.

This paper uses certain of Michel Foucault's ideas concerning modern consciousness (from The Order of Things) to illuminate a central paradox of the schizophrenic condition: a strange oscillation, or even coexistence, between two opposite experiences of the self: between the loss or fragmentation of self and its apotheosis in moments of solipsistic grandeur. Many schizophrenic patients lose their sense of integrated and active intentionality; even their most intimate thoughts and inclinations may be experienced as emanating from, or under the control (...) of, some external being or mysterious foreign soul (‘I feel it is not me who is thinking’; ‘I have been programmed’). Yet the same patients may also experience the self as preeminent, all-powerful or all-knowing (‘My thoughts can influence things’; ‘This event happens because I think it'). Here one may feel confronted with the very paradigm of irrationality: profound contradictions suggesting regression to primitive ‘primary-process’ thinking or utter collapse of the higher faculties of mind. I argue, however, that these dualities so basic to schizophrenia can best be understood very differently: as consequences of a kind of alienation and hyper-self-consciousness (‘hyper- reflexivity') that is closely analogous to what occurs in the post-Kantian era of Western intellectual history. The parallel dualities of modern thought have been most extensively discussed by Foucault, who describes paradoxes, tensions and other dilemmas central to what he calls the modern ‘episteme'; these result from what Foucault sees as the modern human being's introverted and ultimately self-deceiving preoccupation with, and overvaluing of, the phenomenon of his own consciousness. Parallels between these contradictions and those characteristic of several withdrawn schizophrenic individuals are described and analysed. The paper concludes with an Afterword in which some possible neurobiological underpinnings of these schizophrenic experiences are discussed. (shrink)

In the literature, there are many axiomatizations of qualitative probability. They all suffer certain defects: either they are too nonspecific and allow nonunique quantitative interpretations or are overspecific and rule out cases with unique quantitative interpretations. In this paper, it is shown that the class of qualitative probability structures with nonunique quantitative interpretations is not first order axiomatizable and that the class of qualitative probability structures with a unique quantitative interpretation is not a finite, first order extension of the theory (...) of qualitative probability. The idea behind the method of proof is quite general and can be used in other measurement situations. (shrink)

This paper considers contradictory features of emotional or affective experience and expression in schizophrenia in light of the “Kretschmerian paradox”—the fact that schizophrenia-spectrum patients can simultaneously experience both exaggerated and diminished levels of affective response. An attempt is made to explain the paradox and explore its implications. Recent research on emotion in schizophrenia is reviewed, including subjective reports, psychophysiological measures of arousal or activation, and behavioural measures, focusing on flat-affect and negative-symptom patients. After discussing relevant concepts and vocabulary of emotion (...) (“affect”, “emotion”, “mood”, “feelings”, the “passions”), the need for a phenomenological approach focusing on subjective experience is proposed. Four modes of nonparanoid experience in schizophrenia are discussed: Bodily Alienation, Disengagement, Unworlding, and Subjectivisation. Each mode involves withdrawal from functional contexts—temporal, practical, and interpersonal—normally associated with emotional reactivity and expression; each may be accompanied by forms of non-emotional affectivity no less intense than the emotions they replace. Possible relationships between psychophysiological measures, expressive behaviour, and subjective emotional or affective response are considered. (shrink)

The founding premise of this book is that the nimbus of prestige which once surrounded the idea of justice has now been dimmed to such a degree that it is no longer sufficient to secure the possibility of a good conscience for those who undertake, in good faith, to make the world a better place in the spheres of politics and law. The many decent human beings who have noticed and experienced this diminishment of justice’s prestige find themselves in a (...) thoroughly disenchanted_ _existential situation. For them the attempt to do justice without the illusion of being grounded in something beyond the sheer facticity of their own performances is a distinctly ethical theme which cries out to be investigated in its own right. Heeding the cry, this book asks and attempts to answer the following fundamental ethical question_: Is a life in the law – even one spent in the pursuit of justice – worth living, and if so, how can a disenchanted person come to bear the living of it without constantly having to engage in self-deception?_ If Nietzsche is right that living without illusions is impossible for human beings, then the most important ethical implication of this essentially anthropological fact goes far beyond the question of what illusions we ought to choose. It must also include the question whether we should succumb to that most seductive and pernicious of all illusions: namely, the belief that exercising great care and responsibility in choosing our illusions – which we might then call our ‘principles of justice’ – excuses us ethically for what we do to others in their name. The culmination of a 10 year legal-philosophical project, this book will appeal to graduate students, scholars and curious non-academic intellectuals interested in continental philosophy, critical legal theory, postmodern theology, the philosophy of human rights, and the study of individual ethics in the context of law. (shrink)

With several never-before published writings, this volume gathers Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic thought----documenting his intense and ambivalent relationship with Lacan, and dramatizing his intellectual journey and troubled personal life.

Drawing on and integrating unorthodox thought from a broad range of disciplines including clinical psychology, linguistics, philosophy, natural science and psychoanalysis, this book offers a provocative, original analysis of the global threats to our survival, and proposes a remedy.

This rejoinder to J. Patrick Gray's and Linda Wolfe's 'The Loving Parent Meets the Selfish Gene' (Inquiry, this issue), which in turn was in response to the author's 'Human Tragedy and Natural Selection' (Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 4), briefly addresses their major objections and suggests that in many instances they have misunderstood the point of that paper. They argue that many of the traits referred to are more cultural than genetic. That this is not the central issue is made clearer (...) by stressing certain aspects of the view underlying the original article, chiefly concerning the extent of human irrationality and insensitivity. (shrink)

Dans cet article je présente et discute l'ouvrage de Roberta Dreon, Human Landscapes: Contributions to a Pragmatic Anthropology (Suny Press, 2022). Je le fais à partir de deux questions. La première concerne les avantages d'une anthropologie pragmatiste par rapport à des tentatives similaires, inspirées soit de la phénoménologie post-husserlienne (notamment les recherches actuelles sur le caractère incarné de l'esprit et de la cognition), soit de l'herméneutique philosophique. La seconde question porte sur la contribution possible d'une anthropologie philosophique à une critique (...) culturelle, c'est-à-dire à la critique d’erreurs, de confusions, et d’illusions existant dans notre manière moderne de penser, dans les idéaux que nous nous sommes donnés, dans nos habitudes collectives et dans nos “imaginaires sociaux.”. (shrink)

In 1790 Melchior Grimm wrote to Catherine II: “Two empires will share all the benefits of civilization, power, genius, letters, the arts, weaponry and industry: Russia in the East and America, which has recently become independent, in the West.” Eighty years later Bachofen made public the same strongly held conviction: “I am beginning to believe that the twentieth-century historian will have only to speak of America and Russia.” In the intervening period Tocqueville concluded the first volume of his work Democracy (...) in America thus: “There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. …The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”. (shrink)

The York Retreat is famous in the histor y of nineteenth-centur y psychiatr y because of its association with moral treatment. Although there exists a substantial historical literature on the evolution of moral treatment at the Retreat, several interpretive problems continue to obscure its unique therapeutic legacy. The nature of moral treatment as practised at the Retreat will be clarified and discussed in a historical perspective. It will be argued that moral treatment at the Retreat was pr imar ily a (...) matter of affective conditioning guided by `benevolent theory'. (shrink)