Immédiates, efficaces et inépuisables comme des sensations, mais indépendantes du dehors et maîtresses de l’espace comme des images, les visions «imaginatives» de Thérèse, pour voisines qu’elles soient de nos visions sensorielles, méritent pourtant une place à part et ne sont ni des hallucinations vulgaires, indiscernables des sensations, ni des hallucinations psychiques. Ce sont les hallucinations thérésiennes. (Pierre Quercy 1930).

A fundamental question in biology is whether phenotypes can be predicted by ecological or genomic rules. At least five cases of convergent evolution of the crab‐like body plan (with a wide and flattened shape, and a bent abdomen) are known in decapod crustaceans, and have, for over 140 years, been known as “carcinization.” The repeated loss of this body plan has been identified as “decarcinization.” In reviewing the field, we offer phylogenetic strategies to include poorly known groups, and direct evidence (...) from fossils, that will resolve the history of crab evolution and the degree of phenotypic variation within crabs. Proposed ecological advantages of the crab body are summarized into a hypothesis of phenotypic integration suggesting correlated evolution of the carapace shape and abdomen. Our premise provides fertile ground for future studies of the genomic and developmental basis, and the predictability, of the crab‐like body form. (shrink)

During the last decade, Network Science has become one of the most active fields in applied physics and mathematics, since it allows the analysis of a diversity of social, biological and technological systems [24]. From the diversity of applications of Network Science, in this Opinion paper we are concerned about its potential to analyse one of the most extended group sports, Football (soccer in U.S. terminology) [29], since it allows addressing different aspects of the team organization and performance not captured (...) by classical analyses based on the performance of individual players. The reason behind relies on the complex nature of the game, which, paraphrasing the foundational paradigm of complexity sciences “can not be analysed by looking at its components (i.e., players) individually but, on the contrary, considering the system as a whole” or, in the classical words of after-match interviews “it’s not just me, it’s the team”. The recent ability of obtaining datasets of all events occurring during a match, including the position of the players and the interactions between them has opened the door to new kind of studies where it is possible to analyse and quantify the behaviour of a team as a whole, together with the role of a single player [17]. Under this framework, the organization of a team can be considered as the result of the interaction between its players, creating a network based on passes. In this way, we can create passing networks, which are directed (i.e.,... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle Rules, OK?José M. Villagrán (bio) and Rogelio Luque (bio)KeywordsAristotle, causes, philosophy, psychiatry, psychopathologyPérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes (2008) propose a theoretical approach to the nature of mental disorders (MD) that attempts to explain the type of reality they constitute. In line with this approach, they argue that (1) MDs should be considered not from within psychology and psychiatry, but rather from the realm of philosophy, so as to (...) avoid what they call the Charcot effect; (2) the resulting theoretical model is in contrast to naturalist models such as that of internal dysfunction, and involves “strong” constructivist assumptions from which they develop an anthropological perspective based on the clinician–patient situation; 3) this model is applicable, in principle, to all MDs (“at least to some extent”); and (4) it is based on the Aristotelian theory of the four causes.We would argue, however, that (1) it is precisely from within psychology and psychiatry that conceptual models accounting for MDs should be proposed; (2) the naturalist–constructivist dichotomy in these models should be deconstructed, and primacy given not to the ontological approach but to the epistemological one; (3) a theoretical model of this scope should account not only for MDs but also for physical disorders; and (4) only in this way would the Aristotelian theory of causes, understood as types of explanation (and therefore as epistemological approaches) be useful.Approaches from within and from WithoutFor Berrios (2006), the theoretical discourse in relation to the conceptualization of MDs in a particular sociocultural context can be formulated in two ways: on the one hand, in a centripetal fashion, using established philosophical systems (be it phenomenology [Jaspers 1977], logical empiricism [Hempel 1994], or analytic philosophy [Fulford, Thornton, and Graham 2006]). This centripetal approach can be used both by professional philosophers and by psychiatrists/psychologists. When developed by professional philosophers, such proposals, despite their possible brilliance, run the risk of being tangential to the psychiatric issues owing to a lack of first-hand experience of them (Murphy 2006). When developed by psychiatrists and psychologists, the majority of the proposals simply mix fragments of different philosophical systems, in either a kind of syncretism or collage that fails to take into account the contradictions between fragments, or a kind of pluralism that reflects, without entering into analysis, a sort of consensus among the different paradigms (Ghaemi 2003; Kendler 2005).A second way of formulating this theoretical discourse (according to Berrios) would employ a centrifugal approach from the very core of the disciplines, through the reflection of professionals (primarily, although not only, psychiatrists/psychologists with philosophical training) who would conceptualize the problems from within and develop a specific metalanguage for analyzing [End Page 265] them (Lanteri-Laura 1991; Reznek 1991; Sass 1992). Not all problems are of the same type. For those that are extrinsic to psychiatry/psychology (definition of the mental, the mind–body relationship, the distinction between causes and reasons, or interdisciplinary reduction), the methods common to the philosophy of science and of the mind can be used. However, issues intrinsic to the disciplines themselves (the nature of mental symptoms and how they are generated, how to explain their heterogeneity, what a MD is, how to diagnose and classify it, or how to implement a psychopathological project) cannot be dealt with using preestablished formulas, and require new and original proposals that take into account the nature of the disciplines and their object of study (Villagrán 2007).The authors of the target article base their preference for the centripetal approach for responding to one of the intrinsic questions of psychiatry (what MDs are) on the consequences of what they call the Charcot effect, a kind of variant of observer bias applied to psychiatric diagnosis. They offer as an example the classic diagnosis ad iuvantibus in its postmodern version, namely, the efficacy of the pharmaceutical industry in contributing to creating nosological entities for which their drugs are indicated. Consequently, clinicians are not only unable to surmount the substantial epistemological obstacles that hamper attempts to theorize, but also find themselves doomed to assuming an ingenuous essentialism that considers MDs as natural kinds (such as apples, trees, or dogs) determined... (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to respond to Jean-Luc Nancy’s claim that poetry, along with philosophy, is essentially incapable of what Nancy describes as "thinking love." To do so, I will first try to come to an understanding of Nancy’s thinking regarding love and then of poetry as presented in his essay "Shattered Love." Having thus prepared the way, I will then respond, via Pablo Neruda’s poem "Oda al Limón," to Nancy’s understanding of poetry vis-à-vis "Shattered Love." This (...) response, in acting out Nancy’s thinking regarding love, will suggest a greater plurality within poetry than Nancy acknowledged. (shrink)

' I heartily recommend it to any philosopher of language interested in the issues. [] Logicians, of course, will want to savour the whole thing.' Australian Journal of Philosophy, 71:3 (1993).

The early decades of the last century saw European philosophical thought becoming increasingly interested in the sociological extension of the idea of law. From the viewpoint of the sociology of law, law is formed in the process of social interactions and is not sanctioned by the state. Sergey Hessen and Georges Gurvitch base their conceptions of social law on the sociology of law in the 1920s and 1930s. They start a polemic in the pages of the journal Sovremenniye zapiski. Although (...) they differ radically in their definitions of the status of the state they concur in defining society as a set of social institutions and communities existing as instruments for expressing personal freedom. The social regulations they propose are already legal situations. Hessen and Gurvitch believe that the individual can fully exercise his/her freedom only in conditions of such legal pluralism. However, the concept of legal pluralism involves an inherent problem of preserving social unity: why is it that society does not fall into a range of autonomous social entities, each offering the individual its own legal order for actualising freedom? To solve this problem the philosophers use the concept of “the general will”. General will is an instrument of correlation between individual freedom and the development of society and culture as a whole. The object of philosophical dispute is how the general will is formed: 1) in the process of social self-organisation according to Gurvitch; 2) in the operation of the suprafunctional organisation according to Hessen. The difference in the grounding of the general will leads to a difference in the concepts of social unity: 1) sobornost according to Gurvitch and 2) solidarity according to Hessen. Analysis of the dispute between Gurvitch and Hessen brings out not only the differences in the interpretation of social unity but also the fundamental problems with the conceptions of social law. (shrink)

Andy Clark has argued that language is “in many ways the ultimate artifact” (Clark 1997, p.218). Fuelling this conclusion is a view according to which the human brain is essentially no more than a patterncompleting device, while language is an external resource which is adaptively fitted to the human brain in such a way that it enables that brain to exceed its unaided (pattern-completing) cognitive capacities, in much the same way as a pair of scissors enables us to “exploit our (...) basic manipulative capacities to fulfill new ends” (Clark 1997, pp.193-4). How should we respond to this bold reconceptualization of our linguistic abilities? First we need to understand it properly. So I begin by identifying and unpacking (and making a small “Heideggerian” amendment to) Clark’s main language-specific claims. That done I take a step back. Clark’s approach to language is generated from a theoretical perspective which sees cognition as distributed over brain, body, and world. So I continue my investigation of Clark’s incursion into linguistic territory by uncovering and illustrating those key ideas from the overall distributed cognition research programme which are particularly relevant in the present context. I then use this analysis as a spring-board from which to examine a crucial issue that arises for Clark’s account of language, namely linguistic inner rehearsal. I argue that while there is much to recommend in Clark’s treatment of this issue, some significant difficulties remain to be overcome. Via this critique of Clark’s position, alongside some proposals for how the revealed problems might be addressed, I hope to edge us that bit closer to a full understanding of our linguistic abilities. (shrink)

In Contingent Computation, M. Beatrice Fazi offers a new theoretical perspective through which we can engage philosophically with computing. The book proves that aesthetics is a viable mode of investigating contemporary computational systems. It does so by advancing an original conception of computational aesthetics that does not just concern art made by or with computers, but rather the modes of being and becoming of computational processes. Contingent Computation mobilises the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead in order to (...) address aesthetics as an ontological study of the generative potential of reality. Through a novel philosophical reading of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and of Turing’s notion of incomputability, Fazi finds this potential at the formal heart of computational systems, and argues that computation is a process of determining indeterminacy. This indeterminacy, which is central to computational systems, does not contradict their functionality. Instead, it drives their very operation, albeit in a manner that might not always fit with the instrumental, representational and cognitivist purposes that we have assigned to computing. (shrink)

Wines with geographical indication can be classified and represented by such features as designations of origin, producers, vintage years, alcoholic strength, and grape varieties; these features allow us to define wines in terms of a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. However, wines can also be identified by other characteristics, involving their look, smell, and taste; in this case, it is hard to define wines in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions, as wine concepts exhibit typicality effects. This is a (...) setback for the design of computer science ontologies aiming to represent wine concepts, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. To solve this problem, we propose to adopt a hybrid approach in which ontology-oriented formalisms are combined with a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. As in conceptual spaces, concepts are identified in terms of a number of quality dimensions. In order to determine those relevant for wine representation, we use the terminology developed by the Italian Association of Sommeliers to describe wines. This will allow us to understand typicality effects about wines, determine prototypes and better exemplars, and measure the degree of similarity between different wines. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to provide building blocks for a reconciliation of the ethical care for heritage protection and nature restoration ethics. It will do so, by introducing a hermeneutic landscape philosophy that takes landscape as a multi-layered “text” in need of interpretation, and place identities as build upon certain readings of the landscape. I will argue that from a hermeneutic perspective, both approaches appear to complement each other. Renaturing presents a valuable correction to the anthropocentrism of many European (...) rural cultures. Yet, heritage protectionists rightly point to the value of narratives for Old World identities. I will conclude with a short reflection on how such a hermeneutic environmental ethic can be helpful in dealing with environmental conflicts. (shrink)

Soviet attitude towards Bohr reflects changes in the ideological approach to science. During the last period before Stalin's death danov proclaimed the campaign against Western influence in Soviet philosophy and science. Nevertheless the physicist M. A. Markov tried to introduce complementarity as a materialistic interpretation of quantum-mechanics in 1948. He was officially condemned. This was followed by a period (1948-54) during which heavy attacks were made against the Copenhagen school. In 1958, after a personal exchange of thoughts with Bohr, academician (...) Fock declared complementarity and probability to be irreversible steps towards a new insight into physical reality, at the same time correcting some of Bohr's epistemological conceptions. (shrink)

The medieval Islamic philosophers held a certain conception of the divine unity that assumes the necessary existent to be both one and simple. The oneness of the necessary existent meant that it is the only necessary existent and its simplicity meant that it admits no composition whatsoever – it is pure essence and its essence is necessary existence. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers al-Ġazālī presents, with elaboration, an exposition of the philosophers' conception of the divine unity, several arguments for (...) its two components, and his critique of these arguments. In this paper I focus on six of the arguments attributed to the philosophers. Following the textual evidence, I reconstruct these arguments and offer two possible interpretations of them. The first interpretation, which I call the many-argument interpretation, sees one of the arguments as employing the simplicity of the necessary existent to establish its oneness and the other five arguments as invoking oneness to establish simplicity. The second interpretation, which I call the one-argument interpretation, doesn't offer a new reading for the first argument but sees the other five arguments as defending the simplicity of the necessary existent based on its basic concept. I argue for the superiority of the one-argument interpretation. Résumé Les philosophes de l'Islam classique ont une doctrine de l'unité divine selon laquelle l'existant nécessaire est à la fois unique et simple. Son unicité signifie qu'il est le seul existant nécessaire, sa simplicité qu'il n'admet aucune sorte de composition; il est pure essence et son essence est existence nécessaire. Dans la Destruction des Philosophes, al-Ġazālī présente avec force détails un exposé de la doctrine de l'unité divine des philosophes, plusieurs arguments en faveur de ses deux composantes, ainsi que sa critique de ces arguments. Je me concentre ici sur six des arguments qu'il attribue aux philosophes. En suivant les données textuelles, je reconstruis ces arguments et en propose deux interprétations possibles. La première, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à arguments multiples”, identifie l'un des arguments comme s'appuyant sur la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire pour établir son unicité, et les cinq autres comme s'appuyant sur son unicité pour établir sa simplicité. La seconde, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à argument unique”, conserve la première lecture du premier argument mais voit dans les cinq autres une défense de la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire fondée sur sa notion fondamentale. J'argumente en faveur de la supériorité de l'interprétation “à argument unique”. (shrink)

carrington places race and racism at the center of his densely written analysis of science fiction, fantasy, utopia, and other forms of popular culture. He moves easily between a broad range of forms, which include memoirs, television series, comic books, novels, novelizations, fandom and fanzines, and short fiction and fiction circulated on the Internet. Popular culture helps us to construct notions of identity and race, and for carrington many constituent groups, notably fans, develop its key concepts and values.Speculative fiction is (...) for carrington a framework that links these various forms of popular culture. Here, SF is a genre different from literature, as it is situated closer to, and is more deeply... (shrink)

Recognized in his day as a man of letters equaling Rousseau and Voltaire in France and rivaling Samuel Johnson, David Hume passed from favor in the Victorian age--his work, it seemed, did not pursue Truth but rather indulged in popularization. Although Hume is once more considered as one of the greatest British philosophers, scholars now tend to focus on his thought rather than his writing. To round out our understanding of Hume, M. A. Box in this book charts the interrelated (...) development of Hume's literary ambitions, theories of style, and compositional practice from his Treatise in 1739 through the Enquiries. In so doing, Box makes the case for Hume's career-long concern with the presentational modes of reaching an audience for his philosophical writings. Hume reacted to the popular failure of his masterpiece, A Treatise of Human Nature, Box suggests, by self-consciously exploring strategies in his subsequent works for agreeably bringing his readership to participate in the act of philosophizing. Combining a sensitive grasp of the ways Restoration period and eighteenth-century writers conceived the relations between rhetoric and philosophy with sound readings of particular texts, Box shows how Hume's literary concerns went beyond matters of style to involve persona, structure, and doctrine. While this book helps explain long-standing ambiguities surrounding Hume, especially by pointing out the tension between his created persona and his own voice, it also serves as an excellent introduction to his philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophie et sciences: voila un theme difficile, central, de notre temps, ou il est necessairement question de son sens. C'est ce sens qu'interrogent, d'une facon a la fois historique et problematique, les essais du present volume. J. Merleau-Ponty questionne les rapports entre sciences et vulgarisation scientifique. J. Ladriere pose le probleme de La normativite de la pensee scientifique. J. Lambert met en evidence le probleme du Livre de la Nature chez Galilee et Kepler. P. Kerszberg confronte les structures internes de (...) la philosophie critique kantienne et de la theorie de la relativite sur la question cosmologique. M. Richir analyse L'illusion transcendantale dans la theorie cantorienne des ensembles. B. d'Espagnat et G. Hottois evoquent le problemes des rapports difficiles, aujourd'hui, entre science et philosophie. (shrink)

"The availability of a paperback version of Boyle's philosophical writings selected by M. A. Stewart will be a real service to teachers, students, and scholars with seventeenth-century interests. The editor has shown excellent judgment in bringing together many of the most important works and printing them, for the most part, in unabridged form. The texts have been edited responsibly with emphasis on readability.... Of special interest in connection with Locke and with the reception of Descarte's Corpuscularianism, to students of the (...) Scientific Revolution and of the history of mechanical philosophy, and to those interested in the relations among science, philosophy, and religion. In fact, given the imperfections in and unavailability of the eighteenth-century editions of Boyle’s works, this collection will benefit a wide variety of seventeenth-century scholars." --Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania. (shrink)

Restorative justice should have greater weight as a criterion in criminal justice sentencing practice. It permits a realistic recognition of the kinds of harm and damage caused by offences, and encourages individualized non-custodial sentencing options as ways of addressing these harms. Non-custodial sentences have proven more effective than incarceration in securing social reconciliation and preventing recidivism, and they avoid the serious social and personal costs of imprisonment. This paper argues in support of restorative justice as a guiding idea in sentencing. (...) As part of this defence, it considers whether the use of the idea of restorative justice will conflate criminal law with civil law or displace the authority of the criminal courts, and whether the sentences it recommends are best thought of as punishments or alternatives to punishment. (shrink)

Disregard of gender and of women’s contributions in the higher education curriculum is still a widespread phenomenon. Building on feminist institutionalism, this article explores the forms and types of resistance that efforts to engender the higher education curriculum must contend with and discusses the ways in which resistance to curricular reform is entrenched in a web of both gender-specific and apparently gender-neutral academic informal rules. In doing so, the authors use empirical evidence collected by an action-research project undertaken at a (...) faculty of political and social sciences in a Catalan public university. The Spanish case is intriguing because mainstreaming gender in higher education has been prescribed by various national and regional laws that are nonetheless poorly implemented. The article also reflects on the positive feedback loop action-research projects can facilitate within gendered institutions such as universities and pinpoints the role of feminist agency in counteracting resistance to institutional change. (shrink)

This paper described a formal theory of type judgments for propositional logic notations of PM; I felt the need of my own automated type checker to check their examples. The type checker I wrote did indeed serve to help me referee the paper, but also took a rather different approach to notation and typing for propositional functions of PM, which proved worth writing up independently in our own paper: Holmes, M. Randall, “Polymorphic type– checking for the ramified theory of types (...) of Principia Mathematica”, in Fairouz Kamareddine, ed., Thirty–five Years of Automating Mathematics, Kluwer, 2003, pp. 173-215. (shrink)