An accessible yet rigorous introduction to the influential French philosopher Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of individuation. Gilbert Simondon, one of the most influential contemporary French philosophers, published only three works: L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique and L'individuation psychique et collective, both drawn from his doctoral thesis, and Du mode d'existence des objets techniques. It is this last work that brought Simondon into the public eye; as a consequence, he has been considered a “thinker of technics” and cited often in pedagogical reports (...) on teaching technology. Yet Simondon was a philosopher whose ambitions lay in an in-depth renewal of ontology as a process of individuation—that is, how individuals come into being, persist, and transform. In this accessible yet rigorous introduction to Simondon's work, Muriel Combes helps to bridge the gap between Simondon's account of technics and his philosophy of individuation. Some thinkers have found inspiration in Simondon's philosophy of individuation, notably Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Combes's account, first published in French in 1999, is one of the only studies of Simondon to appear in English. Combes breaks new ground, exploring an ethics and politics adequate to Simondon's hypothesis of preindividual being, considering through the lens of transindividual philosophy what form a nonservile relation to technology might take today. Her book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Simondon's work. (shrink)

One of most pertinent and acute risks that the world is now facing is emerging or re-emerging zoonotic diseases. This article focuses on culling as a measure for zoonotic disease control, specifically the culling of 11,000 badgers as part of the Randomized Badger Culling Trial in the UK and the culling exercises in Singapore. The independent expert panel that devised the UK study concluded that reactive culling was ineffective in reducing the cases of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. The panel also (...) concluded that proactive culling was not cost-effective. Behind the scarcity of empirical evidence to support culling, the resultant reduction in biodiversity can actually harm both animals and humans. Public health policies should be evidence-based, culturally adaptable and ethically justified; a novel biomedical and public health approach, named One Health, plausibly provides a reasonable ethical framework as well as research and interventional methods that square with that framework. OH recognizes that nonhuman animals and humans are interlinked in both sickness and health, since we all share the same ecosystem. OH could potentially replace standard public health strategies, as it provides alternative evidence-based methods for biomedical research and adds a non-anthropocentric component to an ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

The distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness is a subject of intensive debate. According to one view, visual experience overflows the capacity of the attentional and working memory system: We see more than we can report. According to the opposed view, this perceived richness is an illusion—we are aware only of information that we can subsequently report. This debate remains unresolved because of the inevitable reliance on report, which is limited in capacity. To bypass this limitation, this study utilized (...) color diversity—a unique summary statistic—which is sensitive to detailed visual information. Participants were shown a Sperling-like array of colored letters, one row of which was precued. After reporting a letter from the cued row, participants estimated the color diversity of the noncued rows. Results showed that people could estimate the color diversity of the noncued array without a cost to letter report, which suggests that color diversity is registered automatically, outside focal attention, and without consuming additional working memory resources. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for (...) instance, ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression. (shrink)

Political interaction among citizens who hold opposing moral views commonly requires reaching beyond toleration, toward actual co‐operation with policies one opposes. On the more personal level, however, regarding (e.g.) interactions between healthcare providers and patients, several authors emphasise the importance of preserving integrity. But those who oppose any ‘complicity in evil’ often wrongly conflate instances in which the other's position is (and should be) totally rejected with instances of legitimate, although deep, disagreement. Starting with a striking example from the context (...) of a particular tradition, I argue generally that in the latter sort of disagreements, talk of ‘complicity’ should be largely replaced with a more co‐operative moral stance, grounded in a pluralistic framework. Co‐operation Despite Disagreement (CDD) should be sought either for institutional reasons – akin to the political – or for relational reasons. CDD involves sharing another's perspective and sometimes calls for adopting another's moral judgements in preference to one's own. I seek to identify some of the conditions and circumstances that would justify such a shift, particularly in scenarios involving assistance, such as physician‐assisted suicide (PAS) or the role of an anaesthesiologist in abortion. This discussion is meant to provide examples of the kind of second‐order reasons appropriate for determining the terms for CDD – in distinction from first‐order considerations (e.g., the much‐contested ‘active/passive’ distinction) which are likely to be the subject of the initial disagreement and hence cannot serve to resolve it. (shrink)

Muriel Briançon | : Afin d’éclairer le sens de la religiosité de la philosophie de Lévinas et d’écarter le soupçon d’une soumission de celle-ci à des dogmes ou à des croyances incompatibles avec un principe de laïcité, notre contribution vise à clarifier le sens de son projet général. L’intention lévinassienne, ambitieuse et visionnaire, consiste en l’explicitation philosophique, métaéthique et phénoménologique, de l’idée cartésienne de l’Infini, transcendance non idolâtrique surgissant de la relation humaine. Cette quête philosophique de l’extrême conscience suppose (...) un athéisme ou du moins une mise en question de l’idolâtrie, du sacré et des dogmes. Cette spiritualité laïque universelle réalisée dans un judaïsme repensé conduit à des questions philosophiques essentielles et à un changement paradigmatique. | : To enlighten the sense of the religiosity of the Lévinas’ philosophy and rule out the suspicion of a submission of this one in dogmae or in incompatible faiths with a principle of secularism, our contribution aims at clarifying the sense of its general project. The Lévinas’ intention, ambitious and visionary, consists of the philosophic explicitation, métaéthique and phenomenological, of the Cartesian idea of Infinity, the not idolatrous transcendence appearing from the human relation. This philosophic quest of the extreme consciousness supposes an atheism or at least a questioning of the idolization, the sacred and the dogmae. This universal laic spirituality realized in a rethought Judaism leads to essential philosophic questions and to paradigmatic change. (shrink)

Prendre la décision de déménager en France ou à l’étranger après un divorce ou une séparation, c’est accepter de prendre le risque de voir la résidence de son enfant fixée au domicile de l’autre parent. Les décisions rendues par les juridictions françaises illustrent en effet une idée sous-jacente de sanction à l’encontre du parent qui extrait l’enfant du lieu de résidence habituelle de la famille. Celui qui, en s’éloignant, fait obstacle à la poursuite de la résidence alternée ou à l’exercice (...) du droit de visite et d’hébergement de l’autre parent prend le risque de perdre le bénéfice des droits qui lui ont été conférés sur la résidence de l’enfant. Par une comparaison des décisions rendues en la matière, l’auteure, avocate spécialiste en droit de la famille et du patrimoine, propose d’établir une matrice de réflexion permettant à un parent divorcé ou séparé d’anticiper les questions inhérentes à un projet de déménagement et d’établir les étapes à suivre pour conserver la résidence de son enfant. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous établissons d’une part que l’usage du concept de capabilité comme une simple « métrique » du développement humain est une vision réductrice de la proposition intellectuelle de Sen. D’autre part, nous montrons qu’il est vain d’attendre de la part de Sen une théorie de la justice en termes de droits à certaines capabilités. Notre démonstration passe par deux types d’arguments : 1) en reprenant l’hypothèse standard et originelle de la capabilité comme ensemble de vecteurs de fonctionnements (...) accessibles ( e.g., Sen 1987), nous mettons en évidence quatre implications théoriques de l’approche de Sen que la perspective du « welfarisme formel » (Fleurbaey 2003 ; D’Aspremont 2011) ne permet pas de saisir ; 2) nous confortons cette lecture en examinant l’hypothèse – sous-explorée jusque là – de la capabilité comme « pouvoir effectif » d’agir dans le sens de résultats que l’on valorise (Sen 2008, 2010). Dans les deux cas, il s’agit de montrer que la capabilité pour Sen est bien autre chose qu’une « métrique » de l’avantage personnel et de confirmer l’idée que Sen n’est pas un théoricien des capabilités tel que l’attendent la plupart des commentateurs (Baujard et Gilardone 2017). De surcroît, la seconde hypothèse amène à intégrer d’emblée la question de l’obligation morale dans le concept de capabilité. Dès lors, la capabilité non seulement n’est pas une métrique de l’avantage personnel, mais elle n’est même plus une représentation de l’avantage personnel. C’est ici qu’apparaît selon nous la véritable révolution conceptuelle de Sen qui, contrairement à ce que Ricœur (2004) avait cru lire, ne se trouve pas dans le couple droit-capabilité, mais dans le couple responsabilité-capabilité. Finalement, il ressort que Sen partage l’idée des tenants d’une économie de la personne (Ballet et al. 2014) selon laquelle une théorie de la justice en termes de droits à certaines capabilités resterait prisonnière d’une vision purement fonctionnelle de la liberté. Surtout, la mise en lumière de ce couple responsabilité-capabilité ouvre des perspectives nouvelles pour appréhender la liberté et la rationalité des personnes, au cœur notamment des questions de justice et de choix collectif. (shrink)

The argument advanced by Giubilini and Minerva is an important one, but it suffers from some shortcomings. I briefly criticise their reasoning and method and argue that after birth abortion should be limited largely to infants with disabilities. My argument is based not on solid scientific evidence or cold rational reasoning but on intuition, something that has long been discounted as irrelevant in biomedical discourse. I end with a recommendation to all of us: in order to make a change, one (...) should not only choose one’s battles, but also one’s weapon and mode of attack. (shrink)

L’auteure présente une thérapie en couple de personnes sourdes. Les spécificités inhérentes à leur langue dont les modalités sont visuelles, où signifiant et signifié sont si proches, génèrent un sentiment d’appartenance groupale à une culture. Comment s’articule la problématique du couple avec les divers modes de communication à l’œuvre, les identités et identifications au sein de ce néo-groupe? Les aspects transférentiels et contretransférentiels serviront de fil rouge dans le déroulement de cette thérapie particulière. Le recours à la métaphore constitue pour (...) le thérapeute un point d’appui vers l’interfantasmatisation. Il contribue à créer une enveloppe, une pensée métaphorique, celle-ci permettant de surmonter les représentations inhibantes qui faisaient obstacle au travail d’élaboration. (shrink)

The ArgumentTo describe the attitude of the Jewish tradition toward eugenic ideology and policies, it is necessary to examine classical sources from a contemporary perspective. In the heyday of eugenics, Rabbi Max Reichler (1916) enthusiastically endorsed its ideology, supporting his position with numerous traditional texts. Similar views of traditional teachings on “chosen people” and on the importance of lineage have a certain contemporary following as well. The paper argues, however, that these views involve a one-sided reading of the Jewish tradition (...) and, particularly, the suppression of traditional critiques of lineage and of the notion of a “Jewish race.”. (shrink)

An historical review of authorship definitions and publication practices that are embedded in directions to authors and in the codes of ethics in the fields of psychology, sociology, and education illuminates reasonable agreement and consistency across the fields with regard to (a) originality of the work submitted, (b) data sharing, (c) human participants’ protection, and (d) conflict of interest disclosure. However, the role of the professional association in addressing violations of research or publication practices varies among these fields. Psychology and (...) sociology provide active oversight with sanction authority. In education, the association assumes a more limited role: to develop and communicate standards to evoke voluntary compliance. With respect to authorship credit, each association’s standards focus on criteria for inclusion as an author, other than on the author’s ability to defend and willingness to take responsibility for the entire work. Discussions across a broad range of research disciplines beyond the social sciences would likely be beneficial. Whether improved standards will reduce either misattribution or perceptions of inappropriate attribution of credit within social science disciplines will likely depend on how well authorship issues are addressed in responsible conduct of research education (RCR), in research practice, and in each association’s ongoing efforts to influence normative practice by specifying and clarifying best practices. (shrink)

Whether to allow the presence of family members during cardiopulmonary resuscitation has been a highly contentious topic in recent years. Even though a great deal of evidence and professional guidelines support the option of family presence during resuscitation , many healthcare professionals still oppose it. One of the main arguments espoused by the latter is that family members should not be allowed for the sake of the patient's best interests, whether it is to increase his chances of survival, respect his (...) privacy or leave his family with a last positive impression of him. In this paper, we examine the issue of FPDR from the patient's point of view. Since the patient requires CPR, he is invariably unconscious and therefore incompetent. We discuss the Autonomy Principle and the Three-Tiered process for surrogate decision making, as well as the Beneficence Principle and show that these are limited in providing us with an adequate tool for decision making in this particular case. Rather, we rely on a novel principle and a novel integrated model for surrogate decision making. We show that this model is more satisfactory in taking the patient's true wishes under consideration and encourages a joint decision making process by all parties involved. (shrink)

America is aging. But even more striking than the rise in the proportion of the population over age 65 is the unprecedented number of individuals who are living into their eighties and nineties. While many people remain robust well into advanced age, the dramatic increase in the number of the oldest old has brought with it an epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Dementia is a highly prevalent condition — currently 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, a number which (...) may rise to 16 million by 2050 if there is no breakthrough in the prevention or treatment of the disease — but it disproportionately affects those over age 85, striking between one-third and one-half of this cohort. Developing a reasonable approach to the medical care of older people with dementia will be essential in the coming decades. (shrink)

Nombreux couples arrivent en thérapie avec une demande d’amélioration de leur communication. Or les mots semblent dangereux, investis d’un pouvoir sur l’autre. Quel danger représente le fait de dire? L’exposition de la situation d’un couple recomposé permet d’évoquer différentes dimensions de la thérapie psychanalytique en couple dont celle du discours. Contradictions et paradoxes mettent en lumière les conflits identitaires d’appartenance constitutifs du lien du couple. L’usage du verbe et ses effets fâcheux montrent combien au nom du discours s’organisent les résistances (...) en groupe. C’est au thérapeute que revient la tâche de rendre possible le passage par le verbe, en travaillant les interactions et projections inconscientes dans l’interrelation, de cette difficulté à dire pour chacun. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine aspects of Walzer's exposition of The Jewish Political Tradition (=the title of a multi-volume work of which he is leading editor) as they intersect with his work on political theory more generally. The Jewish tradition seems to present a radical example of "anti-politics": of a people existing outside the political realm. This is due both to the historical fact of their long exile, and to the shadow cast upon human politics by the prophetic ideology of (...) Divine Sovereignty. Despite their long-lasting lack of sovereignty, Jewish communities sustained a significant political life and a rich political discourse; this can serve to illustrate the primacy of the people's common life over the state, whose function is to support this life. As for divine sovereignty, it need not negate human political agency; instead, it can furnish – as in the case of the biblical prophets – the grounding for effective social criticism; though it is far from clear who, if anyone, is heir to the prophetic-critical mantle in post-biblical Judaism. (shrink)

After a brief survey of the speculative sequence « individuation-transduction-transindividuality » which structures Simondon ’s thought, the authors focus their attention on one of its paradoxical limits: the isolation of a writer who devoted his life to thinking in terms of relations. They suggest that the type of action towards which Simondon directed his efforts could not fit with the way he characterized transindividual experiences. By pursuing the path of a speculative thinking incapable of constituting a collective form of transindividuality, (...) Simondon became caught in a logic which he himself described as that of « the act of folly. ». (shrink)

Intergroup competition over resources is attested since the dawn of history. Written and archaeological evidence go back to at least the fourth millennium BC. According to accepted views, evolution has favored humans because of their ability to have cumulative cultures, which has made flexible adaptation possible. One major aspect of this adaptation has been the ability to handle power contests without engaging physical force. Instead, increasing prestige dynamics has allowed contest management by displaying symbolic assets. These have growingly been instrumental (...) in deterring external assaults, thus guaranteeing the possession – or expansion – of a group’s resources. However, while material assets are believed to create status by the evidence of their tangible usefulness (such as foods, husbandry and tools), symbolic assets are by definition subject to ongoing negotiation, entirely dependent on being socio-semiotically recognized as types of capital. Symbolic stock exchanges thus appear to have been determinative since antiquity in hierarchizing ethnic and political groups fighting over resources, prioritizing ones over the others. They have culminated in repertoires of more solid tangible and intangible assets, from impressive buildings, city gates, gardens and temples, to ideas such as freedom, quality of life and wealth, justice, personal security, or whatever values that have gained universal recognition. The article discusses the creation and expansion of such symbolic repertoires and their uncertain position in recent times. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 1 Seiten: 220-233.

The mitigation of pandemics like that caused by the current COVID-19 virus is largely dependent on voluntary public adherence to government rules and regulations. Recent research has identified various individual covariates that account for some of the variance in compliance with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. However, despite considerable research, our understanding of how and why these factors are related to adherence behavior is limited. Additionally, it is less clear whether disease-transmitting behaviors during a pandemic can be understood in terms of more (...) general behavioral tendencies. The current research has examined the utility of a behavioral-failure lens in predicting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and in illuminating mechanisms underlying the previously established relationship between Conscientiousness and adherence. In the two studies reported here, individual variations in the predisposition to behavioral failures predicted adherence to COVID-19 measures, and mediated the relationships between Conscientiousness and adherence. The Failure Proneness questionnaire predicted compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, while the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire did not. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that COVID-19 behavior was predicted only through the intentional factors. Hence, our data lend support to the notion that noncompliance with official COVID-19 prevention guidelines is driven mainly by intentional factors related to violation of norms and rules. The theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. (shrink)

This letter replies to the letter “Colonial and Neocolonial Barriers to Companion Digital Humans in Africa,” by Luís Cordeiro‐Rodrigues, in the same, May‐June 2024, issue of the Hastings Center Report.

This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining the rhetorical and the sociological perspectives. The scientific fact is presented as an entity having both an epistemic and a social meaning, and the scientific paper is presented as a discourse that has both an epistemic value and role related to knowledge and to the description of the ‘world,’ and a social value, fulfilling social roles within its relevant discourse community. The discussion leads to some insights (...) into the connection between scientific language and facts. Scientific language reflects the degree of facticity of the utterance at every stage: various linguistic and discursive elements reflect the current factual status of the utterance. This conception of fact is dynamic and open to discussion, and it is presented from the author’s point of view. On the other hand, language, or the choice of language usage, creates facticity in the sense of social acceptance: by using language, the researcher reports on his belief that what he is describing is indeed a fact. The essence of the scientific paper as an argumentative text is that its point of departure is the faith of the speaker in the facticity of the new information, and its rhetorical aim is to convince the audience, based on its disciplinary rationality, to accept that same faith and thereby usher the new claim into the shared disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

The potential of memory modification techniques (MMTs) has raised concerns and sparked a debate in neuroethics, particularly in the context of identity and authenticity. This paper addresses the question whether and how MMTs influence authenticity. I proceed by drawing two distinctions within the received views on authenticity. From this, I conclude that an analysis of MMTs based on a dual-basis, process view of authenticity is warranted, which implies that the influence of MMTs on authenticity crucially depends on the specifics of (...) how memory modification would eventually work. Therefore, I continue with a systematic analysis of possible properties of MMTs in which I distinguish between the dimensions of memories and the kinds of experiences that can be modified as well as the properties of the process of memory modification. The impact of MMTs on authenticity is analyzed regarding the possible properties of MMTs and based on a narrative approach to authenticity which fulfills the requirements of a dual-basis, process view of authenticity. Lastly, I explore the potential of MMTs to shift the balance between self-discovery and self-creation within authenticity and thereby alter the concept itself as well as the value of authenticity. (shrink)