Nous sommes en train de franchir un seuil dont, par ailleurs, nous ignorons l’issue. Une technologie de conversation inspirée du mouvement chilien Mandrágora des années 1930 et des qualités magiques de la plante du même nom mobilise les pratiques artistiques pour l’entrevoir. La Mandrágora Constituyente a été conçue autour d’au moins deux idées : la dissidence ne nie pas la conversation, mais la favorise ; la réalité se constitue dans sa description, de sorte que les faits ne sont pas indépendants (...) de la manière dont ils sont lus. (shrink)

According to spacetime state realism, the fundamental ontology of a quantum mechanical world consists of a state-valued field evolving in four-dimensional spacetime. One chief advantage it claims over rival wave-function realist views is its natural compatibility with relativistic quantum field theory. I argue that the original density operator formulation of SSR cannot be extended to QFTs where the local observables form type III von Neumann algebras. Instead, I propose a new formulation of SSR in terms of a presheaf of local (...) state spaces dual to the net of local observables studied by algebraic QFT. 1Introduction2Spacetime State Realism in Quantum Field Theory 2.1Equivalence thesis3Entanglement and the Type III Property 3.1No-Go Lemma 13.2No-Go Lemma 24State Space Axioms for Quantum Field Theory 4.1Revised equivalence thesis5Discussion. (shrink)

“Forget Taste” rejects the classical notion of taste as a viable concept for the exercise of critical evaluation and proposes an alternative approach to critical evaluation based crucially on the idea of the constitutive purpose of the artwork. The goal of this paper is to advance an approach—which I call the purpose-driven approach—to the critical evaluation of artworks that develops from and refines the views of art evaluation presented in my previous work. This approach, in virtue of its focus on (...) the constitutive purposes of artworks, regards the artwork as typically singular. For that reason, it follows that this approach is pluralistic in contrast to the hedonic conception of the taste model popularized in the eighteenth century and which still recurs today, if sometimes only subconsciously, and that reduces critical evaluation to feelings of pleasure. I argue that the hedonic taste model, which is noncognitive and reductive, should be abandoned in favor of one that is cognitivist and pluralistic, namely, the purpose-driven approach. (shrink)

Drawing on his knowledge of the worlds of art, criticism, and philosophy, Noèel Carroll argues that appraisal and evaluation of art are an indispensable part of the conversation of life.

Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in (...) having their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified? (shrink)

Higher courts sometimes assess the constitutionality of law by working through a concrete case, other times by reasoning about the underlying question in a more abstract way. Prior research has found that the degree of concreteness or abstraction with which an issue is formulated can influence people's prescriptive views: For instance, people often endorse punishment for concrete misdeeds that they would oppose if the circumstances were described abstractly. We sought to understand whether the so-called ‘abstract/concrete paradox’ also jeopardizes the consistency (...) of judicial reasoning. In a series of experiments, both lay and professional judges sometimes reached opposite conclusions when reasoning about concrete cases versus the underlying issues formulated in abstract terms. This effect emerged whether participants reasoned with broad principles, such as human dignity, or narrow rules, and was largest among individuals high in trait empathy. Finally, to understand whether people reflectively endorse the discrepancy between abstract and concrete resolutions, we examined their reactions when evaluating both, either simultaneously or sequentially. These approaches revealed no single pattern across lay and expert populations, or exploratory and confirmatory studies. Taken together, our studies suggest that empathic concern plays a greater role in guiding the judicial resolution of concrete cases than in illuminating judges' professed standards—which may result in concrete decisions in violation of their own abstract principles. (shrink)

Toward the end of his book Jokes, perhaps the best known philosophical treatment of the subject, Ted Cohen includes a notorious joke about a group of young Black men who are deterred from committing a gang rape by being thrown a basketball. This is a joke that perplexes Cohen and that he admits plays into stereotypes that presuppose the mindless obsession of Black youths with basketball as well as their unbridled sexuality. He agrees that the joke is morally bad and (...) that it would be a better world without it. But he denies that its evil compromises its alleged funniness. He writes: “Wish that there were no mean jokes. Try remaking the world so that such jokes will have no place, will not arise. But do not deny that they are funny. That denial is a pretense that will help nothing.” In this paper, I want to challenge the claim that the moral defectiveness of a joke, especially a racist joke, cannot ever compromise its capacity to be funny. (shrink)

Acclaimed writer and historian Noel Malcolm presents his sensational discovery of a new work by Thomas Hobbes : a propaganda pamphlet on behalf of the Habsburg side in the Thirty Years' War, translated by Hobbes from a Latin original. Malcolm's book explores a fascinating episode in seventeenth-century history, illuminating both the practice of early modern propaganda and the theory of "reason of state".

Prescriptive rules guide human behavior across various domains of community life, including law, morality, and etiquette. What, specifically, are rules in the eyes of their subjects, i.e., those who are expected to abide by them? Over the last sixty years, theorists in the philosophy of law have offered a useful framework with which to consider this question. Some, following H. L. A. Hart, argue that a rule’s text at least sometimes suffices to determine whether the rule itself covers a case. (...) Others, in the spirit of Lon Fuller, believe that there is no way to understand a rule without invoking its purpose — the benevolent ends which it is meant to advance. In this paper we ask whether people associate rules with their textual formulation or their underlying purpose. We find that both text and purpose guide people’s reasoning about the scope of a rule. Overall, a rule’s text more strongly contributed to rule infraction decisions than did its purpose. The balance of these considerations, however, varied across experimental conditions: In conditions favoring a spontaneous judgment, rule interpretation was affected by moral purposes, whereas analytic conditions resulted in a greater adherence to textual interpretations. In sum, our findings suggest that the philosophical debate between textualism and purposivism partly reflects two broader approaches to normative reasoning that vary within and across individuals. Keywords: , the concept of law, rules, legal psychology, Hart, Fuller. (shrink)

The statue and the lump of clay that constitutes it fail to share all of their kind and modal properties. Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue is not the lump. Question: What grounds the kind and modal differences between the statue and the lump? In virtue of what is it that the lump of clay, but not the statue, can survive being smashed? This is the grounding problem. Now a number of solutions to the grounding problem require that we substantially (...) revise our view of reality. In this paper, I provide a solution to this problem that does not require such a revision. I then show how my solution to the grounding problem can solve a related problem and answer a related question. The upshot is that the solution I offer is not only non-revisionary, but also fruitful. (shrink)

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total childcare is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is ‘on the cards’. We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, (...) robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care. (shrink)

The principles that AN INSTANCE OF A CLASS IS THE CLASS and A CLASS IS AN INSTANCE OF ITSELF allow for the so called LAWS OF THOUGHTIDENTITY - WHAT IS, IS.CONTRADICTION - NOTHING BOTH IS and IS NOT.EXCLUDED MIDDLE - EVERYTHING IS or IS NOT.and allow us to adopt a bivalent system. Everything essential for primary logic is provided.Though this is not the place to discuss it, it should be noted that the development of general logic with its current theories (...) of class, identity and natural numbers could take a very different course from the one it currently pursues.Human thought would have had to evolve to a high level of development before any systematic attempt to analyse it could have been made. It seems it was in the floruit of the Greek civilisation that this attempt was first made. The issues in this paper were of prime concern to those ancient thinkers and their achievements were considerable. Since those times further developments have occurred, many of which they would not have dreamed, but to this day there are still great issues that have not been resolved. The state of the art leaves much to be desired and it is my hope that this paper will contribute to its progress.If the ideas in this paper are true, then it seems we have come across the very origins of human rationality. (shrink)

This article explores several views on the relation of humour, especially tendentious humour, to morality, including comic amoralism, comic ethicism, comic immoralism, and moderate comic moralism. The essay concludes by defending moderate comic moralism.

"Ontology" focuses on three ways ground and ontology are said to relate. One way involves ground's ability to provide a safe and sane way of admitting certain kinds of things in our theories. Another way involves ground's ability to show how we should measure ontological simplicity. And a third way involves ground's ability to restrict what things or kinds of things can depend on other things or kinds.

Noel Malcolm, one of the world's leading experts on Thomas Hobbes, presents a set of extended essays on a wide variety of aspects of the life and work of this giant of early modern thought. Malcolm offers a succinct introduction to Hobbes's life and thought, as a foundation for his discussion of such topics as his political philosophy, his theory of international relations, the development of his mechanistic world-view, and his subversive Biblical criticism. Several of the essays pay special (...) attention to the European dimensions of Hobbes's life, his sources and his influence; the longest surveys the entire European reception of his work from the 1640s to the 1750s. All the essays are based on a deep knowledge of primary sources, and many present striking new discoveries about Hobbes's life, his manuscripts, and the printing history of his works. Aspects of Hobbes will be essential reading not only for Hobbes specialists, but also for all those interested in seventeenth-century intellectual history more generally, both British and European. (shrink)

At present, one of the most recurrent views in the philosophy of history claims that historical writing is interpretive and that a primary form that this interpretation takes is narration. Furthermore, narration, according to this approach, is thought to possess an inevitably fictional element, viz., a plot, and, in this regard, the work of the narrative historian is said to be more like that of the imaginative writer than has been admitted heretofore. The upshot of this philosophically, moreover, is the (...) assertion that historical narrations, qua narrative interpretations, are to be assessed, in large measure, in terms of the kind of criterion of truth that is appropriate to literary works. And a subsidiary, though far less tendentious, consequence is that our understanding of historical interpretation can profit from literary or “discourse” analysis. (shrink)

In recent years, the philosophy of art has profited enormously by applying to the study of art insights derived from the philosophies of mind and language, naturalized epistemology, psychology, evolutionary theory, and cognitive science. A case in point: the discussion of the nature of picturing and pictorial perception has obviously benefited from the influence of perceptual psychology and cognitive studies. Likewise, the theorization of art in relation to the emotions has also exploited contemporary advances in adjacent areas of inquiry.

What is art? The philosophers and historians contributing to this volume address the assertion that the term "art" no longer holds meaning.

A recent group of social scientists have argued that counterfactual questions play an essential role in their disciplines, and that it is possible to have rigorous methods to investigate them. Unfortunately, there has been little (if any) interaction between these social scientists and the philosophers who have long held that rigorous counterfactual reasoning is possible. In this paper, I hope to encourage some fresh thinking on both sides by creating new connections between them. I describe what I term "problem of (...) selecting antecedent scenarios," and show that this is an essential challenge in real-life counterfactual reasoning. Then, I demonstrate that the major extant theories of counterfactuals (especially the Lewis/Stalnaker theory and Igal Kvart's rival account) are unable to solve this problem. I show that there are instances of real-life counterfactual reasoning in the social sciences that are counterexamples to both of these accounts. And finally, I develop a new theory of how to select antecedent scenarios that overcomes these difficulties, and so would be part of a more adequate theory of counterfactuals (and counterfactual reasoning). (shrink)

Knowledge-based programs (KBPs) are a powerful notion for expressing action policies in which branching conditions refer to implicit knowledge and call for a deliberation task at execution time. However, branching conditions in KBPs cannot refer to possibly erroneous beliefs or to graded belief, such as “if my belief that φ holds is high then do some action α else perform some sensing action β”.

Presents an interpretation of the famous engraved title page of Hobbes's Leviathan, in which the ‘person’ of the state is depicted as a colossal figure composed of smaller individual figures. It argues that the origins of this design can be found in an optical device developed by the French scientist Jean François Niceron, which used a specially cut lens to create a single composite figure out of separate smaller figures; and it explores the significance of this for Hobbes's theory of (...) ‘representation’. (shrink)

This article is prompted by some ideas from Robert S. Brumbaugh and Alfred North Whitehead, in particular. Four different views of experienced time are considered as well as four different conceptions of the practice of life that are the implications of these views of time. Further, four different famous works of literature are considered in the effort to understand these views of time and their implications for the practice of life.

Essays and accompanying bibliographies survey recent (to 1990) studies of Boethius' 6th-century Latin work as it was translated into Old English (primarily King Alfred), medieval German, medieval French, and Middle English (primarily Chaucer). Each of the four chapters is an independent treatment, b.

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan is one of the most important philosophical texts in the English language, and one of the most influential works of political philosophy ever written. This is the first critical edition based on a full study of the manuscript and printing history. It is also the first edition to place the English text side by side with Hobbes's later Latin version of it, complete with a set of notes in which the many passages that differ in the Latin (...) are translated into English. So, for the first time, readers of Leviathan will be able to see clearly every stage of the development of the text. Both texts are fully annotated with explanatory notes. The editor's Introduction, which takes up the whole of the first volume, gives a path-breaking account of the work's context, sources, and textual history. This definitive edition will set the study of Hobbes's masterwork on a new basis. (shrink)

Although the concept of Rule of Law has been revived and developed vigorously by mid‐twentieth century conservative political theorists, contemporary legal positivists have not been impressed. The author reviews this confrontation, outlines the logic for a strong theory of Rule of Law, and surveys the leading attempts to provide compelling grounds for such a theory.

This book provides a much-needed, straightforward introduction to moral philosophy. It will particularly benefit students following courses containing an ethics module, including philosophy from AS level onwards, religious studies, law and medicine, but it has also been written for any reader puzzled by moral disputes and dilemmas. Written in an easy and approachable style and packed with lively examples from everyday life, the first section of the book clearly explains and assesses the arguments for and against the rival moral theories (...) of utilitarianism, Kantianism, Divine Command Theory and virtue ethics. The second section develops this by analysing the conflicting advice each moral theory gives regarding four controversial areas of life, namely euthanasia, abortion, animal rights and the environment. The final section concludes with an account of the vital debate concerning whether the difference between right and wrong is an objective fact discovered by us, like gravity, or is instead a human creation and invented by us, like tax laws. Throughout the book moral arguments are broken down into their component parts and explained in clear and simple stages so that readers not previously familiar with philosophical reasoning are aware at all times of where they are in the debate, and where the strengths and weaknesses lie in each position. As such, it is an ideal introduction to critical thinking as well as to moral philosophy. (shrink)

This article defends the content approach to aesthetic experience. It begins by sketching this approach to aesthetic experience. It then rehearses certain recent criticisms of the view by Alan Goldman and attempts to rebut them. One of those criticisms raises a long-standing concern about the author's account that has recently been called the “qua” problem. The article concludes by putting this issue to rest.

James Shelley has raised the important question of whether it is possible to have aesthetic experiences of imperceptible artworks. This issue is important for determining whether or not the aesthetic theory of art can deal with certain cases of conceptual art. Shelley has argued that it is possible to have aesthetic experiences of imperceptibilia. And in this article, I concur with him, though for reasons different from his. Nevertheless, I go on to argue that this still fails to vindicate the (...) aesthetic theory of art. (shrink)

The article sets out to develop the concept of attention as a key aspect to building the possible therapeutics that Bernard Stiegler’s recent works have pointed to (The Automatic Society, 2016, The Neganthropocene, 2018 and Qu’appelle-t-on Panser, 2018). The therapeutic aspect of pharmacology takes place through processes that are neganthropic; therefore, which attempt to counteract the entropic nature of digital technologies where there is flattening out to the measurable and the calculable of Big Data. The most obvious examples of this (...) flattening out can be seen in relation to the use of natural language processing technologies for text interpretation and the use of text analytics alongside student analytics. However, the process of exosomatisation of knowledge takes place in forms of hypomnesic tertiary retentions or digital technologies. The loss of knowledge is inherent to these processes of exteriorisation, this loss of knowledge takes place through a process proletarianisation which Marx had pointed to in the Grundisse (1939). The therapeutic gesture is, therefore, an intrinsically educational one, where the loss of knowledge of the pharmacological nature of digital technologies is counteracted by other forms of knowledge construction that can be enabled by digital technologies. Hence, there is a profound educational gesture necessary to enable the re-harnessing of technology to enable the therapeutics. This paper will argue that the positive re-harnessing, the therapeutics, can take place through the development of new forms of neganthropic gestures which can be afforded by the development of specific forms of digital technologies. These also enable a contributive research process whereby the rationalisation of the production of knowledge within the university can be challenged by collaborative, interpretative processes of knowledge production. (shrink)

Noel Carroll, film scholar and philosopher, offers the first serious look at the aesthetics of horror. In this book he discusses the nature and narrative structures of the genre, dealing with horror as a "transmedia" phenomenon. A fan and serious student of the horror genre, Carroll brings to bear his comprehensive knowledge of obscure and forgotten works, as well as of the horror masterpieces. Working from a philosophical perspective, he tries to account for how people can find pleasure in (...) having their wits scared out of them. What, after all, are those "paradoxes of the heart" that make us want to be horrified? (shrink)

This is a very important contribution to the slowly emerging literature on psychoanalysis and time. By examining the influences on Freud's thinking about time and the development of what were his mostly implicit ideas about temporality, Kelly Noel-Smith offers a lively and impeccably scholarly new way of understanding the background to current developments in psychoanalytic theory and practice." - Professor Stephen Frosh, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. "Dr Noel-Smith displays deep knowledge of Freud's oeuvre, the relevant Ancient Greek (...) sources that Freud drew upon, and modern philosophical thought. Her expertise is synthesized into a well-organized inquiry into what Freud thought about time. I learned a huge amount from reading this clear, well-informed and profound exposition." - Professor Charles Stewart, University College London, UK. Time and timelessness are fundamental principles of psychoanalysis yet Freud does not present a consolidated theory of temporality. In this book Kelly Noel-Smith pieces together Freud's scattered 'hints' and 'suspicions' about time and its negative, timelessness. She traces a careful temporal trail through Freud's published works and his daunting Nachlass, and provides a compelling reason as to why Freud kept his remarkable thoughts about time to himself. Kelly Noel-Smith combines a career in law with an academic interest in psychoanalysis and philosophy. (shrink)

This essay enacts a philosophy of science education inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's figurations of rhizomatic and nomadic thought. It imagines rhizomes shaking the tree of modern Western science and science education by destabilising arborescent conceptions of knowledge as hierarchically articulated branches of a central stem or trunk rooted in firm foundations, and explores how becoming nomadic might liberate science educators from the sedentary judgmental positions that serve as the nodal points of Western academic science education theorising. This (...) is demonstrated by commencing two rhizomatic textual assemblages that generate questions, provocations and challenges to dominant discourses and assumptions of contemporary science education. The first of these addresses cultural representations of Sir Isaac Newton and the second makes multiple, hybrid connections among the parasites, mosquitoes, humans, technologies and socio‐technical relations signified by malaria. (shrink)

This essay aims to explore the ways in which a philosophical account of humor can contribute to the explanation of the application of humor in the course of everyday day life. After providing a conceptual analysis of comic amusement ‐‐ the psychological state that takes humor as it's object ‐‐ and defending the thesis that it is an emotion, I will go on to show how this emotion functions productively in various situations in terms of the non‐exhaustive and non‐exclusive categories (...) of bonding, coping, and perspectival modification (or frame changing). I will not, however, discuss the frequent claims that humor contributes to health because the evidence for this claim is highly contested. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Noël Carroll THE PARADOX OFJUNK FICTION Perhaps on your way to some academic conference, if you had no papers to grade, you stopped in die airport gift shop for something to read on the plane. You saw racks of novels authored by die likes of Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, Danielle Steele, Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King, Sue Grafton, Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky, Tom Clancy, and so on. (...) These are the kinds of novels that, when you lend them to friends, you don't care, unless you live in Bowling Green, Ohio, whether you ever get them back. They are mass, popular fictions. In another era, they would have been called pulp fictions. Following Thomas Roberts,1 I will call diem junk fictions, under which rubric I will also include things like Harlequin romances; sci-fi, horror, and mystery magazines; comic books; and broadcast narratives on either the radio or TV, as well as commercial movies. There are a number of interesting philosophical questions diat we may ask aboutjunk fiction. We could, for example, attempt to characterize its essential features. However, for the present, I will assume that the preceding examples are enough to provide you with a rough-andready notion of what I am calling junk fiction, and I will attempt to explore anotiier feature of the phenomenon, viz., what I call the paradox ofjunk fiction. Thejunk fictions that I have in mind are all narratives. Indeed, dieir story dimension is die most important thing about diem. Stephen King, for instance, makes diis point by saying that he is primarily a story teller rather than a writer. Junk fictions aspire to be page-turners—the blurb on the cover of Stillwatch by Mary Higgins Clark says that it is "designed to be read at breatiitaking speed"—and what motivates turning die page so quickly is our interest in what happens next. We do not dawdle Philosophy and Literature, © 1994, 18: 225-241 226Philosophy and Literature over Clark's diction as we might over Updike's nor do we savor die complexity of her sentence structure, as we do widi Virginia Woolfs. Radier, we read for story. Moreover, junk fictions are die sort of narratives that commentators are wont to call formulaic. That is, junk fictions generally belong to well-entrenched genres, which diemselves are typified by tiieir possession of an extremely limited repertoire of story-types. For example, as John Cawelti has pointed out, one such recurring Western narrative is diat of the recendy pacifist gunfighter, like Shane, who is forced by circumstances to take up his pistols again, widi altogedier devastating effect.2 Junk fictions tell diese generic stories again and again with minor variations. Sometimes diese variations may be quite clever and unexpected. Agatiia Christie was the master of this; she was able to use the conventions of the mystery genre in order to "hide" her murderers. In TheMurderofRogerAckroyd, she "secrets" the murderer in the personage of the narrator; in Ten Little Indians, die murderer is a "dead man"; while in Murder on the Orient Express, all the suspects did it. In each of these cases, Christie's brilliance hinges upon her playing (and preying) upon conventional expectations. Neverdieless, even diese surprising variations require a well-established background of narrative forms. That is, in order to appreciate diese variations, die reader must in some sense know die standard story already. And with junk fiction, it is generally fair to say that in some sense, the reader—or, at least, the reader who has read around in die genre before—knows in rough oudine how die story is likely to go. Readers and/or viewers of Jurassic Park surmised, once die dinosaur enclosures were described, diat in fairly short order die dinosaurs would trample them down and go on the rampage—after all we had already seen or read The Lost World, King Kong, and their progeny. So, junk fictions are formulaic. They rehearse certain narrative formats again and again. And, furthermore, in some very general sense, the audience already knows die story in question. But this knowledge on die part of die audience provokes a question, specifically, why if the reader, viewer or listener already... (shrink)