Prickett charts the schism, opened at the end of the oighteenth century, between biblical hermeneutics and literary criticism. This split has profound implications for both contemporary biblical translation and literary theory. The author investigates the critical commonplace that religious language is essentially poetic, and traces the development of that view in the writings of Dennis and Vico, Herder and Eichhorn, Ccoleridge and Arnold, Wordsworth and Hopkins, and Austin Farrer and Paul Ricouer. This concept continues to provide a terminology (...) for discussing narrative that can no longer be interpreted literally or allegorically, but has also led some critics to devise inadequate translation theories and conceptions of metaphor. (shrink)

Public shaming plays an important role in upholding valuable social norms. But, under what conditions, if any, is it morally justifiable? Our aim in this paper is systemically to investigate the morality of public shaming, so as to provide an answer to this neglected question. We develop an overarching framework for assessing the justifiability of this practice, which shows that, while shaming can sometimes be morally justifiable, it very often is not. In turn, our framework highlights several reasons to be (...) concerned about the increasingly widespread phenomenon of online public shaming. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Since 1951, English-language readers of Leibniz’s Theodicy have been well-served by the elegant and readable translation of E. M. Huggard, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul and Open Court, and edited by Austin Farrer. However, this edition has some conspicuous failings: it leaves Latin, Greek, and German phrases untranslated; provides a name index only, thus omitting Leibniz’s own useful topical index; and completely omits the interesting and substantial synopsis, Causa Dei Asserta. The French paperback edition of the Essais (...) de Théodicée published by Garnier-Flammarion does provide Leibniz’s own topical index to his work, as well as compendious and invaluable notes on the text, but of course, this does not help readers with no French. There exists, then, very little help for the reader wishing to mine the depths of Leibniz’s massive work, and who is thus forced to read it through from end to end to find out what is in it. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

There is as yet... no unanimity among New Testament scholars as to the extent to which, or even whether at all, the category of divine man played a part in the interpretation of Jesus in the early Christian traditions.

The hermeneutical key to reading and interpreting the Gospel of Mark is the role which the Evangelist has given to the passion of Jesus as the primary perspective for understanding all the other traditions about Jesus incorporated in the Gospel.

This study investigated faculty attitudes towards student violations of academic integrity in Canada using a qualitative review of 17 universities’ academic integrity/dishonesty policies combined with a quantitative survey of faculty members’ (N = 412) attitudes and behaviours around academic integrity and dishonesty. Results showed that 53.1% of survey respondents see academic dishonesty as a worsening problem at their institutions. Generally, they believe their respective institutional policies are sound in principle but fail in application. Two of the major factors identified by (...) faculty as contributing to academic dishonesty are administrative. Many faculty members feel unsupported by their administration and are reluctant to formally report academic dishonesty due to the excessive burdens of dealing with paperwork and providing proof. Faculty members also cite unprepared students and international students who struggle with language issues and the Canadian academic context as major contributors to academic dishonesty. This study concludes with recommendations for educators and recommendations for future research. (shrink)

This article contends that the evolution toward interdisciplinary collaboration that we are witnessing in the sciences must also occur in the humanities to ensure their very survival. That is, humanists must be open to working with scientists and social scientists interested in similar research questions and vice versa. Digital humanities is a positive first step. Complexity science should be the next step. Even though much of the ground-breaking work in complexity science has been done in the natural sciences and mathematics, (...) it can, if critically adapted, provide the needed metaphor for a broad integration of disciplines, humanistic and otherwise. Given its almost a-disciplinary nature, a complexity approach to the research problems in the humanities necessarily breaks down silos. Moreover, it can restore and reframe the seamless intellectual fabric sought by researchers before the atomization of the various disciplines in the nineteenthcentury academy. (shrink)

The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia: Adaptation and Social Formation from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. By Peter Magee. Cambridge World Archaeology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xv + 309, illus. $99.

D’Aden à Zafar: Villes d’Arabie du sud préislamique. By Jérémie Schiettecatte. Orient & Méditeranée, Archéologie, vol. 6. Paris: De Boccard, 2011. Pp. 372, illus. €64.

[ Philosophy against the natural sciences: “Dogmatism” in the dispute about “scientific monism” after 1900].

Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and philosophy, Moral Markets makes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, but Moral Markets shows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more (...) virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both, Moral Markets provides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics--one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis. Moral Markets, the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith, and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy. (shrink)

People often reason about omissions. One line of research shows that people can distinguish between the semantics of omissive causes and omissive enabling conditions: for instance, not flunking out of college enabled you (but didn’t cause you) to graduate. Another line of work shows that people rely on the normative status of omissive events in inferring their causal role: if the outcome came about because the omission violated some norm, reasoners are more likely to select that omission as a cause. (...) We designed a novel paradigm that tests how norms interact with the semantics of omissive enabling conditions. The paradigm concerns the circuitry of a mechanical device that plays music. Two experiments used the paradigm to stipulate norms and present a distinct set of possibilities to participants. Participants chose which causal verb best described the operations of the machine. The studies revealed that participants’ responses are best predicted by their tendency to consider the semantics of omissive relations. In contrast, norms had little to no effect in participants’ responses. We conclude by marshaling the evidence and considering what role norms may play in people’s understanding of omissions. (shrink)

This article presents a conceptual investigation into the value impacts and relations of algorithms in the domain of justice and security. As a conceptual investigation, it represents one step in a value sensitive design based methodology. Here, we explicate and analyse the expression of values of accuracy, privacy, fairness and equality, property and ownership, and accountability and transparency in this context. We find that values are sensitive to disvalue if algorithms are designed, implemented or deployed inappropriately or without sufficient consideration (...) for their value impacts, potentially resulting in problems including discrimination and constrained autonomy. Furthermore, we outline a framework of conceptual relations of values indicated by our analysis, and potential value tensions in their implementation and deployment with a view towards supporting future research, and supporting the value sensitive design of algorithms in justice and security. (shrink)

The success of political liberalism depends on there being an overlapping consensus among reasonable citizens—including religious citizens—upon principles of political morality. This paper explores the resources within one major religion—Christianity—that might lead individuals to endorse (or reject) political liberalism, and thus to join (or not join) the overlapping consensus. I show that there are several strands within Christian political ethics that are consonant with political liberalism and might form the basis for Christian citizens’ membership of the overlapping consensus. Nonetheless, tensions (...) remain, and it is not clear that Christians could wholeheartedly endorse the political conception or give unreserved commitment to political liberal ideals. (shrink)

Human-extended machine cognition is a specific form of artificial intelligence in which the casually-active physical vehicles of machine-based cognitive states and processes include one or more human agents. Human-extended machine cognition is thus a specific form of extended cognition that sees human agents as constituent parts of the physical fabric that realizes machine-based cognitive capabilities. This idea is important, not just because of its impact on current philosophical debates about the extended character of human cognition, but also because it helps (...) to focus scientific attention on the potential role of the human social environment in realizing novel forms of artificial intelligence. The present paper provides an overview of human-extended machine cognition and situates the concept within the broader theoretical framework of active externalism. The paper additionally shows how the concept of human-extended machine cognition can be applied to existing forms of human–machine interaction, especially those that occur in the context of the contemporary Internet and Web. (shrink)

Includes a chapter on visual perception.

This article is a contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship addressing the presumption of innocence, especially interdisciplinary conversations between philosophers and jurists. Terminological confusion and methodological traps and errors notoriously beset academic literature addressing the presumption of innocence and related concepts, such as evidentiary presumptions, and the burden and standard of proof in criminal trials. This article is diagnostic, in the sense that its primary objective is to highlight the assumptions—in particular, the disciplinary assumptions—implicit in influential contributions to debates on the presumption (...) of innocence. It advocates a methodologically pluralistic approach, according to which definitions of the presumption of innocence are necessarily sensitive to purpose and method. These relationships and their implications are not always appreciated, and are seldom explicitly elucidated. Notably, philosophers routinely treat the presumption of innocence as epistemic, evidentiary or otherwise featuring directly in practical reasoning. This article identifies jurisprudential and practical reasons why legal scholars and practitioners concerned with criminal procedure and evidence should reject evidentiary interpretations of the presumption of innocence. By encouraging finer-grained engagement with the history and institutional details of common law procedural traditions, the article aims to show why legal scholars might think that philosophical approaches to the presumption of innocence are already methodologically-loaded and, for our purposes, address the wrong questions with deficient concepts. (shrink)

What is unique and essential about theatre? What separates it from other arts? Do we need 'theatre' in some fundamental way? The art of theatre, as Paul Woodruff says in this elegant and unique book, is as necessary-and as powerful-as language itself. Defining theatre broadly, including sporting events and social rituals, he treats traditional theatre as only one possibility in an art that-at its most powerful-can change lives and bring a divine presence to earth. The Necessity of Theater analyzes (...) the unique power of theatre by separating it into the twin arts of watching and being watched, practiced together in harmony by watchers and the watched. Whereas performers practice the art of being watched-making their actions worth watching, and paying attention to action, choice, plot, character, mimesis, and the sacredness of performance space-audiences practice the art of watching: paying close attention. A good audience is emotionally engaged as spectators; their engagement takes a form of empathy that can lead to a special kind of human wisdom. As Plato implied, theatre cannot teach us transcendent truths, but it can teach us about ourselves. Characteristically thoughtful, probing, and original, Paul Woodruff makes the case for theatre as a unique form of expression connected to our most human insticts. The Necessity of Theater should appeal to anyone seriously interested or involved in theatre or performance more broadly. (shrink)

Working beyond the inclination to inaugurate alternative theoretical traditions alongside canonical sociology, this article demonstrates the value of recovering latent gender theory from within classic concepts—in this case, Weber’s “charisma.” Close readings of Weber reveal, (a) tools for theorizing extraordinary, non-masculinist agency, and, (b) clues that account for the conventional wisdom (popular and scholastic) that charisma is “not for women.” While contemporary movements may be tempted to eschew charismatic leadership per se because of legacies of dominance by men, there is (...) value in Weber’s formulation, which anticipated the performative turn in social theory that would destabilize biologistic gender ontologies. Value in this exchange also flows back to Weber: by confronting his intermittent tendency to describe charisma in terms that we now recognize as “customs of manly power,” we reveal heretofore unseen imperfections (i.e., traditionalist modes of legitimation) in his ideal-type. This engagement thus demonstrates an empowering mutuality between contemporary gender theory and “the classics.” The article ends by theorising the nexus of gender and charisma in the case of Trump, pointing to possibilities for vitiating Donald Trump’s charisma, as well as for anti-Trumpian charisma. (shrink)

Ce volume reunit trois textes du celebre historien francais de la philosophie medievale Paul Vignaux (1904-1987), deux textes de nature plutot autobiographique qui retracent son itineraire intellectuel et Philosophie au Moyen Age, une introduction a la philosophie medievale qui compte toujours parmi les plus stimulantes presentations de la philosophie de cette epoque. Cet ensemble de textes est complete par d'amples notices bibliographiques et une presentation de la figure intellectuelle de Paul Vignaux qui fut egalement une des personnalites marquantes (...) du syndicalisme francais. (shrink)

This book is about you. How does your brain work and where do your thoughts and dreams come from? How can you harness their creative power? Ableman posits a crucial relationship between language and memory and thus between language and self-awareness. Most startlingly he maintains that the human 'person' is essentially the language component of a large-brained animal. Ableman has researched his theory using existing data derived from the malfunctioning mind as manifested in schizophrenia, sleepwalking, autism, 'out of body' experiences (...) and nightmares. His revolutionary claims constitute an exciting and persuasive theory of mind which orthodox science could - and should - test. (shrink)

Ever since, while continuing to develop his liguistic theories, he has been the most prominent US critic both of his country's foreign policy and of the intellectuals and media that give it overwhelming consensual support. "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" was followed by a series of ever more devastating attacks on American policy in Vietnam (collected in American Power and the New Mandarins and At War With Asia ): by 1970, he was far and away the best known intellectual opponent of (...) the US war effort. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. En s'appuyant sur des textes de Kierkegaard, cette étude entend montrer en quoi et comment l'autorité de l'auteur se trouve liée à toute forme de création, et pourquoi il convient de porter l'accent de l'analyse sur le (...) devenir-auteur, c'est-à-dire sur la manière subjective dont un auteur parvient, au travers de sa création, à prendre position au nom de soi. « Copyright Electre » Pages de début Exorde Prémisses 1 - Le don à l'origine 2 - Le Présent de la vie 3 - Créer 4 - Prendre position5 - Au nom de soi Conclusion Note complémentaire Index nominum Pages de fin. (shrink)