Rodion Raskolnikov, the central figure in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, is one of the best-known characters in the world of the novel but one who continues to pose major interpretive problems. Why exactly does he murder the old pawnbroker and her sister? Why, throughout the novel, does he continue to believe that he has committed no crime? And why, despite this belief, does he suffer a form of psychological breakdown and eventually give himself up to the police? This article, which (...) traces Raskolnikov’s literary ancestry to Les Liaisons dangereuses and Le Père Goriot, argues that Raskolnikov, a prototype of the modern “virtuous assassin” described by Albert Camus in L’Homme révolté, commits murder to implement a “magnificent” idea that will establish his worth as a human being. His ultimate collapse results not, as sometimes suggested, from guilt or remorse, or a belief that he has deluded himself about his motives, but from the state of irremediable solitude into which his act plunges him. -/- _PLEASE NOTE:_ This journal is moving from Oxford to Johns Hopkins. The move is still under way (4/2/25) so my Crime and Punishment article may not be accessible at the moment at either. In the meantime I've uploaded a copy to "archive" on this site. Derek Allan. (shrink)

Manifestations of school shooting or ‘columbine’, constituted by armed mass attacks and murders in educational institutions perpetrated by adolescents, have proliferated in recent years. They are marked by their unpredictability, spontaneity and cruelty. This phenomenon has been subject to scholarly examination from various perspectives, enabling the elucidation of its multifarious traits and characteristics as a means of diagnosis and prevention. This study surveys established academic approaches to the study of school shootings (psychological, legal, sociological, semiotic, existential) and delineates their specificity (...) and scope. Drawing on analysis of incidents of school shootings in Russia from 2014-2022, key signs and tendencies in the occurrence of mass attacks on educational institutions are delineated. Adopting existential approaches in philosophy and psychology, notably the works of A. Camus, E. Fromm, M. Boss, V. Frankl and L. Berkowitz, the semantic stages and constituents of school shootings as existential crimes and subsequent suicides are elucidated. The present study aims to identify and characterise the roots and essence of school shootings ('columbine') as an existential crime type, in order to comprehend the semantic motivational origins of school shootings and analyse the ‘boundary situation’ engendering individual destructive rebellion against the world. The nexus between unresolved existential needs and quandaries of the individual and the factors triggering self-destructive personality mechanisms is expounded, whereby the individual enacts an ‘escape’ from reality against the backdrop of media-disseminated aggressiveness and legitimation of violence as a means of overcoming problems and self-presentation. The existential analysis and modelling of school shooters’ actions offered here has enabled conclusions to be drawn regarding potential countermeasures to such crimes. (shrink)

A research project was conducted which explored LGBT hate crime. Participants were invited to share their narratives and personal experiences of hate crime, discrimination and violence through semi-structured interviews. The study helped us understand how people who experience ‘hate’ responded to, managed and reconciled the identities for which they were victimized. This case study focuses on a situation where a research participant requested a copy of an interview they gave for the hate crime project. The interview copy was to be (...) used for the participant’s own personal purposes. The participant’s request potentially risked the contamination of ethical data collection, with their own covert data gathering. The ethical implications of this scenario raise many questions for ethicists and researchers to discuss. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people’s intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the ‘plagiarism’ label should not be used for (...) deeds which are very different in nature and importance. (shrink)

Wherever we go, we leave behind skin cells containing copies of our DNA molecule – unless we go forth hermetically sealed. This makes construction and maintenance of DNA identification databases enormously useful to crime investigators. DNA databases, linking numerical representations of a tiny portion of individuals' DNA with their names and other identifying information, are useful to identify suspects directly by matching DNA found at a crime scene with a DNA profile in a DNA identification database. They are useful (...) indirectly too, because criminal investigations proceed by a process of elimination; and identifying the person whose DNA was found at a crime scene can make it unnecessary to continue investigating others. When the incriminating crime scene sample does not match the DNA of a “person of interest,” that person is freed from the hassles and risks of criminal investigation, including the risk of false conviction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). -/- In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise (...) power, may be justifiable or not. Whether it is justified and how it can come to be justified is a question of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is another way in which autonomy and responsibility are linked. This relationship is the basis of the current chapter, and it is important in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems. We will draw the connection as follows. We begin, in section 8.1, by describing two uses of technology: crime predicting technology used to drive policing practices and social media technology used to influence elections (including by Cambridge Analytica and by the Internet Research Agency). In section 8.2 we consider several views of legitimacy and argue for a hybrid version of normative legitimacy based on one recently offered by Fabienne Peter. In section 8.3 we will explain that the connection between political legitimacy and autonomy is that legitimacy is grounded in legitimating processes, which are in turn based on autonomy. Algorithmic systems—among them PredPol and the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-Internet Research Agency amalgam—can hinder that legitimation process and conflict with democratic legitimacy, as we argue in section 8.4. We will conclude by returning to several cases that serve as through-lines to the book: Loomis, Wagner, and Houston Schools. -/- The link below is to an open-access copy of the chapter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Punishing PisoJohn BodelWhen cn. piso cheated justice by taking his life before the formal condemnation that awaited him, the Senate imposed six posthumous penalties, which are duly recorded in the senatus consultum of 10 December A.D. 20. 11. Piso was not to be publicly mourned by the women of his family (SCPP 73–75).2. All statues and portraits of Piso anywhere were to be taken down (75–76).3. Members of the (...) Calpurnian family by blood or through marriage were urged to exclude the portrait mask of Piso from the parade of imagines at family funerals (76–82).4. Piso’s name was to be erased from a statue of Germanicus near the Ara Providentiae in the Campus Martius (82–84).5. Piso’s property, with the exception of an estate in Illyricum given to him by Augustus, was declared public property and was then returned, in the name of the Senate and princeps, to his two sons and daughter, in exchange for which the elder son was enjoined to change his praenomen, Gnaeus (84–105).6. The structures built by Piso over the Porta Fontinalis to connect his private houses were to be torn down (105–8).Tacitus’ abbreviated and selective account (Ann. 3.17–18) omits all but two of these penalties—those concerning the confiscation of Piso’s [End Page 43] property and the striking of his name from public records—and reports only partial truths about these. Why Tacitus omits what he does and distorts what he reports are questions of considerable interest for understanding his historiographical aims and methods (see Woodman and Martin 1996, 114–18, 185–88). This essay has the more limited and preliminary objective of delineating the background against which they must be posed by considering the implications of the four penalties not mentioned by Tacitus (1, 3, 4, 6) for the shaping of public image in Tiberian Rome. For this purpose, two basic similarities with Tacitus’ account may be briefly noted.First, despite the professed aim of the senators condemning Piso to eradicate all memory of him and his misdeeds, the clause of their decree mandating its publication in major cities and at military headquarters throughout the empire, “so that the order of the whole affair could be handed down to the memory of future generations and they would know what the Senate had decided about... the crimes of the elder Cn. Piso,” fundamentally undermines its ostensible purpose. 2 Like Tacitus, who explicitly embraced the historian’s traditional task of branding infamy in order to deter future misconduct (Ann. 3.65.1), the senators condemning Piso meant his punishment to set an example for posterity. 3 Since the bulk of Piso’s estate was to be returned to his intended heirs, their punitive measures were directed more at his reputation than at his substance and thus belong to that category of condemnation we call damnatio memoriae. Paradoxically, however, the Senate’s desire to advertise its exemplary severity in this instance undermined its efforts to expunge the memory of the condemned, rendering the punishment symbolic and paradigmatic rather than practically effective.Second, like Tacitus, who proclaims the geographical focus of his Annales in the opening words, the Roman Senate concentrated its condemnation of Piso’s memory on the city of Rome. Although the instructions [End Page 44] for publication of the document mention only provincial cities and the army (and wherever else Tiberius wished), and although the six or seven copies of the text that survive all derive from Baetica, the penalties themselves are largely and practically centered on the capital. 4 In this Romanocentric perspective the new senatus consultum shares the orientation of the document that served as the model for all monumentalized public declarations in Tiberian Rome, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (see Elsner 1996). Like that inscriptional monument, the decree condemning Piso—principally displayed at a chosen location in the capital (SCPP 169–70, quo loco Ti. Caes(ari) Aug(usto) videretur) and yet destined for publication (and fated for preservation) at the far ends of the empire—implicitly balances the conduct of res transmarinae (31) with monuments at the capital and thus directs... (shrink)

This article reconstructs the printing history of Hugo Grotius's Mare liberum . It examines the political circumstances which prompted the pamphlet's publication, but then seemed to conspire against it, and relates these to Grotius's revision of chapter 12 of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, the one surviving copy of De iure praedae . While preparing chapter 12 for the press, he made a serious effort to tone down its bellicose rhetoric, erasing, for example, all references to the Spanish (...) claims to the Americas. His aim was to placate the French envoy Pierre Jeannin and his own political patron Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the driving forces behind the negotiations for the Twelve Years' Truce . In the context of these negotiations, Grotius was at pains to downplay his radical rights theories. The subjective right of punishment only received a mention in the conclusion of Mare liberum, for example. Yet a discarded outline for the pamphlet's preface shows that the argument of De iure praedae remained uppermost in his mind, witness the outline's denunciation of the 'poisonings, perfidy and crimes of the Portuguese'. Both De iure praedae and Mare liberum had been commissioned by the Dutch East India Company for the express purpose of influencing political developments in its favour. Yet neither treatise had the impact originally intended by Grotius and the VOC directors. Ironically, these occasional writings became classics of international law instead. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent Acquisitions, 2020–21Bridget Whittle and Kenneth BlackwellThe previous general update of acquisitions appeared in Russell in n.s. 39 (winter 2019): 188–90. The new listing covers items numbered 1,824 to 1,839, plus an addition to 840, with the latest items arriving in December 2021. Largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this update is smaller than usual as fewer items were received or available. Several items were received from other institutions (...) and through the generosity of researchers, to whom McMaster Library is very grateful. Internet prints are from the Hon. Russell Archivist. The following abbreviations are used: L(s). or l(s). = letter(s); X. = image copies of any kind.correspondenceArlott, John L. from BR, 1951, re “Rewards of Philosophy” (C48.06) and a cricket book for Conrad. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Bell, A. S. L. from BR, 1967. Re Alys Russell’s l. to Haldane. X. Courtesy of Nicholas Bell. rec. acq. 1,827.Cambridge Daily News L. from BR requesting they issue a public statement to clarify use of his title, 1945. Re B&R C45.07a. X. Courtesy of Dr. David Harley. rec. acq. 1,824.Cousins, Norman 2 ls. from BR, re quoting History of the World in Epitome and Manchester speech, 1960. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Davies, Mansel 19 documents including ls. to BR, from Edith Russell, drafts, and notes re the Bertrand Russell Peace Fund, 1963 and later; and Dora Russell, also cnd, 1958. rec. acq. 1,828.Dewey, John 3 ls., 1 pc to William Ernest Hocking, 1936–40. Re BR at ccny and Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836.Duman, R. Douglas L. from BR, 1963. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Furtado, Celso 2 ls. from BR re Goldwater, and American war crimes in Vietnam, 1964, 1967. X. Courtesy of Camilo Furado. rec. acq. 1,829.Greene, Graham L. from BR on a Vietnam statement, 1967. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Haldane, Richard Burdon (1st Viscount) L. from Alys Russell regarding BR’s imprisonment status, 3 Mar. 1918. X. rec. acq. 1,827.Hocking, William Ernest 2 ls. from BR, 1939–40. Re Wm. James Lectures at Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836. —. See also under Dewey, John.Jones, Lief (Lord Rhayader) L. from BR congratulating him on his election victory in North Westmoreland. 1904–05. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,831.Miller, Lawrence E. L. from BR enclosing signed photo (not present), 1963. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Modern Forum (Herman Lissauer) L. from BR declining another us lecture tour, 1954. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,831.Newnham College Report from BR to extend G. E. M. Anscombe’s scholarship. He comments on her 2 dissertations. X. Courtesy of Rachel Wiseman. Original at Newnham. rec. acq. 1,831.Post, Stanley Deverin L. from BR, 1962. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Frank L. to Bill/Bull, 1902. Promises to send him a copy of his speech. X. Internet print. Courtesy of Ruth Derham. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Patricia L. to Emrys Hughes, ed. of Forward, 1945. Re the war and peace settlement. X. Courtesy of National Library of Scotland. Added to rec. acq. 840.Ryckman, Mr. L. from BR, 1923. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Schrödinger, Erwin L. from BR. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec. acq. 1,830.Silberstein, Ludwick 3ls. from BR,2in 1918, third in 1941. Silberstein had translated Problems into Polish, 1913. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Silverstein, Louis L. from BR regarding nuclear weapons and the Kennedy administration, 1961. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Spencer, Herbert L. to Lady Amberley, 1869. Re Spencer’s visit to Rodborough. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,833.Stetler, Jr., Russell Dearnley 20 ls. from BR; 30 from R. Schoenman, C. Farley, P. Wood; 1963–65. On opposing the Vietnam War. X. Donation of Russ Stetler. rec. acq. 1,838.Thirring, Hans 11 ls. from BR, 1 to BR, 1952–62. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Realm of Mimesis in Plato: Orality, Writing, and the Ontology of the Image by Mariangela EspositoDoug Al-MainiESPOSITO, Mariangela. The Realm of Mimesis in Plato: Orality, Writing, and the Ontology of the Image. Boston: Brill, 2023. xiv + 173 pp. Cloth, $143.00This manuscript grew out of the author’s original interest in Platonic aesthetics, itself developing into a more particularized examination of Plato’s account of beauty. Plato’s interest in (...) the arts is famously bound up in a broad criticism of their imitative nature; the relation between the original and the imitation, or the eidos and the eidolon, is the core topic of this book. When this binary nature of mimesis is emphasized, it is difficult not to see the two poles as opposed to each other, and indeed there are several passages in the Platonic corpus that tell us directly to value the eidos over the eidolon. “The critique of the arts, in general terms, is based on the assumption that they produce multiple, false, sensorial images (eidola ) that are far removed from the truth, while the truth is a process through which multiplicities are gathered together into an intellectual unity (eidos).” While this duality shows up in the dialogues in numerous ways, Esposito seeks to show a method that transcends it, a method that depends on the experience of [End Page 347] beauty. Beauty is the entity that allows for a transition from the sensual to the intellectual, a point Plato makes in both the Symposium and the Phaedrus, and thereby supports the view that the binary pair of image and original are not so discrete as we might originally believe.Esposito’s analysis of the relation between image and original is made concrete through its application to writing and speech. The book is divided into an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion that track the progress of our ascent to the eidos, with the first chapter devoted to Plato’s critique of writing, the second to the critique of speech, and the third to an analysis of how beauty facilitates going beyond their opposition. The main sources for the critique of writing are the Phaedrus and the Seventh Letter; Socrates in the Phaedrus explicitly declares writing to be an imitation of speech and the Seventh Letter supports this position. Esposito follows Derrida’s famous essay, Plato’s Pharmacy, stating, “In Derrida’s account of the Phaedrus, this is the main charge against the written word: first, it imitates the original, and then—its second crime—substitutes itself for the original.” The ability of the copy to substitute itself for the original shows a sensitivity on Derrida’s part to the kind of project that Esposito wants to engage in, and indeed a major theme of Derrida’s work was his use of the concept of the pharmakon as something that transgressed a boundary between seemingly discrete opposites; the term pharmakon could refer to either a poison or a cure. But Esposito claims that focusing on the opposition between speech and writing ensures that it will never be overcome, and so this criticism of writing (as an imitation) must be demoted in importance. Esposito therefore ultimately distances herself from Derrida and also spends time taking on the importance of the so-called Unwritten Doctrines, especially as outlined by the Tübingen School. The Tübingen School straightforwardly accepts the criticism of writing in comparison to speech and so develops a theory of unwritten doctrines that Plato would only transfer orally. Given her project of synthesizing the tension between writing and speech, it is unsurprising that Esposito would be hostile to the project of the Tübingen School, “which this work does not consider sustainable.”In the second chapter Esposito moves on to the critique of speech. Here the core of her analysis is given to the Sophist, which provides us with “the best ontological expression of the criticism of image making.” The wider criticism of the Sophist is centered on the observation that appearances are bound up with nonbeing itself; “the biggest challenge posed by the sophist and the main danger of the mimetic mechanism is revealed: both allow the pseudos... (shrink)

Introduction to Logic is a proven textbook that has been honed through the collaborative efforts of many scholars over the last five decades. Its scrupulous attention to detail and precision in exposition and explanation is matched by the greatest accuracy in all associated detail. In addition, it continues to capture student interest through its personalized human setting and current examples. The 14th Edition of Introduction to Logic, written by Copi, Cohen & McMahon, is dedicated to the many thousands of students (...) and their teachers - at hundreds of universities in the United States and around the world - who have used its fundamental methods and techniques of correct reasoning in their everyday lives. (shrink)

This reissue, first published in 1971, provides a brief historical account of the Theory of Logical Types; and describes the problems that gave rise to it, its various different formulations (Simple and Ramified), the difficulties connected with each, and the criticisms that have been directed against it. Professor Copi seeks to make the subject accessible to the non-specialist and yet provide a sufficiently rigorous exposition for the serious student to see exactly what the theory is and how it works.

This reissue, first published in 1971, provides a brief historical account of the Theory of Logical Types; and describes the problems that gave rise to it, its various different formulations, the difficulties connected with each, and the criticisms that have been directed against it. Professor Copi seeks to make the subject accessible to the non-specialist and yet provide a sufficiently rigorous exposition for the serious student to see exactly what the theory is and how it works.

For more than six decades, and for thousands of students, Introduction to Logic has been the gold standard in introductory logic texts. In this 15th Edition, Carl Cohen and Victor Rodych update Irving M. Copi's classic text, improving on its many strengths and introducing new and helpful material that will greatly assist both students and instructors.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The year 1897 saw the publication of the first of the modern logical paradoxes. It was published by Cesare Burali-Forti, the Italian mathematician whose name it has come to bear. Burali-Forti's own formulation of the paradox was not altogether satisfactory, as he had confused well-ordered sets as defined by Cantor with what he himself called “perfectly ordered sets”. However, he soon realized his mistake, and published a note admitting the error and making the correction. He concluded the note with the (...) observation that his result could be established on the basis of the correct definition of well-ordered set as easily as for the “perfectly ordered sets” for which it had first been obtained. We shall reproduce his results in their corrected form. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to explain two curious doctrines maintained by frege and rejected by wittgenstein in the 'tractatus logico-philosophicus'. that a special assertion sign is necessary was maintained by frege because he wanted to apply his concept-writing to ordinary language, and it was rejected by wittgenstein because his concern in the 'tractatus' was with scientific assertions only. frege's paradoxical notion that 'the concept horse is not a concept' was a consequence of his symbolizing functions by 'unsaturated' expressions. (...) wittgenstein's picture theory eliminated expressions for relations and thereby avoided the fregean paradox. (shrink)