Images are double agents. They receive information from the world, while also projecting visual imagination onto the world. As a result, mind and world tug our thinking about images, or particular kinds of images, in contrary directions. On one common division, world traces itself mechanically in photographs, whereas mind expresses itself through painting.1 Scholars of photography disavow such crude distinctions: much recent writing attends in detail to the materials and processes of photography, the agency of photographic artists, and the social (...) determinants of the production and reception of photographs. As such writing makes plain, photographs cannot be reduced to mechanical traces.2 Yet background conceptions of photography as trace or index persist almost by default, as no framework of comparable explanatory power has yet emerged to replace them. A conception of photography adequate to developments in recent scholarship is long overdue. Rather than constructing such a conception top-down, as philosophers are wont to do, this paper articulates it by examining selected works by James Welling.3 There are several reasons for this: Welling’s practice persistently explores the resources and possibilities of photography, the effect of these explorations is to express a particular metaphysics of the mind’s relation to its world, and appreciating why this metaphysics is aptly expressed by exploring photography requires a revised conception of what photography is. In as much as it provides a framework for a richer interpretation of Welling, the new conception is also capable of underwriting a wide range of critical and historical approaches to photography. (shrink)

Japan's Ise Jingu shrine has been taken down and rebuilt every twenty years for more than a millenium - a practice called "shikinen sengu." A standard ontology of architecture, according to which buildings are material particulars, implies that Ise Jingu is no more than twenty years old. However, a correct ontology of architecture is implicit in practices of architecture appreciation. The Japanese appreciation of Ise Jingu and other buildings in its architectural tradition implies both that it is no more (...) than twenty years old and that it is more than a thousand years old. Two ontologies are considered that reconcile this paradox. A general lesson is also drawn, that ontology of art can profit from cross-cultural studies. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is a metaphysical theory that accounts for the unity of the material parts of composite objects by appeal to a structure or ‘form’ characterizing those parts. I argue that hylomorphism is not merely a plausible or appealing solution to problems of material composition, but a position entailed by any coherent metaphysics of ordinary material objects. In fact, not only does hylomorphism have Aristotelian defenders, but it has had independent lives in both East and West. -/- I (...) review three contemporary hylomorphic theories appeal to ‘structure’ to explain the unity of material objects. Each, however, accepts a controversial principle: that substances can have other substances as proper parts. Such a principle is implausible and severely threatens the coherence of the theory. -/- I begin by showing that Thomas Aquinas’ account of form, which does not accept that substances can have other substances as parts, gives us a more coherent version of hylomorphism. Then I argue Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty Confucian thinker, developed a non-Aristotelian hylomorphism. Unlike Aristotelians, Zhu Xi’s metaphysics was formed in opposition to Buddhist versions of skepticism and gives us reasons to think that anyone who holds a view of objects stronger than Buddhists is committed to forms. In conclusion, I show directly, by appeal to some of those same considerations from Zhu Xi, why it is that all those who believe there are unified material objects will appeal to something like a substantial form. The traditional hylomorphic picture of material composition, then, remains a plausible framework for contemporary metaphysicians – and for good reason. (shrink)

In theOrigin of the work of art, Heidegger claimed that the work of art opens to us thetruth of Being, the opening of the world. Two problematics arise from this. First, his idea of “world-disclosure” evoked a sense ofeverydayness(which captures, for me, the idea of credulism in perception). Second, the senses oftruth,Being, andworldare metaphysically condensed. Hence the question: how then could the “truth of Being” or the “world” that artworks reveal be experienced? Among other ways (mimesis, imagination, perception, etc.) by (...) which artworks are experienced, I choose to examine perception since it confirms this idea ofeverydayness. The questions that confront us to this effect are: can perception lead us into, to encounter, this world opened by artworks? Does the nervous/visual system suffice to enter into that world in which the artist invites us? This is where Richir becomes important. In response to the first problem, he shows that the “perception” (experience) of artworks is beyond mereeverydaynesssince artworks open for us a world that “never was” and “never will be” (i.e., “virtuality” and not a veridical sense ofeverydaynessas captured in the perceptive act that is object-related). This is because the material stuff or object given in perception is neutralized by thephantasiato become what Richir callsSache. ThisSacheis in itself a phenomenon that is disclosed in artworks. In response to the second problem, Richir shows how artworks cannot disclose just metaphysical categories ofBeing, truth, or world. The disclosure has to be phenomenological, corporeal, and affective. He therefore proposes another mode of “perception” beyondmere perceptionin a revolutionary interpretation of the husserlian “perceptive”phantasia.With this, he shows how the aforementioned metaphysical condensations are liveable in experience. I concretize this with an illustration from the theater. Finally, I suggest participation as a phenomenological approach that can make both Heidegger’s and Richir’s intuitions meaningful. (shrink)

Neo-picturesque landscapes are former industrial sites redeveloped as parks in a way that preserves, maintains, and shapes memory of the materials, mechanics, and scale of the industrial age. This paper presents case studies of Duisburg Nord, the High Line, and Evergreen Brick Works. It distinguishes neo-picturesque ruins from archaeological ruins on the one hand and mere redevelopment projects on the other hand; traces a continuity between the eighteenth-century picturesque and the neo-picturesque; pinpoints the distinctive form of memory that the neo-picturesque (...) engages; and defends the importance of the neo-picturesque in contemporary life. (shrink)

Pictorialists prefigure contemporary photographers for whom there are no holds barred when it comes to making an image from a recording event. The difference is that the inventory of image rendering tricks is now colossal. Liberal use of this inventory characterizes the third, lyric, art of photography. In lyric verse, the authors find heightened attention to the musical qualities of language, to the materiality of the sounds of speech, and to their emotional resonances. Lyric photographs tweak the variables of the (...) photographic process as it is characterized by the new theory of photography, whereas the traditional theory of photography does not welcome lyric photographs with the same warmth. By expanding the conception of pure photography to include lyricism, the new theory runs head to head with the traditional theory but also with the proposition that purity implies uniqueness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Collective Violence and Birthday PartiesA Girardian Analysis of the PiñataDominic Pigneri (bio)The piñata is a tradition most commonly associated with Latin America, but this party game has a mysterious origin. Some suppose that the origin of the practice was brought to the Americas by the Spanish, who received the custom from the Italians.1 Some say that the Italians, through Marco Polo, appropriated the ritual from the Chinese.2 Others see (...) the Mexican piñata as originating locally in an Aztec religious ritual.3 But looking at this festival activity through a Girardian lens we can see that wherever a custom came into being, it seems that its origins lie in the lethal practice of collective violence. The following description may serve as an exemplar of the tradition:In Mexico, a plain, round clay cooking pot called an olla is decorated and finally almost entirely concealed by ruffles and streamer coverings shaped into animals, stars, etc. It is filled with nuts, sugar cane, fruits and small toys and is hung overhead from a rope. One participant in the game is blindfolded and given a long stick with which he or she tries to hit the pot. Several people (usually children) take turns at being blindfolded and swinging the stick, and finally when someone hits the pot [End Page 209] hard enough to break it, the other players scramble on the ground for the scattered prizes. It is a kind of noisy and happy version of a grab-bag, and the game goes on for quite a few minutes, since a controlling cord is used to swing the pot out of reach of the batters. There are several sing-song chants which the children say as the game goes on with each new target.4While the clay pot is the most traditional, piñatas are also made from other materials, including papier-mâché and cane plants.5 Furthermore, the piñata has a place in many different festivals; it is especially associated with Christmas, Easter, and birthday parties all over the Americas where there is a Latin influence.While the ritual of the piñata contains no explicit violence, the ritual itself contains many of the elements of the scapegoat mechanism René Girard describes in Violence and the Sacred. What Girard describes here is the banding together of society as they focus their internal animosity onto an arbitrary third-party victim. The peace that arrives after this violence is so profound that it is instinctually associated with the divine. This peace inspires a reenactment of this violence as a religious ritual. Therefore, religion functions as the force that keeps internal violence from turning all members of a society against one another. This controlled violence is the safety valve that releases the violence that would otherwise rend the social fabric of a community.6 Religion also veils the violence, which grants peace. It is important that the violence be expressed, but also hidden. Girard says, "Men cannot confront the naked truth of their own violence without the risk of abandoning themselves to it entirely. They have never had a very clear idea of this violence, and it is possible that the survival of all human societies of the past was dependent on this fundamental lack of understanding."7 This is the significance of the ritualism of cultic sacrifice.This relates to our current question of the piñata in the sense that the practice is reminiscent of a sacrificial ritual, especially when the piñata takes the shape of a being like an animal or human person. First, destruction is the initial aim of the activity. The piñata, like the oblation, must be destroyed in some way. This is what grants the ritual its efficacy. Second, there is a need for rubrics, a carefully followed procedure for the desired effect to come about. In cultic sacrifice, this can take place in a variety of ways, from ritualistic washing of the priest and the victim to the exact procedure and order for dissecting the victim. Similarly, as we saw in the description of the piñata above, there is a procedure. The piñata is... (shrink)

In this paper we articulate how time and temporalities are involved in the making of living things. For these purposes, we draw on an instructive episode concerning Norfolk Horn sheep. We attend to historical debates over the nature of the breed, whether it is extinct or not, and whether presently living exemplars are faithful copies of those that came before. We argue that there are features to these debates that are important to understanding contemporary configurations of life, time, and the (...) organism, especially as these are articulated within the field of synthetic biology. In particular, we highlight how organisms are configured within different material and semiotic assemblages that are always structured temporally. While we identify three distinct structures, namely the historical, phyletic, and molecular registers, we do not regard the list as exhaustive. We also highlight how these structures are related to the care and value invested in the organisms at issue. Finally, because we are interested ultimately in ways of producing time, our subject matter requires us to think about historiographical practice reflexively. This draws us into dialogue with other scholars interested in time, not just historians, but also philosophers and sociologists, and into conversations with them about time as always multiple and never an inert background. (shrink)

The Republic happens to be Plato's most important work. The article throws light on Plato's Magnum Opus. The debate rages over the idea of a city; rather an ideal city state comprising three classes—producers, auxiliaries, and guardians. The first to provide for the material needs of the state, the second for its defence, and the third to rule. Each has a specific function of its own, and none is to interfere with the others. Above all, the just city will (...) be unified, ordered, and harmonious. The rulers and auxiliaries, the two classes Socrates discusses at most length, will be dedicated to protecting the good of the state as a whole, and every aspect of their education, as well as the conditions, under which they live, will be minutely engineered to ensure they fulfil their roles as best they can. In a particularly famous passage, Socrates devotes considerable attention to the arts, proposing radical censorship of the kinds of poetry and music to which will be applicable in the city-state or the Republic that Plato has idealized. (shrink)

Bernard Bolzano’s (1781–1848) writings in aesthetics are clear, concise, and explicit about method. Provocative and revisionary, they champion broad views of beauty, the arts, and their social function. Dominic McIver Lopes's introductory materials place Bolzano's essays in context, give them a new interpretation, and map out how to teach them, in full or in part, in a variety of courses.

BackgroundFear of abandonment and aloneness play a key role in the clinical understanding interpersonal and attachment-specific problems in patients with borderline personality disorder and has been investigated in previous functional Magnet Resonance Imaging studies. The aim of the present study was to examine how different aspects of attachment representations are processed in BPD, by using for the first time an fMRI attachment paradigm including personalized core sentences from the participants’ own attachment stories. We hypothesized that BPD patients would show increased (...) functional involvement of limbic brain regions associated with fear and pain when presented personalized attachment relevant stimuli representing loneliness compared to healthy controls.MethodsWe examined the attachment classifications of 26 female BPD patients and 26 female HC using the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System. We used an fMRI-adapted attachment paradigm to investigate the neural correlates of attachment. All participants were presented three personalized sentences extracted from their AAP attachment narrative, combined with standardized AAP pictures representing being alone or in interactive attachment situations.ResultsAs expected, the classification of unresolved attachment was significantly greater in BPD compared to HC. BPD patients showed increased fMRI-activation in brain areas associated with fear, pain, and hyperarousal than HC when presented with personalized attachment-relevant alone stimuli. In particular, pictures with monadic attachment situations induced greater anterior medial cingulate cortex, anterior insula, amygdala, thalamus and superior temporal gyrus activation in the patient group.ConclusionThe results point to increased fMRI-activation in areas processing emotional distress and painful experiences in BPD patients. In particular, the emotional cascade reflecting attachment distress was evoked by combining monadic pictures, representing abandonment and aloneness, with the patients’ personalized narrative material. Our results confirmed and replicated previous results that illustrate once again the high relevance of aloneness and feelings of abandonment for BPD in the context of attachment trauma. Moreover, our results support the hypothesis of hypermentalization in response to attachment distress as a core feature of social-cognitive impairment in BPD associated with common treatment implications across different therapeutic orientations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Exclusivity and ParticularityJohn Dominic CrossanSeveral of the authors spoke of the imperial exclusivity so characteristic of Christianity. For José Ignacio Cabezón, “What Buddhists find objectionable is (a) the Christian characterization of the deity whose manifestation Jesus is said to be, and (b) the claim that Jesus is unique in being such a manifestation” (p. 56). For Bokin Kim, “most Christians hold to an exclusive view of Christ that claims (...) his uniqueness” (p. 76). For Rita Gross, “the exclusive claims made on behalf of Jesus by Christians appalled me even as a teenager, and my repugnance for exclusive truth claims on the part of religions—any religion—has not diminished since. Thus, part of my journey is working out both a theory and a praxis of religious pluralism that is neither relativistic nor universalistic, that encourages both commitment to one tradition and appreciation of other traditions” (p. 64). I myself find such exclusivistic claims for Christianity, or any other religion, insulting in theory and lethal in practice, objectionable in history and obscene in theology. They are implicitly genocidal even if political impotence limits the divine ethnic cleansing they imagine. But how, as Gross repeats, does one establish “a position that is neither relativistic nor exclusivistic”? (p. 65). My own answer is particularity, but I must explain that in terms of my understanding of Trinity, divinity, and particularity.Trinity seems a particularly and peculiarly Christian understanding of God, but my proposal is that the structure of the Holy is Trinitarian in all religions that I know about and even in all those I can imagine. I speak very deliberately about the Holy (not about God) as the infinite mystery that surrounds and supports, fascinates and terrifies us. It is that against which we interact as meaning-seeking beings. Be it absolute open meaninglessness or absolute univocal meaning, our interaction with it does not seem to be an option but a necessity. And my point is that the Holy is Trinitarian in structure. It is not just on the one hand that religion is Trinitarian in structure. But it is not on the other hand that the Holy in itself and apart from us is Trinitarian in structure. It is, I propose, that the Holy in itself as seen by us across the spectrum of world religious experience is Trinitarian in structure. That Trinity [End Page 97] involves, first, ultimate metaphor, that foundational image that imagines the Holy as, for example, power, person, state, or order, as nature, god/goddess, nirvana, or mandate of heaven. It involves, second, material manifestation, some physical object in which that metaphorical vision is peculiarly, specially, or even uniquely incarnated, some person, place, or thing, some individual or collectivity, some cave or shrine or temple, some clearing in the forest or tree in the desert where that ultimate referent is encountered and experienced. It involves, finally, preliminary preparation, for there must be at least one believer to begin with and eventually more to end with. But, as there are always nonbelievers as well, some prior affinity must exist, as it were, between this metaphor rather than that, this manifestation rather than that, and this believer rather than that. For me, therefore, all faith and all religion, not just my own Christianity, is Trinitarian in structure and that structure seems to inhere in the Holy itself, at least insofar as we can see it. For me, therefore, Christianity and Buddhism differ most profoundly on their ultimate metaphor for the Holy: it is person (God) for the former but state (nirvana) for the latter. In Christianity, of course, our ultimate metaphor is rather overinvested: it is person; and that person is parent; and that parent is father. But I leave those specifications aside for the moment.Divinity is the term I use for any material manifestation. By calling such manifestations divine I mean precisely that a religion’s ultimate metaphor is experienced by believers as peculiarly, specially, or even uniquely present in that physical phenomenon. In that sense I understand both Christ and the Buddha to be divine in exactly the same way—that is, as incarnations of the Holy but within different ultimate metaphors. Christ did... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature by Andrew YOUNANDominic V. CassellaYOUNAN, Andrew. Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023. xii + 228 pp. Cloth, $75.00Andrew Younan’s work situates itself between two opposing philosophical accounts of the laws of nature. In one corner, there are the Humeans (or Nominalists); in the (...) other, the Anti-Humeans (or Platonists). The goal of the book is to find an explanation for the orderliness of the natural world that avoids falling into the difficulties of the two opposing philosophies. For example, the Humeans treat “events” as fundamental, and the laws of nature follow from these “events.” For the Humeans, reality is essentially random, with any order being something of our own contrivance. Whereas for the Anti-Humeans, the laws of nature are fundamental and are treated as causing events, turning the effect of necessity into the cause of material [End Page 166] characteristics. Looking to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Younan proposes the recovery of a third option, the Essentialist position. This Essentialist position understands substances, that is, individual beings, as fundamental and all else (for example, events and laws of nature) follow from these individual beings. The thesis of the book, generally understood, is that Essentialism evades the critiques that the Humeans and Anti-Humeans put against one another while retaining what is right in each approach.The book is divided into two parts. The book’s first part deals with general objections and replies and is divided into three chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 address the two opposing accounts of nature mentioned, while chapter 3 argues for the benefits of recovering an Essentialist position. Chapter 1 examines the objection that Aristotelian natural philosophy is incompatible with modern science, an objection raised by Descartes. Chapter 2 addresses the objections of the Humeans, namely, that natural philosophy and, with it, causality and induction have been debunked. Chapter 3 looks at the fathers of quantum theory, specifically Heisenberg, and argues that a return to Aristotle’s understanding of nature would benefit the modern scientific project. The book’s second part is an argument for the Essentialist position and is divided into three chapters. Chapters 4 and 5 are the foundation for chapter 6. Chapter 4 is an abstractive account of mathematics, differing from Descartes and his conceptions, which draws on the texts of Aristotle and Aquinas’s Division and Methods. Chapter 5 situates necessity and its role in Aristotelian natural philosophy. Chapter 6 is the author’s attempt at defining what it is to be a law of nature.Younan argues that adopting an essentialist understanding of nature in a system where all knowledge begins in the senses has three significant “payoffs.” The first is that it avoids governance language, that is, it avoids making laws themselves causes of necessity; the second is that it avoids the assertion of a priori knowledge; the third is that it understands individual things as the fundamental primitives in nature, restoring the substance to its proper place as the thing that “stands under” accidental being.The book is concluded with an appendix that explores and rearticulates Thomas Aquinas’s fifth way under the consideration of everything the author had argued for in the book’s main text. Taking as established by the rest of the book that necessity and teleology go hand in hand, Younan argues for a creator God who establishes a universe freely but within certain parameters that follow upon being itself. Younan concludes, with Thomas Aquinas, that laws of nature are “ordinances of reason” that must come from a rational mind. To be as consistent as they are, the laws of nature must be promulgated by God, and they are discoverable within the nature of matter itself.Younan’s book often engages its interlocutors on the big-picture scale, frequently giving generalizations and not going into details to avoid getting bogged down in the weeds. The author is very aware of what he is doing. [End Page 167] It is appropriate since engaging the multiheaded hydra of the schools of thought that Younan... (shrink)

Theoretical work on aesthetic value has taken off in the past 5 or 10 years. Since work on artistic value dates at least as far back as the first debates about the interaction between artistic and other values, aesthetic value presumably differs from artistic value. Unlike artistic value, aesthetic value is found in art, but also in nature, design, and intellectual material, even philosophy (Lopes 2022a). Indeed, continued use of “aesthetic” as a synonym for “artistic” has held up work (...) on aesthetic value, as has the hegemony of aesthetic hedonism (Van der Berg 2020). Now a raft of new ideas are on offer, and each has something going for it. We should not be too quick to winnow: we can build a tent that is big enough to house them all. (shrink)

Parents who are facing decisions about life-sustaining treatment for their seriously ill or dying child are supported by their child's doctors and nurses. They also frequently seek other information sources to help them deal with the medical and ethical questions that arise. This might include written or web-based information. As part of a project involving the development of such a resource to support parents facing difficult decisions, some ethical questions emerged. Should this information be presented in a strictly neutral fashion? (...) Is it problematic if narratives, arguments or perspectives appear to favour stopping over continuing life-sustaining treatment? Similar questions might arise with written materials about decisions for adults, or for other ethically contentious decisions. This paper explores the meaning of ‘balance’ in information provision, focusing particularly on written information about life-sustaining treatment for children. We contrast the norm of non-directiveness in genetic counselling with the shared decision-making model often endorsed in end-of-life care. We review evidence that parents do not find neutrality from medical professionals helpful in discussions. We argue that balance in written information must be understood in the light of the aim of the document, the most common situation in which it will be used, and any existing biases. We conclude with four important strategies for ensuring that non-neutral information is nevertheless ethically appropriate. (shrink)

The history of psychiatry does not inspire confidence, even among psychiatrists, and there has always been a cottage industry in medicine and psychology that wrestles with various conceptual problems around mental illness. It’s arguable that philosophers of science have not paid enough attention to this literature. Even if you aren’t interested in psychiatry, you might profit from the debates in psychometrics on the measurement of mental constructs, or look at the arguments over causation, reduction, and explanation that psychiatrists fight out (...) among themselves, increasingly with some philosophical input. Kenneth Kendler is a major contributor to this literature as theorist, experimentalist, and (via his role in the DSM) institution-builder and gatekeeper. He stands out too for his willingness to engage and learn from philosophy; and also to teach, for many of us can vouch to learning a lot about psychiatry from Kendler’s willingness to collaborate with philosophers and integrate the two communities. So it is a great pleasure to have a selection of Kendler’s papers assembled in one place. The essays in this volume cover a variety of conceptual issues in psychiatry, together with some historical material looking at the recent development of biomedical psychiatry. The most notable historical piece is the chapter on the origins of the Fechner criteria for validation of diagnoses, which had an enormous impact on the development of biological psychiatry in the 1970s. This collection covers many issues, and we won’t try to discuss everything, instead opting for one or two main issues that we think philosophers of science will be especially interested in. But there is something here for almost everyone in philosophy of science, and we urge them to look at this volume even if psychiatry is not on their normal reading list. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas embraces a controversial claim about the way in which parts of a substance depend on the substance’s substantial form. On his metaphysics, a ‘substantial form’ is not merely a relation among already existing things, in virtue of which (for example) the arrangement or configuration of those things would count as a substance. The substantial form is rather responsible for the identity or nature of the parts of the substance such a form constitutes. Aquinas’ controversial claim can be roughly (...) put as the view that things are members of their kind in virtue of their substantial form. To put it simply, Aquinas’ claim results in the implication that, every time the xs come to compose a y, those xs have to undergo a change in kind membership. -/- This has been called the “homonymy principle,” and it follows from Aquinas’ view of substantial forms, and specifically from the position that substantial forms inform prime matter, rather than substance-parts. The aim of this paper will be to defend that the Thomistic claim that substantial forms account for the determinate actuality of every part of a substance is plausible and coherent. After defending the Thomistic account, I propose that approaching problems of material composition as a Thomist has a significant, oft-overlooked advantage of involving a thorough-going naturalistic methodology that resolves such problems by appeal to empirical considerations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the emotional impact of sarcasm. Previous research in this area has mainly required participants to answer questions based on written materials, and results have been mixed. With the aim of instead examining the emotional impact of sarcasm when used in a more conversational setting, the current study utilized animated video clips as stimuli. In each clip, one individual answered general knowledge questions while the other provided feedback that could be delivered either literally or sarcastically, and (...) either complimented or criticized the question answerer’s performance. Participants rated the feedback based on the anticipated emotional impact on the recipient, how the speaker intended the recipient to feel, and whether the speaker intended to be humorous. Results overall supported the Tinge Hypothesis, showing that sarcastic criticism was rated as less negative than literal criticism, and sarcastic compliments were rated as... (shrink)

While it is a point of agreement in contemporary republican political theory that property ownership is closely connected to freedom as non-domination, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate the nature of this connection or the constraints on property regimes that might be required as a result. In this paper, I provide a systematic model of the boundaries within which republican property systems must sit and explore some of the wider implications that thinking of property in these terms (...) may have for republicans. The boundaries I focus on relate to the distribution of property and the application of types of property claims over particular kinds of goods. I develop this model from those elements of non-domination most directly related to the operation of a property regime: (a) economic independence, (b) limiting material inequalities, and (c) the promotion of common goods. The limits that emerge from this analysis support intuitive judgments that animate much republican discussion of property distribution. My account diverges from much orthodox republican theory, though, in challenging the primacy of private property rights in the realization of economic independence. The value of property on republican terms can be realized without private ownership of the means of production. (shrink)

When making substituted judgments for incapacitated patients, surrogates often struggle to guess what the patient would want if they had capacity. Surrogates may also agonize over having the (sole) responsibility of making such a determination. To address such concerns, a Patient Preference Predictor (PPP) has been proposed that would use an algorithm to infer the treatment preferences of individual patients from population-level data about the known preferences of people with similar demographic characteristics. However, critics have suggested that even if such (...) a PPP were more accurate, on average, than human surrogates in identifying patient preferences, the proposed algorithm would nevertheless fail to respect the patient’s (former) autonomy since it draws on the ‘wrong’ kind of data: namely, data that are not specific to the individual patient and which therefore may not reflect their actual values, or their reasons for having the preferences they do. Taking such criticisms on board, we here propose a new approach: the Personalized Patient Preference Predictor (P4). The P4 is based on recent advances in machine learning, which allow technologies including large language models to be more cheaply and efficiently ‘fine-tuned’ on person-specific data. The P4, unlike the PPP, would be able to infer an individual patient’s preferences from material (e.g., prior treatment decisions) that is in fact specific to them. Thus, we argue, in addition to being potentially more accurate at the individual level than the previously proposed PPP, the predictions of a P4 would also more directly reflect each patient’s own reasons and values. In this article, we review recent discoveries in artificial intelligence research that suggest a P4 is technically feasible, and argue that, if it is developed and appropriately deployed, it should assuage some of the main autonomy-based concerns of critics of the original PPP. We then consider various objections to our proposal and offer some tentative replies. (shrink)

A well-known problem seems to beset views on which humans are essentially material, but where I can survive my death: they seem incoherent or reducible to substance dualism. Thomas Aquinas held a unique hylomorphic view of the human person as essentially composed of body and soul, but where the human soul can survive the death of the body. ‘Survivalists’ have argued that, post mortem, a human person comes to be composed of their soul alone. ‘Corruptionists’ point to Thomas’ texts, (...) where he claims that the human person ceases to exist at death and only a part of one – albeit a special part – persists. With some help from Elizabeth Anscombe, I show that a denial of the semantic and metaphysical assumptions made by both parties on that point gives us a much better solution to the controversy over the personality of the separated soul. (shrink)

A good illustration of the interpretation of ancient philosophy argued for by P. Hadot in the book reviewed above is provided by the Roman Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus. In the present work A. Jagu supplies a rather brief introduction to Musonius, a French translation of ancient texts reporting Musonius' views, and comprehensive indices. The translation is accurate and reads well. Jagu's notes on the texts are copious, showing Musonius' orthodoxy by referring to the early Stoics and (...) his influence on Epictetus and Clement of Alexandria. Musonius himself wrote nothing, but his opinions were recorded by pupils, in particular by a certain Lucius. The Christian John Stobaeus, in compiling his anthology, incorporated excerpts from Lucius' work, thus saving it partially from oblivion. This means that as far as our evidence for Musonius is concerned, we are largely at the mercy of Lucius' understanding of his master and of Stobaeus' conventional moralistic interests. These factors account for the almost total absence of material concerning logic and physics and the preservation of fairly trivial discussions concerning, for example, food, clothing, furniture, and even beards! More central issues are also touched on--marriage, children, education, should women do philosophy?, exile, etc. If then what survives relates almost exclusively to ethics, it is clear that in any case Musonius subordinated logic and physics to ethics as did classical Stoicism. Apart from what derived from Lucius, a small amount of evidence concerning Musonius and originating elsewhere is preserved in Stobaeus, Plutarch and some other authors, but it does little more than give a somewhat different impression of Musonius than does Lucius. This book, especially the notes, will be of use not only to those interested in Stoic philosophy and its history but also to students of Roman society and politics of the first century A.D., in which Musonius played a prominent role.--Dominic J. O'Meara, Université de Fribourg. (shrink)

This paper critically examines traditional rule-based and externalist approaches to the teaching of business ethics. The review materializes in a framework of seven pitfalls associated with the traditional approach, and bridges to overcome these perils are offered. Care is taken to avoid submitting the implausible positions of moral relativism. A perspective of methodological pluralism and normative internalism is developed and presented as a fruitful avenue for effective teaching in business ethics, and possible avenues for empirical exploration are offered.

In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key (...) points that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionSpatial, Environmental, and Ecocritical Approaches to Holocaust MemoryEmily-Rose Baker (bio), Michael Holden (bio), Diane Otosaka (bio), Sue Vice (bio), and Dominic Williams (bio)The successful implementation of genocide during the Holocaust depended on the spatial organisation of mass murder. From the concentrated ghettos and camps delimited by walls and barbed wire to the open fields and camouflaged forests where victims were shot en masse, Anne Kelly Knowles et al. argue, (...) specific locations, patterns of migration, deportation and evacuation, and other spatial elements such as scale, were all central to the Nazi regime's creation of a "comprehensive geography of oppression."1 This is hardly surprising given the biopolitical logics and colonial fantasies underpinning Lebensraum ('living space'), the territorial concept guiding the genocidal aims of the Third Reich, which designated zones of life as well as the inverse on the European continent. The Holocaust was also experienced spatially by its victims, who were forced to navigate new (and at times familiar) sites and landscapes as those of genocide, and whose testimonies in the aftermath of the event conjured these very places in detail.In recent years, the spaces of the Holocaust have been variously revisited, reconstructed, and reimagined within Holocaust studies scholarship. As a broader part of the 'spatial turn' in the humanities, Holocaust scholars have increasingly employed spatial perspectives of the event to deepen our understanding of the environments in which the Holocaust took place and the transformation of these spaces over time—particularly in the fields of history and social science.2 While drawing on diverse modes of spatialisation from interdisciplinary perspectives, contributions from these fields have tended to privilege methods we might describe as variously 'forensic,' including mapping, model-making, and investigations of material traces of the past.3 This work has resulted in many significant insights, not only into the [End Page 1] contexts and structures of Nazi genocide and the perpetrator imaginings of space, but also the experiences of victims and survivors.4Another significant body of work has attended to space and culture within Holocaust contexts. From early on in the postwar period, particular locations and buildings became identified with the Holocaust, such as the notorious entrance guard house at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which appears on countless book covers as well as within films and artworks. Engaging with spatial insights and methodologies from the perspective of cultural and memory studies, scholars have attested to the production and mnemonic significance of these and less well-known sites, as well as the symbolic spatial worlds and experiences to which they give rise. These include Paul Jaskot and Gavriel Rosenfeld, who have turned respectively to Holocaust and post-Holocaust architectures as commonly overlooked sites of history and memory. Drawing attention to the construction of Holocaust space, Jaskot shows how reading architecture 'as process' rather than static structures laden with symbolic meaning reveals unique histories of forced labor in which "the goals of the SS intersected with victims' experience."5 Rosenfeld demonstrates the ways in which spaces built in response to Nazi genocide after 1945 have been variously "imbued with Jewish significance" by their users and creators, resulting in the rise to prominence of Jewish-identified architects.6 Along similar lines, Michael Meng's work has explored the ways in which Jews and gentiles interact with ruined synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish districts as important remnants of pre-war Jewish life in the post-war period in German and Polish cities.7Studies such as those noted above have tended to focus on cities and public buildings, as well as state and civic policy. But as the spatial histories and geographies of the Holocaust have helped to show, extermination often took place in rural settings (mostly located in Central and Eastern Europe), such as the killing fields where Jews were shot en masse; the forests where victims hid and were hunted by Germans and local collaborators; or the open spaces of the dissolving Reich through which former concentration camp inmates were forced to march during the final year of the war—sites in which, owing to less contained spatial dynamics, violence played out differently.8These kinds of sites, which are sparsely documented and often simply thought of... (shrink)

Broadening access to both computational and educational resources is crit- ical to diffusing machine learning (ML) innovation. However, today, most ML resources and experts are siloed in a few countries and organizations. In this article, we describe our pedagogical approach to increasing access to applied ML through a massive open online course (MOOC) on Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML). We suggest that TinyML, applied ML on resource-constrained embedded devices, is an attractive means to widen access because TinyML leverages low-cost and globally (...) accessible hardware and encourages the development of complete, self-contained applications, from data collection to deployment. To this end, a collaboration between academia and industry produced a four part MOOC that provides application-oriented instruction on how to develop solutions using TinyML. The series is openly available on the edX MOOC platform, has no prerequisites beyond basic programming, and is designed for global learners from a variety of backgrounds. It introduces real-world applications, ML algorithms, data-set engineering, and the ethi- cal considerations of these technologies through hands-on programming and deployment of TinyML applications in both the cloud and on their own microcontrollers. To facili- tate continued learning, community building, and collaboration beyond the courses, we launched a standalone website, a forum, a chat, and an optional course-project com- petition. We also open-sourced the course materials, hoping they will inspire the next generation of ML practitioners and educators and further broaden access to cutting-edge ML technologies. (shrink)

This book theorises technology and its host of social, material, and epistemic transformation techniques, tools, and methods as indeterminate through sixteen methodologically diverse contributions from media philosophy, art and architectural theory, mathematics, computer science, and anthropology scholars.

Linguistic justice is about institutions distributing material and symbolic resources fairly when they are faced with linguistic diversity. However, no theory of linguistic justice has developed a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral dilemmas that take place in interpersonal linguistic relationships, in particular the power dynamics leading to (linguistic) domination. The aim of this article is to start building a general theory of linguistic domination, one that offers new conceptual tools for both empirical and normative analyses (...) of linguistically diverse societies. Using the republican tradition of thought, I argue that there is linguistic domination whenever someone is subject to the uncontrolled capacity for interference over their linguistic uses, ideology and acquisition by another agent. This article tests under what conditions this phenomenon takes place and the parties involved in it (both in terms of individuals and political institutions). (shrink)

Marginalisation is both a structural and an epistemic issue. The struggle against exclusion and marginalisation should take place within larger social structures. Moreover, we should address the legitimacy offered, through the knowledge production process itself, for exclusion and marginalisation. Knowledge production regarding the oppressed should document their lives, experiences and concerns. It must take place with an appropriate methodological struggle informed by alternative epistemologies. While creating alternative epistemologies, it is important to challenge the value-neutrality claim of mainstream research practices. We (...) should acknowledge that mainstream epistemic domination exists ‘not because of objectivity or universality of their research practices but their privileged location within a historical, material and social setup of dominant power relations’. A ‘situated knowledge’ building process may help to end the epistemic oppression of marginalised groups. This process lends new forms and applications of enquiry that are necessarily inclusive and that pay closer attention to elements such as personal experiences, subjectivity, worldviews, and emotions. (shrink)

This article examines the conceptualisation of materialities in feminist theory through two paradigmatic examples: (French) materialist feminism and new materialisms. What can be interpreted as an opposition between different paradigms can also be disrupted as long as we define what matters as a relation or a process rather than a substance or a lost paradise to which we should return. New materialisms indeed help to investigate aspects such as corporeality, human/non-human interaction and textures, but the role of feminist materialism is (...) invaluable in highlighting the social structures of power relations; more than ever, it makes a decisive contribution to the understanding of domination, such as the social relations and hierarchies implied in femosecularism conceptualised in this article. Ultimately, the tool of hybridised materialisms aims to articulate the theoretical perspective of materialist feminism with that of the new materialisms – in order to avoid the binarism between materiality and culture. (shrink)

No descriptive material is available for this title.

The theory and practice of liberalism has historically justified the dispossession of non-European peoples through the ideological deployment of individual rights—private property being the most prominent. Rather than discarding rights language altogether owing to its colonialist background, the theological option for the poor in the postconciliar Church of Latin America establishes a criterion of authenticity that contributes to its prophetic renewal. The methodological turn toward the poor evident in the liberation theology of Ignacio Ellacuría can wrest rights from its crippling (...) association with political, economic, and cultural forms of liberal domination as seen in the Americas. Latin American theologians provide historical and constructive resources for demythologizing the sacred right to private property in liberalism’s neocolonial present and historical past, as typified by John Locke. Specifically, the theme of integral liberation outlines the material, social, and transcendent dimensions of justice for the dispossessed as an ecclesial alternative to liberal individualism. (shrink)

After an initial period of feminist theorizing concerned with understanding patriarchy as a structure of male domination, many thinkers turned away from theorizing domination as such and focused instead on women's (constructed) subjectivity, identity, and agency. While this has fostered important insights into the formation of women's preferences, desires, and choices, this focus on subjectivity and subject formation has largely overshadowed deeper understandings of patriarchy as a structure of male domination while producing elisions between agency and freedom. (...) In this article, I move to show how domination as a structural concept can help us to reclaim the idea of ‘patriarchy’ as a source of women's systematic oppression while freedom as non-domination, derived from early republican conceptualizations of freedom, can help us to disambiguate freedom from agency by taking as central the relative positions of actors within social and political structures. Structural freedom as non-domination is thus useful for feminist thinkers in that it gives us critical purchase on the dynamics inherent in unequal social and political relationships and can be linked clearly to the institutions and ideologies that shape and justify interactions between more powerful and less powerful groups. Further, from this point of view intersecting structures of domination can be analysed rather than intersecting identity categories, allowing us to take intersectionality into account and avoiding the need to ground feminist action on a unitary ‘category woman’. Finally, this analysis points toward the radical democratic connexion between freedom and participation in the creation of the material and symbolic structures that frame our collective lives. (shrink)

Implicit in much of the recent literature on conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics is the assumption that when speakers argue that we should talk or think about a concept in a specific way, they are doing so as inquirers—as speakers who are invested in arriving at the correct or best view of this concept. In this paper I question that assumption and argue that philosophers have been too quick to project idealized versions of themselves into the contexts of conceptual articulation (...) and conceptual dispute. Speakers often engage in this activity to further interests of theirs that have nothing to do with inquiry, instead carrying out what I call ‘conceptual domination’. Speakers are engaged in conceptual domination when they aim to bring about and enforce widespread uptake for a view of a concept by exploiting institutions and institutional authority. They do so because this view best serves interests that are either irrelevant to or actively interfere with inquiry concerning this concept—paradigmatically their material interests. I consider sources of evidence for assessing whether speakers are engaging in conceptual domination, analyze two case studies, and consider how to push back against conceptual dominators. (shrink)

The so-called new economy based on the global network of digitalized communication was welcomed as a platform of innovations and as a vehicle of advancement of democracy. The concept of virtuality captures the essence of the new economy: efficiency and free access. In practice, the new economy has developed into an heterogenic entity dominated by practices such as propagation of trust and commitment to standards and standard-like technological solutions; entrenchment of locally strategic subsystems; surveillance of unwanted behavior. Five empirical cases (...) within the present field of opposing forces serve as fuel for reflection: football hooliganism, sand-boxing, digital vulnerability of nuclear technology, sensitivity of studio projects, and streamlining academic computing. The main argument of the article is that a historic re-materialization is taking place within the new economy. This means cognitive as well as material divisions. Incommensurability in science is comparable with product incompatibility from the point of view of their implications to the users of knowledge and computers. Hype and banal attached to the new media are related to two ways of assessing social capital: as a means of peaceful functionality or a condition for cultural conflicts. The paper ends in proposing that there is a re-materialization of the virtual now taking place especially on the meta-level of the system. (shrink)

This paper reviews four leading strategies for addressing the problem of material constitution, along with some of the prominent objections faced by each approach. Sections include (1) "The Orthodox View: Coincident Objects," (2) "Dominant Kinds," (3) "Nihilism," (4) "Revising the Logic of Identity," and (5) "Future Research." Also included is an annotated bibliography.

A common belief is that evolution generally proceeds towards greater complexity at both the organismal and the genomic level, numerous examples of reductive evolution of parasites and symbionts notwithstanding. However, recent evolutionary reconstructions challenge this notion. Two notable examples are the reconstruction of the complex archaeal ancestor and the intron‐rich ancestor of eukaryotes. In both cases, evolution in most of the lineages was apparently dominated by extensive loss of genes and introns, respectively. These and many other cases of reductive evolution (...) are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining. Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification. (shrink)

RESUMO Analisar linhas delimitadoras de um certo desenvolvimento tecnológico é uma tarefa já empreendida por diversos autores. Este é um tipo de abordagem que se inspira em parte em ação semelhante empreendida em relação à ciência. Neste artigo pretendemos apresentar algumas linhas, a que chamamos tendências, que marcam as tecnologias móveis, como celulares, smartphones ou tablets. Estudamos alguns artefactos e funcionalidades que, não sendo exclusivos deste tipo de dispositivo, marcam direções e hegemonias. Para o efeito, desenvolvemos uma análise sociotécnica que (...) se centra em uma observação e utilização desse tipo de tecnologia. O resultado é uma tipologia que mostra cinco tendências: realismo; continuidade técnico-corporal; prioridade ao contexto; velocidade; e compatibilidade/multifuncionalidade. Essas diferentes formulações sociotécnicas permitem compreender como essas materialidades inscrevem-se no espaço social, ao mesmo tempo que exibem projetos que emergem de intenções sociais. O proliferar das tecnologias móveis faz com que a compreensão dessas dinâmicas seja de enorme relevância para questionarmos o futuro tecnológico que se instala. ABSTRACT The delimitation of defining lines of certain technological development is something that several authors already established. This kind of approach is inspired in similar task applied to science. In this work it is intended to present some lines, that we call tendencies, which mark mobile technologies development, like mobile phones, smartphones or tablets. This work makes an analysis of some artifacts and its features, which make some directions and hegemonic dominations, although they are not exclusive of these technologies. It is applied a sociotechnical analysis based on observation and on the use of this kind of technologies. The output is the identification of five tendencies: realism; techno-body continuity; priority to context; velocity; and compatibility/multi-functionality. This different sociotechnical forms allow the understanding of how these materialities are inscribed in social space, and how some projects are a result of social intentions. The proliferation of mobile technologies shows by itself the relevance of this approach in order to question technological future. (shrink)

It is common to think that state enforcement is a restriction on freedom that is morally permitted or justified because of the unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves. Human frailty and material scarcity combine to make the compromise of freedom involved in exclusive state enforcement power necessary for other freedoms or other goods. In the words of James Madison, ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary’ (1990: 267). But there is an opposing tradition, according to which (...) the very idea of freedom in society entails the necessity of state enforcement. However morally good human beings are, or whatever material conditions they find themselves in, on this view, the ideal of freedom we ought to be concerned to realise is such that it cannot be attained without state enforcement. It follows a priori from an important ideal of freedom that a state with exclusive enforcement power is necessary for individual liberty in society. In this paper, I argue against what I take to be the strongest argument of the a priori kind, which begins from the neo-republican ideal of freedom as non-domination, and thereby in (partial) defence of the alternative, Madisonian, view. Insofar as it is true that some sort of problematic domination will inevitably be present in a stateless society, I argue, the introduction of a state can do nothing to eliminate it. For the state to improve on even an ideal stateless society, it would need to give individuals control over the interference of potential dominators of a sort that could not be achieved in the ideal stateless society. -/- . (shrink)

Tim Scanlon’s famous and important paper ‘The Diversity of Objections to Inequality’ sets out five reasons why those sympathetic to equality may object to inequality. This paper shows the origin of this approach to inequality in Scanlon’s earlier work, and its persistence in his later work. It also compares Scanlon’s position to earlier egalitarian writers, such as R.H. Tawney, and anti-egalitarians such as J.R. Lucas. It concludes by suggesting that there are interaction effects between the reasons for objecting to inequality (...) and hence they are more powerful if taken together. (shrink)

Work and Experience of Domination in Contemporary Neoliberalism This paper seeks to study the contemporary forms of domination at and through work, by focusing on subjective experiences of work. Against the background of Marx’s analysis of the manyfold nexus between social and political domination in general and domination at work, I begin by drawing in broad strokes the general picture of current experiences of work emerging from the contemporary French sociology and psychology of work. Related to (...) this rich literature but also contrasting with it, the psychodynamic approach developed by Christophe Dejours seems particularly significant, notably because its provides a consistent model explaining the links between subjective experience, social interactions beyond work, material conditions of production, and broad cultural and political factors. From the psychodynamic model arises an original analysis of the current forms of domination and alienation at work, one, I argue in conclusion, which could substantially inform the current attempt to develop a new “social philosophy”. (shrink)

Narratives of artificial intelligence frame public perceptions and expectations, and have a performative role, potentially leading to increased attention and resource allocation, acceptance of AI, or resistance to the technology. However, research on AI narratives frequently produces generalized and decontextualized accounts. This paper argues for closer examination of the specific processes that shape AI narratives in particular contexts. To explore this, nine AI-related exhibitions held in German museums from 2022 to 2023 were analyzed. The study draws on interviews with curatorial (...) teams and exhibition materials to investigate what narratives of AI museums are formed and how those relate to the dominant AI narratives described in previous research. It is shown that curators are critical of dominant AI narratives and aim to deconstruct common myths and present more nuanced portrayals of AI. Yet, they also face challenges in balancing this critical stance with the need for creating engaging, accessible exhibitions. The analysis reveals that while some curatorial strategies successfully counter AI stereotypes, others fail or inadvertently reproduce mainstream imaginaries. Curators discover that avoiding problematic understandings of AI in the way they had initially intended is challenging or even impossible. In other cases, when elements of mainstream AI discourse resurface in museum exhibits despite the critical stance of the curators, they remain unexamined, or are regarded as insignificant and inconsequential. (shrink)

This article examines the cameraless negatives revealing the imprints of four fingers obtained in Turin in February 1907 during the second of two séances with renowned medium Eusapia Palladino organized by physiologists Alberto Aggazzotti, Carlo Foà and Amedeo Hertlizka. By looking at the material and performative components of the séance, it presents spiritualist cameraless photography as a productive tool for rethinking and reframing the photographic medium from a cross-disciplinary perspective questioning medium specific histories and dominant genealogies.

Recently mereological hylomorphism, the theory in which form and matter are considered to be proper parts of objects, has become very important among contemporary metaphysicians. The present work aims to analyse and dismantle Bennett’s criticism regarding the existence of formal proper parts. To do this, I will start by presenting Koslicki’s mereological hylomorphism. Next, I will focus on Bennett’s critique which seeks to deny the existence of formal proper parts. Finally, I will analyse critically the Bennett’s criticism focusing on the (...) scenario of lump of clay and statue. I will show Bennett’s proposal is not explanatorily better than Koslicki’s hylomorphism because she needs to accept a counter-intuitive thesis. Therefore, we should prefer Koslicki’s mereological hylomorphism. (shrink)

This article investigates the complex object of the political book. Mobilising Deleuze and Guattari's typology of the book, the article assesses the material properties of four specific books (or sets of books): Mao Zedong's ‘Little Red Book’, Russian Futurist books, Antonin Artaud's paper ‘spells’, and Guy Debord and Asger Jorn's ‘anti-book’ Mémoires. Highly critical of the dominant mode of the political book, what they call the ‘root-book’, Deleuze and Guattari draw attention to the troubling religious structures and passions that (...) order its field. Here the book internalises the world as the origin and source of truth and authority – a mode of existence as dear to the avant-garde as it is to religious formations: ‘Wagner, Mallarmé, and Joyce, Marx and Freud: still Bibles.’ But the book also features in Deleuze and Guattari's counter-figure of the ‘rhizome-book’, where they foreground the dynamic materiality of this medium: ‘A book has neither object nor subject; it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds.’ The rhizome-book is an enticing concept for assessing the political book, yet Deleuze and Guattari pay little attention to the specific, concrete attributes of this medium. In focusing on the properties of particular books this article seeks to address that absence, and so contribute to an understanding of the political book that is fully engaged with its material forms. (shrink)

Accounts of autonomy which acknowledge the importance of non-domination – that is, of being structurally protected against arbitrary interference with one's life – face an apparent problem with regards to intimate relationships. By their very nature, such relations open us up to psychological and material suffering that would not be possible absent the particular relationship; even worse, from the non-domination point of view, is that this vulnerability seems to be structural in a way exactly analogous to workplace (...) or social domination. If being powerless to prevent an employer causing me harm constitutes domination at work, then what relevant differences can support the intuition that being powerless to prevent my partner causing me comparable pain is not autonomy-hostile? I argue for the reassuring view that the obligations and possibility of pain arising from such relations aren't necessarily dominating; they would be so only if we believed that any obligation we have not explicitly agreed to is a restriction on our autonomy, and that is false. I conclude with a note of caution: even though intimate relations aren't necessarily dominating, they will often be contingently so if they take place in a wider social context of domination – such as that which we currently inhabit. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss Husserl's defence of transcendental phenomenology in the face of the attitude of materialization and the naturalization of consciousness, which dominates the attitude that underlies the formation of the natural sciences. Inheriting some elements of classical German philosophy, Husserl understands that it is only through the a priori that philosophy can be realized as a rigorous science. Our analysis will initially be developed through a critical discussion of the problem that Husserl identifies in (...) the naturalistic sciences based on the natural attitude, which is the materialization of consciousness. Next, we will show how, in relation to the project of building a philosophy as a rigorous science, naturalism, which is naive in its foundation, is the main obstacle to be overcome because of the consequences that can arise from it, implying currents such as psychologism, materialism and positivism. Finally, we will point out the way in which Husserl defends transcendental phenomenology against the naivety of natural science, which remains trapped in empirical facts and makes them the ultimate criterion for attesting to truth. (shrink)

Works Righteousness explores the ways that different ethical theories relate to what people actually do. Peterson argues that the most dominant philosophical and religious approaches have largely ignored practice, assuming that internal mental states are what matter for ethics and that ideas and practices are related in a simple, linear fashion. However, some alternative models, including pragmatism, Marxism, and religious pacifism, present a more complex view of the relations between values and practices. These traditions show how attention to practices opens (...) up new ways of thinking about moral theory and concrete issues like hate speech, euthanasia, and climate change. (shrink)