We show that the theory of the real field with a generic real power function is decidable, relative to an oracle for the rational cut of the exponent of the power function. We also show the existence of generic computable real numbers, hence providing an example of a decidable o-minimal proper expansion of the real field by an analytic function.

The Power of Ideals examines the lives and work of six 20th century moral leaders who pursued moral causes ranging from world peace to social justice and human rights, and uses these six cases to show how people can make choices guided by their moral ideals rather than by base emotion or social pressures.

We investigate expansions of the ordered field of real numbers equipped with a family of real power functions. We show in particular that the theory of the ordered field of real numbers augmented by all restricted analytic functions and all real power functions admits elimination of quantifiers and has a universal axiomatization. We derive that every function of one variable definable in this structure, not ultimately identically 0, is asymptotic at + ∞ to a (...) real function of the form x cxr, c ≠ 0; in particular, this structure is polynomially bounded. Furthermore, given any definable function f:U → with U open in n, if α ε U and f is infinitely differentiable at α, then f is real analytic in a neighborhood of α. (shrink)

Particularly interesting among those concerning religion is Fernand Van Steenberghen's criticism of Etienne Gilson's occasional assertion that the existence of God may be the object of supernatural faith, since it is possible to believe and know in distinct ways. Van Steenberghen insists this is contradictory, since to believe God's existence on His testimony implies that one does not "know" this, and if one "knows" God's testimony one knows that God exists. Related to this issue is Georges Van Riet's clarification of (...) the notions of nature, supernature, religion, and culture. The last notion, taken subjectively and speaking loosely, refers commonly to the development of human powers according to virtue and is mediated by culture taken objectively. In turn, religion both as natural and supernatural can equally be termed cultural. As such, they constitute the superior level of subjective culture and permeate enculturation attained through education and traditions. (shrink)

Stephen Mumford and Alexander Bird disagree about which properties are powers and, correspondingly, about the extent of the philosophical work to which powers may be put. Unfortunately, there is an important respect in which these authors are talking past each other and so the reason for their disagreement remains obscured. I highlight what has gone wrong in their recent exchange, attempt to clear up the confusion and pinpoint the true source of their disagreement. My hope is to redirect the efforts (...) of these authors and their followers onto more pressing foundational issues in the metaphysics of powers. (shrink)

Given the wide range of mythical/occult lore, stage legerdemain, and popular fantasy-based fictional stereotypes that have long been associated with the term magic in human culture, it is quite possible that some academically-minded readers may initially be put off by the title of this book. But these are not the kinds of magic that Dean Radin is talking about. Rather, he is subtly alluding to a certain class of seemingly extraordinary human experiences and abilities for which the exact underlying physical (...) and biological mechanisms are not too well understood as of yet – namely, the experiences and abilities that may be classed as psychic (or psi). He focuses on examining three general sub-classes which, in keeping with the theme of this book, are labeled in the parlance of magic: force of will (referring to psychokinesis, aka. mind-matter interaction), divination (referring to extrasensory perception), and theurgy (referring to experiences related to survival after death). Yet even with such clarification being made from the outset, there might still be readers who would wonder whether it is even a good idea to discuss psi phenomena in conjunction with magic, as some parapsychologists may be reminded of the effort once made by psychologist (and noted skeptic) James Alcock (1981) to portray an association between the two as being something fanciful and not fitting with the pursuit of science in his book Parapsychology: Science or Magic? Arguing on the basis of its seeming incompatibility with mainstream science, Alcock implied that psi is something that could be seen as being akin to occult conjuring, where one is able to spontaneously gain certain knowledge or mentally bring about certain event outcomes at will, without any apparent logic or reason. And as psychologist and psi researcher John Palmer (1983) had pointed out in his critical review of the book, Alcock even went on to imply that parapsychologists tend to act more like occult magicians than scientists, claiming that they are motivated by a predisposed belief in psi rather than an objective search for facts and data-driven theory. In light of such blatant accusations being made in the past, one might figure that parapsychologists would be wary of their subject matter being discussed or referred to in relation to magic again, in any shape or form. (shrink)

In the 21st century, digitalization is a global challenge of mankind. Even for the public, it is obvious that our world is increasingly dominated by powerful algorithms and big data. But, how computable is our world? Some people believe that successful problem solving in science, technology, and economies only depends on fast algorithms and data mining. Chances and risks are often not understood, because the foundations of algorithms and information systems are not studied rigorously. Actually, they are deeply rooted in (...) logics, mathematics, computer science and philosophy. Therefore, this book studies the foundations of mathematics, computer science, and philosophy, in order to guarantee security and reliability of the knowledge by constructive proofs, proof mining and program extraction. We start with the basics of computability theory, proof theory, and information theory. In a second step, we introduce new concepts of information and computing systems, in order to overcome the gap between the digital world of logical programming and the analog world of real computing in mathematics and science. The book also considers consequences for digital and analog physics, computational neuroscience, financial mathematics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). (shrink)

The social and cultural changes of the last century have transformed death from an everyday fact to something hidden from view. Shifting between the practical and the theoretical, the professional and the intimate, the real and the fictitious, this collection of essays explores the continued power of death over our lives. It examines the idea and experience of death from an interdisciplinary perspective, including studies of changing burial customs throughout Europe; an account of a"dying party" in the Netherlands; (...) examinations of the fascination with violent death in crime fiction and the phenomenon of serial killer art; analyses of death and bereavement in poetry, fiction, and autobiography; and a look at audience reactions to depictions of death on screen. By studying and considering how death is thought about in the contemporary era, we might restore the natural place it has in our lives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Translation, (Self-)Transformation, and the Power of the MiddleAngelica NuzzoThe etymologies of the word translation—the real and the imaginary ones—are many and varied across languages and traditions. I want to frame my present remarks by appealing to the well-known derivation of the Latin traducere from trans-ducere, the verb that designates the movement of carrying across, of bringing over across and between heterogeneous and apparently incompatible terms—different languages, different (...) places and times, and more generally different identities and cultures. I propose to indicate with translation the dynamic space of the action that takes place in-between, in the middle between two extremes—whatever these extremes may be. And I propose to dwell in this in-between space—not in order to get anywhere, but to stay there and learn how to appreciate the powerful condition of the middle. My suggestion will be that translation is the intermediate and intermediary space of transformation that precedes that which it transforms as well as that into which it transforms; that translation is the middle that comes before the extremes between which it lies and which it connects, and makes them possible for the first time. The logic of translation, I submit, is the logic of immanent self-transformation that is based on the power of the middle. This is a logic that may help us advance beyond the binary static logic in which everything is instead dictated by the predetermined, fixed identity of the extremes, and by the exclusive choice of either one or the other—the logic that Virginia Woolf aptly describes in this way: “Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old” (Woolf 1990, ch. 5). While this may sound logically indisputable it is also—to [End Page 19] Woolf at least—existentially unacceptable and cognitively faulty when at issue is the understanding of the movement of our lives. Thus, in what follows, I am interested in exploring the meaning—the existential, historical, linguistic meaning—of the predicament of being-in-the-middle, of being-in-transition or in-translation—of being neither one extreme nor the other but both of them at the same time and also neither of them. I want to dwell, in particular, on the cipher of movement proper to this condition, on the idea of transformation that translation constitutively entails—the self-transformation that is proper to translation as such an in-between dynamic activity. But to push this point further, I also want to suggest that the movement of translation is essential for an understanding of how processes move on and advance precisely as processes; of how change and something truly new are achieved beyond the present standpoint and beyond the standpoint of the present; of how, more concretely, the individual and collective self is reconstituted and immanently transformed after a crisis and through it. For translation, in this sense, is the powerful, destabilizing moment of crisis and open possibility that invests individuals and societies alike (but also texts and languages); it is also, at the same time, a strategy of survival and a fundamental tool of advancement and progress.Let me begin with a famous philosophical scene. Plato’s Symposium opens with the intriguing account of Socrates’s unusual habits in a speech delivered by Aristodemus, and culminates with Alcibiades’s story regarding Socrates’s strange behavior during the campaign of Potidaea. Upon meeting Socrates all dressed up1 on his way to Agathon’s banquet, Aristodemus is asked to come along to Agathon’s house. He accepts, a bit embarrassed at the thought of showing up uninvited. On the way to Agathon’s, however, Socrates becomes absorbed in his thoughts and falls behind his companion. Aristodemus repeatedly waits for him, but Socrates encourages him to go on ahead alone. This puts Aristodemus in a “ridiculous position” when he arrives, all by himself, at Agathon’s house. He shows up, indeed uninvited, as there is still no sign of Socrates. Now everybody at Agathon’s is waiting and looking for him. This perplexing situation goes on until a servant discovers Socrates calmly standing... (shrink)

In parts one and two of this three-part series, I developed a framework for ahimsic (nonviolent) communication (AC) as an alternative to the standard communicative norm of civility. The framework presented for AC offers various categories of resistance to violence, including nonviolent forms of negotiation, compromise, protest, verbal force, verbal distraction, argumentation, and communicative satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence applied to communication). I also provided a range of real-life examples of successful AC resistance, including the stories of Derek Black, Daryl Davis, (...) James Lawson, and Antoinette Tuff. These examples demonstrate that AC “works” even against neo-Nazis, KKK grand wizards, angry punch-throwing bikers, and active school shooters. In this third and final installment, I will explain why AC works—better than any form of violent communication (VC). My main claim is that AC derives strategic power from its moral power. As various components of my argument are drawn from the nonviolence tradition more generally, what follows will double as a primer on the morality of nonviolence. However, we will also see significant differences in how we must adapt nonviolent strategy and morality to the case of communication. (shrink)

Nursing has evolved, yet media representation has arguably failed to keep up. This work explores why representation has been slow in accurately depicting nurses' responsibilities, impacts on public perceptions and professional identity. A critical realist review was employed as this method enables in-depth exploration into why something exists. A multidisciplinary approach was adopted, drawing from feminist, psychological and sociological theories to provide insightful understanding and recommendations. One main feminist lens has been implemented, using Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male-Gaze’ framework for content analysis (...) of three nurse-related advertisements to explore how the profession's female status influences representation, public perception and how this might impact nursing. Nurse representation has important real-world consequences. It is essential to improve unnecessary negative portrayals and contest ingrained stereotypes as there are costs to public opinion and nursing's self-identity. Nursing's female status has an impact within a male-dominated media industry, with a leisurely approach adopted toward changing representation. Media images become societally ingrained, this reiterates the significance of accurate/positive depictions. Social media is an instant method of communication with the public to combat stereotypes and maintain engagement to provide better understanding of what nurses do. (shrink)

This book is the first of its kind which defines wisdom as information and the highest level of the cognition units set, composed of data, information, concept, knowledge and wisdom. The author has founded his theory of wisdom on the following assumptions: Any sane person can make wise decisions throughout their lifetime, from childhood to old age; Wise decisions need not be expert in nature; Wisdom ought to be defined in such terms as to be understood not only by experts (...) but by an average man; Wisdom is not synonymous to intelligence; The wisdom of a given human being decides between two systems controlling man: the biological evolution (by the cross-generational chain of genes) and spirituality, whose acquired system of virtues and values influences the actions of man; Wisdom has a range of bandwidth and properties; Knowledge on what constitutes wisdom is not the same as the process of becoming a wise man. Without good life practices, one cannot be a truly wise man; Wisdom ought to be taught in schools and at colleges, since if one waits until old age to become wise, it is commonly too late to redirect ones unwise behaviour into a wise life; Wisdom is a certain kind of information; Wisdom is the most important civilisational resource and should be monitored in a way that is similar or even better than the way you monitor the use of energy, the development of population or other resources. The book is full of examples taken from real cases of applied wisdom by famous people. The review of applied wisdom is provided in the historic context as well in the interdisciplinary approach. Every person who would like to be not only informed and knowledgeable but wise should read this book and applied its recommendations. (shrink)

In 1985, van den Dries showed that the theory of the reals with a predicate for the integer powers of two admits quantifier elimination in an expanded language, and is hence decidable. He gave a model-theoretical argument, which provides no apparent bounds on the complexity of a decision procedure. We provide a syntactical argument that yields a procedure that is primitive recursive, although not elementary.

The epidemic outbreak of the coronavirus has meant a sudden, temporary ceasing of activities as we knew them. The health crisis has led to a social and economic crisis, and these circumstances have revealed solidarity on a global scale. In moments of separation, when culture has brought us closer together, the global phenomenon of charity songs has emerged, generating financial aid for scientific research and care for the most vulnerable people. This work focuses on a charity song turned into a (...) hymn, a narrative poem in the first person that tells everyone's common story, “Aves enjauladas” by the Spanish singer-songwriter Rozalén. This paper carries out a linguistic, stylistic and audiovisual analysis of this multimodal event, which has been transmitted through a ‘lyric video’ and spread in a vertiginous way on digital platforms and social networks, reaching millions of views. Ultimately, the paper analyses the spiritual and material impact, the body and soul of this living poem, taking a still photograph of the artistic recreations and musical, visual, pictorial and pedagogical ‘echoicities’ of this work, as well as appreciating its material socio-economic repercussions in the real lives of families at risk of exclusion. (shrink)

The paper examines some philosophical aspects of translation as a metaphor for education—a metaphor that avoids the closure of final definitions, in favour of an ongoing and tentative process of interpretation and revision. Translation, it is argued, is a complex process involving language, within and among cultures, and in the exercise of power. Drawing on Foucault's analysis of power, Nietzschean contingency, and the inversion of meaning that characterises the work of Heidegger and Derrida, the paper points towards Ricoeur's (...) notion of linguistic hospitality as the ethical dimension to the inevitably inadequate representation of the ‘other’. In this exploration, translation is posited as a creative and interpretive act—involving neither image nor copy, but poetic transposition.The power of language emerges in the close association between power and knowledge, in which the ability to define what is real generates the realm of future possibilities. From a Foucauldian perspective, language functions as a creative strategic relation—a form of power that structures the field of other possible actions. It is through the mediation of translation, the paper argues, that language communicates, leaving us with a world of difference (i.e. ‘lost in translation’), as both our curse and our blessing as part of the human condition and as part of our ethical endeavour as educators. The contingent and arbitrary nature of language problematises what appears natural and necessary, generating the possibility of creative dialogue. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the notion of alethic rights, the rights related to truth. The concept of truth grounds many norms and customary and official rules, but there is no clear and shared idea about its power to generate specific rights. The juridical and political archetype called ‘the right to truth’ is still subject of controversies, and there are doubts about its being a real ‘right,’ to be protected by positive (new) norms. In the article the (...) problem is explored in truth-theoretical perspective: can philosophy support the idea of truth as a source of rights? Can an updated and well-developed theory of truth be proposed, to help activists and theorists concerned with the need for truth of individuals and communities? I present six alethic rights, corresponding to six different aspects of the human need for truth, then I specifically focus on the truth theory that can justify the hypothesis. (shrink)

The majoritarian conception of democracy implies that counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism—and even representative institutions—are derogations from democracy. The majoritarian conception is mistaken for two reasons. First, it is incoherent: majoritarianism ultimately stands against one of democracy’s core normative commitments—namely, political equality. Second, majoritarianism is premised on a mistaken view of power, which fails to account for the power of numbers and thereby fails to explain the inequality faced by members of persistent minorities. Although strict majority rule serves (...) the democratic values of political agency and equality as interpreted by a set of formal conditions, an adequate conception of power shows why in real-world conditions formal-procedural inequalities, instantiated by counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism, are sometimes required to serve democratic equality. (shrink)

Bong Joon Ho's Parasite has been globally praised for presenting a new perspective on class conflict and for placing the precarious working class at its center. Prestigious awards such the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival or the unprecedented Oscar for the Best Film of the Year only corroborate this global consensus. But I think it's the opposite. Parasite is an overworked and convoluted narrative about the impossibility of overcoming, dismantling, or exiting neoliberal capitalism. Literally, the South Korean film is (...) a cinematic version of Fredric Jameson's infamousthat "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism." Therefore, the interesting thing to analyze is how we all have enjoyed globally, in almost ecclesiastical communion, our last cinematic surrender to the ideology of late capitalism. And at that, it must be admitted, Bong Joon Ho's film is a work of genius. Parasite is also a pertinent departure point to revisit some of Žižek’s theories on the issue of neoliberalism’s global fantasies and on Lacan’s four discourses. (shrink)

In Playtest, our thrill‐seeking protagonist Cooper tests SaitoGemu's “interactive augmented reality system.” As the fears he must face in “the most personal survival horror game in history” ramp up, Cooper begins to lose the ability to tell what's real and what isn't and decides he wants out, only to find that isn't so simple. But will virtual reality really be that scary? Perhaps no more than books, films and traditional video games, especially when the novelty wears off. Perhaps the (...) real moral of Playtest is “Call your mom”. But beneath the surface a much darker lesson lurks: that when our fantasies feel real, and have the power to hurt, they are no longer just a game. Virtual reality can build a bridge between what seems real and what is real, and this means its power to scare us silly is not just novel: it's revolutionary. (shrink)

A considerable amount of academic attention has been paid to John Kennedy and to his group of advisors during the Cuban missile crisis. Next to no attention has been accorded other bodies of the Kennedy White House that had daily access to a President's most private moments and possibly to his important deliberations. Drawing on Richard Reeves' account of President Kennedy: Profile of Power, I revisit the early 1960s looking for bodies of power that are culturally sexed female (...) by others and compelled into being as workaday secretaries and confidants, and para-Everythings for Kennedy. In doing so, I draw on the feminist body theorizing of Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti and Elizabeth Grosz, as well as the evocations of bodies in important but abjected places featured in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. After constructing the historically broad category of the handmaid to Washington power, I reread constructions of decision-making in the Cuban missile crisis offered by Graham Allison and conclude that the feint of mancentred Washington masks bodies given the locations, skills and resources to ooze into spaces of decision and power canonically forbidden to them. (shrink)

Given a theory T of a polynomially bounded o-minimal expansion R of $${\bar{\mathbb{R}} = \langle\mathbb{R}, +,., 0, 1, < \rangle}$$ with field of exponents $${\mathbb{Q}}$$, we introduce a theory $${\mathbb{T}}$$ whose models are expansions of dense pairs of models of T by a discrete multiplicative group. We prove that $${\mathbb{T}}$$ is complete and admits quantifier elimination when predicates are added for certain existential formulas. In particular, if T = RCF then $${\mathbb{T}}$$ axiomatises $${\langle\bar{\mathbb{R}}, \mathbb{R}_{alg}, 2^{\mathbb{Z}}\rangle}$$, where $${\mathbb{R}_{alg}}$$ denotes the (...) class='Hi'>real algebraic numbers. We describe types and definable sets in our models and prove that $${\mathbb{T}}$$ is dependent. (shrink)

The unity of Paul Ricœur’s philosophy can be restated using the question of the imagination as a guideline. Ricœur’s goal was to envisage the imagination not as a psychological faculty but as a semantic power. Metaphor and narrative allow us to see the real in a different way, hence to imagine it. The image has less to do with perception and concepts. It is the instrument that allows them to be articulated. This shift of the imaginary to the (...) practical dimension is confirmed in Ricœur’s theory of ideology and utopia. (shrink)

We study the relative computational power of structures related to the ordered field of reals, specifically using the notion of generic Muchnik reducibility. We show that any expansion of the reals by a continuous function has no more computing power than the reals, answering a question of Igusa, Knight, and Schweber [7]. On the other hand, we show that there is a certain Borel expansion of the reals that is strictly more powerful than the reals and such that (...) any Borel quotient of the reals reduces to it. (shrink)

The simplest and no doubt the most persistent of the ideas held on the relationship between society and power, from Menenius Agrippa to Auguste Comte, is that of an analogy between the social body and the human body. Both these men deduced that power is nothing other than the supreme regulating function of all functional activities, as harmoniously integrated in society as they are in human physiology. Ethnographic study often strengthened this organicist conception through description of the various (...) social functions as necessary or vital for the cohesion and the existence of primitive society. But historic societies provide a spectacle quite different from that of an integrated organism. In them social functions are not abstractions but are seen rather in the form of human groups whose relationships can scarcely be said to show an organic solidarity. Within these groups and working to set them against each other, powers have their own interests which they must protect against the inroads of ambitions. The permanence of certain functions (military, religious, and economic, for example) does not imply permanence in the structures which implement them or in the real or fictional power which accompanies them. Their meaning is ambivalent. Obviously, they contribute to the architecture of a society; they may have a latent content which is a disintegrating factor from the moment when their hierarchy no longer suits the changing stratifications of the social body. (shrink)

Many women today prepare for a big meeting by reading a stack of folders and applying lipstick. They order their male colleagues around, then wait for those same men to help them on with their coats. They have higher-status jobs than some of the men they date, yet they never call men socially or ask them out. What's going on? Why such seemingly contradictory behaviors? Have women completely failed feminism--or has feminism failed them? In The Lipstick Proviso , Karen Lehrman--hailed (...) by the New York Times as the "sharpest" of the new feminist thinkers--shows that women today are failing neither feminism nor themselves. Rather, they've entered a new stage of feminism, one in which the personal is not political, differences between the sexes need to be respected, and courtship, chivalry, and the nuclear family don't have to be jettisoned just because they existed before the sixties. Thirty years after the women's movement liberated women from narrowly defined roles, Lehrman argues, we are finally beginning to see which traditionally feminine behaviors are more deeply rooted in biology and which are more heavily influenced by culture. Lehrman asserts that the result--whatever it is--will not undermine feminism as long as women still retain equal rights, opportunities, and responsibilities. Dispensing with the outdated notion of sisterhood, Lehrman offers women a "lipstick proviso": women don't have to sacrifice their complex individuality in order to be equal. As the first book to move beyond a critique of orthodox feminism, The Lipstick Proviso sets a radically new course for the future of the women's movement. While there's still much political work to be done, Lehrman argues that women should now focus on the personal sides of their lives. Women can't rightly be called autonomous if they stay with abusive or even emotionally challenged lovers; say "yes" to sex when they really mean "no"; overeat or undereat to hide their sexuality. With wit and grace, Karen Lehrman offers in The Lipstick Proviso a way to complete the feminist revolution, and clearly establishes herself as the definitive voice of the next generation of feminism. (shrink)

The Art of Randomness teaches readers to harness the power of randomness (and Python code) to solve real-world problems in programming, science, and art through hands-on experiments-from simulating evolution to encrypting messages to making machine-learning algorithms. Each chapter describes how randomness plays into the given topic area, then proceeds to demonstrate its problem-solving role with hands-on experiments to work through using Python code.

This comprehensive introductory text with readings offers a historical overview of all major subdivisions of Western Philosophy perspectives--including both the analytic and Continental traditions--as well as Eastern philosophy, postcolonial philosophy, and feminist philosophy. Written in an engaging and captivating style, it makes philosophy accessible without oversimplifying the material, and shows that philosophy's powerful ideas affect the lives of real people.

Law and the legal system through which law is effected are very powerful, yet the power of the law has always been limited by the laws of nature, upon which the law has now direct grip. Human law now faces an unprecedented challenge, the emergence of a second limit on its grip, a new “species” of intelligent agents (AI machines) that can perform cognitive tasks that until recently only humans could. What happens, as a matter of law, when another (...) species interacts with us, can be integrated into human minds and bodies, makes “real-world” decisions—not through human proxies, but directly—and does all this “intelligently”, with what one could call autonomous agency or even a “mind” of its own? The article starts from the clear premise that control cannot be exercised directly on AI machines through human law. That control can only be effected through laws that apply to humans. This has several regulatory implications. The article’s first discusses what, in any attempt to regulate AI machines, the law can achieve. Having identified what the law can do, the article then canvases what the law should aim to achieve overall. The article encapsulate its analysis in a list of both doctrinal and normative principles that should underpin any regulation aimed at AI machines. Finally, the article compares three transnational options to implement the proposed regulatory approach. (shrink)

What is it for a judgement, action, or character state to be itself a good thing, so genuinely worth pursuing? Readers of Plato's Republic discover that that it is by standing in the right relation to the Form of the Good that other things are, or become, good. In her recent monograph, Plato's Sun-Like Good, Sarah Broadie inverts the standard interpretive strategy by focusing primarily on the role of the Good in dialectic, and drawing conclusions about its metaphysical status on (...) that basis. In this paper, I argue that the metaphysically radical features of the Good on her reading – that it is undefinable and not an object of knowledge for the guardians – are ultimately undermined by her full account of the Form, in particular of the way that it endows ‘the things known’ with their reality, as well as relating to its participants as participand. I also argue that her preferred interpretation of the guardians' objects of knowledge in the sun-analogy as action-types is conceptually and textually problematic, and should be rejected in favour of her dispreferred - yet ultimately deeply insightful - interpretation of these objects as Forms that the Good makes known and fully real. (shrink)

Anil Gomes considers Murdoch's view that morality is real and that, with the right conceptual resources, we can perceive it.

The main purpose of this paper is to shed light on Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of language. Although he has dedicated a significant part of his work to the study of language and even though his analysis of language has been extensively discussed in the literature, almost no attention has been paid to the fact that Bourdieu’s account of language is based on a number of ontological presuppositions, that is, on a set of universal assumptions about the very nature of language. (...) This article aims to fill this gap in the literature by offering a detailed overview of 10 key features which, from a Bourdieusian point of view, can be regarded as inherent in language. On the basis of this enquiry, the study seeks to demonstrate that—contrary to common belief—there is not only a Bourdieusian sociology of language but also a Bourdieusian philosophy of language, which provides a useful theoretical framework for examining the unavoidable conditions of the real speech situation. The paper draws to a close by reflecting on the flaws and limitations of Bourdieu’s approach to language. (shrink)

A critical review of Bourdieu’s theory of the state is developed here against the backdrop of both his wider theoretical project and empirical studies. Elaborating the concepts of symbolic capital, symbolic violence, and symbolic domination, the centrality that Bourdieu accords to symbolic forms is compared to benchmark Weberian accounts that start with the state monopoly of violence. Reviewing also some of the burgeoning secondary literature discussing his theory of the state, Bourdieu’s writings, which encompass various antinomies, are shown to vacillate (...) between two distinct perspectives—a strong and a weak theory of the state. His rejection of the “physicalist” approaches of Marx, Elias, and Tilly is elaborated and subject to a counter-critique, particularly in relation to the notion of symbolic “violence.” Bourdieu’s account of the state is shown to be as much a political as theoretical intervention. His antagonism towards Marxist accounts in particular is shown to be rooted in a pragmatic interest in the role of the “left hand of the state” in progressive reform; and this perspective is traced back to the twin influences of Durkheim and Hegel, French republicanism, and in particular the potential of the state to express a universal interest. At the same time, compared with sophisticated Marxist and Weberian accounts and the work of Norbert Elias and Gramsci, Bourdieu’s theory is shown to be severely lacking in the way that he deals with violence and coercion. His “expanded materialism,” particularly with the “strong theory,” bends the stick too far and overplays the symbolic basis of consent. Nevertheless, Bourdieu’s insights with regard to the pervasive influences of state practices of classification, taxonomy, delegation, and naming are shown to have real utility with regard to focused empirical investigations of the state in modern societies. (shrink)

The article is devoted to a rethinking of the state as a political form from theperspective of Slavoj Žižek’s psychoanalytical understanding of ideology and Mikhail Reisner’s theory of the state. The paper systematically outlines Žižek’s ideas from the early period of his work and Reisner’s theory of the state. Žižek, rejecting the traditional understanding of ideology as false consciousness, presents it as a necessity that structures reality. In turn, Reisner views the state not only as an instrument of oppression but (...) also as a psychological phantasm based on the ideas and unconscious attitudes of the masses. Synthesising Žižek’s ideas with Reisner’s legacy forms the main aim of this article. In combining the two perspectives, the state turns out to be the ideology that organises contemporary political experience and conceals a certain traumatic impossibility of symbolising the Real. The attempt to look at the state-as-ideology through the prism of psychoanalysis reveals the mechanisms of its functioning as the main signifier around which political-legal discourse and political practice are centered. It turns out that the state-as-ideology replaces other forms of political communities both temporally and spatially. Overcoming this situation is possible through bringing the phantasm of the state back to the human psyche. This, in turn, requires a recognition of the presence of an unsymbolised lack at the very heart of the symbolic order, undermining the absolute power of the state-as-ideology to determine the structure of political reality. The non-obvious intellectual connection between Žižek and Reisner and their original views on the nature of ideology and the state provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at the principles of the structure of the contemporary political form and to contribute to the ongoing debate on the state. (shrink)

One of America's foremost public intellectuals, Jean Bethke Elshtain has been on the frontlines in the most hotly contested and deeply divisive issues of our time. Now in Real Politics , Elshtain gives further proof of her willingness to speak her mind, courting disagreement and even censure from those who prefer their ideologies neat. At the center of Elshtain's work is a passionate concern with the relationship between political rhetoric and political action. For Elshtain, politics is a sphere of (...) concrete responsibility. Political speech should, therefore, approach the richness of actual lives and commitments rather than present impossible utopias. In her essays, Elshtain finds in the writings of Václav Havel, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Camus a language appropriate to the complexity of everyday life and politics, and she critiques philosophers and writers who distance us from a concrete, embodied world. She argues against those repressive strains within contemporary feminism which insist that families and even sexual differentiation are inherently oppressive. Along the way, she challenges an ideology of victimization that too often loses sight of individual victims in its pursuit of abstract goals. Elshtain reaffirms the quirky and by no means simple pleasures of small-town life as a microcosm of the human condition and considers the current crisis in American education and its consequences for democracy. Beyond exploring the details of political life over the past two decades, Real Politics advocates a via media politics that avoids unacceptable extremes and serves as a model for responsible political discourse. Throughout her diverse and insightful writings, Elshtain champions a civic philosophy that tends to the dignity of everyday life as a democratic imperative of the first order. "Jean Bethke Elshtain is a person of rare intellect. The moral wisdom that pervades these essays reminds us that when all is said and done politics is about the life and death of real people who are anything but abstractions. Her erudition is remarkable, but equally stunning is her eye for the significant. What she is so good at is helping us see the moral and political significance of the everyday."--Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University " Real Politics serves as a forceful reminder that Jean Elshtain has been dealing with the real world in twenty-five years of powerful essaying. Transcending ideological categories, she writes out of hope that human beings can enjoy those capacities of reason and faith which make them human. It is a pleasure to be reintroduced to her sustained intelligence."--Alan Wolfe, Boston University. (shrink)

I argue for the consistency of the following views. First, there can be irreconcilable but equally true ways to categorize or "carve up" the world into objects; second, truth is an objective concept. In short, I claim that one can be a metaphysical pluralist, but an absolutist about truth. ;The first part of the work is taken up with explaining metaphysical pluralism. This is said to be the thesis that all propositions and all facts are relative to conceptual schemes. Thus, (...) the pluralist can maintain that, relative to one conceptual scheme, there is only one substance, and that relative to another scheme, there is more than one substance--without these views being inconsistent. Along the way, the notion of a conceptual scheme is clarified, and pluralism is defended from objections that it is incoherent, trivial or simply a form of idealism. ;The next part of the work explicates an objective conception of propositional truth. The view of truth discussed is called minimal objectivism, since it holds that while truth is indeed a property of propositions, the concept of truth is fully captured by this truism: the proposition that p is true if and only if p. Minimal objectivism is contrasted and shown to be inconsistent with other, more subjective or epistemic accounts of truth, and it is shown that the minimalist account of the concept floats free of specific debates about the nature of the property of truth. ;In the final chapter I argue that minimalism and metaphysical pluralism are pragmatically and logically consistent. Further, it is shown that pluralism is even consistent with the more robust correspondence theory of truth. Several important implications are thereby said to follow: first, metaphysical pluralism can no longer be rejected on the grounds that it entails an epistemic or relativist view of truth; second, the consistency of minimal objectivism and pluralism allows us to admit the powerful intuition that while there can be equally true but irreconcilable views on the world, some views are simply false. (shrink)

Love and evil are real they are substances of force fields which contain us as constituent parts. Of all the powers of life they are the two most pregnant without meaning, hence the most generative of what is specifically human. Love and evil stand in the closest relationship to each other: evil is both what destroys love and what forces more love out of us; it is, as Augustine astutely grasped, privative (requiring something to negate) but it is also (...) born out of misdirected love. Breaking with naïve realist and post-modern dogmas about the nature of the real, this book provides the basis for a philosophy of generative action as it draws upon examples from philosophy, literature, religion and popular culture. While this book has a sympathetic ear for ancient and traditional narratives about the meaning of life, it offers a philosophy appropriate for our times and our crises. It is particularly directed at readers who are seeking for new ways to think about our world and self-making, and who are as dissatisfied with post-Nietzschean and post-Marxian 20th century social theory as they are by more traditional philosophical and naturalistic accounts of human being. (shrink)

The problem of Kant's first Critique is the problem of pure reason: how are synthetic judgments possible a priori? Many of his readers have believed that the problem depends upon a delimitation within the class of a priori truths of a class of irreducibly synthetic truths—a delimitation whose possibility is doubtful—because absent this it is not excluded that all a priori truths are analytic. I argue, on the contrary, that the problem depends on nothing more than the human knower's everyday (...) consciousness of her own finitude: her dependence in thinking and knowing on what is given to her. The problem is a difficulty about how the concepts which figure in metaphysical judgments could represent reality given that they cannot do so in the way in which concepts figuring in empirical judgments do. Empirical judgment here functions as exemplary of thought and knowledge because it is exemplary of finite thought and knowledge. Mere analysis could not, therefore, dissolve the problem even in principle, because to say that a concept can be analyzed is not yet to explain the possibility of its real representative power. The significance of the analytic-synthetic distinction in the context of the problem of pure reason is that its formulation allows Kant to say this. (shrink)

Adjoin, to a countable standard model M of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZF), a countable set A of independent Cohen generic reals. If one attempts to construct the model generated over M by these reals (not necessarily containing A as an element) as the intersection of all standard models that include M ∪ A, the resulting model fails to satisfy the power set axiom, although it does satisfy all the other ZF axioms. Thus, there is no smallest ZF model including (...) M ∪ A, but there are minimal such models. These are classified by their sets of reals, and there is one minimal model whose set of reals is the smallest possible. We give several characterizations of this model, we determine which weak axioms of choice it satisfies, and we show that some better known models are forcing extensions of it. (shrink)

This book uses real world examples, case studies, and commentary from practitioners to reveal the many and varied strategies American and English lawyers use to protect truth. It shows how they tackle their conflicting duties, and highlights the 'tragic choices' lawyers everywhere routinely make through their 'power of decision'. What emerges are new ways of understanding the critical role lawyers play in society - and their professional responsibilities. 'Truth is so precious it should always be protected by a (...) bodyguard of lies.' Churchill said this about wartime deception plans, but lawyers' clients may think their truth is so precious it too should be protected. Lawyers are 'bodyguards of lies' when they use so-called 'tricks of the trade' not only to keep clients' secrets but to construct a reality that is far from real. But should they? Lawyers have a divided loyalty. The book presents an account of what happens when lawyers' duties to clients conflict with their duties to the legal system, and looks at the ethical codes and laws that regulate their conduct. (shrink)

We introduce the set of definable restricted complex powers for expansions of the real field and calculate it explicitly for expansions of the real field itself by collections of restricted complex powers. We apply this computation to establish a classification theorem for expansions of the real field by families of locally closed trajectories of linear vector fields.

The phenomenon of cognitive penetration has received a lot of attention in recent epistemology, as it seems to make perceptual justification too easy to come by for experientialist theories of justification. Some have tried to respond to this challenge by arguing that cognitive penetration downgrades the epistemic status of perceptual experience, thereby diminishing its justificatory power. I discuss two examples of this strategy, and argue that they fail on several grounds. Most importantly, they fail to realize that cognitive penetration (...) is just an instance of a larger problem for experientialist theories of perceptual justification. The challenge does not lie in explaining how cognitive penetration is able to downgrade the epistemic status of perceptual experience, the challenge lies in explaining why perceptual experience would have a special epistemic status to begin with. To answer this challenge, experientialists have to solve the distinctiveness problem: they have to explain what is so distinctive about perceptual experience that enables it to provide evidential justification without being in need of justification itself. Unfortunately, an internalist answer to this problem does not appear to be forthcoming, even though it would certainly help with explaining the problem of cognitive penetration. (shrink)

Proponents of the view that social structures are ontologically distinct from the people in whose actions they are immanent have assumed that structures can stand in causal relations to individual practices. Were causality to be no more than Humean concomitance correlations between structure and practices would be unproblematic. But two prominent advocates of the ontological account of structures, Bhaskar and Giddens, have also espoused a powers theory of causality. According to that theory causation is brought about by the activity of (...) particulars, in the social psychological case, individuals of some sort. Consistence would demand that structure be those individuals. But neither Giddens nor Bhaskar wish to reify structure to the extent that would fit it for a role as a powerful particular. If only human beings can be powerful particulars in these contexts, the only way that structures can be real must be as properties of conversational interactions. Human action is social just in so far as people direct themselves to engage well in joint activities with others. (shrink)

In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder defends a new conception of the rule of law as the coordinated control of power and demonstrates that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state. In a highly engaging, interdisciplinary text that moves seamlessly from theory to reality, using examples ranging from Ancient Greece through the present, Gowder sheds light on how societies have achieved the rule of law, how they (...) have sustained it in the face of political upheaval, and how it may be measured and developed in the future. The Rule of Law in the Real World is an essential work for scholars, students, policymakers, and anyone else who believes the rule of law is critical to the proper functioning of society. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is humanity's finest scientific achievement. It explains why the sun shines and how your eyes can see. It's the theory behind the LEDs in your phone and the nuclear hearts of space probes. Every physicist agrees quantum physics is spectacularly successful. But ask them what quantum physics means, and the result will be a brawl. At stake is the nature of the Universe itself. What does it mean for something to be real? What is the role of (...) consciousness in the Universe? And do quantum rules apply to very small objects like electrons and protons, but not us? In What is Real?, Adam Becker brings to vivid life the brave researchers whose quest for the truth led them to challenge Bohr: David Bohm, who picked up Einstein's mantle and sought to make quantum mechanics deterministic, all while being hounded by the forces of McCarthyism; Hugh Everett, who argued that everything, big and small, must be governed by the same rules; and John Bell, who went to great lengths to eradicate the power of the god-like observer from the core of quantum physics. And they paid dearly, their reputations, careers, and sometimes lives ruined completely. But history has been kinder to them than their contemporaries were. As Becker shows, the brave intellectual giants have inspired a growing army of physicists and philosophers intent both on making a philosophically more satisfying theory of the universe and a more useful one as well. A gripping story of some of humanity's greatest ideas and the high cost with which many have pursued them, What is Real? is intellectual history at its passionate best. (shrink)

Society's problems cannot be alleviated via mere policy interventions, whether individual- or system-level, when the system is the problem. To bring about true and lasting change to the better, we must replace the present global political-economic system – oligarchic capitalism backed by the power of the state – with one that would let the people take charge of their lives.