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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    PublicationOpen Access
    A principle of universal strife: Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty's critiques of Marxist universalism, 1953-1956
    (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) Department of Philosophy; Chouraqui, Frank; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
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    PublicationOpen Access
    An algebraic approach to physical fields
    (Elsevier, 2021) Fritz, Tobias; Department of Philosophy; Chen, Lu; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
    According to the algebraic approach to spacetime, a thoroughgoing dynamicism, physical fields exist without an underlying manifold. This view is usually implemented by postulating an algebraic structure (e.g., commutative ring) of scalar-valued functions, which can be interpreted as representing a scalar field, and deriving other structures from it. In this work, we point out that this leads to the unjustified primacy of an undetermined scalar field. Instead, we propose to consider algebraic structures in which all (and only) physical fields are primitive. We explain how the theory of natural operations in differential geometry-the modern formalism behind classifying diffeomorphism-invariant constructions-can be used to obtain concrete implementations of this idea for any given collection of fields. For concrete examples, we illustrate how our approach applies to a number of particular physical fields, including electrodynamics coupled to a Weyl spinor.
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    Aristotelian penalties: action-centred rectification and character-centred punishment
    (Imprint Academic Ltd., 2017) N/A; Department of Philosophy; Platanakis, Charilaos; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    This article offers an account of Aristotle’s penology that is sensitive to his corrective justice (EN V.4) and the archon counterexamples (opening of EN V.5). By emphasizing the rectificatory nature of corrective justice, I argue for its independence from its distributive counterpart and its contrast, both formal and functional, with Pythagorean reciprocity. After criticizing the various justifications of the archon counterexamples, I propose a rôle-based justification that is compatible with Aristotelian corrective justice. By eliminating the inconsistency between corrective justice and the archon counterexamples, I distinguish between different types of penalty in Aristotle, action-centred rectification and character-centred punishment, as well as their respective domains and functions.
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    Can we "effectivize" spacetime?
    (Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2022) Department of Philosophy; Chen, Lu; Faculty Member; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 329122
    According to effective realism, scientific theories give us knowledge about the unobservable world, but not at the fundamental level. This view is supported by the well-received effective -field-theory (EFT) approach to high energy physics, according to which even our most successful physical theories are only applicable up to a certain energy scale and expected to break down beyond that. In this paper, I advance new challenges for effective realism and the EFT approach. I argue that effective quantum gravity (EQG) does not give us a realistic theory of spacetime even within its scope of validity. This also exposes a general interpretative dilemma faced by all EFTs concerning their indispensable references to classical spacetime beyond their scope of validity.
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    Ethics of security: a genealogical introduction
    (Sage Publications Ltd, 2020) Department of Philosophy; Rossi, Andrea; Teaching Faculty; Department of Philosophy; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    This article analyses the set of ethical questions underlying the emergence of the modern politics of security, as articulated, in particular, in the work of Thomas Hobbes. An ethic is here understood - in line with its ancient philosophical use and the interpretation advanced by authors such as Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot - as a domain of reflections and practices related to the cultivation and conversion of the self (askesis, metanoia). The article aims to demonstrate that, besides attending to the physical safety of the state and its citizens, modern apparatuses of security are also crucially implicated in the formation of their subjects as ethical and autonomous individuals. To substantiate this thesis, the article first illustrates how, since the first appearance of the term in the vocabulary of Western thought - and in Seneca's work in particular - theories of security have been intimately tied to the cultivation of the self. It thus interprets Hobbes's reflections on the subject as the upshot of a substantive, if implicit, re-articulation of Seneca's ethic of security, by focusing on the two authors' respective understandings of (a) autonomy, (b) the world, (c) ascesis, and (d) politics. Overall, it is suggested that the differences between the two authors testify to a wider political-historical shift: in modern regimes of governmentality, the ethical dimension of security no longer defines the rightful exercise of political power, but rather appears as an object of social and economic governance.