This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the (...) biological sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)

Cognitive forms vary considerably as a human being detaches herself from what is closest and most personal and moves to communicate — in the broad sense of taking part in a common matter — across increasing relational distances. The article proposes to deal with the variety of cognitive formats which cannot `commonize' cognition to an equal degree, relating them to a set of regimes of engagement with the world that are identified in terms of the dependency between the human agent (...) and her environment. The good that engagement aims to guarantee orients how reality is grasped and specifies the format of what constitutes relevant information. This analysis offers new insight into the composition of communities as well as persons who have to cope with the plurality of cognitive formats and engagements from the very familiar to the most public. (shrink)

How should we understand the relationship, for Aristotle, between matter, form, and hylomorphic composite? Are matter and form distinct from each other, so that each hylomorphic unity harbours a plurality within it, or would such a plurality undermine the unity of the composite? A recent strand of argument in both Aristotelian and contemporary literature on hylomorphism has concluded that no genuine unity can be composed of a plurality. I will argue that the objection motivating this conclusion falls (...) away as improperly formulated in light of Aristotle's metaontology—in particular, his thesis that unity is indeterminate. The genuine objection threatening hylomorphic unity is one that Aristotle himself formulates as a central concern in his Metaphysics: no substance can be composed of substances. He answers this genuine objection in his appeal to the actuality/potentiality distinction, and in Metaphysics VIII.6 he reminds us why no more basic problem of hylomorphic unity arises. Against the backdrop of Aristotle's metaontology, hylomorphic unity cannot be undermined by the plurality, just as such, of matter and form. (shrink)

Both Hannah Arendt and Alain Badiou refer to a ‘disorientation of the world’ in different moments of their oeuvre. For Arendt, a disorientation emerges if the common sense dissolves; for Badiou, if there is an absolute primacy of negation and an inability to affirm anything universal. This paper takes current protest movements as a serious symptom of a disorientation in the sense of both thinkers. For it seems that today far from affirming any universal point, ‘protests’ seem to turn into (...) ‘contests’ of ‘being against’. Conceptualized as a dialogue of thought between Hannah Arendt and Alain Badiou, the paper aims to reveal a profound crisis behind this symptom, that is a critical tension between two concurrent promises of modern democracy, namely ‘equality’ and ‘right to difference’. In that frame, the paper tries to think a renewed politics of equality which can affirm plurality and difference without falling either into indifference of being the same species or into the cult of ‘me’ that is a fantasy of absolute difference. (shrink)

Plurality implies a public sphere in which different worldviews (e.g. Secular Humanist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and others) coexist respecting each other. Banning the presence of one or several of them from the public sphere is questionable in principle, and divisive in practice.

In both editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, and in the Prolegomena, the table of the logical functions of the understanding in judgments lists under “quantity of judgments”: universal, particular, and singular; and the table of categories lists under “categories of quantity”: unity, plurality, and totality. As Kant regarded the forms of judgments as giving “the clue” to the derivation of categories and held that the two lists are “in complete agreement”, one would conclude from the tables that (...) the category of unity is derived from the universal form of judgment and the category of totality from the singular form. But this view of the derivations seems wrong. As a universal judgment pertains to all objects of a given sort and a singular judgment pertains to but one object, one would expect unity to be derived from the singular and totality from the universal form of judgment. That this second view of the derivations is what Kant really intended seems confirmed by the fact that at several places in his writings, including a passage in the Critique and one in the Prolegomena, when he is speaking of quantitative determinations, he explicitly associates the singular judgment with unity. But if this second view is what he intended, one wonders why he failed to correct the order in the tables in the Prolegomena and in the second edition of the Critique. Is this failure merely, as Jonathan Bennett has suggested, “a slip”? (shrink)

: Since the late 1970s, American appraisals of Chinese medical ethics and Chinese responses to American bioethics range from frank criticism to warm appreciation, from refutation to acceptance. Yet in the United States as well as in China, American bioethics and Chinese medical ethics have been seen, respectively, as individualistic and communitarian. In this widely-accepted general comparison, the great variation in the two medical moralities, especially the diversity of Chinese experiences, has been unfortunately minimized, if not totally ignored. Neither American (...) bioethics nor Chinese medical ethics is a field with only one dominant way of thinking. Medical moralities in America and China--traditional and modern--have always been plural and diverse. For example, American and Chinese cultures and medical moralities both exhibit individualistic and communitarian traditions. For this reason, bioethics in general and cross-cultural bioethics in particular must be fundamentally interpretive. Interpretive cross-cultural bioethics appreciates the plurality of medical morality within any culture. It can serve as a vital means of social and cultural criticism through engaged interpretations. (shrink)

Contemporary Bayesian confirmation theorists measure degree of (incremental) confirmation using a variety of non-equivalent relevance measures. As a result, a great many of the arguments surrounding quantitative Bayesian confirmation theory are implicitly sensitive to choice of measure of confirmation. Such arguments are enthymematic, since they tacitly presuppose that certain relevance measures should be used (for various purposes) rather than other relevance measures that have been proposed and defended in the philosophical literature. I present a survey of this pervasive class of (...) Bayesian confirmation-theoretic enthymemes, and a brief analysis of some recent attempts to resolve the problem of measure sensitivity. (shrink)

The Plurality of Realities' contains four texts by Leon Chwistek that deal with his original philosophical conception called the theory of plurality of realities. This collection is essential not only for understanding the full-fledged version of Chwistek's conception but also for surveying its development over a span of five years (1916-1921). Reading these essays in chronological order allows us to notice all stages of its development, beginning with its first sketches, drawn in the book Meaning and Reality, where (...) only two realities are considered, and finishing with Chwistek's most famous essay, The Plurality of Realities, in which he discusses four different realities: the reality of things, the reality of physics, the reality of impressions, and the reality of imaginations. The collection is preceded by two introductory essays by Karol Chrobak. The first presents Leon Chwistek against the background of the intellectual, cultural, and political life of the interwar period in Poland. The second focuses on Chwistek's conception of the plurality of realities and gives a critical account of its most widespread interpretations. Translated by Karol Chrobak. (shrink)

The U.S. election in November 2016 raised and amplified doubts about first-past-the-post (“plurality rule”) electoral systems. Arguments against plurality rule and for alternatives like preferential voting tend to be consequentialist: it is argued that systems like preferential voting produce different, better outcomes. After briefly noting why the consequentialist case against plurality rule is more complex and contentious than it first appears, I offer an expressive alternative: plurality rule produces actual or apparent dilemmas for voters in ways (...) that are morally objectionable, and avoidable under preferential voting systems. This expressive case against plurality rule is both simpler and more ecumenical than its consequentialist counterpart, and it provides strong reasons to prefer alternatives to plurality rule. Moreover, it suggests a distinct way of evaluating different alternatives like preferential voting. (shrink)

Questions embedded under responsive predicates and definite descriptions both give rise to a variety of phenomena which can be grouped under the term plurality effects: quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects. This similarity has not gone unnoticed, and many proposals have taken inspiration in theories of definite plurals to account for these effects with embedded questions. Recently these phenomena have received less attention, as the field has focused on the so-called intermediate exhaustive reading of embedded questions instead, after Spector (...) called into question the traditional dichotomy between weak and strong exhaustive readings. As a result, the intermediate exhaustive reading has been accounted for at the expense of empirical coverage in other areas. In this paper, I propose a modular theory which derives the currently much discussed exhaustive readings without giving up the rich semantics necessary to account for plurality effects. My account of quantificational variability, cumulativity, and homogeneity effects builds on recent work on these phenomena in the nominal domain by adopting a categorial approach to embedded questions, while the strong and intermediate exhaustive readings are implemented using an independent strengthening mechanism suggested in Klinedinst and Rothschild :1–23, 2011). The resulting theory not only recovers important results on plurality effects; it offers new, simple solutions for some puzzles presented in George :166–177, 2013) and Paillé and Schwarz Proceedings of WCCFL 36, vol 36, Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, 2018), naturally derives readings that had been postulated in previous literature, makes correct predictions in many unexplored cases, and is compatible with recent results in psycholinguistics. In the last sections I justify my assumptions and show how possible limitations I inherit from the theories I build on can be accommodated under standard assumptions. (shrink)

Research groups around the world are currently busy trying to invent new life in the laboratory, looking for extraterrestrial life, or making machines increasingly more life-like. In the case of astrobiology, any newly discovered life would likely be very old, but when discovered it would be new to us. In the case of synthetic organic life or life-like machines, humans will have invented life that did not exist before. Together, these endeavors amount to what we call the emerging plurality (...) of lives because we see a future where we are surrounded by, and interact with, life of many different origins, as well as entities that we have not traditionally seen as being alive. In the future these entities will likely possess properties that we so far have only associated with living beings, thereby transcending and perhaps blurring the borders between life and non-life. (shrink)

This book develops a unique phenomenology of plurality by introducing Hannah Arendt’s work into current debates taking place in the phenomenological tradition. Loidolt offers a systematic treatment of plurality that unites the fields of phenomenology, political theory, social ontology, and Arendt studies to offer new perspectives on key concepts such as intersubjectivity, selfhood, personhood, sociality, community, and conceptions of the "we." _Phenomenology of Plurality_ is an in-depth, phenomenological analysis of Arendt that represents a viable third way between the (...) "modernist" and "postmodernist" camps in Arendt scholarship. It also introduces a number of political and ethical insights that can be drawn from a phenomenology of plurality. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the topics of plurality and intersubjectivity within phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, and feminist philosophy. (shrink)

While Aristotle provides the crucial testimonies for the paradoxes of motion, topos, and the falling millet seed, surprisingly he shows almost no interest in the paradoxes of plurality. For Plato, by contrast, the plurality paradoxes seem to be the central paradoxes of Zeno and Simplicius is our primary source for those. This paper investigates why the plurality paradoxes are not examined by Aristotle and argues that a close look at the context in which Aristotle discusses Zeno holds (...) the answer to this question. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question of the semantic analysis of structured plurals, that is, expressions like these children and those children, which seem to refer to pluralities of individuals divided into groups. In the first half of the article, I describe a variety of structured plural expressions and predicates they can combine with and I point out the difficulties faced by two extant approaches to the semantics of plurals: inflationary and cover-based semantics. In the second half of the (...) article, I propose an alternative account which combines elements from both of them. The main novelty of my proposal is that, by capitalising on the background operation of certain pragmatic principles, it correctly formalises the fact that some interpretations of ambiguous sentences involving structured plurality are more accessible than others. (shrink)

This paper first uncovers the subtle spiritual narcissism that has characterized historical approaches to religious diversity and discusses the shortcomings of the main forms of religious pluralism that have been proposed as its antidote: ecumenical, soteriological, postmodern, and metaphysical. It then argues that a participatory pluralism paves the way for an appreciation of religious diversity that eschews the dogmatism and competitiveness involved in privileging any particular tradition over the rest without falling into cultural-linguistic or naturalistic reductionisms. Discussion includes the question (...) of the validity of spiritual truths and the development of a participatory critical theory of religion. The essay concludes with an exploration of different scenarios for the future of religion– global religion, mutual transformation, interspiritual wisdom, and spirituality without religion–and proposes that such a future may be shaped by spiritually individuated persons engaged in processes of cosmological hybridization in the context of a common spiritual family. A participatory approach to spirituality turns the problem of religious plurality into a celebration of the critical spirit of pluralism. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than (...) predicates of taste and by proposing a general solution to the problem raised by it on behalf of the relativist. The core claim of the solution (" multiple indexing ") is that utterances of sentences containing perspectival expressions should be evaluated with respect to (possibly infinite) sequences of perspective parameters. (shrink)

This article defends the thesis that subjects construct, ontologically and epistemologically, different realities linked to presuppositions or conceptual frameworks (CF), which are conditions of possibility to have beliefs, values, knowledge and language. CF are constructed, maintained and transformed in social practices. This condition of constructors of worlds makes subjects responsible for what happens in the private and public spheres in which they live. To argue this position, I start from León Olivé’s onto-epistemological pluralism, and following Dewey’s notion of ‘transaction’, as (...) well as Barad’s concept of “intra-action”, I show that subjects are agents related to each other in complex ways. I argue that agents’ social practices transform their own realities and thus affect the public space to some extent. Considering Hannah Arendt’s reflections, it is argued in this paper that the onto-epistemological plurality exposed is a condition of possibility for change and plurality. Based on this author, I explain the importance of critical thinking, imagination and awareness of the effects of actions in the public space, to show the ethical-political relevance of building worlds, rethinking them and questioning any norm, policy or way of life that is imposed as if it were essential, unique or immovable. (shrink)

Upon the reformulation of subjectivity, this chapter discusses how the plurality of subjects is irreducible. For some philosophies, the plurality of subjects is like a scandal: it is introduced only to remedy the deficiencies which the singular subject happens to exhibit, while ideally there can be but one subject. By contrast, one of the advantages of the ontology of temporal differentiation is its justification of plurality. First, openness to the other is found at the heart of subjectivity; (...) the other represents an alterity with its own rhythms of temporalization and is necessary for the enrichment of the subjective self. The relation between the subject and its other, however, is not always cooperative; there is encounter and even conflict, and it is the latter which individuates the subject. Sartre’s work in Part Three of Being and Nothingness shows that, since the gaze of the other objectifies the subject, objectification of the other (constituting the world as a subject) and objectification by the other (experiencing the other’s existence with the passivity of the body) cannot take place simultaneously, but only alternately. Thus, there cannot be a totalizing view of the world, only “a synthesis whose totality is inconceivable,” which is enriched in this incessant alternation. Beginning with this instability of differences, we need to reinterpret the self-identity of the subject and the diachronic identity of beings which are manifest. The former is based on the possibility of encountering an other, or better, the availability for the other. Arendt in The Human Conditions discussed how making and keeping promises establishes “islands of certainty in an ocean of uncertainty,” which means that our self-identity need not be based on a substantial ground and can be stabilized in the diversified field of plurality. The diachronic identity of beings, on the other hand, is protected through an intergenerational immortality that is distinguished from supratemporal eternity. The achievements which an individual can help realize are unique; this radical novelty makes the achievements survive the individual’s lifespan thanks to the witness of plural others. This fragile immortality maintains a continuity of achievements, which is needed for history and tradition, without suffocating the emergence of the new. (shrink)

Recent scholarship provides the opportunity for an assessment of the underexplored but promising marriage between science and technology studies and Internet governance research. This article seeks to provide such an assessment by reviewing and discussing, in particular, three volumes: Laura DeNardis’s The Global War for Internet Governance, The Power of Networks: Organizing the Global Politics of the Internet by Mikkel Flyverbom, and Governance, Regulations and Powers on the Internet edited by Eric Brousseau, Meryem Marzouki, and Cécile Méadel. Approaching IG through (...) an STS lens, these authors bring to the fore a number of related issues that political and legal sciences have addressed only incompletely so far, but are crucial to understand today’s governance of the Internet as a complex sociotechnical system of systems. In their research, STS scholars of IG highlight the day-to-day, mundane practices that constitute IG; the plurality and “networkedness” of hybrid devices and arrangements that populate, shape, and define IG processes; the performative function of these arrangements vis-à-vis the virtual, yet very material, worlds they seek to regulate; the invisibility, pervasiveness, and agency of infrastructure. (shrink)

Despite its ground-breaking character, Castoriadis’s theory of society remains, in some respects, caught up in conceptual difficulties common to social theory generally, particularly the problem of conceptualizing social unity without resort to an understanding of society that downplays heterogeneity and over-emphasizes the homogeneous. Unlike many other theoretical approaches and traditions, Castoriadis’s work also offers a possible path out of this dilemma in the form of philosophical innovations which could enable us to conceptualize social unity without flattening the heterogeneous characteristics of (...) the social. Castoriadis sometimes fails to recognize the full implications of his own rejection of ontological determinism, and so ends up proposing a far too deterministic and homogeneous model of social types. This essay aims to show how this might be remedied by drawing on Castoriadis’s own fundamental insights. (shrink)

The existence of differing historical interpretations of the same happenings and the consequences of this phenomenon have attracted scholarly attention and deserve to be studied in the future by philosophers of history. Plurality repeatedly surfaces in historical discussions and relativism seems to be one of the obvious conclusions drawn from the existence of competing historical accounts. In my paper, I begin with plurality in history to examine further the issue of relativism. I focus on the dualism of scheme (...) and content as being at the root of relativity and subsequently argue that abandoning this type of dualism is one way how to avoid relativism even within a broadly constructivist view of history. The discussion is, moreover, linked to the issue of how historians present their accounts: Do they offer representations of the past or should we think about their outcomes in a different way? (shrink)

Following Peter Elbow’s work on ‘resonant voice’ or ‘presence’, this essay examines the seldom-explored resonance between a text and its writer in the moment of its creation. The essay asks what the boundaries and content of this space might look like, and how this knowledge might positively affect the creative product. It challenges the popular search for a writer’s ‘voice’, instead positing that each writer has a perpetually shifting internal plurality of voices, which unifies the constructivist and social constructionist (...) views of the self. By arguing that the resonance between writer and writing is the experience of this plurality coming to harmony, the essay posits that to create such a resonance involves a balance of simultaneously relinquishing control to the internal choir and learning how to better conduct it. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is one of the few philosophers who have given an important role to the concept of forgiveness within the context of their broader philosophical thinking. This chapter aims at giving an account of Arendt’s understanding of forgiveness, critically discussing it, and showing that the concept of forgiveness can be put to greater use than Arendt realizes, by relating it to the important Arendtian concept of plurality.

En el presente texto analizaremos la categoría de pluralidad como componente indispensable para pensar en la construcción de una comunidad no totalitaria y como impedimento a ciertos modos contemporáneos de dejar fuera-de una comunidad a determinados grupos humanos. La cuestión de fondo, que no pretendemos resolver aquí, es la posibilidad de pensar un mundo en donde quepan muchos mundos. Propondremos la categoría de pluralidad para abordar esta cuestión tanto a partir del análisis realizado por Hannah Arendt, como por Jean-Luc Nancy. (...) En un primer momento nos detendremos en la figura de la exclusión del mundo a partir de las nociones de apátrida trabajada por Arendt, necropolítica por el filósofo camerunés Achille Mbembe y la idea de inmundicia elaborada por Nancy. Desde allí podremos tomar la perspectiva que buscamos para el análisis de la pluralidad, donde plantearemos, por una parte las infranqueables diferencias e incompatibilidades entre el análisis arendtiano y nancyano de la pluralidad como proponer algunas confluencias. Finalmente propondremos la exigencia de un momento de autoafirmación y vinculación de la pluralidad que es lo que hace que esta pueda constituir un mundo y muchos mundos a la vez, este momento es el nosotros, trabajado también por Arendt, Nancy y Roig. In the following text we will analyse the category of plurality as an essential element to think of the construction of a nontotalitarian community and as an impediment to particular contemporary modes of leaving certain specific human groups “out of” a community. The bottom line, which we do not intend to solve here, is the possibility to think a world in which many worlds fit. We will propose the category of plurality to approach this issue both from the analysis carried out by both Hannah Arendt and by Jean-Luc Nancy. At first we will consider the representation of exclusion from the world starting from the notions of stateless developed by Arendt, necropolitics by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, and the idea of filth by Nancy. From there we can take the perspective that we seek for the analysis of plurality, posing on the one hand the insurmountable differences and incompatibilities between Arendt’s and Nancy’s analysis of plurality, and, on the other hand, some of their confluences. Finally, we will propose the necessity of a moment of self-assertion and connection of plurality that permits the constitution of this plurality as one and many worlds at the same time this moment is “us”, addressed also by Arendt, Nancy and Roig. (shrink)

There has been a great deal of talk recently among historians of Christian reflection about the problem and the possibility of a ‘plurality of theologies’. Directives from such eminent spokesmen as Karl Rahner have underscored the need for a rationale by which to demonstrate that the presence of different orientations does not necessarily violate the unitary character of a Christian tradition. Other Catholic thinkers have offered arguments for ascribing a relative status to the ‘Thomistic style’ of theology, and cases (...) have been made for the inclusion of additional schematic frameworks. Beyond all of this, there are elegant suggestions in the writings of Bernard Lonergan that there is sufficient theoretical, even metaphysical, basis to justify plurality in theology. The claim would seem to be that different theological orientations are expressive of distinct fields of vision which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the theory of plurality of realities introduced by Leon Chwistek. A critical analysis of this theory and an extensional interpretation of Chwistek’s axiomatic descriptions of four realities lead to an epistemological interpretation of this theory. The word “plurality” in the title is a result of different waysof understanding the same original set of sense-data. This interpretation is contrasted with Kazimierz Pasenkiewicz’s ontological version of this theory. In the final parts of the paper the most (...) important consequences of this theory are discussed. First, the ethical relativism postulated by Chwistek is criticized. Second, an attempt to illustrate the plurality of realities with an example of different styles of painting is discussed. Third, a critical rationalism in the form of a kind of practical attitude toward social reality, which results from the theory of plurality of realities, is outlined. (shrink)

John Pecham was a Franciscan theologian who took both a strongly anti-Thomist position and a strongly anti-Averroist position in late-13th-century debates in philosophy of mind. Following a successful career as a theologian, Pecham was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1279 until his death in 1292. Pecham is one of a number of Franciscan philosophers who advocated for what has become known as the “Binarium Famosissimum,” or the two famous and related doctrines of the plurality of forms and universal hylomorphism.1 These (...) two doctrines were vigorously opposed by Thomas Aquinas. They had a history prior to the 13th century, with an embryonic presence in the work of Augustine and then fuller expression in Avicebron... (shrink)

The essay interrogates the cosmopolitan level of Arendt’s political philosophy from the viewpoint of her reflections on plurality, the norm of limitless communication and her diagnosis of political institutions. Arendt’s conception of the political and plurality is inherently non-national in character, but she nevertheless rejects the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship. In place of this she introduces the notion of limitless communication. This ideal can be understood either as a straightforward development of the normative ideal of plurality on (...) a cosmopolitan level or as replacing plurality with a slightly different but possible ideal. The essay brings together Arendt’s conception of plurality with her reflections on the value of political institutions. Plurality comprises five aspects: equality, diversity, active participation, the shared world as a central mediating factor and the interactive or communicative dimension. According to Arendt institutional frameworks should ideally be designed both to make such participatory plurality and politics possible and as safeguards against rule. These tasks should also be preserved on a cosmopolitan level. This implies the importance of cosmopolitan institutions that are not intended as designed towards any ideal to establish a supreme global political authority, an idea that Arendt finds highly dangerous. (shrink)

The objective of this investigation is to understand which aspects of the human condition are fundamental to ensure dignity to the human being. Such reflections will be theoretically based on the work of contemporary philosopher Hannah Arendt. Initially we discuss human dignity from a negative bias, that is, its absence. Therefore, we present human spontaneity and its annihilation in authoritarian governments, which hinder the existence of spaces of human appearance, that is, spaces authentically public in which action and speech are (...) present. Then, we will analyze the usurpation of human rights of a part of the population expelled from the condition of belonging to a political community. The discussion about authoritarian governments, however, is only meant as an example, without the intent to deepen or rebuild these historically. Thus, from the reflection about the absence of dignity, we will analyze the elements that are peculiar to ensuring the dignity of men and women who make up the human community, namely: singularization, i.e., individuation accomplished by speech in human space of appearance, space in which one favors the plurality of views and action, and friendship cultivated by dialog and guarantor of the quality of what is human. (shrink)

Even though the nonidentical is identical—as self-transmitted—it is nonetheless nonidentical: it is otherness to all its identifications.The instants in which a particular frees itself without in turn, by its own particularity, confining others—these instants are anticipations of the unconfined.In man, otherness, which he shares with everything that is, and distinctness, which he shares with everything alive, become uniqueness, and human plurality is the paradoxical plurality of unique beings. Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness.This revelatory quality of speech (...) and action comes to the fore where people are with others and neither for nor against them—that is, in sheer human togetherness. Although .. (shrink)

This paper responds to an argument of Hilary Putnam to the effect that the plurality of modern sciences shows us that any natural kind has a plurality of essences. In the past, he has argued that no system of representations, mental or linguistic, could have an intrinsic relationship to the world. Though he has granted that the Thomistic notion of form and its application to the identity of concepts may avoid these earlier objections, he has maintained that the (...) advance of the sciences has shown us that there are too many substantial forms in any particular kind of thing to provide the unity of conceptual identity required by the Thomist’s account. Given the resemblance of Putnam’s position to the “pluralists” against whom Aquinas argued in the Summa Theologiae a consideration of Aquinas arguments is undertaken. Following this, the paper examines a particular case of recent scientific practice, in order to suggest whose position, Putnam’s or the Thomist’s, more adequately captures the practice of the natural sciences of today, and their bearing upon the metaphysical question of the nature of essence in natural kinds. The paper concludes that the Thomist position on the unity of form or essence, with qualifications made about distinct conceptual approaches to some object of investigation, and the use of analogy in sorting through these distinct approaches, is better capable of accounting for the actual goals and practices of scientific understanding as we see it practiced today than is Putnam’s transcendental nominalism and neopragmatism. (shrink)

It is not sufficient to try to keep the human sciences in statu quo, under the intellectual spell of Cartesian and positive epistemology with an over-sprinkling of added-on ethics. Human sciences should rather tap other resources. Michel de Certeau’s work is one of such, concerned as he is with alterity, plurality and diversity. His reflexions about history can then easily be translated to sociolinguistics, and move towards providing it with a hermeneutic reception perspective. This does not reduce to “sociology (...) of reception,” but embraces deriving all the consequences from the fact that a sociolinguist, just like anybody else, phenomenologically and hermeneutically receives all the data and experience his or her research is based upon. (shrink)

The book provides a defense of the rational authority of psychoanalytic knowledge that does justice to the plurality of psychoanalytic perspectives and resolves central impasses in the psychoanalytic literature and in the literature concerning psychoanalysis and science. It also provides a systematic, comparative, and critical introduction to the main schools of psychoanalysis useful for clinicians, academics, and those exploring psychoanalysis for the first time.

This chapter provides a geometrical map of global legal thought from the discussions of Habermasian, Luhmannian, and Dworkinian approaches. In this inquiry, it suggests that the three patterns have different normative preferences on ordering the same social space. With the coordinate system of global legal method, this chapter shows that these normative preferences are mutually irreconcilable and that the search for a single right answer of global legal method is a tilting at windmills. This futility of a single, unified theoretical (...) approach is what I call the Plurality Trilemma. (shrink)

First published in 1986. Nations have a unity often described as 'cultural'; and within them there are divergences some of which are termed 'political'. But culture and politics do not, therefore, comprise two wholly distinct zones or orders of experience, the one marked by unity, the other by plurality. Unity and plurality interpenetrate. These insights, which derive from the thinking of Herder, have been fundamental to the work of F. M. Barnard. In this volume a number of scholars (...) contribute, in Barnardian vein, reflections on the tensions between unity and plurality in the history of ideas. The central underlying question is, in essence, 'what is the context of political life?' The question remains of more importance than any single answer. (shrink)

May's theorem famously shows that, in social decisions between two options, simple majority rule uniquely satisfies four appealing conditions. Although this result is often cited in support of majority rule, it has never been extended beyond decisions based on pairwise comparisons of options. We generalize May's theorem to many-option decisions where voters each cast one vote. Surprisingly, plurality rule uniquely satisfies May's conditions. This suggests a conditional defense of plurality rule: If a society's balloting procedure collects only a (...) single vote from each voter, then plurality rule is the uniquely compelling electoral procedure. To illustrate the conditional nature of this claim, we also identify a richer informational environment in which approval voting, not plurality rule, is supported by a May-style argument. (shrink)

O presente texto sobre ação, pluralidade e política em Hannah Arendt tem a pretensão de ser uma exposição desses conceitos no que concerne uma compreensão do pensamento de Hannah Arendt. Assim, o objetivo maior é apresentar a categoria da ação e sua vinculação com a pluralidade e o espaço público em uma demarcação que traz à tona a compreensão singular de Arendt sobre a ação como condição política e não como instrumento, o que se vincularia a violência. Nosso argumento está (...) focado na obra “A condição humana” e elegemos como metodologia a análise bibliográfica já consagrada na pesquisa filosófica. (shrink)