“Bread and circuses” (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a figure of speech, specifically referring to a superficial means of appeasement. As a metonymic, the phrase is attributed to Juvenal, a Romanpoet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).
Juvenal, who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.[5]
This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latinpanem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans, using a range of different themes including lust for power and desire for old age to illustrate his argument.[6] Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, “bread and circuses”, became the most effective way to rise to power.
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.[7]
[…] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. […]
(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)
Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.
“Worship services are increasingly relying on a combination of products, services and technologies that result in the creation of what the late theorist, guy debord, referred to as the ‘spectacle’. the spectacle, according to debord, is unique to contemporary society, in that it reproduces an economic ideology that relies on consumer desire and an expectation for unabated pleasure, amusement or emotional gratification. not merely a lavish visual display that inspires feelings of transcendence or awe, the spectacle is a culturally and historically specific apparatus that is made possible through the integration of technologies, producers, a normative set of beliefs and values and consumer bodies. because the spectacle operates ultimately on a visceral, affective level, the valorisation of experiential forms of consumption is reinforced. this paper outlines a theory of the spectacle as it is increasingly articulated in worship services. the spectacle is most salient within seeker-sensitive churches and those…”
Bueno Bravo, I.. (2009). El sacrificio gladiatorio y su vinculación con la guerra en la sociedad mexicana. Gladius
“El siguiente trabajo analiza cómo el estado azteca-mexica rentabilizó el éxito de la guerra a través de las ceremonias públicas, centrándose en la fiesta de tlacaxipehualiztli, una de las más importantes del calendario, donde se daban cita los gobernantes de las provincias más poderosas, así como millones de personas venidas de todos los rincones del anahuac. este era el momento propicio para que el imperio desplegara toda su propaganda e hiciera ostentación de su poder. era el lado oscuro de la conquista, sangre y arena o parafraseando a juvenal panem et circenses.”
Ripoll López, G.. (1990). Panem et circenses. El circo y las carreras de caballos. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie I, Prehistoria
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“‘Múltiples son los artículos y libros científicos que se han escrito sobre el mundo del circo romano y sus espectáculos. había llegado el momento de hacer una reflexión conjunta sobre dicho tema. el director del museo arqueológico henri prados de lattes (montpellier), christian landes, tuvo la idea hace pocos años de hacer una serie de coloquios titulados spectacula. en esta idea fue asistido por varias instituciones pero particularmente por el centre archéologique de l’université de toulouse-le-mirail y por el museo saint raymond de tolosa, en la persona de daniel cazes. el primero de ellos fue celebrado en 1987 y trató el tema del anfiteatro y de los gladiadores, fruto del cual son un catálogo de la exposición ‘, las actas del congreso ^ y un magnífico libro ’ estos volúmenes citados junto con la gran obra, que es en realidad la tesis de estado de jean-claude golvin, lamphithéátre cubren un campo que hasta ahora podía parecer olvidado por los investigadores de la arqueología clásica romana’”
Logothetis, G., Matsaridis, A., & Kaimakakis, V.. (2012). The panem et circenses policy of the Regime of the Colonels in Greek sport, 1967-1974. Studies in Physical Culture & Tourism
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“‘Panem at circenses’ was the policy applied by the greek military junta between 1967 and 1973. the bread and circuses policy was a well-known recipe with its roots in the roman era. it included sport displays, rewarding athletes, formal participation of ‘the aprilians’ (the members of greek military junta) in sport games, along with the celebration of anniversaries of ‘the 21st of april 1967 revolution’ all over greece, which included gymnastic exhibitions. it must be pointed out that the april 21 regime shared a number of similarities with metaxas’s regime of august 4. because the ‘aprilians’ were advocates of metaxas’s ‘no’ response, they tried to imitate him and utilize cultural exhibitions, especially sports, as means of promoting the regime’s propaganda to acquire a social face. both regimes utilized mass celebrations based on traditions of ancient greece, the byzantine period and greek-orthodox culture. abstract from author”
The mass meeting is necessary if only for the reason that in it the individual, who is becoming an adherent of a new movement feels lonely and is easily seized with the fear of being alone, receives for the first time the pictures of a greater community, something that has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most people…. If he steps for the first time out of his small workshop or out of the big enterprise, in which he feels very small, into the mass meeting and is now surrounded by thousands and thousands of people with the same conviction … he himself succumbs to the magic influence of what we call mass suggestion…
(Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf)
Hitler on “social Darwinism”:
Hitler had
gotten into the habit of throwing pieces of bread or hard crusts to the little mice which spent their time in the small room, and then of watching these droll little animals romp and scuffle for these few delicacies.” (Mein Kampf)
“Human freedom is best understood as self-determination. free action consists of deliberation, decision, and action. the free human person deserves dignity, that is, we each deserve to be treated as a moral end and not merely as a means to someone else’s end. neurocentrist philosophy-a form of eliminative materialism-based on neuroscience, however, threatens the extinction of the human self and, thereby, threatens to turn our experience of freedom and dignity into a mere delusion. this evacuates the moral agenda of every activist liberation theology. one task of today’s public theologian is to protect cognitive liberty, because it conceptually undergirds political, economic, and social liberation.”
Sommaggio, P., Mazzocca, M., Gerola, A., & Ferro, F.. (2017). Cognitive Liberty. A first step towards a human neuro-rights declaration. BioLaw Journal
“This paper discusses the emerging debate concerning the concept of cognitive liberty and its connection with human rights. therefore, considering how recent developments of neurosciences are granting us an increasing ability to monitor and influence mental processes, this article aims to provide a clear definition of cognitive liberty understood as a necessary condition to all other freedoms that cannot be reduced to existing rights. in this regard, after presenting the most important positions on the issue, we introduce our point of view, according to which cognitive liberty allows us to lay the groundwork for building new neurorelated human rights.”
Weissenbacher, A.. (2018). Defending cognitive liberty in an age of moral engineering. Theology and Science
“In 2009, mark walker first proposed the genetic virtue project, advancing that science should explore using genetic engineering to eliminate moral evils just as it attempts to eliminate natural ones like disease. this seemed like an issue for the far future given the unique challenges. walker focused on the wrong aspect of personhood, however, as moral engineering of the brain appears to be a more likely possibility. as early aspects of moral engineering the brain are in development, especially through the manipulation of the neural correlates of religious and political beliefs, emotions, and behaviors, i consider several issues surrounding this project so as to protect individual rights and prevent future harms. i advance an internal criterion for the field called acceptability across ideologies to serve as a guide to protect against coercive and harmful technologies and analyze how current laws protecting cognitive liberty are lacking and in need of revision.”
Sommaggio, P., & Mazzocca, M.. (2020). Cognitive liberty and human rights. In Neuroscience and Law: Complicated Crossings and New Perspectives
“This chapter discusses the emerging debate regarding the relationship between the concept of cognitive liberty and human rights. for this reason, after briefly presenting some issues related to the development of recent neurotechnology, the different types of definitions of the concept of cognitive liberty, that have been recently proposed, are illustrated. starting from these last, this chapter aims to analyze how, the whole relationship between human rights and cognitive liberty can change depending on the legislative strategy that one prefers to undertake.”
Ienca, M.. (2017). The Right to Cognitive Liberty. Scientific American
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Walsh, C.. (2010). Drugs and human rights: Private palliatives, sacramental freedoms and cognitive liberty. International Journal of Human Rights
Kraft, C. J., & Giordano, J.. (2017). Integrating brain science and law: Neuroscientific evidence and legal perspectives on protecting individual liberties. Frontiers in Neuroscience
“Advances in neuroscientific techniques have found increasingly broader applications, including in legal neuroscience (or ‘neurolaw’), where experts in the brain sciences are called to testify in the courtroom. but does the incursion of neuroscience into the legal sphere constitute a threat to individual liberties? and what legal protections are there against such threats? in this paper, we outline individual rights as they interact with neuroscientific methods. we then proceed to examine the current uses of neuroscientific evidence, and ultimately determine whether the rights of the individual are endangered by such approaches. based on our analysis, we conclude that while federal evidence rules constitute a substantial hurdle for the use of neuroscientific evidence, more ethical safeguards are needed to protect against future violations of fundamental rights. finally, we assert that it will be increasingly imperative for the legal and neuroscientific communities to work together to better define the limits, capabilities, and intended direction of neuroscientific methods applicable for use in law.”
Rainey, S., Martin, S., Christen, A., Mégevand, P., & Fourneret, E.. (2020). Brain Recording, Mind-Reading, and Neurotechnology: Ethical Issues from Consumer Devices to Brain-Based Speech Decoding. Science and Engineering Ethics
“Brain reading technologies are rapidly being developed in a number of neuroscience fields. these technologies can record, process, and decode neural signals. this has been described as ‘mind reading technology’ in some instances, especially in popular media. should the public at large, be concerned about this kind of technology? can it really read minds? concerns about mind-reading might include the thought that, in having one’s mind open to view, the possibility for free deliberation, and for self-conception, are eroded where one isn’t at liberty to privately mull things over. themes including privacy, cognitive liberty, and self-conception and expression appear to be areas of vital ethical concern. overall, this article explores whether brain reading technologies are really mind reading technologies. if they are, ethical ways to deal with them must be developed. if they are not, researchers and technology developers need to find ways to describe them more accurately, in order to dispel unwarranted concerns and address appropriately those that are warranted.”
Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2021). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and Neurotechnology. Analisis Filosofico
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Wolpe, P. R.. (2017). Neuroprivacy and cognitive liberty. In The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics
“The term ‘‘cognitive liberty’’ has been used in a variety of ways. in general, it refers to the degree to which an individual has the right to control his or her own mental and emotional brain processes against the desires of external agents, especially the state, to control or access them. it is largely reflective of the value of neuroprivacy, the idea that privacy rights extend to a citizen’s brain, and that if privacy has any meaning at all, it must mean one’s right to protect the contents of one’s brain (i.e., one’s thoughts, emotions, and other subjective states). these terms are relatively recent concepts, reactions to the development of neurotechnologies that are beginning to allow unprecedented access to the inner workings of the brain. the values they reflect, however, have a long pedigree.”
Walsh, C.. (2014). Beyond religious freedom: Psychedelics and cognitive liberty. In Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use
“This chapter will examine the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular when it comes to psychedelic experiences, and the inevitable ensuing arbitrariness involved in protecting some such rituals and not others. it will put forth the argument that there is a need to move beyond simply seeking exemptions from drug prohibition in the name of religious freedom; rather, there should be a broader right to ingest psychedelics as an aspect of cognitive liberty. cognitive liberty is the right to control one’s own consciousness. it is a concept that equates to freedom of thought, a right protected internationally by the universal declaration of human rights and enforceable in europe through article 9 of the european convention of human rights.”
White, A. E.. (2010). The lie of fMRI: An examination of the ethics of a market in lie detection using functional magnetic resonance imaging. HEC Forum
“The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. elites, in the classical millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seemed absent. this article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by hayek. it characterizes the neoliberal project as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non- human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgement. firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets (and associated technologies and bodies) are ‘saying’. the paper draws on lazzarato’s work on signifying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce.”
Foster, J. B., & Holleman, H.. (2010). The Financial Power Elite. Monthly Review
“The article presents an historical overview of the emergence of the financial sector within the u.s. banking system, focusing on the developments of the end of the 20th century which led to the formation of a financial elite. introductory comments are given noting the rise and fall of different regulatory regimes within the u.s. banking sector in the first half of the century up to 1980. in-depth discussion is then provided highlighting the concentration of the financial sector as a dominant force in the nation’s economy up to the events of the 2008 global financial crisis and the return of political demands for regulation.”
Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., Ditto, P., & Haidt, J.. (2012). Understanding libertarian morality: The psychological dispositions of self-identified libertarians. PLoS ONE
“Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in u.s. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. as predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes.”
Boire, R.. (2000). On Cognitive Liberty. In Journal of Cognitive Liberties
“Mirando la pagina de este hombre resulta que es un abogado que dirige un centro por el derecho a la libertad cognitiva y dirigia una revista del mismo nombre que defiende el derecho a mi propio cerebro, especialmente en (a) nadie me puede obligar a tomar psicofarmacos (b) tengo todo el derecho a consumar las drogas que me de la gana (incluyendo marihuana, cannabis etc”
Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Shanker, S. G.. (2009). Three concepts of liberty. In After Cognitivism: A Reassessment of Cognitive Science and Philosophy
Rindermann, H.. (2012). Intellectual classes, technological progress and economic development: The rise of cognitive capitalism. Personality and Individual Differences
SENTENTIA, W.. (2006). Neuroethical Considerations: Cognitive Liberty and Converging Technologies for Improving Human Cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
“Developers of nbic (nano-bio-info-cogno) technologies face a multitude of obstacles, not the least of which is navigating the public ethics of their applied research. biotechnologies have received widespread media attention and spawned heated interest in their perceived social implications. now, in view of the rapidly expanding purview of neuroscience and the growing array of technologic developments capable of affecting or monitoring cognition, the emerging field of neuroethics calls for a consideration of the social and ethical implications of neuroscientific discoveries and trends. to negotiate the complex ethical issues at stake in new and emerging kinds of technologies for improving human cognition, we need to overcome political, disciplinary, and religious sectarianism. we need analytical models that protect values of personhood at the heart of a functional democracy-values that allow, as much as possible, for individual decision-making, despite transformations in our understanding and ability to manipulate cognitive processes. addressing cognitive enhancement from the legal and ethical notion of ‘cognitive liberty’ provides a powerful tool for assessing and encouraging nbic developments.”
Desai, A. C.. (2011). Libertarian Paternalism, Externalities, and the “Spirit of Liberty”: How Thaler and Sunstein Are Nudging Us toward an “Overlapping Consensus”. Law and Social Inquiry, 36(1), 263–295.
“In their 2008 book nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, andnhappiness, richard thaler and cass sunstein use research from psychologynand behavioral economics to argue that people suffer from systematicncognitive biases. they propose that policy makers mitigate these biasesnby framing people’s choices in ways that help people act in their ownnself-interest. thaler and sunstein call this approach “libertariannpaternalism,{’’} and they market it as “the real third way.{’’} in thisnessay, i argue that the book is a brilliant contribution to thinkingnabout policy making but that “choice architecture{’’} is not just ansolution to the problem of cognitive biases. rather, it is a means ofnapproaching any kind of policy making. i further argue that policynmakers must take externalities into account, even when using choicenarchitecture. finally, i argue that libertarian paternalism can best benseen as motivated by what sunstein has celebrated in his work onnconstitutional theory: a humility about the possibility of policy-makernerror embodied in learned hand’s famous aphorism about the “spirit ofnliberty{’’} and an attempt to reduce social conflicts by searching fornwhat john rawls called an “overlapping consensus.{’’}.”
Pustilnik, A. C.. (2012). Neurotechnologies at the intersection of criminal procedure and constitutional law. In The Constitution and the Future of Criminal Justice in America
“The rapid development of neurotechnologies poses novel constitutional issues for criminal law and criminal procedure. these technologies can identify directly from brain waves whether a person is familiar with a stimulus like a face or a weapon, can model blood flow in the brain to indicate whether a person is lying, and can even interfere with brain processes themselves via high-powered magnets to cause a person to be less likely to lie to an investigator. these technologies implicate the constitutional privilege against compelled, self-incriminating speech under the fifth amendment and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure under the fourth amendment of the united states constitution. law enforcement use of these technologies will not just require extending existing constitutional doctrine to cover new facts but will challenge these doctrines’ foundations. this short chapter discusses cognitive privacy and liberty under the fourth and fifth amendments, showing how current jurisprudence under both amendments stumbles on limited and limiting distinctions between the body and the mind, the physical and the informational. brain processes and emanations sit at the juncture of these categories. this chapter proposes a way to transcend these limitations while remaining faithful to precedent, extending these important constitutional protections into a new era of direct access to the brain/mind.”
The nine men who would compose the X Club already knew each other well. By the 1860s, friendships had turned the group into a social network, and the men often dined and went on holidays together. After Charles Darwin‘s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, the men began working together to aid the cause for naturalism and natural history. They backed the liberalAnglican movement that emerged in the early 1860s, and both privately and publicly supported the leaders of the movement.
According to its members, the club was originally started to keep friends from drifting apart, and to partake in scientific discussion free from theological influence. A key aim was to reform the Royal Society, with a view to making the practice of science professional. In the 1870s and 1880s, the members of the group became prominent in the scientific community and some accused the club of having too much power in shaping the scientific landscape of London. The club was terminated in 1893, after depletion by death, and as old age made regular meetings of the surviving members impossible.
Aldous Huxley to George Orwell
Wrightwood. Cal.
21 October, 1949
Dear Mr. Orwell,
It was very kind of you to tell your publishers to send me a copy of your book. It arrived as I was in the midst of a piece of work that required much reading and consulting of references; and since poor sight makes it necessary for me to ration my reading, I had to wait a long time before being able to embark on Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is. May I speak instead of the thing with which the book deals — the ultimate revolution? The first hints of a philosophy of the ultimate revolution — the revolution which lies beyond politics and economics, and which aims at total subversion of the individual’s psychology and physiology — are to be found in the Marquis de Sade, who regarded himself as the continuator, the consummator, of Robespierre and Babeuf. The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it. Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest.
Partly because of the prevailing materialism and partly because of prevailing respectability, nineteenth-century philosophers and men of science were not willing to investigate the odder facts of psychology for practical men, such as politicians, soldiers and policemen, to apply in the field of government. Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations. Another lucky accident was Freud’s inability to hypnotize successfully and his consequent disparagement of hypnotism. This delayed the general application of hypnotism to psychiatry for at least forty years. But now psycho-analysis is being combined with hypnosis; and hypnosis has been made easy and indefinitely extensible through the use of barbiturates, which induce a hypnoid and suggestible state in even the most recalcitrant subjects.
Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.
Monsanto is being is indicted for distribution the carcinogenic agent Glyphosate. The lead case is 3:16-md-02741-VC. The first trial in the federal court is set for Feb. 25, 2019 in the U.S. District Court in San FranciscoIn total, there are 580 lawsuits pending against Monsanto.
“The internal correspondence noted by Johnson could support a jury finding that Monsanto has long been aware of the risk that its glyphosate-based herbicides are carcinogenic … but has continuously sought to influence the scientific literature to prevent its internal concerns from reaching the public sphere and to bolster its defenses in products liability actions,” Karnow wrote. “Thus there are triable issues of material fact.”
Monsanto “championed falsified data and attacked legitimate studies” that revealed dangers of its herbicides, and led a “prolonged campaign of misinformation” to convince government agencies, farmers and consumers that Roundup was safe, according to Johnson’s lawsuit.
Interesting Monsanto used web-based propagandistic/psychological methods to systematically conceal the risks. My own article was also downplayed by internet trolls but I cited numerous scientific references to which they did not respond. Unfortunately the article is no longer online. You might also remember the reaction of the university…
Biotech giant Monsanto is being accused of hiring, through third parties, an army of Internet trolls to counter negative comments, while citing positive “ghost-written” pseudo-scientific reports which downplay the potential risks of their products.
On a larger scale, Monsanto allegedly
“quietly funnels money to ‘think tanks’ such as the ‘Genetic Literacy Project’ and the ‘American Council on Science and Health”– organizations intended to shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers,” according to the plaintiffs.
As with radiation, the irreversible long term consequences of the detrimental genetic effects are especially worrisome (particularly from an evolutionary point of view). Unfortunately, the genetic aspects are not really mentioned in the current debate.
Here are some references I collected back then:
Glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines. URL: tinyurl.com/lmaamqv
Pesticide Roundup provokes cell division dysfunction at the level of CDK1/cyclin B activation. URL:tinyurl.com/gowx3e4
Time- and dose-dependent effects of roundup on human embryonic and placental cells. URL: tinyurl.com/hq8p5eu
A glyphosate-based herbicide induces necrosis and apoptosis in mature rat testicular cells in vitro, and testosterone decrease at lower levels. URL: tinyurl.com/j6zlyj9
Differential Effects of Glyphosate and Roundup on Human Placental Cells and Aromatase URL:tinyurl.com/myqetcu
Formulated Glyphosate Activates the DNA-Response Checkpoint of the Cell Cycle Leading to the Prevention of G2/M Transition URL: tinyurl.com/zyrn5vk
Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance URL: tinyurl.com/nyffvrz
Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases III: Manganese, neurological diseases, and associated pathologies URL: tinyurl.com/qal6vjk
The U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals are seven controversial military training manuals which were declassified by the Pentagon in 1996. In 1997, two additional CIA manuals were declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Baltimore Sun. The manuals in question have been referred to by various media sources as the “torture manuals”.[2][3][4][5]
They were first used in Northern Ireland in 1971 as part of Operation Demetrius – the mass arrest and internment (imprisonment without trial) of people suspected of involvement with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Out of those arrested, fourteen were subjected to a programme of “deep interrogation” using the five techniques. This took place at a secret interrogation centre in Northern Ireland. For seven days, when not being interrogated, the detainees were kept hooded and handcuffed in a cold cell and subjected to a continuous loud hissing noise. Here they were forced to stand in a stress position for many hours and were deprived of sleep, food and drink. They were also repeatedly beaten, and some reported being kicked in the genitals, having their heads banged against walls and being threatened with injections. The effect was prolonged pain, physical and mental exhaustion, severe anxiety, depression, hallucinations, disorientation and repeated loss of consciousness.[2][3] It also resulted in long-term psychological trauma. The fourteen became known as “the Hooded Men” and were the only detainees in Northern Ireland subjected to all five techniques together. Other detainees were subjected to at least one of the five techniques along with other interrogation methods.[4]
In 1976, the European Commission of Human Rights ruled that the five techniques amounted to torture. The case was then referred to the European Court of Human Rights. In 1978 the court ruled that the techniques were “inhuman and degrading” and breached the European Convention on Human Rights, but did not amount to “torture”. In 2014, after new information was uncovered that showed the decision to use methods of torture in Northern Ireland in 1971-1972 had been taken by ministers,[5] the Irish Government asked the European Court of Human Rights to review its judgement and acknowledge the five techniques as torture.
The Court’s ruling that the five techniques did not amount to torture was later cited by the United States and Israel to justify their own interrogation methods,[6] which included the five techniques.[7] British agents also taught the five techniques to the forces of Brazil’s military dictatorship.[8]
Juridical exceptionalism – The “ticking-bomb argument” in favor of the post hoc justification for violations of fundamental human rights
Further References
Vreeland, J. R.. (2008). Political institutions and human rights: Why dictatorships enter into the United nations convention against torture. International Organization
“This article addresses a puzzle: dictatorships that practice torture are more likely to accede to the un convention against torture ~cat! than dictator- ships that do not practice torture+ i argue the reason has to do with the logic of tor- ture+ torture is more likely to occur where power is shared+ in one-party or no-party dictatorships, few individuals defect against the regime+ consequently, less torture occurs+ but dictatorships are protorture regimes; they have little interest in making gestures against torture, such as signing the cat+ there is more torture where power is shared, such as where dictatorships allow multiple political parties+ alternative political points of view are endorsed, but some individuals go too far+ more acts of defection against the regime occur, and torture rates are higher+ because political parties exert some power, however, they pressure the regime to make concessions+ one small concession is acceding to the cat.”
Conrad, C. R., & Moore, W. H.. (2010). What stops the torture?. American Journal of Political Science
“States whose agents engage in torture in a given year have a 93% chance of continuing to torture in the following year. what leads governments to stop the use of torture? we focus on the principal–agent relationship between the executive and the individuals responsible for supervising and interrogating state prisoners. we argue that some liberal democratic institutions change the probability that leaders support the creation of institutions that discourage jailers and interrogators from engaging in torture, thus increasing the probability of a state terminating its use of torture. these relationships are strongly conditioned by the presence of violent dissent; states rarely terminate the use of torture when they face a threat. once campaigns of violent dissent stop, however, states with popular suffrage and a free press are considerably more likely to terminate their use of torture. also given the end of violent dissent, the greater the number of veto points in government, the lower the likelihood that a state terminates its use of torture.”
Brecher, B.. (2008). Torture and the Ticking Bomb. Torture and the Ticking Bomb
“We live in times when, as conor gearty has pointed out, ‘legal scholars in the us are being taken seriously when they float the idea of torture warrants as a reform to what they see as the unacceptably uncodified system of arbitrary torture that they believe currently prevails’. and he is right when he goes on to add that ‘This is like reacting to a series of police killings with proposals to reform the law on homicide so as to sanction officially approved pre-trial executions.’rnrnit is because the general public is taking these academics seriously that there is an urgent need to expose how spurious their ideologically driven arguments are. the “respectability” they confer on the argument that so-called ticking bombs justify torture, and that it had therefore better be regulated, needs to be countered. otherwise there is a real danger that western politicians will succeed in persuading us to go along with them when they insist that another basic freedom – freedom from torture – is yet one more value we must abandon in the endless “war on terrorism”. it is a short road from legalising torture intended to gain information to accepting torture as a legitimate weapon and for all sorts of purposes. the “intellectual respectability” conferred by the academy is essential for that enterprise. thus, since alan dershowitz’s carefully constructed proposal to introduce torture warrants is both the most prominent and the most sophisticated of today’s attempts to make torture respectable, it is his proposal we need to focus on.rnrnin the introduction, i say something about both the intellectual and the political contexts of the so-called ticking bomb scenario that is the basis of these proposals. in chapter two i argue that the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario remains in crucial respects a fantasy; and that the grounds it is said to offer for justifying interrogational torture so as to avoid a putative catastrophe are spurious. in chapter three i argue that, whatever you think of those arguments, the consequences of legalising interrogational torture, and thus institutionalising it, would be so disastrous as to outweigh any such catastrophes anyway. finally, in chapter four, i draw together what the details of my argument imply about torture in general and interrogational torture in particular; and about why any even semi-decent society must abhor torture -– in all circumstances, always, everywhere.”
Lightcap, T.. (2011). The politics of torture. The Politics of Torture
“BACKGROUND it remains uncertain whether basilar-type migraine (bm) is a subtype of migraine with typical aura (mta) or a distinct phenotype or genotype. objective to analyze the symptomatology, familial distribution, and genotype of bm. methods the authors recruited 105 families comprising 362 patients with mta or bm (international classification of headache disorders-1 criteria). among these patients, 38 patients from 29 families had bm. in 12 of the families with bm with an apparently dominant inheritance the authors sequenced all exons of the cacna1a (chromosome 19) and atp1a2 (chromosome 1) genes responsible for most cases of the autosomal dominantly inherited familial hemiplegic migraine and performed a linkage analysis of chromosome 1 and 19 with a nonparametric or autosomal dominant parametric model using an affected only analysis. results bm occurred in 10% (38/362) of patients with mta. the basilar-type aura had a median duration of 60 minutes and comprised vertigo 61%, dysarthria 53%, tinnitus 45%, diplopia 45%, bilateral visual symptoms 40%, bilateral paresthesias 24%, decreased level of consciousness 21%, hypacusia 21%, and ataxia 5%. the relative frequency of the individual basilar-type symptoms was not different from patients with hemiplegic migraine from a previous study. the patients with bm were equally distributed among the 105 families with mta (p = 0.37). the attacks of mta were identical in families with or without bm. no causative mutations and no linkage was identified. conclusions basilar-type aura seemingly may occur at times in any patient with migraine with typical aura. there is no firm clinical, epidemiologic, or genetic evidence that bm is an independent disease entity different from mta.”
Rejali, D.. (2011). Torture and Democracy. In Torture: Power, Democracy, and the Human Body
“I. for a long time — at least six decades — photographs have laid down the tracks of how important conflicts are judged and remembered. the western memory museum is now mostly a visual one. photographs have an insuperable power to determine what we recall of events, and it now seems probable that the defining association of people everywhere with the war that the united states launched pre-emptively in iraq last year will be photographs of the torture of iraqi prisoners by americans in the most infamous of saddam hussein’s prisons, abu ghraib. the bush administration and its defenders have chiefly sought to limit a public-relations disaster — the dissemination of the photographs — rather than deal with the complex crimes of leadership and of policy revealed by the pictures. there was, first of all, the displacement of the reality onto the photographs themselves. the administration’s initial response was to say that the president was shocked and disgusted by the photographs — as if the fault or horror lay in the images, not in what they depict. there was also the avoidance of the word ‘“torture.”’ the prisoners had possibly been the objects of ‘“abuse,”’ eventually of ‘“humiliation”’ — that was the most to be admitted. ‘ “my impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which i believe technically is different from torture,”’ secretary of defense donald rumsfeld said at a press conference. ‘ “and therefore i’m not going to address the ‘torture’ word.”’”
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge .More at Wikipedia
“The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden from us because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something – because it is always before one’s eyes” (1958, §129)
“Migration movements to industrialized countries have grown in number and size, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants has raised concerns about their integration and assimilation into host societies. this article is an empirical study of assimilation of foreign nationals in germany. their experience may hold lessons for other relatively recent immigration destinations. as expected, language is one of the most critical factors for determining integration and assimilation at the workplace and in society. our results indicate uneven success in these two areas, and suggest that greater language skills may be required for social assimilation, compared to economic assimilation. among the most important findings of our study are the strong and statistically significant effects of the attitudes by germans toward immigrants, the significant influence of the region of residence, and the ambivalence of german-born foreign residents toward naturalization and continued stay. this signals the failure of past integration and assimilation policies. the results show that negative attitudes by ethnic germans against others at work or in society, in general, reduce interest in integration and assimilation. this is neither new nor surprising and this research does not contribute new theoretical insights, but it demonstrates the magnitude and significance of the effects. the question of why different locations seemed to have different impacts on citizenship aspirations is beyond the scope of this article. the data do not provide information to pursue this question and we suspect that the causes are too complex for a short answer. as expected, non-eu citizens showed greater interest in acquiring german citizenship than eu citizens. finally, the results also indicate that the immediate post-world war ii notion of ‘guest workers’ was not completely false. there has been significant return migration and a significant number of respondents to the survey say that they intend to return.”
Kripke, S.. (1982). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition. Ethics
“In the interpretation of wittgenstein’s thinking about the concept of a rule, two sharply differing positions have emerged. on one reading wittgenstein is taken to hold that the concept of a rule presupposes a community within which a common agreement in actions fixes the meaning of a rule. baker and hacker argue vigorously against this reading. they take wittgenstein to be holding that agreement is necessary only for ‘shared’ rules, ‘shared’ concepts, ‘shared’ language. according to their interpretation, wittgenstein allows the possibility that a human being who had always lived in isolation from any human community, could have a language and could follow rules. in my article i argue that baker and hacker have misunderstood wittgenstein on the concept of a rule, that the passages they adduce in support of their reading do not support it, and that many passages in his writings show wittgenstein’s position to be that without general agreement there could be neither rules nor language.”
Grayling, A. C.. (2001). Wittgenstein : a very short introduction. Very short introductions
“Ludwig wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an extraordinarily original philospher, whose influence on twentieth-century thinking goes well beyond philosophy itself. in this book, which aims to make wittgenstein’s thought accessible to the general non-specialist reader, a. c. grayling explains the nature and impact of wittgenstein’s views. he describes both his early and later philosophy, the differences and connections between them, and gives a fresh assessment of wittgenstein’s continuing influence on contemporary thought.”
Hamilton, A.. (2017). Ludwig Wittgenstein. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory
“This study tried to determine if drainage fluid amylase reflects pancreatic leakage after pancreaticoduodenectomy and to determine the factors affecting the drainage amylase level. patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy were recruited. the drainage amylase was measured from postoperative day (pod) 1 to pod 7. direct evidence of pancreatic leakage was provided by upper gastrointestinal studies using a water-soluble contrast medium and methylene blue dye in the pancreaticogastrostomy group or by pancreaticography with injected contrast medium via an exteriorized pancreatic stent in the pancreaticojejunostomy group on pod 7. a total of 37 patients were recruited. the drainage amylase level was higher than the normal serum amylase (>or= 190 u/l) in more than half of the cases on the initial pod 2 specimen, with a median of 745 u/l on pod 1 and 663 u/l on pod 2. the drainage amylase level was more than three times the normal serum amylase level (>or= 190 x 3 u/l) in 56.8% on pod 1, in 51.4% on pod 2, and in nearly one-third on pod 7 (29.7%). however, no pancreatic leakage occurred in any of the patients with a drainage amylase of >or= 190 u/l. only one case of pancreatic leakage with a small amount of drainage fluid (10 ml) and low amylase level (74 u/l), was noted. soft pancreatic parenchyma and a nondilated pancreatic duct were significantly associated with higher drainage amylase levels. in conclusion, biochemical leakage defined by amylase-rich drainage fluid might have no clinical significance and was not necessarily clinical pancreatic leakage following pancreaticoduodenectomy.”
Wittgenstein, L.. (1975). On Certainty. Igarss 2014
“Mycotoxins are small (mw approximately 700), toxic chemical products formed as secondary metabolites by a few fungal species that readily colonise crops and contaminate them with toxins in the field or after harvest. ochratoxins and aflatoxins are mycotoxins of major significance and hence there has been significant research on broad range of analytical and detection techniques that could be useful and practical. due to the variety of structures of these toxins, it is impossible to use one standard technique for analysis and/or detection. practical requirements for high-sensitivity analysis and the need for a specialist laboratory setting create challenges for routine analysis. several existing analytical techniques, which offer flexible and broad-based methods of analysis and in some cases detection, have been discussed in this manuscript. there are a number of methods used, of which many are lab-based, but to our knowledge there seems to be no single technique that stands out above the rest, although analytical liquid chromatography, commonly linked with mass spectroscopy is likely to be popular. this review manuscript discusses (a) sample pre-treatment methods such as liquid-liquid extraction (lle), supercritical fluid extraction (sfe), solid phase extraction (spe), (b) separation methods such as (tlc), high performance liquid chromatography (hplc), gas chromatography (gc), and capillary electrophoresis (ce) and (c) others such as elisa. further currents trends, advantages and disadvantages and future prospects of these methods have been discussed.”
Anscombe, G. E. M.. (1995). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophy
“In the safety of his manuscripts, ludwig wittgenstein was free to endlessly revise, rework and reframe his philosophical thoughts. thus his published work yields a glimpse of just a small portion of wittgenstein’s philosophical thought the portion that eventually appeared in print. yet for wittgenstein, philosophy was an on-going activity, a process. only in his dialog with the philosophical community and in his private moments does wittgenstein’s philosophical practice fully come to light. those public and private occasions are collected here. in private occasions, co-editor alfred nordmann presents wittgenstein’s diaries from the 1930s to an english audience for the first time. they are accompanied by wittgenstein’s letters to and from friend ludwig hansel. together, they reveal a great deal about wittgenstein, who himself says ‘the movement of thought in my philosophizing should be discernible also in the history of my mind.’ in public occasions, james klagge collects wittgenstein’s papers and speeches, some newly published, from a number of forums, including his lectures at cambridge and his involvement with the cambridge moral science club. much of wittgenstein’s philosophical work came through, or in the form of, dialogs, making these public encounters particularly valuable. the result of this collaboration, ludwig wittgenstein: public and private occasions, is a thorough look at the philosophy of one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers that goes beyond a mere study of his published work.””
Das, V.. (1998). Wittgenstein and Anthropology. Annu. Rev. Anthropol
“This essay explores the theme of wittgenstein as a philosopher of culture. the primary text on which the essay is based is philosophical investigations; it treats stanley cavell’s work as a major guide for the understanding and re- ception of wittgenstein into anthropology. some wittgensteinian themes ex- plored in the essay are the idea of culture as capability, horizontal and verti- cal limits to forms of life, concepts of everyday life in the face of skepticism, and the complexity of the inner in relation to questions of belief and pain. while an attempt has been made to relate these ideas to ethnographic de- scriptions, the emphasis in this essay is on the question of how anthropology may receive wittgenstein.”
ColivaMc, A.. (1997). Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations. Lingua e Stile
“Schroeder isolates three points in wittgenstein’s discussion of reasons that set reasons apart from causes: (i) sometimes, reasons are rules that justify actions. (ii) giving a reason is like describing the route one has taken: it is «the description of a e{singular} process, not the specification of a cause which always involves a whole host of observations. for this reason we say too that we know the reason for our action with certainty {…} but not the cause of an act» (vw 424; cf. bb 15). later, wittgenstein came to revise this view: «the reason may be nothing more than just the one he gives when asked» (al 5; cf. pi {s}479). (iii) agents have first-person authority about their reasons for their actions: what they sincerely claim to be their reason is what we call their reason (vw 30f., 110f.).nsuch first-person authority applies even to reasons given for one’s past actions. one knows what one was going to say or wanted to say, and yet one does not read it off from some mental process which took place then and which one remembers (pi {s}637). words do not report what happened on that occasion, they are a conditional statement about the past, a reaction to what i remember of the situation (pi {s}{s}648, 657, 659, 684). we ask people for their reasons, and given that (a) the agent’s claim as to his reason is sincere and not in conflict with what he expressed (by words or deeds, including the action in question) at other times, and (b) that reason was a fact of which the agent was aware and not a supposed fact which the agent did not believe to (or knew not to) obtain, we accept the avowed reasons, which provide us with an insight into the agent’s character. n”
Bloor, D.. (1999). Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions. International Journal of Philosophical Studies
“Clearly and engagingly written, this volume is vital reading for those interested in philosophy and sociology, and in wittgenstein’s later thought. david bloor provides a challenging and informative evaluation of wittgenstein’s account of rules and rule-following. arguing for a collectivist reading, bloor offers the first consistent sociological interpretation of wittgenstein’s work for many years.”
Sen, A.. (2003). Sraffa, Wittgenstein, and Gramsci. Journal of Economic Literature
“The article focuses on economist piero sraffa and his relationship with and influence on philosopher ludwig wittgenstein and marxist theorist antonio gramsci. sraffa’s intellectual impact includes several new explorations in economic theory, including a reassessment of the history of political economy (starting with the work of david ricardo). his economic contributions, particularly his one book, ‘production of commodities by means of commodities: prelude to a critique of economic theory,’ have generated major controversies in economics. even though sraffa was only 29 years old at that time (he was born in turin on august 5th, 1898), he was already well known in britain and italy as a highly original economist. he had obtained a research degree (testi de laurea) from the university of turin in late 1920, with a thesis on monetary economics, but its was an article on the foundations of price theory which he published in 1925 in ‘annali di economia’ (a journal based in milan) that made him a major celebrity in italy and britain. the influence that sraffa had on wittgenstein’s thinking came through a series of regular conversations between the two. it concerned a change in wittgenstein’s philosophical approach in the years following 1929–a change in which conversations with sraffa evidently played a vital role. wittgenstein told a friend (rush rhees, another cambridge philosopher) that the most important thing that sraffa taught him was an ‘anthropological way’ of seeing philosophical problems. antonio gramsci was less reticent that sraffa about writing down his philosophical ideas. after some harrowing experiences of imprisonment, not least in milan, gramsci faced a trial, along with a number of other political prisoners, in rome in the summer of 1928. from february 1929 gramsci was engaged in writing essays and notes that would later be famous as his ‘prison notebooks.’”
Sluga, H., & Stern, D. G.. (2017). Preface to the second edition. The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, Second Edition
“The photo-catalytic degradation of 1,2-dichloroethane (1, 2-dce) using nitrogen-doped tio2 photo-catalysts under fluorescent light irradiation was investigated. highly pure tio2 and nitrogen-doped tio2 were prepared by a sol-gel method and characterized by thermo-gravimetric/differential-thermal analysis (tg/dta), x-ray diffraction (xrd), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (xps), and fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy. the results indicate that the photo-catalysts were mainly nano-size with an anatase-phase structure. the degradation reaction of 1,2-dce was operated under visible-light irradiation, and the photo-catalytic oxidation was conducted in a batch photo-reactor with various nitrogen doping ratios (n/ti = 0-25 mol%). the relative humidity (rh) was controlled at 0-20% and the oxygen concentration was controlled at 0-21%. the photo-degradation with nitrogen-doped tio2 showed superior photo-catalytic activity compared to that for pure tio2. tio2 doped with 15 mol% nitrogen exhibited the best photo-catalytic efficiency under the tested conditions. the products from the 1,2-dce photo-catalytic oxidation were co2 and water; the by-products included dichloromethane, methyl chloride, ethyl chloride, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen chloride. the reaction pathway of 1,2-dce indicates that oxygen molecules are the major factor that causes the degradation of 1,2-dce in the gas phase. ?? 2011 elsevier b.v. all rights reserved.”
Wittgenstein, L.. (1965). I: A Lecture on Ethics. The Philosophical Review
“In non-ethical contexts judgments of value (i.e., ‘this is the right way to granchester’) are judgments of relative value, and can be converted to statements of fact. in ethics and religion, we find what appear to be judgments of ‘absolute’ value. all such ‘judgments’ turn out to be incoherent expressions, however. as attempts to say more than facts, they are attempts to go beyond the world, and so beyond the bounds of significant language. (staff)”
Wittgenstein, L.. (1958). The Blue and Brown Books. New York
“Preliminary studies for the ‘philosophical investigations,’ generally known as the”
Wittgenstein, L.. (1984). Zettel. In Werkausgabe in 8 Bänden
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“Zettel, an en face bilingual edition, collects fragments from wittgenstein’s work between 1929 and 1948 on issues of the mind, mathematics, and language.”
Picardi, E.. (1997). Wittgenstein and Quine. Lingua e Stile
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“This unique study brings together for the first time two of the most important philosophers of this century. never before have these two thinkers been compared – and commentators’ opinions on their relationship differ greatly. are the views of wittgenstein and quine on method and the nature of philosophy comparable or radically opposed? does wittgenstein’s concept of language engender that of quine, or threaten its philosophical foundations? an understanding of the similarities and differences between the thought of wittgenstein and of quine is essential if we are to have a full picture of contemporary philosophy. this collection of essays offers diverse and original ways in which to view their relationship.”
Glock, H.-J.. (1996). A Wittgenstein dictionary. The Blackwell philosopher dictionaries
“This lucid and accessible dictionary presents technical terms that wittgenstein introduced into philosophical debate or transformed substantially, and also topics to which he made a substantial contribution. hans-johann glock places wittgenstein’s ideas in their relevance to current debates. the entries delineate wittgenstein’s lines of argument on particular issues, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and shed light on fundamental exegetical controversies. the dictionary entries are prefaced by a ‘sketch of a intellectual biography’, which links the basic themes of the early and later philosophy and describes the general development of wittgenstein’s thinking. extensive textual references, a detailed index and an annotated bibliography will facilitate further study. authoritative, comprehensive and clear, the volume will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in wittgenstein – his life, work or influence. each blackwell philosopher dictionary presents the life and work of an individual philosopher in a scholarly but accessible manner. entries cover key ideas and thoughts, as well as the main themes of the philosopher’s works. a comprehensive biographical sketch is also included.”
Schatzki, T. R.. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Review of Metaphysics
“This book addresses key topics in social theory such as the basic structures of social life, the character of human activity, and the nature of individuality. drawing on the work of wittgenstein, the author develops an account of social existence that argues that social practices are the fundamental phenomenon in social life. this approach offers new insight into the social formation of individuals, surpassing and critiquing the existing practice theories of bourdieu, giddens, lyotard, and oakeshott.”
“Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, tractatus logico-philosophicus was the only philosophical work that ludwig wittgenstein published during his lifetime. written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. for wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. he famously summarized the book in the following words: ‘What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.’ david pears and brian mcguinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. the work is prefaced by bertrand russell’s original introduction to the first english edition.”
Block, N.. (2012). Wittgenstein and qualia. In Reading Putnam
“Wittgenstein (1968) endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. this paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that wittgenstein endorsed (the innocuous inverted spectrum hypothesis) is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected (the dangerous kind). the danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are (for the purposes of this paper) contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in public language. i will pinpoint the difference between the innocuous and dangerous scenarios that matters for the argument for qualia, give arguments in favor of the coherence and possibility of the dangerous scenario, and try to show that some standard arguments against qualia are ineffective against the version of the dangerous scenario i will be advocating. one of the two arguments for qualia i will give is a shifted spectrum argument that is much less controversial than the version i gave in block (1999), and the other argument for qualia is an inverted spectrum argument that is much less controversial than the one i gave in block (1990). the inverted spectrum argument is much less controversial because it does not require a behaviorally indistinguishable spectrum inversion. wittgensteins views provide a convenient starting point for a paper that is much more about qualia than about wittgenstein.”
McDowell, J.. (1984). Wittgenstein on following a rule. Synthese
“This paper originated in an attempt to respond to simon blackburn’s lsquorule-following and moral realismrsquo, in steven holtzman and christopher leich (eds.), wittgenstein: to follow a rule, routledge and kegan paul, london, boston and henley, 1981, pp. 163187; i was stimulated also, in writing the first draft, by an unpublished paper of blackburn’s called lsquorule-followingrsquo. i have been greatly helped by comments on the first draft from margaret gilbert, susan hurley, saul kripke, david lewis, christopher peacocke, philip pettit, david wiggins, and crispin wright, who also kindly let me see a draft of his lsquokripke’s wittgensteinrsquo, a paper presented to the seventh wittgenstein symposium at kirchberg, austria, in august 1982, and forthcoming in the journal of philosophy.”
