bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Can Truth Out?
Authors: Burgess John
Published: September 2010

It is rather discouraging that forty years have passed since Frederic Fitch first propounded his paradox of knowability without philosophers having achieved agreement on a solution. As a general rule, when modal phenomena prove puzzling, it is a good idea to look at the corresponding temporal phenomena. This chapter examines not the knowability principle that whatever is true can be known, but rather the discovery principle that whatever is true will be known.
Tennant's Troubles
Authors: Williamson Timothy
Published: September 2010

In The Taming of the True (1997), Neil Tennant objects to the specific intuitionistic anti-realist response to Fitch envisaged by the author, and proposes his own alternative responses, still of a broadly intuitionistic anti-realist kind. In response (2000b), the author argued that both Tennant's objections and his alternatives fail, and that the result illustrates a more general point: that moderate forms of anti-realism tend to be the least stable. Tennant replied at length (2001a). For some time the author thought that the problems with his 2001 reply were sufficiently evident to make any further response from me unnecessary. Later experience has taught him otherwise. This chapter shows that Tennant's reply fails completely to meet the difficulties raised in 2000. Since his reply engages with many details of that paper (2000b), while missing the relevance of some of the most crucial ones, the most efficient course is to rehearse the arguments of that paper, interspersing them with discussion of Tennant's objections as they arise. Thus the present chapter constitutes a self-standing critique of Tennant's treatment of the Fitch paradox that properly includes its predecessor.
The Mystery of the Disappearing Diamond
Authors: Jenkins C. S.
Published: September 2010

This chapter agrees that the knowability principle fails as an expression of anti-realism. It takes issue with Kvanvig (2006), in which it is argued that the real paradoxicality of Fitch's proof is the modal collapse that occurs in the reasoning from the knowability principle to the omniscience principle.
Introduction
Authors: Cardwell Michael
Published: September 2010

This introductory chapter outlines the extent to which GM crops are grown throughout the globe, together with the arguments advanced in their favour. It also outlines differing approaches to regulation, with certain countries favouring precaution and others treating GM food as substantially equivalent to conventional food. There is suggestion that several regulatory regimes (including that of the European Union) contain internal contradictions. An overview of the fifteen chapters in the book is presented.
Genetically Modified Organisms and Risk
Authors: Morrow Karen
Published: September 2010

This chapter considers the concept of risk as it applies to the regulation of GMOs. In so doing, it examines the oftentimes problematic, yet still dominant, hybrid scientific and political character of risk regulation in the arena of agricultural biotechnology and its legal ramifications. The dominance of technocracy and difficulties of constructing viable inter-disciplinary dialogue are also discussed. Further, the chapter considers the problems experienced in attempting to invoke greater public participation as a regulatory response to engaging with and determining acceptable levels of risk, something that is increasingly viewed as a contested concept. A central point of discussion is the role of law in dealing with the disputes that inevitably arise in so controversial a field.
The European Union Regulatory Regime for Genetically Modified Organisms and its Integration into Community Food Law and Policy
Authors: Friant-Perrot Marine
Published: September 2010

The European Union has now put in place an extensive regime for the regulation of GMOs and this chapter provides an overview of that regime. In particular, it maps out the legislation which governs: the contained use of GMOs, the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment and their placing on the market, GM food and feed, and traceability and labelling. At a broader level, it also assesses the extent to which these specific measures have been integrated into wider European Union policy on food law. It focuses their interaction with the Food Law Regulation, the role of the precautionary principle, and the provision of information for consumers and civil society.
Coexistence of Genetically Modified, Conventional, and Organic Crops in the European Union: The Community Framework
Authors: Grossman Margaret Rosso
Published: September 2010

Increased global cultivation of GM crops raises concerns about the coexistence of GM varieties with conventional and organic crops. In the European Union, where few GM crops are grown, GM content that exceeds strict regulatory thresholds triggers requirements for labelling and traceability. Successful coexistence measures can minimize GM presence and avoid those labelling and traceability requirements. Though the European Union does not impose standards for coexistence, a 2003 Commission Recommendation lays down guidelines for Member State strategies and best practices. Member States have enacted (or will enact) coexistence measures, including education, notification, and on-farm practices. Significant issues related to coexistence include limits on GM content in seeds, the effects of GMOs on organic production, the legality of GM-free areas in the European Union, and liability for damage caused by commingling of GM and other crops.
Coexistence of Genetically Modified, Conventional, and Organic Crops in the European Union: National Implementation
Authors: Bodiguel Luc , Cardwell Michael , García Ana Carretero , Vitti Domenico
Published: September 2010

Within the framework imposed at European Union level, Member States have taken advantage of the considerable discretion which they are accorded when implementing coexistence measures at national level. This divergence is examined by reference to four Member States: France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. While there may be important similarities in approach (for example, in all four Member States the choice has been taken to regulate by legislative means), there are also notable differences. In France, the emphasis is on freedom of cropping, with the result that actions seeking to impose GM-free zones, whether initiated by organic producers or local authorities, have met with little success. In Italy, until recently, there has been a legislative impasse by reason of a battle for competence between the state and the regions. In Spain, a draft Royal Decree has been promulgated, but it remains to be implemented, and several of its measures have already proved controversial. In the United Kingdom, the devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales have shown marked hostility to GMOs, while, more generally, the slow pace of legislative progress may be attributed to the absence of immediate intent to proceed to commercialization of GM crops.
Genetically Modified Organisms in Africa: Regulating a Threat or an Opportunity?
Authors: Birhanu Fikremarkos Merso
Published: September 2010

Modern biotechnology has promised much for agriculture, and these promises are certainly attractive in the case of Africa. Importantly, a number of countries in the continent continue to grapple with food insecurity and starvation. But it remains controversial whether modern biotechnology, in its current state, can overcome these unique challenges. For reasons such as biosafety and fear of loss of export markets, Africa has remained largely ambivalent towards GM crops, and the regulatory regimes governing biosafety in several countries largely restrict their development. While recognizing some of the hurdles which modern biotechnology must clear before it can deliver its promises, this chapter argues that the continent stands to benefit from promoting the development and safe use of GM crops. It further argues that African countries should invest heavily in research and development, with a view to owning the technology and ensuring relevance to their circumstances. This should be the guiding objective of biosafety regulation in Africa.
The Stoics on Matter and Prime Matter
Authors: Gourinat Jean‐Baptiste
Published: September 2010

This chapter contends that Stoics are materialists if, and only if, their theory fulfils the two following conditions: (1) their system must be materialistic monism; and (2) the ‘inferior reality’ must account for the ‘superior reality’, according to the formula that encapsulates Auguste Comte's theory of materialism. It is precisely the case that the Stoics have two principles, god and matter, and this seems to settle the question. However, the issue is more complicated than that, since the two principles are corporeal. Stoic theory of matter seems to be a disguised monism, i.e. a kind of materialism. Matter (as the ‘inferior reality’) accounts for god (as the ‘superior reality’), since god appears to be engendered by matter, which is the only ultimate principle. It is argued that the Stoic doctrine of matter is a reinterpretation of the doctrine of matter or ‘receptacle’ in Plato's Timaeus and of Aristotle's theory of matter. If read like this, the Stoic theory of matter does not appear as materialistic, but nor is it dualist; it is not materialist in the sense that things are not explained by the movements and combination of passive matter, but it is not dualist in the sense that both principles are bodies.
Does Cosmic Nature Matter?
Authors: Boeri Marcelo D.
Published: September 2010

This chapter is divided into two main parts: the first one (sections 2-3) deals with some textual arguments intending to show that some assumptions of what is referred to as ‘the heterodox view’ are wrong. The second part (sections 4-5) focuses on what probably is the most problematic point of the cosmological ethics of the Stoics: how the particular tenets of Stoic ethics are related to cosmic nature or, in other words, how some ethical tenets can be somehow connected with our knowledge of cosmic nature.
Stoic Philosophical Theology and Graeco‐Roman Religion
Authors: Algra Keimpe
Published: September 2010

This chapter examines some aspects of the philosophical attitude of the Stoics, early as well as later, vis- à-vis traditional religion. It first addresses some preliminary issues, such as the epistemological basis of Stoic philosophical theology (section 2), and the Stoic view or views of the development of human civilization (sections 3 and 4). In the course of this discussion, the chapter mainly deals with the Stoic attitude towards myth. Whereas some aspects of this attitude — in particular the Stoic practice of etymologization and allegorizing readings — have been given considerable attention in recent scholarly literature, this does not apply to the subject of sections 5 and 6, where the Stoics' attitude towards various aspects of traditional cult is considered. Conclusions are drawn in section 7.
The Property Dualism Argument
Authors: White Stephen L.
Published: September 2010

Contemporary physicalists, materialists, and naturalists generally hold two theses: that mental states such as pains are identical to physical states of the brain, and that these identities are a posteriori. The property dualism argument raises a problem for such mental-physical identities. Suppose that pains are identical with c-fiber firings. That the identity is a posteriori means that a subject could be perfectly rational in believing what would be naturally expressed by saying ‘I am in pain’ and what would be naturally expressed by saying ‘My c-fibers are not firing’. There is, however, a pervasive ambiguity in the literature as to what is meant by ‘mode of presentation’ — whether it is representational, something on the side of our language, beliefs, or conceptual scheme, or something on the side of the world, something represented. This chapter argues that the assumption that we have a meaningful vocabulary of mentalistic terms such as ‘pain’ entails that there are modes of presentation of both kinds — concepts and the properties that give those concepts their content. And the properties that give such concepts content are thin. Thus, they confer no empirically discoverable nature on the objects that instantiate them. It concludes that there must be some irreducibly mentalistic properties — properties not identical to any physical properties — and that this is a consequence of the assumptions made by the proponents of a posteriori mental-physical identities themselves.The alternative is ‘local eliminativism’. This view is unstable — it collapses into straightforward eliminativism regarding the mental, which is incompatible with the qualia realism of the proponents of a posteriori mental-physical identities.
Kripke's Argument Against Materialism
Authors: Hirsch Eli
Published: September 2010

This chapter defends Saul Kripke's argument. The basic principle underlying the argument is that if a sentence contains only terms that pick out their referents essentially then, if the sentence expresses a necessary truth, it is impossible for people in our epistemic situation to be mistaken in asserting the sentence. It seems clear that people in our epistemic situation might be mistaken in asserting the sentences that materialists assert as necessary truths. The option available to materialists is to claim that physicalist terms do not pick out their referents essentially. But that leads to an implausible view of physical reality akin to idealism.
You are Simple
Authors: Barnett David
Published: September 2010

This chapter argues that unlike your brain, you are not composed of other things: you are simple. The argument centers on what he takes to be an uncontroversial datum: for any pair of conscious beings, it is impossible for the pair itself to be conscious. Consider for instance the pair comprising you and me. You might pinch your arm and feel a pain. I might simultaneously pinch my arm and feel a qualitatively identical pain. But the pair we form would not feel a thing. For pairs of people are themselves incapable of experience. What explains this datum? The following exhaust the reasonable options: (1) Pairs of people lack a sufficient number of immediate parts. (2) Pairs of people lack immediate parts of the right nature. (3) Pairs of people lack immediate parts capable of standing in the right sorts of relations to each other and their environment. (4) Pairs of people have no essential structure (they are mere collections of their two immediate parts). Finally, (5) pairs of people have proper parts. The chapter defends (5). The defense rests in part on an argument that no combination of (1)-(4) can explain the datum.
An Argument from Transtemporal Identity for Subject–Body Dualism
Authors: Nida‐Rümelin Martine
Published: September 2010

Subject body dualism is the view that conscious individuals (including human and non-human animals) are neither identical nor constituted by material things. An argument in favor of subject body dualism is developed which is based on a description of conceptual features of first person thought. This chapter argues that certain central conceptual features of first person thought carry over to the way we conceive of the future and the past of other conscious individuals and their identity across time. These conceptual features are deeply incorporated into the way we perceive each other and into our emotional attitudes. An indirect argument for subject body dualism is developed which is distinct from conceivability arguments: any alternative to subject body dualism implies that we suffer from a permanent and ubiquitous illusion in our cognitive and emotional life. The version of subject body dualism defended has no religious motivation, presupposition or consequences.
Burge's Dualism
Authors: Kobes Bernard W.
Published: September 2010

Dualist themes in Burge's philosophy of mind are gathered and articulated. Burge's anti-individualism yields an argument against token-identity theory; his reflections on mental causation have a dualist flavor; and he doubts that the relation of mental events to neural events is one of composition or constitution. This chapter argues that compositional materialism about representational mental events would be false just in case a ‘mathematical archangel’, starting from a base of fundamental material facts, could not discern as causally salient the neural event underlying a representational event prior to identifying the representational mental event as such and its causal relations. Burge's doubts about neural composition of the mental could thus be empirically confirmed.
Nonreductive Physicalism or Emergent Dualism? The Argument from Mental Causation
Authors: O'Connor Timothy , Churchill John Ross
Published: September 2010

This chapter presents a version of the causal exclusion challenge to non-reductive physicalism, one that is explicitly directed at non-reductive physicalists who adopt an ontology of causal powers. After reviewing some considerations in favor of a causal powers metaphysic, it presents its exclusion argument and defends it against recent attempts by Shoemaker and Gillett to overcome exclusion without sacrificing causal powers or non-reductive physicalism. The lesson is that if irreducible mental properties are to be efficacious in a way that is consonant with a causal powers metaphysic, these properties cannot be the realized entities postulated by the non-reductive physicalist. The chapter ends with a sketch of an alternative to non-reductive physicalism that preserves both the causal powers ontology and the irreducibility and efficacy of mental properties. On this alternative, mental properties are unrealized, ontologically emergent features of their subjects.
Dualistic Materialism
Authors: Almog Joseph
Published: September 2010

This chapter defends a position that is both dualistic (recognizing the distinctness and the difference in nature between mental and physical events) and materialistic (in the sense of positing a natural or essential connection between the two types of phenomena). It insists that our common sense (or ‘marketplace’ view embraces both a duality and a necessary connection intuition, unlike either substance dualism or philosophical materialism. On this chapter's view, there can be (contra Hume) necessary connections between distinct existences, whenever the distinct existences have correlative or coordinated natures. The chapter provides examples from mathematics of correlated natures linking distinct numbers or sets to one another, or sets to non-sets (such as singleton sets and their members). The correlated natures of biological species and their individual members provides another example. The chapter argues that since there is only one cosmos, the nature of each type and token must be correlated with that of the generative process responsible for its coming into being, providing just the sort of necessary connection between mental and physical phenomena required by common sense.
Against Methodological Materialism
Authors: Menuge Angus J. L.
Published: September 2010

‘Nature’ is ambiguous and may or may not include teleological causes. Materialism, however, clearly states that all phenomena can be explained by undirected causes. Methodological materialism (MM) unequivocally denies the legitimacy of teleological explanation and thereby excludes any form of Intelligent Design from science. When enforced as a policy of science education, MM silences those teachers who wish to present evidence challenging the adequacy of undirected causes. Apologists for MM provide a number of supporting rationales. It is claimed that design: is objectionably unobservable, violates a ‘publicity’ condition on scientific evidence, precludes general, law-based explanation, is a ‘science stopper’, is an argument from ignorance, fails to provide a mechanism, is ‘intractable’, is not ‘controllable’, is empirically sterile, makes no practical difference to science, and, in any case, has been decisively refuted. This chapter argues that none of these claims is a good reason to exclude design from science. It suggests that both Methodological Materialism and Methodological Design can have provisional value, but that the best overarching principle for science is Methodological Realism: allowing the iconoclastic nature of reality itself to judge the effectiveness of our provisional methodologies.
Materialism Does Not Save the Phenomena—and the Alternative Which Does
Authors: Meixner Uwe
Published: September 2010

This chapter offers a version of Cartesian dualism that draws on the resources of a Husserlian account of intentionality. For example, it argues that ‘I can locate myself at the point in space from which I am looking at the world (my ‘center of perspective’)’. It relies on empirical phenomenology to show that this location that does not correspond to my body or any part of it. Phantom sensations provide confirming evidence. Next, the chapter uses the example of blurred (versus sharp) vision to provide evidence of qualitative properties that cannot be instantiated within the physical world. Finally, it argues that the self's endurance through calls for explanation in terms of patterns of psychophysical causation or interaction.
1 Introduction
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

Why is it important to study the genesis of bills of rights? Alongside symbolizing a society's understandings of some of its most important rights and values, this chapter argues that a bill of rights has significant direct effects at least within advanced democracies with an adequate ‘support structure’ for rights litigation. It sum, the presence and type of bill of rights can critically effect whether power is constituted and controlled via ordinary political institutions (political constitutionalism) or whether decisions are controlled through a legalized judicial process (legal constitutionalism). Despite this, the socio‐political origins of bills of rights have rarely been systematically studied. This chapter forwards the case for studying the historically largely common but recently highly divergent experiences of four Westminster democracies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) in order to build up an understanding of bill of rights genesis in internally stable, advanced democratic settings. The chapter also provides a brief outline of the postmaterialist trigger thesis explanation which developed out of this study.
2 The origins of bills of rights: concepts and comparative development
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

This chapter defines bills of rights as instruments giving an overarching legal status to a broad set of fundamental human or civil rights. It then argues that, despite this common shape, bills of rights differ significantly in terms of their designed strength and nature. This divergence can be usefully captured by the variable of bill of rights institutionalization (BORI). This new quantifiable measure is based on the instrument's legal status, its rigidity, and the scope of its rights protection. BORI scores are calculated for thirty‐six democracies and correlated against a number of possible determinants of bill of rights outcomes. Not adopting a bill of rights during political transition (e.g. independence) and having a British heritage are both strongly correlated with low BORI scores. All the Westminster democracies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – share both these characteristics. The chapter closes by providing a précis three factors which make close qualitative study of these four cases particularly interesting: (a) very low average BORI scores, (b) a common trend towards adoption of a bill of rights, and (c) substantial divergence in BORI between the cases.
3 Theorizing the origins of bills of rights
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

The first part of this chapter explores in detail the Postmaterialist Trigger Thesis (PTT) explanation of bill of rights genesis in internally stable, advanced democracies. It argues that, as a result of postmaterialist socio‐economic change, background pressure for a bill of rights has increased. Nevertheless, by enhancing judicial power, the bill of rights genesis continues to conflict with the prima facie positional interests of the political elite. Therefore, the supply of a bill of rights also requires a contingent political trigger which provides actors with an immediate rationale for change. Two such triggers – the ‘aversive’ and the ‘threat to political stability’ – are outlined. The second part of the chapter explores existing theories in the literature which relate to, but may also conflict with, the PTT. Specific theories discussed include, in relation to the background pressure aspect of the PTT, constructivist theory, institutionalist theory, transnational diffusion theory, and the Knowledge Class Thesis, and, in relation to the contingent trigger or supply‐side aspects, neo‐marxist theory, Political Insurance Thesis, and the Hegemonic Preservation Thesis.
4 Canada and the Canadian Bill of Rights Act (1960)
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

This chapter forwards a new socio‐political explanation for the genesis of the Canadian Bill of Rights Act (CBORA) (1960). Following a brief chronological overview, the first part of the chapter explores the origins of increased social support for a bill of rights in Canada from the mid‐1930s onwards. It argues that demands for such an instrument arose out of the civil libertarian and social equality communities and that these communities were given added political saliency by the gradual postmaterialization of the Canadian economy and society. Nevertheless, this factor alone, cannot explain the precocious development of such pressures in Canada vis‐à‐vis other Westminster democracies. Explanations of this which focus either on international human rights developments or on the federal features of the Canadian political system are rejected. By contrast, it is found that Canada's particularly close cultural and people‐to‐people linkages with the bill of rights‐infused United States did prove important. The final part of the chapter explores the immediate political origins of CBORA. It is found that this was fuelled by the ‘aversive’ response of key Progressive Conservatives to the perceived abuses of procedural rights and other guarantees under the previous Liberal Government. Combined with the social forces already mentioned, the nature and strength of this trigger strongly influenced both the substantive content and statutory structure of CBORA.
5 Canada and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

This chapter examines the socio‐political genesis of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). The first part of the chapter examines the immediate political origins of this instrument. It is found that, as an elite federal political project, the Charter was triggered by a felt need to create a new unifying institution to counter the centrifugal forces of Québécois nationalism. The powerful, largely self‐interested, and prospective nature of this ‘threat to political stability’ trigger encouraged elites to push for a fully constitutional instrument, something which was largely achieved. This trigger also led to a substantive focus on protecting rights integral to building up a pan‐Canadian identity including, most particularly, intra‐provincial anglophone and francophone linguistic rights. The second part of the chapter explores background social pressure for a constitutional bill of rights during this time. It is found that civil libertarians and social equality seekers, both given added political saliency by the continuing postmaterialization of the Canadian economy and society, were critical advocates of a constitutional bill of rights, helping the federal government defeat counter‐mobilization by recalcitrant provincial premiers. In turn, these groups critically structured many of the most important substantive aspects of the Charter. The chapter closes by considering the origins of the aboriginal rights protections and the absence of a right to private property within the Charter.
6 New Zealand and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (1990)
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

This chapter considers the socio‐politics of bill of rights debates and outcomes in New Zealand. The first part of the chapter focuses on the unsuccessful proposals for a bill of rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This debate was triggered politically by a felt need to strengthen institutional checks following abolition of the upper house. However, the trigger was very weak and never pointed specifically to the need for a bill of rights. Meanwhile, strong social support for such an instrument was confined to the neo‐liberal Constitutional Society. Postmaterialist rights groups were ill‐developed and, in any case, largely adhered to traditional Westminster precepts. The second part examines the very different debate of the 1980s which led to the statutory New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBOR). This was politically prompted by a more focused ‘aversive’ reaction against the perceived authoritarianism of Robert Muldoon's National administration. Meanwhile, postmaterialist rights groups were not only better developed by this stage but also more open to formalizing rights guarantees. Nevertheless, the relatively weak, backward‐looking nature of the political trigger combined with a continued societal belief in parliamentary sovereignty shaped and limited the nature of reform. Both parts of the chapter include detailed discussion of the particular role of the Māori including analysis of the failure to include special protections for indigenous rights with NZBOR.
8 Australia and the failure of national bill of rights genesis
Authors: Erdos David
Published: September 2010

This chapter explores the contours of bill of rights debates and outcomes in Australia. The first part of the chapter demonstrates that, similarly to the situation in other Westminster democracies, pressure for a bill of rights has been emerged from the 1960s from a constituency of civil liberty and social equality seekers, given added political saliency by the postmaterialization of the Australian economy and society. The second part then explores the puzzle of why, uniquely, no such initiatives have proved successful. An explanation based on the alleged special weakness of background pressure for such a reform is rejected. Instead, it is argued that two features of Australian politics have blocked the supply of a bill of rights in this case. Firstly, Australia's strong institutional fragmentation compared at least with the United Kingdom and New Zealand have raised the bar which elite supporters of a bill of rights have to surpass in order to bring this project to fruition. Secondly, and more importantly, during relevant periods of its history, Australia has lacked a clear political trigger providing elites and others with an immediate impetus for change. The chapter closes with a brief consideration of the prospects for bill of rights genesis, following the return of the Rudd Labor Government in 2007.
4 The Body Politic: The Ethics of Responsibility and the Responsibility of Ethics
Authors: O'Brien Eugene
Published: September 2010

This chapter discusses the ethical implications of the choice made by Antigone in terms of loyalty to her family or loyalty to her polis. It does this through the prism of Jacques Derrida's ideas on responsibility and irresponsibility. For Derrida, to be responsible to one is of necessity to be irresponsible to the other, so the choice made by Antigone is a synecdoche of the ethical dilemma of all such choices. Examples are adduced in the chapter to underline this point: the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, the Northern Irish IRA hunger striker Francis Hughes, Robert McCartney, murdered by the IRA in Belfast.
7 One Amongst Many: The Ethical Significance of Antigone and the Films of Lars Von Trier
Authors: Neill Calum
Published: September 2010

Like Sophocles' Antigone, the work of Lars von Trier is often called upon to illustrate a point regarding ethics. Among those who so use these works are many Lacanians, such as Žižek, and, indeed, Lacan himself draws on Antigone in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. What needs to be clarified, however, is that Lacan does not, in his discussion of ethics, point to Antigone as an example of the ethical. Rather, he utilizes Antigone to discuss how ethics functions always subjectively. That is to say, for Lacan, key to understanding ethics is an understanding of the act in relation to desire. In drawing this lesson out of Lacan's seminar, Lacan's notion of ethics, his treatment of Antigone, and also, by extension, what it is that makes von Trier's films so ethically significant and amongst the most important film works of our time, can be better understood.
10 Antigone and the Law: Legal Theory and the Ambiguities of Performance
Authors: Tindemans Klaas
Published: September 2010

This chapter focuses on the importance of a legal‐theoretical framework for any dramaturgy for performances of Antigone, probably Sophocles' most discussed tragedy today. Her ‘unwritten laws’ have been, in various stages in the history of legal thinking, quoted to underpin very different theories: principles of natural law, outlines of a constitutional framework, or a purely formal ‘transcendental category’ in Kant's sense. This dramaturgy should reflect upon the gap between the legalistic framework in ancient Athens and modern concepts of jurisprudence. Recent productions of Sophocles' Antigone in Flanders and the Netherlands, representative of contemporary theatrical practices, are analysed from this point of interest. The central inquiry in this respect deals with the way a legal‐philosophical argument generates a theatrical plus‐value of performances. Does the concept of law matter on stage today, as it obviously did in the case of Antigone's persona in ancient Athens?
12 Antigone with(out) Jocaste
Authors: Ettinger Bracha L.
Published: September 2010

The chapter is the third in a series of essays the author has dedicated to Antigone, starting from 1996. This chapter deals with the mother‐and‐daughter matrixial web, and more specifically with the question of the psychic scars left inside the particular Jocaste‐with‐Antigone matrixial web. As a result of tears in this (Jocaste‐with‐Antigone) particular web, the womb‐space turns into a grave‐space. The chapter addresses Lacan's Seminar VII on Ethics and Judith Butler's Antigone's Claim. The author argues that this foreclosed maternal instance stands for the foreclosure of traces of child abandonment (of Jocaste's abandonment of Oedipus). This leads to further elaboration of what Ettinger has elsewhere named the Primal fantasy of the Abandoning Mother. This Primal fantasy is placed in relation to what she has seen as the two other Primal fantasies concerning the maternal figure: the Devouring Mother and the Not‐enough Mother. This chapter examines the possibility of the resultant feminine sacrifice (Antigone's burial alive and Jocaste's suicide: a mother‐and‐daughter destruction, to the glorifying of the death drive, etc.) being transformed into psychic feminine solace in the service of Life. Ettinger elaborates the potentiality for an analytical working‐through of transgenerational trauma in the case of Jocaste‐with‐Antigone.
14 Antigone and her Brother: What Sort of Special Relationship?
Authors: Torrance Isabelle
Published: September 2010

The Antigone who is familiar from Sophocles, and from later interpretations, is often held up as a positive model for courageous action against an oppressive régime. However, there is a disturbing quality to Antigone's relationship with her brother, Polyneices, which is apparent even in Sophocles and has often been underplayed. This chapter draws attention to several ancient representations of Antigone's relationship with Polyneices, from authors such as Euripides, Seneca, and Statius. These are used to contextualize later receptions of Antigone's legacy in France, in Jean de Rotrou's seventeenth‐century Antigone and André Gide's twentieth‐century Œdipe, in order to highlight an alternative presentation of Antigone as a deeply troubled young woman whose all but incestuous relationship with her brother causes her to reject the natural course of married life.
17 Speed and Tragedy in Cocteau and Sophocles
Authors: Kirkland Sean D.
Published: September 2010

In this chapter, Kirkland suggests that Antigone does indeed undergo the recognition and reversal Aristotle requires of great tragic figures, not with respect to her end or aim, but with respect to the speed of her action in the play. First, he looks briefly at Cocteau's fast‐paced ‘contraction’ of Sophocles' original, finding speed highlighted as the tragic itself. Next he turns to Sophocles, finding that Antigone's praxis exhibits no hesitation and no true decision. Instead, she is presented from the outset as already having covered the distance from beginning to end. The well‐known Choral Ode to Human Beings then indicates that this infinite speed (distance divided by no time at all) is characteristic of the hubris of human action as such. In closing, Kirkland suggests that this tragic speed is disrupted only in Antigone's final scene, as her hesitation, her slowness indicates a subtle moment of reversal and recognition.
18 Politicizing Antigone
Authors: Fischer‐Lichte Erika
Published: September 2010

Three different productions of Antigone are investigated with regard to the way in which the aesthetic of each performance was related to its political context: (1) the Tieck/ Mendelssohn production in Potsdam in 1841, one year after Friedrich Wilhelm IV ascended to the throne and ushered in a new era in Prussia; (2) Karlheinz Stroux's production in Berlin in 1940, the second year of World War II, and (3) Christoph Nel's production in Frankfurt upon Main in 1978, taking place at the time of the trial against the terrorist Red Army Faction in Stuttgart‐Stammheim, the suicide of the defendants in prison, and their funeral. It is argued that in all three cases it was the special relationship between stage and auditorium that brought about the politicization of the performances in their distinctive contexts, not so much because of a specific reading of the tragedy they conveyed, but primarily due to their particular aesthetic.
19 From Ancient Greek Drama to Argentina's ‘Dirty War’; Antígona Furiosa: On Bodies and the State
Authors: Nelli María Florencia
Published: September 2010

Griselda Gambaro's play Antígona Furiosa was written and staged after Gambaro's exile as a consequence of Argentina's so‐called ‘Dirty War’ in the mid‐1970s. This chapter discusses Gambaro's play, taking into account some of Giorgio Agamben's thoughts in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and The State of Exception (2005). Concepts such as ‘state of exception’, ‘inclusion of the exclusion’, ‘threshold’, and ‘living dead man’, as well as the figure of the camp are approached, illustrated, and fully explored by Antígona Furiosa in so far as they are at the heart of the structure of all major modern totalitarian states, of which the Argentinean ‘Proceso’ with its thousands of desaparecidos is just a new example. This chapter seeks to examine those notions not only as they are represented in the script of the play but essentially as they are reflected in the design of the performance space.
20 Revolutionary Muse: Fémi Òsófisan's Tègònni: An African Antigone
Authors: Weyenberg Astrid Van
Published: September 2010

This chapter discusses a reworking of Antigone by Nigerian playwright Fémi Òsófisan: Tègònni: An African Antigone (1994). Focusing on the politics of adaptation, Van Weyenberg considers Òsófisan's decision to draw on Sophocles within the context of Nigeria, and analyses Antigone's representative value within her ‘new’ surroundings. The emphasis then shifts to the (meta)theatrical aesthetics that characterizes Antigone's cultural translocation and to the related political implications for Antigone's status as a Western canonical figure. In viewing Òsófisan's adaptation as a work of ‘canonical counter‐discourse’, Van Weyenberg argues that it is not so much the canonical text itself at which Òsófisan's attention is directed, but rather the Eurocentric tradition that has claimed Antigone, and Greek tragedy in general, as its point of origin. Òsófisan's metatheatrical translocation of Antigone to Nigeria allows him to effectively demand shared ownership: Antigone no longer exclusively belongs to Europe.
21 Performing Antigone in the Twenty‐First Century
Authors: Wilmer S. E.
Published: September 2010

This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of homo sacer, and then applies this analogy in a more detailed discussion of Seamus Heaney's version of The Burial at Thebes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004. Heaney's version was inspired by President Bush's ‘war on terror’ and the detention and ‘rendition’ of suspected terrorists in prisons beyond legal redress. The language deployed in the play echoed statements made by President Bush and evoked his administration's unwarranted invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners. By comparing recent versions of Antigone that represent her as homo sacer, subjected to a liminal state between life and death, the chapter demonstrates how the ‘state of exception’ theorized by Georgio Agamben has become normalized in the twenty‐first century. It draws parallels between the ‘exceptional’ actions of governments such as the Bush administration and the Argentinian dictatorship, making up the laws as they go along, removing people from their homes and environment, and incarcerating or disposing of them outside the polis, outside the reach of their friends and families. Moreover, it shows that Western governments are taking advantage of the ‘war on terror’ to develop new methods of social control (such as increased security measures by the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including more intensive customs inspections, omnipresent CCTV cameras, heightened threat alerts, etc.) that deprive citizens of their civil rights. By applying Agamben's notions of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘state of exception’ to these adaptations, as well as Slavoj Žižek's and Judith Butler's comments on recent political developments, it demonstrates the claim that Antigone makes on behalf of the disenfranchised of the world.
Quasiclassical Realms
Authors: Hartle Jim
Published: September 2010

The most striking observable feature of our indeterministic quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, and scale on which the deterministic laws of classical physics hold to an excellent approximation. This chapter describes how this domain of classical predictability of everyday experience emerges from a quantum theory of the universe's state and dynamics.
Chance in the Everett Interpretation
Authors: Saunders Simon
Published: September 2010

The concept of objective probability — chance — has three distinctive features: chances are measured by statistics, but only with high chance, increasing with the number of trials involved; when the chances of the outcomes of a chance process are known, even in the context of a single trial, then one's subjective probabilities — credences — in those outcomes should be set equal to those chances; and finally, chance processes involve uncertainty as to the outcomes of those processes. The second of these features is established for ratios in the squared norms of branches by the Born-rule theorem, proved in Chapter 8. This chapter shows that the first and third hold for those same quantities. All three characteristics of chance thus apply to branching in the Everett interpretation. In consequence, branching processes should be identified with chance processes, and ratios in the squared norms with chances.
A Fair Deal for Everettians
Authors: Papineau David
Published: September 2010

Those who criticize the Everett interpretation on the grounds that it makes no sense of probability apply a double-standard, for no other physical theory of probability does any better in explaining probability or in deriving its link with decision theory. In fact, others do worse, for in any one world theory it is a mystery as to why, given that only a single outcome of a chance process occurs, we should nevertheless act so as to maximize expected utilities, which involves all possible outcomes of a chance process. This difficulty does not apply to the Everett interpretation, in which all outcomes happen.
How to Prove the Born Rule
Authors: Wallace David
Published: September 2010

This chapter develops the decision-theoretic approach to quantum probability, originally proposed by David Deutsch, into a mathematically rigorous proof of the Born rule in (Everett interpreted) quantum mechanics. It sketches the argument informally, then proves it formally, and lastly considers a number of proposed ‘counter-examples’ to show exactly which premises of the argument they violate.
One World Versus Many: The Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation
Authors: Kent Adrian
Published: September 2010

There is a compelling intellectual case for exploring whether purely unitary quantum theory defines a sensible and scientifically adequate theory, as Everett originally proposed. Many different and incompatible attempts to define a coherent Everettian quantum theory have been made over the past fifty years. However, no known version of the theory (unadorned by extra ad hoc postulates) can account for the appearance of probabilities and explain why the theory it was meant to replace — Copenhagen quantum theory — appears to be confirmed, or more generally why our evolutionary history appears to be Born-rule typical. This chapter reviews some ingenious and interesting recent attempts in this direction by Wallace, Greaves–Myrvold, and others, and explains why they don't work. An account of one-world randomness, which appears scientifically satisfactory, and has no many-worlds analogue, is proposed. A fundamental obstacle to confirming many-worlds theories is illustrated by considering some toy many-worlds models. These models show that branch weights can exist without having any role in either rational decision-making or theory confirmation, and also that the latter two roles are logically separate. Wallace's proposed decision theoretic axioms for rational agents in a multiverse and claimed derivation of the Born rule are examined. It is argued that Wallace's strategy of axiomatizing a mathematically precise decision theory within a fuzzy Everettian quasiclassical ontology is incoherent. Moreover, Wallace's axioms are not constitutive of rationality either in Everettian quantum theory or in theories in which branchings and branch weights are precisely defined. In both cases, there exist coherent rational strategies that violate some of the axioms.
Probability in the Everett Picture
Authors: Albert David
Published: September 2010

This chapter reviews and criticizes various strategies for making sense of quantum-mechanical probability-talk in the context of Everett Picture, with particular attention to recent such strategies involving decision theory.
Rabid Dogma? Comments on Bub and Pitowsky
Authors: Timpson Christopher
Published: September 2010

The proposed interpretation, if it is to count as realism, must say more about the evolution of the state while the argument that more about its dynamics oughtn't to be said (given the no-broadcasting principle) is suggested to be unsound. Nor are the alleged dogmas of quantum mechanics dogmas — on the contrary, the fact that measurements cannot count as primitives is a consequence of realism, not a presupposition of it. And the parallel with special relativity cuts both ways: the dynamical explanations for the length contractions and time dilations demanded by Lorentz in special relativity must indeed be forthcoming, as Einstein later acknowledged. Finally, there is little in the proposed interpretation that is specifically information-theoretic.