Book Review: Jean-François Lyotard, Pourquoi philosopher?

The posthumous Pourquoi Philosopher? collects Jean-François Lyotard’s previously unpublished four-part introductory course in philosophy, delivered to students of the Sorbonne in 1964. The interest of this text is both historical (appearing at an important juncture in French thought) and meta-philosophical (answering the question "why philosophize?" in such a way that a philosophy of philosophy - or rather several - is offered for consideration). The text will be of interest to readers of various levels of philosophical sophistication

Heidegger without Man?: The Ontological Basis of Lyotard’s Later Antihumanism

The author argues thatJean-François Lyotard’s later antihumanism may be plausibly read as aradicalization of Heidegger’s, on the grounds that a) the philosophy of Beingas Event or Ereignis forms theontological basis of Lyotard’s antihumanism, and b) Lyotard reconfigures theplace of the human being vis-à-vis the revelation of Being – specifically,denying that humankind is the clearing in which Being reveals itself, andtherefore a privileged zone of dispensation. Rather, Being as Ereignis – linguistically cashed out forLyotard, as phrases – structures the human being completely, denying humanmastery of language and thereby decentring human beings as subjects of ethics

Book Review: Julia Kristeva, The Severed Head: Capital Visions

The following reviews Kristeva's 2011 text on artistic, cultural, and political uses of images of severed heads

Claire Pagès, Lyotard et l’aliénation

Review of Claire Pagès, Lyotard et l'aliénatio

Putting the Ghost into Language: Cartesian Echoes in Contemporary French Medical Humanism

This article offers a definition of medical humanism and identifies four key contemporary medical humanists in France. It then makes two claims about the historical provenance of their humanism. First, they define it in opposition to a process of iatric medicalization that they trace to certain conceptual errors made by Descartes. But second, they remain more Cartesian than they seem to realize because they accept Descartes's knotting together of humanity, ethics and language. By looking at Gori and Del Volgo, Roudinesco and Ricoeur, the author is able to show how French medical humanism repeats the Cartesian gesture of locating humanity in language - thus facing the problem of the moral standing of so-called "marginal" human persons and non-human animal persons. The author concludes with a call to radicalize French medical humanism in pursuit of a more inclusive medical "personism"

Was Levinas an Antiphilosopher? Archi-ethics and the Jewish Experience of the Prisoner

This paper explores Levinas’s Carnets de captivité and Écrits sur la captivité in light of Badiou’s category of ‘antiphilosophy’. We make four movements: firstly, a description of what antiphilosophy is; secondly, an explanation of why the category of antiphilosophy is important to a reading of Levinas; thirdly, an exposition of the antiphilosophical elements of the Carnets and Écrits on captivity; and fourthly, we situate our reading of the notebooks within the larger context of Levinas’s post-captivity work.

<Note>Use of a novel human object as a masturbatory tool by a wild male chimpanzee at Bulindi, Uganda

ファイル差し替え（2021/10/11

From Forest to Farm: Systematic Review of Cultivar Feeding by Chimpanzees – Management Implications for Wildlife in Anthropogenic Landscapes

Crop-raiding is a major source of conflict between people and wildlife globally, impacting local livelihoods and impeding conservation. Conflict mitigation strategies that target problematic wildlife behaviours such as crop-raiding are notoriously difficult to develop for large-bodied, cognitively complex species. Many crop-raiders are generalist feeders. In more ecologically specialised species crop-type selection is not random and evidence-based management requires a good understanding of species' ecology and crop feeding habits. Comprehensive species-wide studies of crop consumption by endangered wildlife are lacking but are important for managing human–wildlife conflict. We conducted a comprehensive literature search of crop feeding records by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), a ripe-fruit specialist. We assessed quantitatively patterns of crop selection in relation to species-specific feeding behaviour, agricultural exposure, and crop availability. Crop consumption by chimpanzees is widespread in tropical Africa. Chimpanzees were recorded to eat a considerable range of cultivars (51 plant parts from 36 species). Crop part selection reflected a species-typical preference for fruit. Crops widely distributed in chimpanzee range countries were eaten at more sites than sparsely distributed crops. We identified ‘high’ and ‘low’ conflict crops according to their attractiveness to chimpanzees, taking account of their importance as cash crops and/or staple foods to people. Most (86%) high conflict crops were fruits, compared to 13% of low conflict crops. Some widely farmed cash or staple crops were seldom or never eaten by chimpanzees. Information about which crops are most frequently consumed and which are ignored has enormous potential for aiding on-the-ground stakeholders (i.e. farmers, wildlife managers, and conservation and agricultural extension practitioners) develop sustainable wildlife management schemes for ecologically specialised and protected species in anthropogenic habitats. However, the economic and subsistence needs of local people, and the crop-raiding behaviour of sympatric wildlife, must be considered when assessing suitability of particular crops for conflict prevention and mitigation

Wild chimpanzees show group differences in selection of agricultural crops

UID/ANT/04038/2013The ability of wild animals to respond flexibly to anthropogenic environmental changes, including agriculture, is critical to survival in human-impacted habitats. Understanding use of human foods by wildlife can shed light on the acquisition of novel feeding habits and how animals respond to human-driven land-use changes. Little attention has focused on within-species variation in use of human foods or its causes. We examined crop-feeding in two groups of wild chimpanzees-a specialist frugivore-with differing histories of exposure to agriculture. Both groups exploited a variety of crops, with more accessible crops consumed most frequently. However, crop selection by chimpanzees with long-term exposure to agriculture was more omnivorous (i.e., less fruit-biased) compared to those with more recent exposure, which ignored most non-fruit crops. Our results suggest chimpanzees show increased foraging adaptations to cultivated landscapes over time; however, local feeding traditions may also contribute to group differences in crop-feeding in this species. Understanding the dynamic responses of wildlife to agriculture can help predict current and future adaptability of species to fast-changing anthropogenic landscapes.publishersversionpublishe