Deconstructive Aporias: Quasi-Transcendental and Normative

This paper argues that Derrida’s aporetic conclusions regarding moral and political concepts, from hospitality to democracy, can only be understood and accepted if the notion of différance and similar infrastructures are taken into account. This is because it is the infrastructures that expose and commit moral and political practices to a double and conflictual (thus aporetic) future: the conditional future that projects horizonal limits and conditions upon the relation to others, and the unconditional future without horizons of anticipation. The argument thus turns against two kinds of interpretation: the first accepts normative unconditionality in ethics but misses its support by the infrastructures. The second rejects unconditionality as a normative commitment precisely because the infrastructural support for unconditionality seems to rule out that it is normatively required. In conclusion, the article thus reconsiders the relation between a quasi-transcendental argument and its normative implications, suggesting that Derrida avoids the naturalistic fallacy

Equal consideration of all – an aporetic project?

The article considers the relationships among three arguments that purport to establish the intrinsically contradictory or paradoxical nature of the modern project aiming at the equal consideration of all. The claim that the inevitable historical insertion of universal-egalitarian norms leads to always particular and untransparent interpretations of grammatically universal norms may be combined with the claim that the logic of determination of political communities tends to generate exclusions. The combination of these two claims lends specific force to the third argument according to which equal consideration perpetually requires the non-egalitarian project of understanding (excluded) individuals on their own terms. Hence, taking off from a recent debate between Christoph Menke and Jürgen Habermas, I argue that the former is right to diagnose an aporetic self-reflection in egalitarian universalism, while agreeing with the latter about the indispensability of deliberative democratic frameworks for the defence of both egalitarian and non-egalitarian norms

Tradition and Truth : Dilthey and Gadamer on the History of Philosophy

This paper deals with the views of the German philosophers Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) on the study of philosophy’s history. Gadamer criticizes Dilthey for relating to the Western philosophical tradition as if it were an object of purely historical interest lacking relevance to current concerns. Gadamer calls this approach to history historicism (Historismus). Indeed, Dilthey sometimes argued that metaphysical claims in the history of Western philosophy should not be understood in terms of how well (or badly) they capture their subject matters. Rather, they should be understood as unintended expressions (Ausdrücke) of their historical context. According to Gadamer, however, the history of philosophy should not be approached in this way. Gadamer agrees with historicism that thought depends on its historical context. But he nevertheless holds that historicism mistakenly sees this dependence as a reason for ignoring philosophical claims to validity. In this paper the completeness of Gadamer’s account of Dilthey is questioned. It is argued that Dilthey did not always assume that the question of the subject matter and truth of historical texts is subordinate to the question of their contextual sources.Upprättat; 2006; 20120229 (andode

To Alfred Deakin

To access publisher full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links fieldOBJECTIVE: To assess acute cardiorespiratory effects of recruitment manoeuvres in experimental acute lung injury. DESIGN: Experimental study in animal models of acute lung injury. SETTING: Experimental laboratory at a University Medical Centre. ANIMALS: Ten pigs with bronchoalveolar lavage and eight pigs with endotoxin-induced ALI. INTERVENTIONS: Two kinds of recruitment manoeuvres during 1 min; a) vital capacity manoeuvres (ViCM) consisting in a sustained inflation at 30 cmH(2)O and 40 cmH(2)O; b) manoeuvres obtained during ongoing pressure-controlled ventilation (PCRM) with peak airway pressure 30 cmH(2)O, positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) 15 and peak airway pressure 40, PEEP 20. Recruitment manoeuvres were repeated after volume expansion (dextran 8 ml/kg). Oxygenation, mean arterial, and pulmonary artery pressures, aortic, mesenteric, and renal blood flow were monitored. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Lower pressure recruitment manoeuvres (ViCM30 and PCRM30/15) did not significantly improve oxygenation. With ViCM and PCRM at peak airway pressure 40 cmH(2)O, PaO(2) increased to similar levels in both lavage and endotoxin groups. Aortic blood flow was reduced from baseline during PCRM40/20 and ViCM40 by 57+/-3% and 61+/-6% in the lavage group and by 57+/-8% and 82+/-7% (P<0.05 vs PCRM40/20) in endotoxin group. The decrease in blood pressure was less pronounced. Prior volume expansion attenuated circulatory impairment. After cessation of recruitment hemodynamic parameters were restored within 3 min. CONCLUSION: Effective recruitment resulted in systemic hypotension, pulmonary hypertension, and decrease in aortic blood flow especially in endotoxinemic animals. Circulatory depression may be attenuated using recruitment manoeuvres during ongoing pressure-controlled ventilation and by prior volume expansion

Wunderlich's 9th annual picnic Correy's Gardens, Parramatta River, Saturday 25th November, 1905.

Routine intracoronary thrombus aspiration before primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) has not been proved to reduce short-term mortality. We evaluated clinical outcomes at 1 year after thrombus aspiration