In this paper I explore some possible reasons why white feminists philosophers have failed to engage the radical work being done by non-Western women, U.S. women of color and scholars of color outside of the discipline. -/- Feminism and academic philosophy have had lots to say to one another. Yet part of what marks feminist philosophy as philosophy is our engagement with the intellectual traditions of the white forefathers. I’m not uncomfortable with these projects: Aristotle, Foucault, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Quine, (...) class='Hi'>Austin, and countless others have provided us with some very powerful conceptual tools.. However, as Sandra Harding observes, conventional standards for what counts as “good science” (or in this case “good philosophy”) always bear the imprint of their creators. So, I think about whether the tools my discipline hands me ever serve as strategies for exclusion. -/- My conversation begins with intersectionality, which for feminists working outside of philosophy, is a predictable point of departure; but as a white feminist philosopher I have specific reasons for starting here. The fact that intersectionality is, at once, such a widely recognized strategy for making visible women of color’s issues and concerns in academic and policy discussions, and so neglected by philosophers is telling. I want to invite philosophers to think more seriously about intersectionality and other pluralist approaches as strategies for calling attention to whiteness of philosophy in general and feminist philosophy in particular. I want us to consider what feminist philosophy would be like if women of color’s writing, experiences, and communities drove philosophical inquiry. -/- Since most philosophers are unfamiliar with intersectional methodologies, I begin with a basic explanation of the foundational claims of this approach. Next, I explore some reasons why white feminists working in philosophy may be resistant to this method. I identify both disciplinary and personal reasons for this hesitancy and argue that intersectionality serves as a useful strategic tool for examining white authority in the emergent feminist canon. Finally, I explore the role intersectional thinking might play in creating a feminist critical race philosophy by outlining four projects that I think will challenge and enrich feminist work in the discipline. (shrink)

Seventeen obituaries of recently deceased Fellows of the British Academy: Shackleton Bailey; James Barr; William Beasley; Lord Blake; Julian Budden; Lord Bullock; Robert Carson, Laurence Cohen; Charles Feinstein; Henry Gifford; Peter Holt; Emrys Jones; Robert Megarry; Edward Oates; Maurice Wiles; Brian Woledge; Austin Woolrych.

The book uses Zen Buddhism as the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness.

Side effects are ubiquitous in medicine and they often play a role in treatment decisions for patients and clinicians alike. Philosophers and health researchers often use side effects to illustrate issues with contemporary medical research and practice. However, technical definitions of ‘side effect’ differ among health authorities. Thus, determining the side effects of an intervention can differ depending on whose definition we assume. Here I review some of the common definitions of side effect and highlight their issues. In response, I (...) offer an account of side effects as jointly (i) unintended and (ii) effects due to the causal capacities or invariances of an intervention. I discuss (i) by examining the intentions or reasons behind therapeutic interventions, and I discuss (ii) by appealing to a manipulationist model of causation. The analysis here highlights that side effects are conceptually distinct from related outcomes like adverse events, adverse drug reactions, and placebo effects. The analysis also allows for reflection on the utility of ‘side effect’ as a technical term in medical research and practice. (shrink)

The underreporting of suspected adverse drug reactions hinders pharmacovigilance. Solutions to underreporting are oftentimes directed at clinicians and health care professionals. However, given the recent rise of public inclusion in medical science, solutions may soon begin more actively involving patients. I aim to offer an evaluative framework for future possible proposals that would engage patients with the aim of mitigating underreporting. The framework may also have value in evaluating current reporting practices. The offered framework is composed of three criteria that (...) are bioethical, social-epistemic, and pragmatic: (i) patients should not be exposed to undue harms, e.g., nocebo effects; (ii) data should be collected, analyzed, and communicated prioritizing pharmacovigilance’s aims, i.e., free from industry bias; and (iii) proposals should account for existing and foreseeable pragmatic constraints like clinician ‘buy in’ and existing reporting infrastructure. Proposals to engage patients in pharmacovigilance that fulfil or address these criteria are preferable to those that do not. (shrink)

In recent literature in the philosophy of mind and language, one finds a variety of examples that raise serious problems for the traditional analysis of belief as a two-term relation between a believer and a proposition. My main purpose in this essay is to provide a critical test case for any theory of the propositional attitudes, and to demonstrate that this case really does present an unsolved puzzle. Chapter I defines the traditional, propositional analysis of belief, and then introduces a (...) distinction, motivated by the intuitions that underlie Kripke's arguments for direct reference, between purely qualitative and individual propositions. Beliefs typically expressed using proper names, indexicals or demonstratives appear to relate the believer to individual propositions with the entity that may be referred to as subject constituent. Chapter II presents the critical test case . In this and Chapters III-VI it is used to show that the latter sorts of beliefs are not analyzable as dyadically relating the believer to individual propositions. The case constitutes a genuine counterexample to the traditional analysis only if it is possible for a believer to believe an individual proposition with a contingent thing other than herself as a constituent; and the believer in the case is in optimum conditions for believing an individual proposition. In Chapters III, IV, and VI, I criticize views prompted by rejection of , and in Chapter V, I criticize Stalnaker's view, which rejects . Chapter VI also considers the non-traditional, triadic analyses of belief proposed by Kaplan and Richard; they fall prey to the main criticisms of Chapter V. In the Postscript, I give a comparative assessment of approaches to resolving the Two Tubes Puzzle, and I place it in historical context by pointing out the puzzle's similarities to the 'problem of sense data' . Correlatively, I indicate the bearing of Methodological Solipsism on future attempts to solve the puzzle. My conclusion is that although the puzzle remains a puzzle, it gives us reason to supplement, rather than completely abandon, the use of propositions in the analysis of thought; and I say what a supplementing solution must do to remain faithful to the intuitions of Chapter I. (shrink)

McCoy and colleagues (2023) offer a reflective framework for data ethics and governance with several historical bioethics principles as a foundation. Their framework is one among a plethora of othe...

Among mycologists, questions persist about what entities should be treated as the fundamental units of fungal populations. This article articulates a coherent view about populations of heterokaryotic fungi and the individuals that comprise them. Using Godfrey-Smith’s minimal concept of a Darwinian population, I argue that entities at two levels of the biological hierarchy satisfy the minimal concept in heterokaryotic fungi: mycelia and nuclei. I provide a preliminary answer to the question of how to understand the relation between these two populations. (...) This article contributes to discussions about the nature of biological individuality, organismality, and evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

Eukaryogenesis is widely viewed as an improbable evolutionary transition uniquely affecting the evolution of life on this planet. However, scientific and popular rhetoric extolling this event as a singularity lacks rigorous evidential and statistical support. Here, we question several of the usual claims about the specialness of eukaryogenesis, focusing on both eukaryogenesis as a process and its outcome, the eukaryotic cell. We argue in favor of four ideas. First, the criteria by which we judge eukaryogenesis to have required a genuinely (...) unlikely series of events 2 billion years in the making are being eroded by discoveries that fill in the gaps of the prokaryote:eukaryote “discontinuity.” Second, eukaryogenesis confronts evolutionary theory in ways not different from other evolutionary transitions in individuality; parallel systems can be found at several hierarchical levels. Third, identifying which of several complex cellular features confer on eukaryotes a putative richer evolutionary potential remains an area of speculation: various keys to success have been proposed and rejected over the five-decade history of research in this area. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it is difficult and may be impossible to eliminate eukaryocentric bias from the measures by which eukaryotes as a whole are judged to have achieved greater success than prokaryotes as a whole. Overall, we question whether premises of existing theories about the uniqueness of eukaryogenesis and the greater evolutionary potential of eukaryotes have been objectively formulated and whether, despite widespread acceptance that eukaryogenesis was “special,” any such notion has more than rhetorical value. (shrink)

The moral distress of psychologists working in psychiatric and mental health care settings was explored in an interdisciplinary, hermeneutic phenomenological study situated at the University of Alberta, Canada. Moral distress is the state experienced when moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints. Psychologists described specific incidents in which they felt their integrity had been compromised by such factors as institutional and interinstitutional demands, team conflicts, and interdisciplinary disputes. They described dealing with the resulting moral distress by such means as (...) silence, taking a stance, acting secretively, sustaining themselves through work with clients, seeking support from colleagues, and exiting. Recognizing moral distress can lead to a significant shift in the way we perceive moral choices and understand the moral context of practice. (shrink)

Precision medicine functions by grouping patients along genetic, molecular, and related ‘-omics’ factors. This stratification relies on large, growing databases of patient-volunteered information. Both private companies and government bodies incentivize patients to volunteer this genetic information appealing to the creation of collaborative patient partnerships and the concept of empowerment. This paper aims to address two related questions: (1) what is the actual nature of patient participation in precision medicine research? And (2) is this participation in precision medicine research really that (...) empowering for the average patient? I contend that firstly, the nature of this participation is best conceived of as merely contributory. Contributory participation, as it will be shown, falls short of collaboration. The partnership created by participation in precision medicine research is not one of sharing values, equal say in decisions, or shared benefit. Secondly, I contend that there are important caveats to claims that patient participation in precision medicine is empowering. Empowerment is hindered by the type of participation, the practical use or actionability of genetic data, genetic literacy, the cost of precision drugs for patients that qualify for them, and bioethical considerations of informed consent. (shrink)

Exploratory experiments are widely characterized as experiments that do not test hypotheses. Experiments that do test hypotheses are characterized as confirmatory experiments. Philosophers have pointed out that research programmes can be both confirmatory and exploratory. However, these definitions preclude single experiments being characterized as both exploratory and confirmatory; how can an experiment test and not test a hypothesis? Given the intuition that some experiments are exploratory, some are confirmatory, and some are both, a recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and (...) confirmatory experimentation is needed. I discuss ‘phase IV’ trials to show what this recharacterization could look like. Phase IV trials can be exploratory and confirmatory insofar as they concurrently test hypotheses and explore for unforeseen phenomena. Even if it is uncontroversial that a single experiment can have multiple aims, the recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation is still required for these aims to be held together coherently. I offer an alternative characterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation where the former remains a distinct kind of experimentation but is not characterized as non-hypothesis-testing. (shrink)

The discovery of mouse embryonic stem cells in 1981 transformed research in mammalian developmental biology and functional genomics. The subsequent generation of human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) and the development of molecular reprogramming have opened unheralded avenues for drug discovery and cell replacement therapy. Here, I review the history of PSCs from the perspective that long‐term self‐renewal is a product of the in vitro signaling environment, rather than an intrinsic feature of embryos. I discuss the relationship between pluripotent states captured (...) in vitro to stages of epiblast in the embryo and suggest key considerations for evaluation of PSCs. A remaining fundamental challenge is to determine whether naïve pluripotency can be propagated from the broad range of mammals by exploiting common principles in gene regulatory architecture. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The article appraises Habermas's recent writings on theology and social theory and their relevance to a new sociology of religion in the `post-secular society'. Beginning with Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Habermas revisits his earlier thesis of the `linguistification of the sacred', arguing for a `rescuing translation' of the traditional contents of religious language through pursuit of a via media between an overconfident project of modernizing secularization, on the one hand, and a fundamentalism of religious orthodoxies, on (...) the other. Several questions, however, must be raised about this current project. How far can Habermas engage adequately with religious ideas of the absolute while still retaining certain broadly functionalist theoretical premises? Is the notion of an ongoing secularization process in the `post-secular society' a contradiction in terms? What appropriate `limits and boundaries' are to be accepted between the domains of knowledge and faith, and how strictly can they be drawn? How coherent is the notion of `methodological atheism', and how consistently can Habermas pursue the project of a `religious genealogy of reason'? (shrink)

This contribution focuses on Andreas Reckwitz’s considerations on phenomena of ‘exhausted self-realization’ and ‘disappointment’ in The Society of Singularities, as well as in his follow-up volume, The End of Illusions. Under discussion is the range of analytical distinctions that tend to come into play in this area between what one might call a generally primordial concept of self-realization and more derivative articulations of the concept that exhibit various aspects of instrumentalization—variously termed ‘self-maximization’ or ‘self-optimization’. The paper argues that while Reckwitz’s (...) work offers great resources for an understanding of how and why ‘self-realization’ so frequently appears to take on an instrumentalizing character in late-modern social behaviour, the extent to which his work attributes this tendency to a wholly immanent cultural-cognitive logic of lifestyle singularization is open to criticism. The reasons must also be sought from within the more directly economic contexts of diminished material security and solidarity typical of contemporary societies shaped by neoliberal economic governance orders at the level of policy. (shrink)

This article explores the much neglected work of the German philosopher and cultural theorist Hans Blumenberg, a figure still relatively little known in the Anglophone world. The thesis is defended that Blumenberg's conception of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966) offers valuable resources for addressing some important questions about the philosophical self-understanding of the modern social sciences in relation to theological and religious sources of thought and language. The article begins with an assessment of the contemporary relevance of Blumenberg's (...) critique of the idea of modern scientific culture as a merely `secularized form' of theological thinking. This critique is then compared with Blumenberg's account of the relationship of theoretico-scientific inquiry to mythological consciousness in his second major philosophical monograph of 1979, Work on Myth. The article concludes with a range of reflections on ways in which Blumenberg's work helps us understand how certain explanatory constructs and devices employed in the modern social sciences can be said to incorporate, assimilate, and at the same time critically transform figures of thought and language that display a mythic, religious and theological context of historical origination, provenance or genealogy. (shrink)

Olszewski and Goldkind (2018) correctly point out that including children in medical decision making ought to be the default position for clinicians. Recognizing the challenges this position poses,...

Law and the Humanities: An Introduction brings together a distinguished group of scholars from law schools and an array of the disciplines in the humanities. Contributors come from the United States and abroad in recognition of the global reach of this field. This book is, at one and the same time, a stock taking both of different national traditions and of the various modes and subjects of law and humanities scholarship. It is also an effort to chart future directions for (...) the field. By reviewing and analyzing existing scholarship and providing thematic content and distinctive arguments, it offers to its readers both a resource and a provocation. Thus, Law and the Humanities marks the maturation of this 'law and' enterprise and will spur its further development. (shrink)

Human rights may be the most globalized political value of our times. The rights paradigm has been criticized, however, for being theoretically unsound, legalistic, individualistic and based on the assumption that there is a given and universal humanness. Its use in the area of health is relatively new. Proponents point to its power to frame health as an entitlement rather than a commodity. The problems and the possibilities of a rights approach in addressing health ethics issues are explored in this (...) article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Full Collection of Personal NarrativesAustin Morris, Lisa P., Jeanne Kerwin, Jean Watson, Eve Makoff, Brent R. Carr, Anonymous One, Michelle Prong, Laura J. Hoeksema, Tracy R. Wilson, Frances Rieth Maynard, Laura A. Katers, and Maggie Taylor• Against Their Wishes: The Gift of a Goodbye• Lisa’s Story• Unbefriended• The Clinical Ethics Consult: Transforming Ambivalence to Action• Side Stepping The Issues: Disappointment With An Ethics Consult For A Medically High Risk (...) Patient• My Father Dies Alone• Whose Voice Matters? The Role of Ethics Consultation in Supporting the 16-Year-Old Healthcare Decision-Maker of a Critically Ill Neonate• The Healing Power of an Ethics Consult• Clinical Ethicists: Can They Help Families in Their Times of Need?• “It’s All Personal”• Fault Lines• Difficult, Difficult, Lemon, DifficultCopyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

The movie, The terminal, is used to illustrate Mac Intyre's description of virtue ethics. The terminal is a mythical tale about a traveler, Viktor Navorski, who is stranded by circumstances in a New York airport. Viktor is a person who, without a strict reliance on duty or rules, has developed the disposition to act well despite variation in his circumstances. His character is revealed in contrast to that of three other characters: a cleaner, a flight attendant and the airport manager. (...) Stories like this one may be a good way to open dialogue among clinicians about being virtuous as a practitioner. Such dialogue may make striving to be virtuous an acceptable goal for practitioners and less like an idealistic, pseudo-goal for those aiming for sainthood. (shrink)

Sarat and Scheingold's book, Cause Lawyering, the first volume of its kind, coined the term for law as practiced by the politically motivated and those devoted to moral activism. The new collection examines cause lawyering in the global context, exploring the ways in which it is influencing and being influenced by the disaggregation of state power associated with democratization, and how democratization empowers lawyers who want to effect change. New configurations of state power create opportunities for altering the political and (...) social status quo. Cause lawyers are developing transnational networks to exploit these global opportunities, and to help strengthen international norms on issues such as human rights. The fifteen essays will focus on different national settings including South Africa, Israel, the U.K. and Latin America. (shrink)

If the Bucolics as a whole ‘ look on us with dark enigmatical eyes,’ for long no more impenetrable darkness and no more compelling enigma could be found than that of the fourth poem in the collection. But Skutsch, the authors of Virgil's Messianic Eclogue, and more recently Mr. Royds in his Virgil and Isaiah, have done much to solve its many mysteries. Their efforts, however, were mainly directed towards the problems of fact contained in the Eclogue, and so far (...) little attention seems to have been given to an equally interesting point, that of its metrical arrangement. It is plain that we must consult the Sibyll for help: if it is not plain, that is not Virgil's fault. I hope to be able to show here that Virgil himself has left in this poem certain unmistakeable signs for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, besides his own rather casual reference to the Cumaeum carmen, and incidentally to dispose anew of the theory which reads in that expression an allusion not to the Sibyl but to Hesiod. (shrink)

Despite differences between them, Gadamer and Habermas both argue that in order to understand the practices and beliefs of other cultures and periods of history fully and critically, researchers should enter into imaginary ‘dialogue’ with their subjects about the nature of the world. Objectivity of understanding in their view consists not in prior suppression of our contemporary preconceptions and interests but in a process of actively seeking agreement with others over appropriate world-views and normative beliefs. This paper challenges Gadamer's and (...) Habermas' thesis on three fronts. It argues that, the notion of 'dialogue' with past personages and abstract social totalities is not clear, even when qualified as 'imaginary'; to derive normative Verständigung from descriptive Verstehen is not conceptually well-founded, nor pertinent to the thematic goals of research; and however deeply interpreters remain tied to the culture of their upbringing, they are not thereby licensed to incorporate value-judgments into the research process. Rather than providing any methodological norms for research, dialogue ought best be seen as characterising certain moral and political responsibilities of scientists in relation to civil society and the public sphere. (shrink)

The present article explores the relationship between the panagential ontologies found in the so-called "New Materialism " and the thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Further, the implications of this relationship for theology are also explored.

The cyborg inscribes itself nearly everywhere, forcing us to re-examine discourses of humanity, modernity, Japan, and technology. I will trace the early history of the cyborg, from its hidden roots and precursors in fin de siècle Gothic fiction to its fully formed conception in 1990s science fiction and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. I will then move beyond the well-known cyborg genealogy to delve into contemporary portrayals that radically expand the cyborg’s political potential, and posthuman role, through an analysis of Kenji (...) Kamiyama’s Kōkaku Kidōtai Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex), the 2002-2003 TV series based on Shirō Masamune’s 1989-91 manga Kōkaku Kidōtai (Ghost in the Shell). (shrink)

A survey of the work of the Majorcan lay theologian and philosopher Ramon Llull (1232-1316), along with examples of its wide influence in late medieval, Renaissance, and early modern Europe and in colonial Spanish America.