A number of authors have commented on the topic of mandated reporting in cases of suspected child maltreatment and the application of this requirement to researchers. Most of these commentaries focus on the interpretation of current legal standards and offer opinions for or against the imposition of mandated reporting laws on research activities. Authors on both sides of the issue offer ethical arguments, although a direct comparison and analysis of these opposing arguments is rare. This article critically examines the ethical (...) arguments made by authors on both sides of the debate. The conclusion is reached that researchers should be mandated reporters of child maltreatment because the current arguments do not justify their exclusion from current ethical and legal standards. The author makes recommendations for the ethically responsible conduct of research in regard to this topic and legal implications are discussed. (shrink)

Many proponents and opponents of the Corrida de Toros agree in describing the practice as a sacrifice. This surprising agreement is compounded by a further agreement that the sacrificial victim is the bull. In what follows, I contest both points. Beginning with the later, I argue that the victim is not the bull but the torero, especially the matador. Rather than seeing the corrida as the sacrifice of the bull, it is the deferred sacrifice of the torero, and the crowd (...) is on the side of the victim. Moreover, I argue that once the victim status of the matador has been appreciated, it can serve as the foundation for a new interpretation of... (shrink)

There has been a recent surge of interest among economists in developing models of doxastic states that can account for some aspects of human cognitive limitations that are ignored by standard formal models, such as awareness. Epistemologists purport to have a principled reason for ignoring the question of awareness: under the equilibrium conception of doxastic states they favour, a doxastic state comprises the doxastic commitments an agent would recognise were he fully aware, so the question of awareness plays no role. (...) The objective of this paper is to scrutinize this argument. A thesis underlying the argument, which we call the independence of doxastic commitments with respect to awareness, is identified, and examples are given where it appears to be violated. By considering these examples, one can get an idea of the price of accepting this thesis. On the one hand, one can escape the conclusion that the thesis is violated, but only at the expense of another principle espoused by all major formal models of belief, which we call constant doxastic rest; and abandoning this principle necessitates extensive revision of current models of belief. On the other hand, there are epistemologically valid reasons for thinking that the thesis fails to hold in the examples, which have to be rebutted if the thesis, and the equilibrium justification for ignoring the issue of awareness, are to be retained. (shrink)

This study develops a Heideggerian thesis on the significance of Dasein's bodiliness. In Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie , Heidegger claims that bodiliness secures the ground for the full being of the human. I situate this thesis squarely within die Sache selbst for Heidegger. Die Sache selbst concerns the issue of how being itself is engendered in human understanding . From as early as 1921, Heidegger explicitly understands his central topic in terms of ki&d12;nh siv . That is, the emergence of (...) being in conjunction with the ontological structure of the human being is ultimately intelligible as a kind of movement. The 1924 thesis makes sense ultimately insofar as bodiliness itself is understood as the ontological movement---the original being-moved or pa&d12;qov ---that allows entities to appear within the domain of human concerns. After examining Heidegger's retrieval of several key Aristotelian concepts , I interpret bodiliness as the always already operative being-pulled-out-ahead-of-itself by its own essential lack. Entities are first able to be present to Dasein because Dasein is opened in this way. Thus, bodiliness on my reading is die Sache selbst. My interpretation of Heidegger's thesis also forms the interpretive starting point for a rereading of Geworfenheit and Gewesenheit as concepts of bodiliness. As Dasein's original pa&d12;qov , bodiliness in Sein und Zeit would go by the name die gewesene Geworfenheit: the a priori or always already operative thrown-open-ness that first allows being to emerge to human understanding. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous and task-irrelevant challenge previously (...) held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications. (shrink)

Levinas distances himself from Kierkegaardian analyses by suggesting that It is not I who resist the system, as Kierkegaard thought; it is the other. This seems an obvious misreading of Kierkegaard. Resistance, for Kierkegaard, never legitimately arises from the I, but from a God-relationship that breaks through the sphere of immanence and disturbs the system. But, for Levinas it is problematic to suggest a God-relationship distinct from interhuman relationships. Transcendent interhuman relations, Levinas contends, give theological concepts [their] sole signification. Yet, (...) similarities in their accounts of ethical subjectivity and conscience may tempt one to suggest, as a recent commentator does, that appropriation of the Kierkegaardian framework by Levinas is problematic insofar as it is misapplied to interhuman relationships... .; I resist this understanding of the problem. Levinas is not only concerned with denying the interlocutor (i.e., God) in Kierkegaard's description of the transcendent awareness that grounds conscience. Levinas also questions the nature of interlocution implied by Kierkegaard. Levinas' criticisms of Kierkegaard set an important agenda for the study of Kierkegaard by demanding that one address the difficulties that the problematics of hearing raise for Kierkegaard's account of conscientious subjectivity. His challenge could profoundly affect and, in my opinion, enrich the Kierkegaardian account. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 112-114.

First published in 1979, this book considers the culture of a multi-racial community through the eyes of six children about to start school. Each child is from a different background but all live in the same street in a town in the north of England. Following the children from home into school, their six separate lives are unveiled, illustrating the manner in which their six separate worlds are in some ways grounded in their own respective cultures, and in others interwoven (...) with the common experience of school. These Children enter school in search of a multi-cultural society, and a sympathetic appraisal is made of what happens to them as they face such initially daunting prospects as the classroom, television and the playground. The most compelling element in this book is the way in which education is shown to be able to derive benefit from this cultural diversity. The research was commissioned by the Social Sciences Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust, and will be of particular interest to those working in social work and education. (shrink)

La reproduction fut naguère le concept de la pensée critique le plus fertile et le plus proliférant quant au plan politique. Que cela signifierait-il d’y revenir aujourd’hui, dans un monde marqué par la surveillance algorithmique, la crise environnementale, et les États bien armés pour mener les guerres sociales?

Political thrillers often encourage the feeling that a mere individual has the power to make a difference on a large scale. Caught up in a chain of events they wished they had never uncovered, a protagonist can occupy a position in which their actions have far-reaching consequences, with the rookie CIA analyst accidentally bringing down a whole corrupt political system being only one example. Much of the critical attention these films have garnered falls under the rubric of detective work in (...) that the protagonist is seen as exposing a web of corruption which would otherwise have gone on unnoticed. However, this paper is focused on how the scale of the individual comes into contact with other, larger scales of events. Points of contact between scales are important because they are where change can take place, thus allowing an individual to influence the supra-individual. (shrink)

This article explores the thesis that novelty is central to a wide and diverse range of French philosophers in the twentieth century. Often these philosophers are seen on different sides of philosophic divides, but novelty brings them together. I will explore some of the fruitful areas for dialogue between French and process philosophy, particularly around the theme of novelty.

This article explores and unpacks the public debate on the ethics of applying selection quotas to South African international sport sides to achieve transformation, with special attention to cricket and rugby, the Proteas and Springboks respectively. I claim that for quotas to be morally called for, the racial transformation they are in service of must be morally required. Following an earlier article of mine on the subject of transformation in South African sport, I briefly reject two manifestations of the goal (...) of having the sides’ racial demographics match those of the country as a whole, and proceed to defend and develop two different transformational requirements: the ending of ongoing racial bias and the provision of equality of opportunity. I argue that while there may be a place for alternative forms of affirmative selection, the case for rigid quotas is marginal at best. While I do not argue for the claim here, it neither follows from this, nor do I believe, that the use of quotas is morally wrong. I argue only that the case for them is not particularly strong and depends, particularly, on the extent to which ongoing racial bias in selection persists. (shrink)

There is widespread controversy about the use of intuitions in philosophy. In this paper I will argue that there are legitimate concerns about this use, and that these concerns cannot be fully responded to using the traditional methods of philosophy. We need an understanding of how intuitions are generated and what it is they are based on, and this understanding must be founded on the psychological investigation of the mind. I explore how a psychological understanding of intuitions is likely to (...) impact a range of philosophical projects, from conceptual analysis to the study of (non-conceptual) "things themselves" to experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Based on empirical data from a qualitative study, this paper explores the complexity of ‘real world’ management in Hong Kong’s public sector, as contrasted with various paradigmatic claims under ‘new public management’ (NPM). A plurality of sub-worlds within the broad public sector is identified, which makes the management roles and responsibilities much less ‘homogenised’ than depicted in NPM exhortations. The instrumental rationality underpinning NPM is identified as too restrictive in understanding the way in which public managers reach decisions. When the (...) daily challenges of reconciling values and practices arising from the complexities of politics, policies and service delivery are considered it is necessary to incorporate ideas related to procedural and expressive rationality to fully appreciate the nature of management in public organisations. (shrink)

There is a growing interest among scientists and the lay public alike in using the South American psychedelic brew, ayahuasca, to treat psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety. Such a practice is controversial due to a style of reasoning within conventional psychiatry that sees psychedelic-induced modified states of consciousness as pathological. This article analyzes the academic literature on ayahuasca's psychological effects to determine how this style of reasoning is shaping formal scientific discourse on ayahuasca's therapeutic potential as a treatment for (...) depression and anxiety. Findings from these publications suggest that different kinds of experiments are differentially affected by this style of reasoning but can nonetheless indicate some potential therapeutic utility of the ayahuasca-induced modified state of consciousness. The article concludes by suggesting ways in which conventional psychiatry's dominant style of reasoning about psychedelic modified states of consciousness could be reconsidered. (shrink)

Brian O'Shaughnessy; V—Material Objects and Perceptual Standpoint, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 65, Issue 1, 1 June 1965, Pages 77–98, https.

This paper explores the role of divine speaking in Christian ethics, critically engaging with the tendency in modern evangelicalism to seek to derive moral principles from Scripture or a biblically-derived ontology, often via deployment of map-making metaphors. The paper sets out the rather different centrality of the divine claim found in biblical accounts of good or righteous human action. Drawing on the criticisms of the anthropologist Tim Ingold of what he calls the “map-making fallacy,” the paper concludes by suggesting the (...) methodological importance of understanding the orientation of the Christian life to be a fundamentally grounded in interpersonal responsivity. (shrink)

One of Śaṅkara's most fundamental claims is that nirguṇa brahman, 'unqualified reality', is the origin of the world of experience. A serious challenge is posed by the Sāṅkhyan philosophers in terms of a principle of material causation, that the properties manifested in the effect are inherited from the material cause. Since nirguṇa brahman and the experienced world are so different, the principle implies that the former cannot be the material cause of the latter. Versions of the principle in relation to (...) alternative kinds of candidates for the role of material cause are discussed, considering the particular cases which motivate both Śaṅkara's and the Sāṅkhyans' metaphysics alike. Śaṅkara seems forced to accept an implausible version of the principle by his own analysis of material causation. (shrink)

This newly edited volume is a significant addition to the study of modern political thought. The volume includes an introduction co-authored by the two editors and 11 chapters covering early modern...

Brian Barry examines the idea that the demands of justice in a given society can be ascertained by interpreting the shared understandings of the meanings of the goods that are to be distributed. Focusing on Michael Walzer's claims regarding the meanings of such goods as money, health, and leisure, Barry argues that for meanings to determine the uniquely right distributions, the criteria of distribution need to be built into the meanings. He criticizes the implications of Walzer's theory for thinking (...) about global justice. (shrink)

I would like to begin this essay by sharing an intuition. It is an intuition requiring much fuller development, but I see myself making a modest contribution to it here—and that is the prospect of integrating mimetic theory with Christian contemplative practice. Such integration would, I imagine, be the beginning of something very ancient and very new.I am aware of some promising developments in this direction,1 but my conviction is that its potential is barely tapped. It would probably be too (...) much to suggest that such integration could result in a distinctive "school" of spirituality, though that is not inconceivable. Perhaps a better analogy for what I envision can be found in the emerging field of Contemplative... (shrink)

Lukacs's post-1930 literary criticism reveals a problematic continuity with the theory of totality articulated in History and Class Consciousness (1923). No longer the self-knowledge of a militant proletariat, totality emerges as the contemplative vision of great bourgeois novelists. Shorn of its earlier messianic overtones, the later criticism promises a more labile political theory whose possibilities have already been explored by theorists such as liberation theologians and socialist feminists. This same change, however, coupled with Lukacs's failure to confront its metatheoretical consequences, (...) severs theory and practice and threatens to reduce revolutionary activity to a subjective and strident moralizing. (shrink)