This paper analyses the role chaplaincy plays in providing religious and spiritual care in the UK’s National Health Service. The approach considers both the current practice of chaplains and also the wider changes in society around beliefs and public service provision. Amid a small but growing literature about spirituality, health and illness, I shall argue that the role of the chaplain is changing and that such change is creating pressures on the identity and performance of the chaplain as a religiously (...) authorised health worker. I shall question whether either orthodox belief or religious belonging have any significant bearing on the patients’ demand for chaplaincy services. Utilising an example of chaplaincy work I shall argue that patient need constitutes the strongest platform for both practice development and an articulated understanding of what chaplains bring to health care. Drawing on a case study the definition and interpretation of spiritual need will be discussed in relation to chaplaincy practice. In conclusion, I shall set out the case for effective research to establish with greater precision the detail of the chaplain’s practice within a state-funded health system. (shrink)

Was Swift correct that “reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired” (Letter to a Young Gentleman)? If so, what recourse is there to change attitudes especially among those who continue to fervently believe unjustified claims and act upon them in a way that affects other people? I will answer the first question with a qualified yes, and the second I will follow Swift’s implicit proposal to rely upon humor, satire, (...) playful ridicule, and especially irony to unsettle the certainties of those who have not appealed to reason or epistemic justification to maintain their cherished opinions. In the bulk of the chapter, I will then assess what sort of irony Swift employs: is his irony primarily a trope in the service of a particular idea? Or is he truly Socratic in his irony, the sort Kierkegaard admired that transcends the mere rhetorical device and can be viewed as a stance on life in general? The answer to the latter question, in typical Aristotelian fashion, will be yes and no. My account of Socratic Irony will be informed primarily by the works of Alexander Nehemas, Jorge Portilla, and Jonathan Lear’s interpretation of Kierkegaard on Socrates’ irony. (shrink)

There is a recent and growing trend in philosophy that involves deferring to the claims of certain disciplines outside of philosophy, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, and linguistics. According to this trend— deferentialism , as we will call it—certain disciplines outside of philosophy make claims that have a decisive bearing on philosophical disputes, where those claims are more epistemically justified than any philosophical considerations just because those claims are made by those disciplines. Deferentialists believe that certain longstanding philosophical problems (...) can be swiftly and decisively dispatched by appeal to disciplines other than philosophy. In this paper we will argue that such an attitude of uncritical deference to any non-philosophical discipline is badly misguided. With reference to the work of John Burgess and David Lewis, we consider deference to mathematics. We show that deference to mathematics is implausible and that main arguments for it fail. With reference to the work of Michael Blome-Tillmann, we consider deference to linguistics. We show that his arguments appealing to deference to linguistics are unsuccessful. We then show that naturalism does not entail deferentialism and that naturalistic considerations even motivate some anti-deferentialist views. Finally, we set out deferentialism’s failings and present our own anti-deferentialist approach to philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Chris Ealham's book reveals a fascinating dialogue between a prominent individual figure (José Peirats, 1908–1989) and the anonymous masses in the history of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, and vice versa. Peirats would hardly be known without Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, while Spanish anarcho-syndicalism would have been less relevant if José Peirats had not been included in its ranks. -/- What is remarkable is that, despite Ealham's honest confession of his sympathy for some of the working-class movements in general and for anarcho-syndicalism in particular (...) (3), his research is highly critical of both anarcho-syndicalism and Peirats's numerous personal and ideological errors and contradictions. We need not go far to find examples: in his book, Ealham makes no effort to conceal that Peirats can be described at times using adjectives such as homophobic, sexist (or rather, antifeminist), anti-intellectual, antinationalist, and anticommunist (226). Nevertheless, his negative elements paled in comparison with his achievements. -/- Peirats was born in La Vall d'Uixó (Castellón); he was a brick-maker, anarchist militant, and later a noted writer and historian. The moral influence [End Page 188] coming from his mother and maternal uncles was decisive in the young Peirats's character and training. His informal education, together with his move to Barcelona, awakened his early militancy. In spite of having to work very hard from a young age, he was lucky enough to be educated later at the Ateneo Obrero Racionalista in Sants (a neighborhood in the southern part of Barcelona). There, he started having contact with the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), joining the union when he was just fourteen years old. During Primo de Rivera's dictatorship (1927–1930) Peirats was devoted to avoiding—sometimes fighting back against—State repression of syndicalists. He also continued doing manual work while cultivating his intellectual training and techniques as a working-class writer. -/- With the coming of the Second Republic (1931), the general attitude within the CNT was that nothing revolutionary would be achieved by collaborating with professional or parliamentary politics: "radicals like Peirats gave no quarter to the new regime. After the enforced interregnum of the dictatorship, they were primed and ready for direct action" (47). Nonetheless, the CNT was not united on this issue and the disputes over ideological tactics came swiftly. At this point, Ealham pinpoints a three-fold division within the CNT: one revolutionary, one syndicalist, and another anarcho-syndicalist (55–56). The divisions and differences would become even more marked when the CNT took part in the Frente Popular with four anarchist ministers (Federica Montseny, Joan Peiró, Juan García Oliver, and Juan López Sánchez): "the anarchist leaders opted simply to ignore what remained of the old state and accept a policy of 'democratic collaboration' with the other anti-fascist forces on behalf of unity in the fight against authoritarianism" (90). Peirats vehemently opposed this strategy that placed the CNT inside a republican state, and from this time on, including during the Spanish Civil War "conferences, meetings, and plenums were organized like witch-hunts" (104). -/- After Franco's triumph, Peirats did not follow in Montseny's or Germinal Esgleas's footsteps—that is, he opted against a diplomatic passport or any special safe conduct, but joined the multitudes of Republican soldiers and civilians who escaped in their retirada (retreat) towards France (119). In fact, after going through a French internment camp, he asked himself whether the best option was to return to Franco's Spain or try his luck abroad. Without any hint of cowardice, he knew that in Spain he could only expect his death... (shrink)

In this paper, I present and motivate a modal set theory consistent with the idea that there is only one size of infinity.

This paper explores the relationship between accountability, trust and corporate reputation building. Increasing numbers of corporations are mobilising themselves to put more and more information out into the public domain as a way of communicating with stakeholders. Corporate social accounting and stakeholder engagement is happening on an unprecedented scale. Rather than welcoming such initiatives, academics have been quick to pick faults with contemporary social auditing and reporting, claiming that in its current form it is not about demonstrating accountability at all, (...) but rather about building corporate reputation. Academics argue that ‘accountability should hurt’, that if accountability is an enjoyable process, then the organisation isn’t doing it right. For organisations that are currently engaging with stakeholders and ostensibly becoming more transparent about their corporate social performance, this kind of critique is likely to be bewildering. This paper argues that central to the notion of accountability and to contemporary social accounting practice is the concept of trust. Accountability is based upon a distrust of corporate management, whereas corporate reputation building is about strategically seeking to establish trust in stakeholder relationships in order to negate formal accountability requirements. Using a split trust continuum, the paper seeks to explain and synthesise what seem to be two very different paradigms of organisational transparency. (shrink)

This article examines the prospects for an authentic regional architecture in the light of alternative development paradigms. It is argued that the failure of orthodox development strategies and the domination of western culture, including architecture, over non-Western cultures, is due to fundamental imbalances between northern and southern economic structures. By contrast, ecodevelopment, appropriate technology and regional architecture all represent significant devolutionary movements toward a global “eco-culture.” A cultural typology placing eco-culture in historical perspective is outlined. It is concluded that, to (...) be fully effective, changes in development patterns in the south have to be matched by equivalent cultural changes in the North. (shrink)

Concerns of intellectual property infringement in China slow the dissemination of clean technology (Cleantech) innovation that could help bring the pace of global warming under control. We use the U.S. post‐World War 2 policy decisions with respect to Japan and Europe (the Marshall Plan) to show how this problem can be addressed. To help Japan become a western style democracy and stem the tide of communism, the U.S. transferred much of its extant intellectual property to Japan with a promise to (...) open US markets to Japanese goods. The United States did not require Japan to open its markets to U.S. goods. As a result, Japan became a staunch U.S. political ally in Asia, but also a serious economic competitor to the United States. While the Marshall Plan deployed different resources, the political outcomes were similar to Japan: Western Europe was a bulwark against communism. As global warming has become a major strategic issue, we argue that a comparable IPR initiative is required for China. This is not just a matter of doing the right thing as members of global commons, but is also matter of national security. We propose that by facilitating and managing the flow and sharing of U.S., EU, and Japanese Cleantech intellectual property with China—through a Cleantech Marshall Plan—a positive strategic relationship may be built while helping to bring global warming under control. (shrink)

The impact of neoliberal reforms of education systems on the work of teachers and school leaders, particularly in relation to high-stakes accountability frameworks, has been extensively studied in recent decades. One significant aspect of neoliberal schooling is the emergence of quasi-autonomous public schools (such as Academies in England, Charter Schools in the USA and Independent Public Schools in Australia), characterised by heterarchical governance models, the promotion of entrepreneurial leadership cultures, and the promotion of a discourse of pursuing educational equity by (...) means of ‘achievement for all’. This paper explores the emergence of a mode of teacher professionalism characteristic of these quasi-autonomous schools, and conceptualises this as being ‘neo-performative’. The neo-performative profession is shaped by the shift in the focus of the regulation and management of schools from ‘governing to governance’, and the consequential rise of the ‘responsibilised profession’, and marked by the emergence of an entrepreneurial model of school leadership. The paper argues that this new conceptualisation of teacher professionalism requires further, more focused, empirical study in order to explore how neoperformative teachers and school leaders articulate their vision of educational equity and social justice, and how they enact this vision in an increasingly intensified high-stakes accountability culture. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have disagreed about whether "the folk" are intuitively incompatibilists or compatibilists, and they have disagreed about the role of abstraction in generating such intuitions. New experimental evidence using Construal Level Theory is presented. The experiments support the views that the folk are intuitively both incompatibilists and compatibilists, and that abstract mental representations do shift intuitions, but not in a univocal way.

Recent neo-Humean theories of laws of nature have placed substantial emphasis on the characteristic epistemic roles played by laws in scientific practice. In particular, these theories seek to understand laws in terms of their optimal predictive utility to creatures in our epistemic situation. In contrast to other approaches, this view has the distinct advantage that it is able to account for a number of pervasive features possessed by putative actual laws of nature. However, it also faces some unique challenges. First, (...) since the view tries to characterize the laws in terms of their predictive utility, any respects in which putative actual laws are sub-optimally predictively useful are inherently problematic. Such "predictive infelicities" can easily be found among our best physical theories. Second, in tying the laws to our epistemic situation, neo-Humeanism raises the possibility that by changing our epistemic situation, we can change the laws themselves, though it is hard to believe that we have such influence over the laws. This paper aims to address both of these challenges, first by presenting a variety of strategies for explaining away predictive infelicities, and then by developing a version of Lewis's "rigidification" strategy to preclude the possibility of our changing the laws. (shrink)

Ethical or ‘socially sustainable’ sourcing mechanisms mandating labour standards among the suppliers and subcontractors that organisations source goods and services from are becoming more common. The issue of how labour activist groups such as trade unions can encourage organisations to adopt and strengthen these mechanisms within domestic production networks is largely unexplored. Using three cases of domestic sustainable sourcing campaigns developed by unions in Britain, the strategies used by labour activists, the characteristics of the organisations targeted and the motivations of (...) lead firms for improving sourcing practices are analysed. The article makes a significant contribution by demonstrating that organisational susceptibility to reputational risk is a key factor influencing the capacity of activist groups to convince and compel their targets to improve sourcing practices. It argues that different types of organisations are susceptible to reputational damage in different ways, that risk events provide opportunities for unions to strengthen their leverage against target organisations, and that the multidimensional nature of corporate reputation needs to be better considered for understanding how campaigns are framed and executed. (shrink)

This book covers all of Hans-George Gadamer major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Gadamer's thought. Students will discover information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include a clear definition of all the key terms used in Gadamer's writings and detailed synopses of his key works, including his magnum opus, Truth and Method. The Dictionary also includes entries on Gadamer's major philosophical influences, from Plato to Heidegger, and his contemporaries, including Derrida and Habermas. (...) It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Gadamer's 'philosophical hermeneutics', offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. (shrink)

Chris Letheby, Jaipreet Mattu, and Eric Hochstein try to put an end to the “mysticism wars,” by which they mean the battle between psychedelic researchers who hold that mystical concepts ought to be employed in attempts to describe and understand psychedelic experiences and those who do not hold this. Letheby, Mattu, and Hochstein side with the former and do so on the grounds that (as they put it), “there are no good reasons to abandon mystical concepts in psychedelic science, (...) and plenty of good reasons to keep them.” At bottom, they contend that critiques of the pro-mystical-concepts view can be solved via clarifying concepts and recognizing basic (though significant) distinctions. And though they grant that mystical concepts may one day be superseded in the science of psychedelics, they maintain that this should not occur on the basis of a misplaced conceptual critique, as is (they maintain) the present-day critique of the pro-mystical-concepts view. (shrink)

Law and the Formation of Modern Europe explores processes of legal construction in both the national and supranational domains, and it provides an overview of the modern European legal order. In its supranational focus, it examines the sociological pressures which have given rise to European public law, the national origins of key transnational legal institutions and the elite motivations driving the formation of European law. In its national focus, it addresses legal questions and problems which have assumed importance in parallel (...) fashion in different national societies, and which have shaped European law more indirectly. Examples of this are the post-1914 transformation of classical private law, the rise of corporatism, the legal response to the post-1945 legacy of authoritarianism, the emergence of human rights law and the growth of judicial review. This two-level sociological approach to European law results in unique insights into the dynamics of national and supranational legal formation. (shrink)

The chapter undertakes three main tasks. The first is to review, briefly, the history of psychedelics in psychiatry, including the phenomenological and behavioural effects that first led to their being studied for therapeutic purposes. The second is to give an overview of recent research into the safety, efficacy, and therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. The third is to summarize the contributions of each of the chapters collected in this volume and show how they address philosophical issues arising from the new (...) wave of psychedelic psychiatry. The topics of these chapters cluster around three broad themes, in terms of which the volume is organized: ‘Self and Mind’, ‘Science and Psychiatry’, and ‘Ethics and Spirituality’. (shrink)

Our society, in general, and health care, in particular, faces notable challenges due to the emergence of innovative digital technologies. The use of socially assistive robots in aged care is a particular digital application that provokes ethical reflection. The answers we give to the ethical questions associated with socially assistive robots are framed by ontological and anthropological considerations of what constitutes human beings and how the meaning of being human relates to how these robots are conceived. Religious beliefs and secular (...) worldviews, each of which may participate fully in pluralist societies, have an important responsibility in this foundational debate, as anthropological theories can be inspired by religious and secular viewpoints. This article identifies seven anthropological considerations grounded in the synthesis of biblical scriptures, Roman Catholic documents, and recent research literature. We highlight the inspirational quality of these anthropological considerations when dealing with ethical issues regarding the development and use of socially assistive robots in aged care. With this contribution, we aim to foster a global and inclusive dialogue on digitalization in aged care that deeply challenges our basic understanding of what constitutes a human being and how this notion relates to machine artefacts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A review of two of the strands of cultural studies that Mark Fenster contends are superior to Murray Edelman’s analysis of mass public opinion—Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, and Bourdieu’s sociology—and a more general look at work in the field of cultural studies suggests that all of these alternatives suffer from severe theoretical and methodological limitations. Future studies of culture and politics need to pose questions similar to the ones that preoccupied Edelman, but they must move beyond the political and (...) interpretive biases that have dominated cultural studies (some of which Edelman shared), as well as the questionable view of “ideology” as a matter of elite domination of the masses, rather than as a mediating, constitutive force in the process of individual opinion formation. (shrink)

Is radical skepticism ethically problematic? This paper argues that it is. Radical skepticism’s strong regulation of our doxastic economy results in us having to forego doxastic commitments that we owe to others. Whatever skepticism’s epistemic defects, it is ethically defective. In turn, I defend Moralism, the view that the kind of extreme doubt characteristic of radical skepticism is a serious moral and eudaimonic weakness of radical skeptical epistemology. Whether this means that skepticism is false or incorrect, however, is a further (...) claim that Moralists may or may not accept. I distinguish between an encroachment and abrogation version of the view, and show how each one bears on radical skepticism. In either case, Moralism makes our beliefs less vulnerable to radical revision. The paper concludes with some exploratory reflections on whether the argument can be extended to show that radical skepticism is politically problematic, even risking injustice. (shrink)

Many recent attacks on consequentialism and several defenses of pluralism have relied on arguments for the incommensurability of value. Such arguments have, generally, turned on empirical appeals to aspects of our everyday experience of value conflict. My intention, largely, is to bypass these arguments and turn instead to a discussion of the conceptual apparatus needed to make the claim that values are incommensurable. After delineating what it would mean for values to be incommensurable, I give an a priori argument that (...) such is impossible. It is widely accepted that value is conceptually tied to desire. I argue that, more specifically, it is proportional to merited desire strength. This connection gives one a metric of all value if there is any such thing. This metric entails that value is a complete ordering over all states of affairs, or, in other words, that value is commensurable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The Habermasian ideal of deliberation has long been seen as an extension of, and complement to, political action. But Diana Mutz's empirical studies of face-to-face interactions reveal a conflict between political participation and political deliberation: The more likely people are to be exposed to diverse political opinions, the less likely they are to participate, and those who participate most tend to have the least exposure to diverse political opinions. She hypothesizes, however, that the infrastructure of the Internet might allow (...) for the creation of a forum for online political debate that is sufficiently generalizable to result in deliberation. Champions of the Internet's democratic potential similarly praise its diversifying influence on political discussion and the ways in which it lowers barriers to access. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that new technologies have truly transformed political action or produced meaningful deliberation at significant levels. It appears that many of the trends and behaviors Mutz identifies in face-to-face interaction apply to digital interaction as well. (shrink)

In this article, focusing on the building blocks of art with its concomitant role and meaning, we commence with a brief evolutionary overview of the origin of land vertebrates, which culminated in the rise of our species as we view it. We then review three iconic phases of human evolution, colloquially designated as the Neanderthals, the San and the Cro-Magnons, as manifested by their artistic endeavours. We are well aware that the Cro-Magnons are currently regarded as not sufficiently distinct from (...) modern Homo sapiens to be separately designated. Therefore, the terms ‘anatomically modern humans’ or ‘early modern humans’ are suggested for these inhabitants of the Upper Palaeolithic as they shared an anatomical resemblance with us but still lacked the full complement of behavioural attributes that typify ourselves. This particular selection was chosen because these groups have partially overlapped historically, yet each represents a distinctive approach to the artistic impulse. Subsequently, we consider more contemporary developments regarding human art intertwined with our interpretation of art’s role and meaning. Then, we briefly discuss a broader account of the evolution of art in which these three phases are firmly based and through which our understanding of and engagement with the evolutionary development of these stages are elucidated and complemented. In conclusion, particular views about language and the role and meaning of art are confirmed. Particular views about language and the role and meaning of art are endorsed and supplemented by an extensive body of relevant literature.Contribution: This article explores the evolution of art and its accompanying role and meaning in an intersectional and interdisciplinary manner that fits well with the intention of this unique collection on the building blocks of our past, present and future and with the nature of this journal and our ongoing engagement with HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies. (shrink)

We explore the science of mass extinction, link it to industrial civilization, use the concept of the banality of evil to explain the ethical situation, and then explain the various ways in which mass extinction poses further ethical problems within that situation, especially of environmental justice and the loss of value. Overall, humankind risks a profound failure of autonomy, perhaps our greatest achievement. For those who want to take action, we recommend the project of anthroponomy and large-unit/deep-branching conservation.

Becoming Nietzsche is an essential book for understanding Nietzsche's philosophical genealogy from 1866D1868, a phase that is punctuated by the influence of Friedrich Lange and a surprising rejection of Schopenhauer's theory of the will. During this phase, Nietzsche focuses on the scientific and artistic status of teleological judgments and their relevance for thinking about organic life and representation.

As the global prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease increases, the need to understand family caregiving becomes increasingly pressing. I argue that there is an under-recognized form of caregiving for people with early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This type of caregiving involves, roughly, helping people reason through their values. It arises along with the loss of the capacity for executive functioning. Moreover, it is prone to give rise to moral distress, which is an under-recognized vulnerability in family caregiving. Categories of family caregiving (...) thus need to be expanded, and moral distress needs to be recognized not only in the context of nursing. (shrink)

In this essay, I reply to the above four critics of In Defense of Kant’s Religion (IDKR). In reply to George di Giovanni, I highlight the interpretive differencesthat divide the authors of IDKR and di Giovanni, and argue that di Giovanni’s atheist reading of Kant does not follow, even granting his premises. In reply to Pamela Sue Anderson, I show that if her reading of Kant is accurate, Kant’s own talk of God becomes empty and contemptible by his own lights, (...) and I then show how her empirical bias prompts a significant misreading of IDKR. In reply to Stephen Palmquist, I expose four fallacious maneuvers in his paper, which comprise the bulk of his essay. And in reply to Michalson, I address a series of minor concerns raised in his essay, and then set the record straight on the motives behind IDKR in general and my own take on Kant’s compatibility (or lack thereof) with Christianity in specific. (shrink)

A letter to the editor from Françoise Baylis and Chris Kaposy concerning the recent commentary by Toby Schonfeld and colleagues , which was written in response to Baylis and Kaposy’s article.

In its brief, yet dramatic, moment in time (in Britain in the 1790s), William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice enjoyed considerable fame and, indeed, notoriety. While probably best remembered now for its utopian and anarchistic moments, as well as its anticipations of utilitarianism, for a "radical" text Political Justice draws some at first sight puzzlingly conservative political conclusions. In this paper, I explore this apparent conservatism through Godwin's paradoxical views on property, arguing that in the end, and perhaps under the (...) duress of an increasingly polarized political climate, he was unable to reconcile his politics with his philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a new arithmetic characterization of the levels of the og-time hierarchy . We define arithmetic classes equation image and equation image that correspond to equation image-LOGTIME and equation image-LOGTIME, respectively. We break equation image and equation image into natural hierarchies of subclasses equation image and equation image. We then define bounded arithmetic deduction systems equation image′ whose equation image-definable functions are precisely B. We show these theories are quite strong in that LIOpen proves for any (...) fixed m that equation image, TAC, a theory that is slightly stronger than equation image′ whose equation image-definable functions are LH, proves LH is not equal to equation image-TIME for any m> 0, where 2s ∈L, s ∈ ω, and TAC proves LH ≠ equation image for all k and m. We then show that the theory TAC cannot prove the collapse of the polynomial hierarchy. Thus any such proof, if it exists, must be argued in a stronger systems than ours. (shrink)

This article presents a critical edition from the six surviving witnesses of Landulph Caracciolo’s , Scriptum in I Sententiarum, d. 23, a text that has never appeared in print before. A short introduction begins to set Landulph’s treatment of intentions and intentionality in this text into its historical, philosophical, and theological context, in particular linking it to the positions of John Duns Scotus and Peter Auriol.

Müller's review of the neuroscientific evidence undermines nativist claims for autonomous syntax and the argument from the poverty of the stimulus. Generativists will appeal to data from language acquisition, but here too there is growing evidence against the nativist position. Epigenetic naturalism, the developmental alternative to nativism, can be extended to epigenetic socionaturalism, acknowledging the importance of sociocultural processes in language and cognitive development.

This narrative symposium examines the relationship of bioethics practice to personal experiences of illness. A call for stories was developed by Tod Chambers, the symposium editor, and editorial staff and was sent to several commonly used bioethics listservs and posted on the Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics website. The call asked authors to relate a personal story of being ill or caring for a person who is ill, and to describe how this affected how they think about bioethical questions and the (...) practice of medicine. Eighteen individuals were invited to submit full stories based on review of their proposals. Twelve stories are published in this symposium, and six supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. Authors explore themes of vulnerability, suffering, communication, voluntariness, cultural barriers, and flaws in local healthcare systems through stories about their own illnesses or about caring for children, partners, parents and grandparents. Commentary articles by Arthur Frank, Bradley Lewis, and Carol Taylor follow the collection of personal narratives. (shrink)

Judgments of character traits tend to be overcorrelated, a bias known as the halo effect. We conducted two studies to test an explanation of the effect based on shared lexical context and connotation. Study 1 tested whether the context similarity of trait names could explain 39 participants’ ratings of the probability that two traits would co-occur. Over 126 trait pairs, cosine similarity between the word2vec vectors of the two words was a reliable predictor of the human judgments of trait co-occurrence (...) probability (cross-validated r2 =.19, p <.001). Two measures related to word similarity increased the variation accounted for in the human judgments to 45%, cross-validated (p <.001). In Experiment 2, 40 different participants judged similarity of word meaning within the pairs, confirming that the word pairs were not simply synonymous (Average [SD] = 40.8/100 [13.1/100]). Shared lexical context and word connotation play a role in shaping the halo effect. (shrink)

Written in an engaging narrative style these philosophical investigations undermine racist hierarchies along with false natualistic conceptions of the meanings of race and universalistic understandings of gender, by considering whiteness as it shapes and is infused by gender, class, sexuality, and culture. Central to this project are questions about how it is that culture and the state create such a wide range of different people who understand themselves as white. The essays collected here discuss how one learns to be a (...) good white Southern woman, what it means to pass as white, and whether there really is a dilemma that accompanies white privilege. (shrink)