In this article I reconstruct the philosophical conditions for the emergence of the notion of counter-conduct within the framework of Michel Foucault’s study of governmentality, and I explore the reasons for its disappearance after 1978. In particular, I argue that the concept of conduct becomes crucial for Foucault in order to redefine governmental power relations as specific ways to conduct the conduct of individuals: it is initially within this context that, in Security, Territory, Population, he rethinks the problem of (...) resistance in terms of counter-conduct. However, a few months later, in What is Critique?, Foucault replaces the notion of counter-conduct with that of critical attitude, defined as the particular form that counter-conduct takes in modern times. This notion allows him to highlight the role played by the will in resistance to governmental strategies. But since the notion of counter-conduct is conceptually wider than that of critical attitude, I suggest in conclusion that it could be worth reactivating it as a “historical category which, in various forms and with diverse objectives, runs through the whole of Western history.”. (shrink)

The present research investigated the use of counter-stereotypical pictures as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotypes when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two experiments, participants completed a judgment task in which they were presented with word pairs comprised of a role noun with a stereotypical gender bias (e.g., beautician) and a kinship term with definitional gender (e.g., brother). Their task was to quickly decide whether or not both terms could refer to (...) one person. In each experiment they completed two blocks of such judgment trials separated by a training session in which they were presented with pictures of people working in gender counter-stereotypical (Experiment 1) or gender stereotypical roles (Experiment 2). To ensure participants were focused on the pictures, they were also required to answer four questions on each one relating to the character’s leisure activities, earnings, job satisfaction, and personal life. Accuracy of judgments to stereotype incongruent pairings was found to improve significantly across blocks when participants were exposed to counter-stereotype images (9.87%) as opposed to stereotypical images (0.12%), while response times decreased significantly across blocks in both studies. It is concluded that exposure to counter-stereotypical pictures is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous gender stereotype biases in the short term. (shrink)

One of the traditional applications of Euler diagrams is as a representation or counterpart of the usual set-theoretical models of given sentences. However, Euler diagrams have recently been investigated as the counterparts of logical formulas, which constitute formal proofs. Euler diagrams are rigorously defined as syntactic objects, and their inference systems, which are equivalent to some symbolic logical systems, are formalized. Based on this observation, we investigate both counter-model construction and proof-construction in the framework of Euler diagrams. We introduce (...) the notion of “counter-diagrammatic proof”, which shows the invalidity of a given inference, and which is defined as a syntactic manipulation of diagrams of the same sort as inference rules to construct proofs. Thus, in our Euler diagrammatic framework, the completeness theorem can be formalized in terms of the existence of a diagrammatic proof or a counter-diagrammatic proof. (shrink)

The ennobling vision of modernity asserts that the benefits of identifying individual citizens as subjectivity are realized only when each subject is aware of the self as free in decisions and actions. Modernization through industrialization and urbanization has been seen as a means by which society can, through market contractual relationships, allow each citizen to become a self-determining subject. In Korean society this self-awakening has already set in and ought to deepen through dynamic economic growth. However, the authoritarian political power (...) combined by technocracy obstructs the emergence of mature subjectivity. This is what can be called a phenomenon of counter-modernization. Citizenship training through philosophical dialogue may find ways to resolve this impasse by reconceptualizing modernity’s goals and means in terms of enabling the potentiality inherent in subjectivity. (shrink)

My main concern in this article is the relevance of theoretically integrative approaches. I argue that such approaches are methodologically better equipped for the psychology of religion because they correspond with the inherent complexity of religiosity. In order to concretize this matter I critically evaluate the hypothesis proposed by some cognitive researchers that the attraction of counter-intuitive representations provides an explanation of religion. Irrelevant aspects are left out in this hypothesis. In contrast to this I rely on cognitive-analytic perspectives (...) that are based on a broader theoretical foundation. This generates a more complete picture that also connects to the tradition built on Otto's idea of the wholly other. From this perspective it is more plausible to assume that religious representations are trajectories of the early evolving tripartite sense of self, other and world and, further, formed by individual mentalization capacity. This can be conceptualized in terms of interplay between specific complex representational constellations rooted in different phases of early development. Integrative approaches that depict mental activity as a dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon embedded in intersubjectivity are relevant for the psychology of religion. (shrink)

This article sets forward a new concept of reflection, to be contrasted with more usual reading of the concept for which we use the term `reflectivity'. The contrast is related to a distinction between normalizing education and counter-education. We claim that within the framework of normalizing education there is no room for reflection, but only for reflectivity. In contrast to reflectivity, reflection manifests a struggle of the subject against the effects of power which govern the constitution of her conceptual (...) apparatus, her knowledge, her consciousness and her limitations and possibilities for successful functioning. Reflectivity re-presents the hegemonic realm of self-evidence and the productive violence of social and cultural order. Reflection, by contrast, aims to challenge the supposedly self-evident and the present order of things. Reflection aims at transcendence and represents a moral commitment in respect of the otherness of the Other, which power relations in every realm of self-evidence oblige us to neglect, to destroy or consume. Transcendence is a concrete utopia, and so is the subject in her nonrepressive communication with the Other: they are part and parcel of our present possibilities, sometimes in microscopic arenas, struggled for, and from time to time even realized. (shrink)

Over the past 12 years, I’ve had the good fortune of collaborating with others to create a project which challenges and complicates the dominant biopsychiatric model of mental illness. The Icarus Project, founded in 2002, not only critiqued the terms and practices central to the biopsychiatric model, it also inspired a new language and a new community for people struggling with mental health issues in the 21st century. The Icarus Project believes that humans are meaning makers, that meaning is (...) created through developing intrapersonal and interpersonal narratives, and that these narratives are important sites of creativity, struggle, and growth. The Icarus counter narrative and the community it fostered has been invaluable for people around the world dealing with psychic diversity—particularly for people alienated by mainstream approaches. But, despite the numbers of people who have been inspired by this approach, the historical background of the Icarus Project is hard to find. It exists primarily in oral history, newspaper articles, unpublished or self-published Icarus documents, and in internet discussion forums. As the co-founder of the Icarus Project, I use this article to make my understanding of that history and its key documents more widely available. (shrink)

The debate over whether human animals are linked by bonds of justice to nonhu-man animals is ancient and has been several times settled. The Roman jurists defined the j us naturae in terms of what nature had taught 'all animals', but Grotius and other natural-law theorists rejected this view and redefined the jus naturae as that which accorded with human nature, thereby founding the 'modern' view which has excluded nonhuman animals from the sphere of justice. This paper examines Grotius's (...) argument as part of a larger seventeenth-century 'counter-revolution' in thought and argues that its incoherence becomes intelligible only when viewed as an attempt to deal with the embarrassing phenomenon of inhumane warfare. Warned by the example of Grotius, we may wish to inquire to what extent any discussion of animal justice, whatever side it takes, may be an exercise in the perpetration of injustice. (shrink)

In his target article Page proposes a definition of the term “localist.” In this commentary I argue that his definition does not serve to make a principled distinction, as the inclusion of vague terms make it susceptible to some problematic counterexamples.

The hermit posed a challenge to a medieval Church that emphasized rule, order, and discipline since oversight of their life could be virtually non-existent. The writings of Richard Rolle, hermit, negotiates the space between Foucauldian exomolgesis and exoagouresis as Rolle strove to articulate the identity of the hermit without any kind of church endorsement. As well, he forged his life out of a struggle with concepts of medieval sin, specifically Pride, which placed him in a queer position in terms (...) of relationships with his surrounding community. His way of life was highly influential in his local community, however, and, through manuscript dissemination, beyond. Because he experienced mystical visions without church oversight, his eremitic life and example inspired a movement toward lay, affective piety in the later Middle Ages. The hermit, in his case, challenges the medieval Church’s hierarchy in that hermits practice a form of living at a local level, placing them in dangerous, sometimes heretical, positions that force the Church to either absorb their practices or suppress them. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of utopia through some reflections on the work of the Russian writer Andrei Platonov (1899-1951). Platonov's work represents an inspirational series of investigations into the circumstances of utopia: not so much utopia as fantasy, nor utopia as actualized in failure, nor even dystopia, but what is here termed `actually existing utopia'. As such his work captures aspects of utopianism that may have been largely opaque to the investigations of either literary versions of the utopian imagination (...) or utopian versions of social science. Platonov shows us an `anthropological' dimension inherent within the utopian impulse: that we are, so to speak, `utopological' beings. And to this dimension of ourselves he applies a critical style that is not straightforwardly anti-utopian or dystopian but what is called here `counter-utopian'. (shrink)

Two key themes in contemporary social theory are particularly relevant to the interpretation and critique of figurational sociology. On the one hand, some recent critiques of the sociological tradition — Touraine's attempt to deconstruct the received image of society is the most important example — have called into question a dominant paradigm that underlies both Marxist and structural-functional theories. Norbert Elias has not only anticipated some of the most important criticisms but also suggested correctives to some of the currently fashionable (...) alternatives. More specifically, his relationship to the sociological traditions and to its contemporary offshoots can be described in terms of six antitheses: his approach is anti-economistic, anti-normativistic, anti-reductionistic, anti-functionalist, anti-structuralist and anti-individualistic. On the other hand, the impact of all these critical strategies is somewhat blunted by the one-sided emphasis on power. A more balanced version of figurational sociology would need a concept of culture to match and counter-balance Elias's insights into the problematic of power. Further exploration of this issue could draw both on the classics and on post-Parsonian debates about cultural power and their interconnections. Cultural interpretations of power are the most important link between those two dimensions of social life; although Elias has never explicitly thematized them, his recent writings touch upon some aspects of their specifically modern variants. (shrink)

In this article, we consider Derrida’s grasp on counter-institution and outline a peculiar modality of ethics that it engenders. After evoking his counter-institutional public engagements in the introduction, we begin an analysis of the word counter-institution. In the first place, the polysemy of its prefix “counter” is exposed, followed by the claim that in Derrida’s philosophy this term denotes proximity and contact, rather than opposition – thus determining the architecture of the counter-institution. Furthermore, we discuss (...) Derrida’s critique of traditional, sovereign institutions that he saw as unjust and violent, relating it to his theory of decision, and making the claim that counter-institutions are inseparable from justice. In the second part, we conceptualize what is named the counter-ethics of promise and responsibility. By juxtaposing Derrida’s unorthodox views on the notions of promise and responsibility, we seek to formulate a counter-ethical thought that animates the relations in and of the counter-institution and challenges the limits of ethics. Finally, we propose that Derrida’s idea of unfaithful fidelity could be understood as the very condition counter-ethics, and by consequence, of deconstruction. (shrink)

Trends in the history of social science dedicated to the study of crime and punishment are presented as a case study supporting F.A. Hayek's theory of social change. Designing effective social institutions and public policies first requires an accurate vision of how society operates. An accurate model of society further requires scientific methods uniquely suited for the study of human beings as purposeful agents and the study of human institutions as complex social phenomena. If guided by faulty methods, theories are (...) inaccurate and policy outcomes veer from their intentions. Hayek termed such outcomes "abuses of reason". Aiming to replicate the objectivity of physical sciences via formal modeling and statistical measurement, economists throughout the 20th century imposed an excessively technical vision of human decision-making. Policy failures and social problems resulted. This paper argues that the historical trends of applied social science dedicated to crime and punishment can be understood similarly. Formal modeling and statistical measurement continuously displaced methods more attuned to human intentionality and social complexity. In result, amidst a long-run history of intellectual and political change, US law enforcement and criminal punishment policies became technocratic, and outcomes became disjointed from their stated intentions to promote social order and welfare. (shrink)

Currently, patients are expected to take control over their health and their life and act as independent users and consumers. Simultaneously, health care policy demands patients are expected to self manage their disease. This article critically questions whether this is a realistic expectation. The paper presents the auto-ethnographic narrative of the first author, which spans a period of 27 years, from 1985 to 2012. In total nine episodes were extracted from various notes, conversations and discussions in an iterative process. Each (...) of these episodes was condensed around a ‘critical moment’ as perceived by the “self”. The critical moments in the illness process vary between newly encountered problems with basic needs and mourning, to renewed strength and the desire to grow, embracing new situations. Being confronted with and living with a chronic illness involves periods of anxiety and self centredness alternating with strength and advocating the interests of peer-patients. These episodes of emotion, confusion and refinding a balance have a cyclic pattern. The narrative illustrates the vulnerability and dependency of a patient with a chronic disease. The discussion relates this to mainstream dominant views on patients ‘in control of their own life’. The narrative illustrates, that the vulnerability and dependency of the patient are key factors to take into account in health care policy. The narrative provides a counter story, challenging current thinking in terms of strength, selfmanagement, patients’ own control and independent role. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Foucaultian genealogy offers a critical approach to practices of remembering and forgetting which is crucial for resisting oppression and dominant ideologies. For this argument I focus on the concepts of counter-history and counter-memory that Foucault developed in the 1970’s. In the first section I analyze how the Foucaultian approach puts practices of remembering and forgetting in the context of power relations, focusing not only on what is remembered and forgotten, but how , (...) by whom, and with what effects. I highlight the critical possibilities for resistance that this approach opens up, and I illustrate them with Ladelle McWhorter’s genealogy of racism in Anglo-America. In the second section I put the Foucaultian approach in conversation with contemporary work in pragmatism and critical theory on the social epistemology of memory. In the third and final section, I explore some of the implications of the Foucaultian notion of resistance and what I term guerrilla pluralism for contemporary epistemological discussions of ignorance in standpoint theory and race theory. (shrink)

there is something else to which we are witness, and which we might describe as an insurrection of subjugated knowledges. (Foucault, 2L, 81)a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently elaborated: naive knowledges, . . . . (82)What emerges out of this is something one might call a genealogy, or rather a multiplicity of genealogical researches, a painstaking rediscovery of struggles together with the rude memory of their conflicts. (83)Let us give the (...) term genealogy to the union of erudite knowledge and local memories which allows us to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make use of this knowledge tactically today. (83)If we were to characterise it in two terms, then “archaeology” would be the appropriate methodology of this analysis of local discursivities, and “genealogy” would be the tactics whereby, on the basis of the descriptions of these local discursivities, the subjected knowledges which were thus released would be brought into play. (85). (shrink)

For Bernard Stiegler ‘the question of philosophy is first of all that of action’ (p.7). By extending this statement to philosophy of education, I consider the possibilities of action in education in responding to the conditions of the contemporary. These conditions, which have come to be discussed and dissected with reference to such terms as Anthropocene (Stoermer, Crutzen), Capitalocene (Moore), Plantationocene (Haraway), hold unprecedented and mostly devastating consequences for all life. To consider possibilities for action within the field of (...) education to the conditions of the contemporary, I read Walter Mignolo’s concept of the colonial wound together with Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualisation of the wound. Based on this reading, I argue for the conditions of the contemporary to be understood as a wound in both Mignolo’s and Deleuze’s sense. Conceptualising it as such in turn allows me to ask how we might counter-actualise the wounds of the contemporary. In other words, how might we be worthy of the wound-event and respond in an affirmative yet critical manner to it within the field of education, and in so doing generate new possibilities of (educational) life. To consider what one such possibility of counter-actualisation might entail, I propose that education be informed by the notion of incompleteness, as expressed in the concept of conviviality. I conclude by reflecting on implications of counter-actualising the wound of the contemporary in relation to education if we were to activate the concepts of incompleteness and conviviality and pursue a different aesthetics of (educational) life. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper argues that the neoliberal (mis)appropriation of artistic creativity that begins to have a serious impact on music education can be seen as the result of a reverse détournement, whereby the very terms that used to play a pivotal role in describing the anti-systemic, anti-commercial, unsettling, emancipatory qualities of artistic creativity are being used to legitimize a thoroughly economized conception of creativity. It is suggested that this reverse détournement shapes a notion of creativity that can be referred to (...) as subsumptive, a term that denotes the thorough instrumentalization of creativity that leads to a managerial approach to creative processes and practices. The paper identifies some of the main terms that have been sacrificed in the process of the neoliberal colonization of creativity, suggesting that we actively resist subsumptive creativity by molding a counter-hegemonic language that offers an alternative conceptual apparatus that might permit a conceptualization of creativity as subversive. Thus, it is suggested that instead of drawing on notions of flexibility and adaptability we explore the notion of nondeterminist plasticity of minds; instead of emphasizing uncertainty and risk-taking we choose to cultivate fearless exploration; in the place of notions of collaboration (that easily slips to networking) we emphasize dis-identification; instead of celebrating independence we engage with the notion of collectivity; instead of emphasizing learning how to anticipate future needs we choose to explore the merits of (temporary) withdrawal; instead of celebrating innovation we choose to explore practices of dismeasure; and instead of seeking ways to boost confidence, we explore the subversive potential of vulnerability. (shrink)

To achieve effective stakeholder governance in the context of international social accountability certification requires constructing a network of agreement. In a case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise, we examine managers’ attempts at enrolling participants in the supply chain to investigate how they strive to engage these stakeholders. We adopt actor-network theory and sensemaking theory to develop a novel approach to understanding social accountability standards’ certification in stakeholder networks. We argue that the design and operation of any SA standard across a (...) network requires not only attempts at enrolling other participants in the supply chain but management contextualizing and problematizing the terms of their involvement. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that faith is recalcitrant in the face of new evidence, but it is puzzling how such recalcitrance could be rational or laudable. I explain this aspect of faith and why faith is not only rational, but in addition serves an important purpose in human life. Because faith requires maintaining a commitment to act on the claim one has faith in, even in the face of counter-evidence, faith allows us to carry out long-term, risky projects that (...) we might otherwise abandon. Thus, faith allows us to maintain integrity over time. (shrink)

This paper advances the thesis that democratic populism and the commons can and should complement each other in counter-hegemonic interventions promoting egalitarian and ecological democracy in our times. After elucidating its key terms, the article makes, first, a theoretical case for the combination of egalitarian, inclusionary populism and the commons by debunking arguments which highlight the conflicts between them and by explaining the political significance of their conjugation. Subsequently, discussion builds an empirical argument for the real possibility and (...) the democratic promises of such a convergence by considering three ways in which populist politics and the commons merge and recompose each other in contemporary social movements, from the Spanish 15M and new municipalism to Occupy and other collective contestation in the Americas over the last two decades. These cases will illustrate how late social activism has effectively blended populist mobilization with the spirit of the commons, engendering a hybrid figure of ‘common populism’ that fosters grassroots processes of democratization. (shrink)

The term “view from above” does not merely describe an aerial perspective using digital technologies. According to Macarena Gómez-Barris, it is an extractive and neoliberal tool for transforming territories into areas to be exploited. In contrast, she introduces “submerged perspectives,” which can always be found in these territories and are characterized by relations on the ground. An argument based on opposites should always make one suspicious, especially when considering contemporary artistic practices. This article demonstrates that contemporary works of art can (...) unleash the critical potential of the view from above. Two works, one by Carolina Caycedo and the other by Forensic Architecture, are analyzed to demonstrate a substantial expansion of the view from above. Contemporary art has the capability to counter-appropriate a supposedly hegemonic instrument and, thus, offers the possibility of rejecting constructed and abstract dichotomies. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism attempts to give an account of right and wrong in terms of the moral code that could not be reasonably rejected. Reasonable rejectability is then a function of what kind of consequences the general adoption of different moral codes has for different individuals. It has been shown that moral codes should be compared at a lower than 100% level of social acceptance. This leads to the counter-culture challenge. The problem is that the cultural background (...) of the individuals who have not internalized the majority code affects the consequences of the codes and furthermore there does not seem to be a non-arbitrary way of choosing the minority cultures. This chapter first surveys and critically evaluates different responses to this challenge. It then outlines a version of ‘Real World Contractualism’, which offers the best response to the counter-culture challenge. (shrink)

Many of the experiments that produced the empirical basis of quantum mechanics relied on classical assumptions that contradicted quantum mechanics. Historically this did not cause practical problems, as classical mechanics was used mostly when it did not happen to diverge too much from quantum mechanics in the quantitative sense. That fortunate circumstances, however, did not alleviate the conceptual problems involved in understanding the classical experimental reasoning in quantum-mechanical terms. In general, this type of difficulty can be expected when a (...) coherent scientific tradition undergoes a theoretical upheaval. The problem may be circumvented through the use of phenomenological theory in experimentation during the period of theoretical instability. (shrink)

This paper critically examines John Mark Mattox's view of the nature of the moral appropriateness of particular response options. By so doing, I aim to engage the wider readership in a debate, which I hope leads to greater clarity and precision of thinking on these topics. After summarizing Mattox's view, I argue first that in order for Mattox's ultimate conclusion to hold in moral terms, he must abandon the argument on the permissibility of nuclear reprisal to re-establish nuclear deterrence (...) and instead anchor this response solely on the moral grounds of retributive justice. Secondly, I argue that the morally superior and politically efficacious counter-nuclear terrorist response is to hunt down the nuclear terrorists and hold them accountable for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. This response is consistent with just war theoretic principles, and it also affirms the moral virtues of honor, dignity, and humane treatment in contexts where they are needed the most? the holocausts of nuclear terrorist attacks. (shrink)

Attention is automatically allocated to stimuli that are opposite in valence to the current motivational focus (Rothermund, 2003; Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). We tested whether this incongruency effect is due to affective–motivational counter-regulation or to an increased salience of stimuli that mismatch with cognitively activated information. Affective processing biases were assessed with a search task in which participants had to detect the spatial position at which a positive or negative stimulus was presented. In the motivational condition, positive or (...) negative affective–motivational states were induced by performance feedback after each trial. In the cognitive activation condition, participants memorised the word “good” or “bad” during the search task. The affective incongruency effect was replicated in the motivational condition, whereas an affective congruency effect obtained in the cognitive activation condition. These findings support an explanation of affective incongruency effects in terms of automatic counter-regulation that is motivational in nature. (shrink)

Though Ali Shariati is well-known as the “ideologue” of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, this essay considers Shariati conversely as a student of revolution. It begins by posing a distinction between the apprentice and the autodidact through reference to Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan and introduces a third term, the collaborator, that is crucial to Shariati’s account of counter-pedagogy. The essay then reconstructs Shariati’s critique of the pedagogical state. There, he recalls resisting interpellation by learning from other pasts, refusing (...) instruction, and learning from others. Finally, I show changes in how Shariati conceptualized self-transformation, from an autodidactic process of soul-searching to a collaborative process that gives soul to a collective. On becoming immersed in the sounds of his compatriots grieving the martyrs of struggle, Shariati attests to being a student of history: the curriculum of a people becoming, the history of struggle, and its instructors, those who modeled it, pivoted around a refusal to be instructed. Overall, this essay develops an account of media environments as informal pedagogical spaces. (shrink)

Capitalism is often modernised and stabilised by its very critics. Gramsci called this paradox a ‘passive revolution’. What are the pitfalls through which critique becomes absorbed? This question is taken up using a Cultural Political Economy approach for analysing the resistant potential of ‘degrowth discourses’ against the neoliberal hegemony. Degrowth advocates an economy without growth in order to achieve the transformation that is necessary in ecological and social terms. It thus does not follow the neoliberal idea of green capitalism (...) that already has absorbed much environmental critique. This paper argues that degrowth needs to be further differentiated in order to draw any conclusions about its counter-hegemonic potential. Three dimensions are iden-tified for differentiating sub-hegemonic from counter-hegemonic degrowth positions: the mode of growth critique, the interpellation of the individual and the subsequent actions motivated. (shrink)

The article addresses the implications of Prevent and Channel for epistemic justice. The first section outlines the background of Prevent. It draws upon Moira Gatens and Genevieve Lloyd’s concept of the collective imaginary, alongside Lorraine Code’s concept of epistemologies of mastery, in order to outline some of the images and imaginaries that inform and orient contemporary counter-terrorist preventative initiatives, in particular those affecting education. Of interest here is the way in which vulnerability is conceptualised in Prevent and Channel, in (...) particular the way in which those deemed ‘at risk of radicalisation’ are constituted as vulnerable and requiring intervention. The imaginary underpinning such preventative initiatives is, I argue, a therapeutic/epidemiological one. If attention is paid to the language associated with these interventions, one finds reference to terms such as contagion, immunity, resilience, grooming, virus, susceptibility, therapy, autonomy, vulnerability and risk—a constellation of images/concepts resonant with therapeutic and epidemiological theories and practices. I outline some of the implications of this therapeutic/epidemiological imaginary for epistemic injustice. If people, in this case, students, teachers and parents, feel that their voice will not be given credence, this leads to testimonial injustice. If one group is constituted as a suspect community, this risks hermeneutical injustice for that group—a situation facing Muslims at present. Given the requirements for educators and educational institutions to enact this particular iteration of preventative counter-terrorist legislation, the way in which vulnerability is understood and operationalised has direct bearing upon education and the educational experience of all stakeholders, in particular in relation to the conditions for epistemic justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Historicity of the Archive:A Counter-Memory for Lynne Huffer's Mad for FoucaultShannon WinnubstLynne Huffer likes to laugh. I haven't known her very long and I don't even know her very well, but this much I am certain of: the woman likes to laugh. Whether at amusing intellectual witticisms or truly boisterous, gut-splitting observations of life's absurdities, Professor Huffer enjoys laughing. It comes as little surprise, then, that (...) it is the ludic aspect, which is intimately connected to the erotic aspect, of Foucault's work that she aims to rehabilitate in this remarkable, provocative, beautifully written, meticulously researched, and often funny book, Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory.This book is an unusual one. Replete with the intellectual rigor of archival research, subtle, nuanced challenges to accepted translations, critical historical contextualizations, and complex theorizing at the most abstract levels, it is—despite its own anxieties—an intensely academic undertaking. But at the same time, in one of many of its own doublings (the Deleuzian trope through which Huffer initiates her discussion of Foucault), it is also an intensely personal undertaking, shaped by several interludes of appropriately ironic confessions: of Huffer's own coup de foudre in the Foucault archives of a twelfth-century premonasterian abbey in Normandy; of her politico-intellectual biography from high theory French departments to feminist love/hate relations with Foucault; and of her own struggles with various forms of so-called "madness." Giving voice to a transformative experience of encountering "a different Foucault" in that twelfth-century monastery, Huffer clearly gives an account of what Ladelle McWhorter, in her Bodies and Pleasures (McWhorter 1999), calls "undergoing" [End Page 215] Foucault. Huffer herself described it to me as "a work of passion"—and this is clear on every page.Consequently, the challenges that it brings to us as readers, thinkers, and cultural theorists are likewise intense and doubled—both academic and personal, both intellectual and politico-ethical, both theoretical and erotic, both historical and present, and both philosophical and not. She invites us, from the outset, to work through these doublings and the folding back upon themselves that become our intricate enactments and reflections upon our subjectivities. Again, her own beginning with the Deleuzian concepts of doublings, foldings, and coextensivity sets the framework for the kinds of intricate unravelings, especially of dialectical thinking, Huffer undertakes. The text consequently unfolds on multiple levels and requires a reading that is also multiply attentive and attuned. I take the heart of her project—namely, to begin the labor of articulating a desubjectivating, queer, feminist ethics of eros that will enact a more promising, less "caged" freedom in its resistance to the normalizing forces of biopolitics—to be a critical endeavor shared by many cultural theorists working in our contemporary milieu. Huffer's rejuvenation of the language of ethics in this project is most welcome and my comments today are meant to engage her in this shared labor of articulating a queer feminist ethics.The most explicit and innovative narrative of Mad for Foucault is Huffer's doubling of Foucault's 1961 History of Madness and his 1976 History of Sexuality, Volume 1. Much more than a mere tracing of Sexuality One's roots in an earlier, lesser known work, Huffer returns to Madness as a site of erotic ethical possibilities that are utterly absent in the ridiculously popular and popularized Sexuality One. Her return to Madness thereby constitutes a critical intervention in not only Foucault scholarship, but also in queer theory. As Huffer puts it, "Not only is Madness an earlier consideration of sexuality, but, historically, analytically, and stylistically, it gives a thicker, experiential texture to its subject than Sexuality One" (Huffer 2010, xiv). In skeletal terms, Huffer argues that Madness gives us the story of the great split between reason and unreason that occurred in the seventeenth century: due to bourgeois moral exclusion and the ascendancy of rationalism, this Age of Reason produces abnormality, which includes sexuality within its wide arc. Reading Foucault's writing of Madness in the late 1950s alongside his first love affair with Jean Barraqué (Huffer 2010, 13-16) and his struggles with... (shrink)

Dayal’s (2004) theory of kind terms accounts for the definiteness and number marking patterns in kind terms in many languages. Brazilian Portuguese has been claimed to be a counter-example to her theory as it seems to allow bare “singular” kind terms, which are predicted to be impossible according to her theory. However, the empirical status of the relevant data has not been clear so far. This paper presents a new data point from Singlish and confirms the (...) existence of bare “singular” kind terms. A revised theory of kind terms is proposed that accounts for it. The proposed theory puts forth a number system with three basic categories, i.e. singular, plural and general. It is claimed that bare “singular” kind terms are in fact derived from general NPs, which are associated with number-neutral properties. The paper also discusses why bare “singular” kind terms are not perfectly acceptable in Brazilian Portuguese. (shrink)

In this article, I explore how efficacious film can be in countering propaganda in film. To set up the discussion, I first sketch out a simple theory of propaganda, under which propaganda can be ranked from completely rational to very irrational, on six different dimensions. These are the degrees to which the propaganda is: evidence-based; truthful; broadly logical; transparent; properly targeted; and transparent. I then review in detail the main propaganda film, Gasland. This film was a highly successful documentary that (...) attacked the production of natural gas by hydrofracturing, called in America “fracking.” Gasland succeeded in organizing domestic opposition to fracking, actually blocking it in the Delaware River Basin system. The film was also influential abroad, leading to fracking bans in France, Bulgaria, and elsewhere in Europe. Next, I review in detail two counter-propaganda films—that is, in this case, two pro-fracking documentaries: Truthland and FrackNation. Truthland is a short documentary that aims at rebutting many of Gasland’s major claims. It was funded by the fracking industry and had limited distribution but it succeeded in refuting much of the longer and better-funded anti-fracking film. A much more successful film in terms of both general distribution and efficacy of rebuttal was the much longer pro-fracking documentary FrackNation. It critiques all of Gasland’s major points, in vivid detail. Since it was crowdfunded, it couldn’t be dismissed on the grounds that it was biased because of being industry-backed. I conclude by explaining why the pro-fracking documentaries did not result in a major change in public opinion. (shrink)

Commercialization of medicine is a growing trend that threatens to undermine physicians’ commitments to patient care in favor of personal financial interests. Bemoaned by Arnold Relman as early as 1980, growing for-profit sectors of health care have been reshaping medicine from a profession into a business, forming the foundation of what he terms a “medical-industrial complex” that threatens to undermine professional identity and reshape health care funding. Commercialization poses new ethical challenges for health care providers who have a financial (...) stake in their health care decisions and may undermine their fiduciary duties to patients.Certainly, commercialization has brought about new trends in medicine — one need only to look as far as the rise in for-profit hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, and proprietary nursing homes to see how opportunities for financial gain reposition physicians’ orientations vis-à-vis patients. (shrink)

In this paper I want to leave behind the failed attempts to think about populism as ideology, strategy, style, or even discourse. I will focus on the ‘conceptual battles of politics’ and their potential to influence actors to pursue and effect specific ends. Reinhart Koselleck and his ideas about conceptual history will figure prominently in my discussion, as will his concept of asymmetrical combat-concept as a means of unleashing a theoretical and political war. The goal is to demonstrate that concepts (...) have taken the place of weapons of war among political actors. (shrink)

Translating the word Umgebung in a work by Goethe, Carlyle coined the term environment in the South of Scotland in 1828. Goethe’s usage involves reference to a Scottish subject, Macpherson’s Ossian. Referring to this, in 1942 Spitzer argued that the broader meaning of the word was misrepresented by Carlyle’s translation. However, after coining the term environment, Carlyle’s later work can be read as a significant realisation of this broader Goethean meaning, through his literary-critical discussion of Robert Burns, literary-philosophical Sartor Resartus, (...) and his biography and historiography. The term needs to be seen partly as a response to a large number of intersecting social, political, economic, and agrarian changes associated with the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and in particular the modernising transformations of the Lowland Clearances. But, through the ways in which this examination of the term’s coinage brings into relation Goethe, Carlyle, the philosophy of Thomas Reid, and a theory of concepts by Sir William Hamilton, the hybridising processes involved in coining the term can also be seen as constituting a pivotal moment of transnational cultural exchange, an encapsulation of diversity, an interdisciplinary interrelation of literary, philosophical, and social critique and a paradigm-shifting challenge to the authority of mechanism. These intersecting elements are peculiarly apt with regard to certain radical dimensions of continuing relevance to the counter-Enlightenment position of Adorno and Horkheimer, humanity’s relation with nature, our continuing struggles with the Enlightenment legacy, and to the expansive, plural, and potentially evolving character of the notion of environment – but also to the later emergence of environmentalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article attempts to situate land art in the deserts of the US Southwest in terms of the works’ relation to and rupture with more traditional genres (seventeenth to twentieth centuries) of parks, gardens, and landscape architecture. It argues that the earlier works provide implicit answers to questions concerning Earth’s meaning and offer models of flourishing habitation. In contrast, the more recent works, all constructed in the era of the great acceleration (the Anthropocene), pose questions having to do (...) with new challenges posed by climate change and the devastation of the Earth. (shrink)

It is not possible to face a text and announce "I shall now talk about character" in the same way that one might say "I shall now talk about plot" or "metaphor." For several reasons—not least of which is the absence of a thoughtful critical tradition—character is much more difficult to talk about than most other literary concepts. Most of what has been written on the subject of character, whether in recent years or in the distant past, can be seen (...) to come under one of four possible headings. I do not think of these classifications as being mutually exclusive, although the emphasis upon one aspect of the problem of character probably tends to pull one towards a definite position. Briefly, these positions are: that characters are products of the author's mind—memories, encapsulations of his experience or else split-off slivers of his mind or self; that characters are functions of the text in which they appear—embodiments of theme and idea—to be considered much as tokens, pieces, or counters in a game; that characters are entirely artificial, constructs to be analyzed in terms of the compositional techniques that have gone into their making; that characters are, for the purposes of critical reading, to be considered as if they were actual persons, and the emphasis in criticism—its sole business, in fact—to discuss the response they engender in an intelligent reader. Rawdon Wilson, associate professor of English at the University of Alberta, has written widely on English and Spanish literature. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "On Character: A Reply to Martin Price," appeared in the Autumn 1975 issue. The present essay was originally presented in an earlier form at the University of Melbourne and at the University of Alberta. (shrink)

In recent years, the notion of wilderness has been roundly criticized by several prominent environmental philosophers and historians. They argue that the “received wilderness idea” is dualistic, ethnocentric, and static. According to these critics, this idea of wilderness finds clear expression in the Wilderness Act of 1964. However, the idea of wilderness so ably deconstructed by its critics bears little resemblance to the understanding of wilderness presented in the Wilderness Act. The critics assume a backward-looking, purity-based definition of wilderness that (...) runs counter to the forward-looking, relativistic interpretation of the Wilderness Act that has guided and informed subsequent wilderness legislation, management, and visitation. Under the Wilderness Act, wilderness designation is less a matter of preserving remnants of “pristine” nature than establishing a covenant between humans and a particular place. Wilderness areas, so conceived, serve as potential sabbath places, whose ultimate significance is best understood in terms of their mutually informing relationship to the places where we live and work. Rather than detracting from our efforts to inhabit the Earth in more creative and sustainable ways, wilderness represents a vital part of larger landscapes of human inhabitation characterized by a diverse mixture of human-nature relational patterns. (shrink)

Written in the early months of the COVID pandemic, and in the midst of the second wave of Black Lives Matters protest, this article suggests that Americans experienced these shocking social events as a double-whammy cultural trauma, as deeply troubling to their collective identity as nation. How the trauma played out would determine the near-term future of American politics. Were the poor and non-white the principal victims of the double whammy, or were white Americans and the ‘hard-working middle class’ actually (...) the injured parties? Who was the trauma’s perpetrator? Was it China, inadequate healthcare, government bureaucracy, or Trump and ‘know-nothing’ populism? The performances that provided the most felicitous answers to such questions would determine whether the country moved to the left or the right in the months before the Presidential election that would take place before year’s end. (shrink)

Anastasia Philippa Scrutton renders helpful service to philosophers and mental health clinicians by highlighting strongly voluntarist approaches to depression within some present-day Christian writers and communities, particularly Pentecostal and Evangelical Christian communities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on a number of evangelical Christian books and online resources, she argues that these resources are "voluntaristic because they emphasize the role of libertarian free will and choice in the attitudes and behaviors of people with depression, such that depression (...) is seen to be a sin, or the result of sin, because depression sufferers are able to do otherwise." She counters these... (shrink)

It must have been shortly after I entered college in my middle ̓teens that I first heard of the grammatical doctrine that psychological opposites take the same construction. As a mnemonic, alone, the doctrine is immensely worth while and practically helps with categories like —which rouses a literary interest by recalling Thackeray's use of different to as a counter term to equal to, similar to, like to. And, to get back to grammar, for English folk it clarifies prope ab (...) to counter it with procul ab. By the doctrine of opposites we clarify even so elusive a matter as the ‘subjunctive of repudiation’ which I once sought to explain by partial obliquity , not mistaking therein, I am fain to believe, the valuable stylistic note of echo. In this subjunctive I now see a clear opposite to the concessive. It is a survival, on the cold page, of a speech form that owed its meaning to the speaker's mood (xs22EF ψυχικxs22EF διxs22EFθεσις, the pitch of his voice, all the things that manifest and betray emotion, and so far forth is ‘polemic’ It is often introduced by ut, utne, egone ut, where ut is exclamatory and interrogative at once, and the tone converts the concessive to an anticoncessive, indicating repudiation, disavowal. (shrink)

We argue that the Standard Model (SM) in the Higgs phase does not suffer from a “hierarchy problem” and that similarly the “cosmological constant problem” resolves itself if we understand the SM as a low energy effective theory emerging from a cutoff-medium at the Planck scale. We actually take serious Veltman’s “The Infrared–Ultraviolet Connection” addressing the issue of quadratic divergences and the related huge radiative correction predicted by the SM in the relationship between the bare and the renormalized theory, usually (...) called “the hierarchy problem” and claimed that this has to be cured. We discuss these issues under the condition of a stable Higgs vacuum, which allows extending the SM up to the Planck cutoff. The bare Higgs boson mass then changes sign below the Planck scale, such that the SM in the early universe is in the symmetric phase. The cutoff enhanced Higgs mass term as well as the quartically enhanced cosmological constant term provide a large positive dark energy that triggers the inflation of the early universe. Reheating follows via the decays of the four unstable heavy Higgs particles, predominantly into top–antitop pairs, which at this stage are massless. Preheating is suppressed in SM inflation since in the symmetric phase bosonic decay channels are absent at tree level. The coefficients of the shift between bare and renormalized Higgs mass as well as of the shift between bare and renormalized vacuum energy density exhibit close-by zeros at about $$7.7 \times 10^{14}\ \hbox {GeV}$$ and $$3.1 \times 10^{15}\ \hbox {GeV}$$, respectively. The zero of the Higgs mass counter term triggers the electroweak phase transition, from the low energy Higgs phase and to the symmetric phase above the transition point. Since inflation tunes the total energy density to take the critical value of a flat universe and all contributing components are positive, it is obvious that the cosmological constant today is naturally a substantial fraction of the total critical density. Thus taking cutoff enhanced corrections seriously the Higgs system provides besides the masses of particles in the Higgs phase also dark energy, inflation and reheating in the early universe. The main unsolved problem in our context remains the origin of dark matter. Higgs inflation is possible and likely even unavoidable provided new physics does not disturb the known relevant SM properties substantially. The scenario highly favors to understand the SM and its main properties as a natural structure emerging at long distance. This in particular concerns the SM symmetry patterns and their consequences. (shrink)

To counter confusion about the term ‘mentor’, and address concerns about the scarcity of mentoring, I argue for an “honorific” definition, according to which a mentor is virtuous like a saint or hero. Given the unbounded commitment of mentors, mentoring relationships must be voluntary. In contrast, the role of advisor can be specified, mandated, and monitored. I argue that departments and research groups have a moral responsibility to devise a system of roles and structures to meet graduate students’ and (...) postdoctoral fellows’ needs for information and advice. (shrink)

This article investigates the notion of spiritual appropriation in Finnish schools, with a particular focus on the experiences of religious minorities. It draws on narratives from these communities, shedding light on their daily experiences in the educational setting. Employing counter-storytelling from critical race theory (CRT), the research examines the power dynamics and the impact of epistemological privileges within Finnish schools. The study unveils a unique form of spiritual appropriation in the school setting, termed ‘fraudulent appropriation’. Here, adults from the (...) majority group assume the authority to teach and interpret minority religious traditions, often providing distorted or false information to minority children, and even utilizing their religion as a tool for control. Furthermore, the narratives underscore the significance of agency and self-representation for minority groups. When minorities are able to vocalize their presence in schools through creative events, the act of appropriation can be mitigated, paving the way for appreciation. This serves as a means to counter dominant narratives while fostering a sense of belonging and respect. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the importance of amplifying the voices of minorities and promoting appreciation over appropriation. It advocates the visibility, audibility and self-determination of minority groups. The article also posits that the term ‘fraudulent appropriation’ is valuable for the investigation of structures that perpetuate the exclusion and oppression of religious-minority children in schools. (shrink)

The term compassion fatigue has come to be applied to a disengagement or lack of empathy on the part of care-giving professionals. Empathy and emotional investment have been seen as potentially costing the caregiver and putting them at risk. Compassion fatigue has been equated with burnout, secondary traumatic stress disorder, vicarious traumatization, secondary victimization or co-victimization, compassion stress, emotional contagion, and counter-transference. The results of a Canadian qualitative research project on nurses? experience of compassion fatigue are presented. Nurses, self-identified (...) as having compassion fatigue, described a change in their practice by which they began to shield and distance themselves from the suffering of patients and families. Time to help patients and families cope with suffering seemed unavailable, and many felt they were running on empty and, ultimately, impotent as nurses. Feelings of irritability, anger, and negativity arose, though participants described denying or ignoring these emotions as a way to try to survive their work day. Difficulties with work carried over into the nurses? personal lives, affecting their relationships with family and friends. Such experiences invariably called into question the participants? identity, causing them to reflect on the kind of nurse they were. The participants? compassion fatigue created a sense of hopelessness regarding positive change, although some nurses described strategies that seemed to help alleviate their compassion fatigue. (shrink)

Conventional particle theories such as the Standard Model have a number of freely adjustable coupling constants and mass parameters, depending on the symmetry algebra of the local gauge group and the representations chosen for the spinor and scalar fields. There seems to be no physical principle to determine these parameters as long as they stay within certain domains dictated by the renormalization group. Here however, reasons are given to demand that, when gravity is coupled to the system, local conformal invariance (...) should be a spontaneously broken exact symmetry. The argument has to do with the requirement that black holes obey a complementarity principle relating ingoing observers to outside observers, or equivalently, initial states to final states. This condition fixes all parameters, including masses and the cosmological constant. We suspect that only examples can be found where these are all of order one in Planck units, but the values depend on the algebra chosen. This paper combines findings reported in two previous preprints (G. ’t Hooft in arXiv:1009.0669 [gr-qc], 2010; arXiv:1011.0061 [gr-qc], 2010) and puts these in a clearer perspective by shifting the emphasis towards the implications for particle models. (shrink)

Two counter-examples stand against the Aristotelian thesis of De interpretatione 6 that negation principally means denial: Neither can the negation of general propositions be understood as denial, nor is this possible in the case of propositions whose grammatical subject is an empty singular term. While the first counter-example can be ea­sily refuted through the analysis which Aristotle gives of general propositions in De interpretatione 7, the second counter-example seems to be able to invoke Categoriae 10. According to (...) the usual view of Categoriae 10, Aristotle himself delivers examples for negations which cannot be understood as denials. The present essay holds this interpretation to be incorrect, and attempts to show with reference to indexical propositions and an Aristotelian two-term concept of truth that even these negations are to be understood as denials. Specifically, it is argued that this errant interpretation relies upon a reading of the Aristotelian text through a Russellian lens. (shrink)

The long-term health of business ethics is suspect. In particular, there are some troubling trends within the discipline’s methodology that should be closely monitored and, in some cases, countered. Furthermore, business ethicists and management theorists should take some steps to make business ethics more robust and more relevant to actual business practice. Part 1 of this article argues that, while the dominance of the social science approach should be curtailed, relations between normative and empirical scholars need not be hostile; on (...) the contrary, there are some modest ways in which the two approaches could complement each other more than they have to date. Part 2 examines why business ethics needs more systems thinking. Part 3 explores why business ethicists in general should follow the lead of some of our colleagues who are engaging in powerful and influential research with direct and immediate practical applications. The article closes with a few modest suggestions for enhancing business ethics theorizing and provides some concrete ways for scholars to become more involved with business practitioners and business practice and to learn from the latter in ways that can productively feed research streams. (shrink)

To counter confusion about the term ‘mentor’, and address concerns about the scarcity of mentoring, I argue for an “honorific” definition, according to which a mentor is virtuous like a saint or hero. Given the unbounded commitment of mentors, mentoring relationships must be voluntary. In contrast, the role of advisor can be specified, mandated, and monitored. I argue that departments and research groups have a moral responsibility to devise a system of roles and structures to meet graduate students’ and (...) postdoctoral fellows’ needs for information and advice. (shrink)