This essay situates Kristeva's theory of semiotics in the context of the controversial debate about the status of the maternal body in her work. I argue that, if we rethink the opposition between the semiotic and the symbolic as the relation between the trace and the sign, it becomes clear that the maternal semiotic is irreducible either to the prelinguistic plenitude or to the alternative symbolic position. The second part of the essay develops the connection between Kristeva's linguistic theory and (...) the alterity of the maternal body, articulated here as the in-fold of the other and the same. (shrink)

The article discusses the narrative turn as a key for the analysis of sociological/social theories. To that end, we present some preliminary results of an inquiry around the theories of modernization put forward by the Italian-Argentine sociologist Gino Germani. We look into the narrative of transition, its paradoxes and a counter narrative found in some of his works. From this point we draw some conclusions about the limits of the "narrative turn" as a perspective for social theory analysis and display, (...) as an alternative, Foucault's perspective of re-problematization. We primarily look into the danger of homogenization that the "narrative turn" entails, in spite of the heterogeneity of elements which, as we shall argue, form the modernization theory found in Germani. In this sense, towards the end, the article seeks to contribute to a reflection on the work with theoretical texts and proposes an approach able to observe the historical and material singularities involved in his production. El artículo discute la perspectiva del giro narrativo como clave de análisis de teorías sociológicas/sociales. Para ello, presenta como "caso" algunos resultados preliminares de una indagación sobre las teorías de la modernización presentes en los textos del sociólogo ítalo-argentino Gino Germani. Se analiza el funcionamiento, en los textos germanianos, de una narrativa de la transición, sus paradojas, así como de una contranarrativa crítica de la modernidad. A partir de ello, se exponen algunos límites del abordaje propuesto por el giro narrativo al que se contrapondrá, como alternativa, la perspectiva foucaultiana de re-problematización. Fundamentalmente, se analizan los peligros de homogenización que comporta el tipo de análisis propuesto por el giro narrativo en desmedro de la heterogeneidad de elementos que, según argumentaremos, componen la teoría de la modernización presente en Germani. En este sentido, hacia el final, el artículo busca aportar a una reflexión respecto del trabajo con textos teóricos y propone un abordaje atento a las singularidades histórico-materiales asociadas a su producción. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau introduced the category of heterogeneity into his theory of hegemony in the late 1990s. He did so as a way to capture the limits of representation, and the argument was fully developed in On Populist Reason in 2005. The chapter argues that heterogeneity should be a central category of hegemony and discourse analysis, and that antagonism can be seen as a strategy of ideological closure that suppresses heterogeneity. I show the limitations of Laclau’s concept (...) of antagonism, and how antagonism must be relativized. I then turn to examine the concept of heterogeneity. I end by discussing the usefulness of the category of heterogeneity in the wider context of how to do discourse theory and how to conceptualize the limits of representation. (shrink)

If, as many historians and theorists now believe, narrative is the form proper to historical explanation, this raises the problem of the terms in which such narratives are to be evaluated. Without a clear account of evaluation, the status of historical knowledge remains obscure. Beginning with the view, found in Hayden White and others, that historical narrative constitutes a meaning not reducible to the factual content it engages, this essay argues that such meaning can arise only through a synthesis of (...) cognitive and normative discourses. Narrative combines "heterogeneous" language games in such a way that neither appeal to "truth content" nor to "justice" suffices to decide the question of which of two competing historical explanations is, as a whole, superior. Examining in critical detail the opposed positions on this issue articulated by two recent theorists-Frank Ankersmit and David Carr -the paper concludes that the debate between those who hold that historical narratives should be judged in essentially cognitive terms and those who hold that they should be judged in essentially political terms cannot be resolved and that a philosophical view of historical narrative that is neither realist nor idealist needs to be developed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Ever since an intense theoretical debate over a decade ago, the concept of heterogeneity has had a well-established place within poststructuralist Discourse Theory. It captures the interactions between the heart of the space of representation and its margins, between excluded excess and manifest presence; and conceptualizes particularities, differential remainders, and discursive exteriority. The analytical implications of heterogeneity remain underexploited, however. This contribution makes the case that one way to operationalize the notion of heterogeneity in empirical (...) research is by tracing its strategic effects. Since heterogeneity constitutes ‘the primary terrain within which homogeneizing logics operate’, heterogeneous dynamics like the ‘incorporation of new demands’ and ‘the exclusion of others who were previously present’ affect and shape the availability and feasibility of political strategies. This contribution first provides an extensive definition of heterogeneity drawing on the original debate that gave the concept prominence. An approach that captures and explains the strategic effects of heterogeneity is then developed through the integration of heterogeneity into the logics framework. Finally, this approach is illustrated through an exploration of the politics of international trade. (shrink)

This paper offers a philosophical `history' of the nature of`public discourse' – a basic element of human rights. It beginswith Enlightenment views from Condorcet and Jefferson, turns to Dewey,and then to Habermas. Over a couple of centuries not only does thecentral character of discourse change but so too does the definition ofa public person.

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is (...) likely they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias. (shrink)

Under this title, I wish to clarify the philosophical perspective that has run through my work for the last fifteen years, in three volumes: L’hystérique entre Freud et Lacan, La folie dans la raison pure, and Les constructions de l’universel. In the first of these works, I reflected on the status of the body in psychoanalysis, on the distance that needed to be taken with regard to the two Western traditions of thought concerning the body, namely those of Aristotle and (...) Descartes, in order to understand Freud’s conceptions of the erogenous body and the drive. I also raised the question of the divergence between the physiological- and the drive-constructions of the body. In my second book, I tried to understand to what degree a philosophical system, in this case Kant’s transcendental theory of the object, may be the meeting point between a new logic—a new logic of negation in Kant’s case—and a fantasized encounter with a mad thinker. I also considered the way in which a philosophical text weaves several active heterogeneous directions like the warp and the weft within thought, and how they may be spotted in the text. Finally, in Les constructions de l’universel, I considered the relevance of the concept of the universal for understanding how conceptual thought detaches itself from its author, and compared art, philosophy, and dream analysis from this point of view. I also tried to evaluate the pertinence of Lacan’s project of producing a logic of sexuation, and the degree of autonomy such a project has with respect to the internal ambiguities of the logical and philosophical concept of the universal. In these three books, I have practiced a philosophy of contingency—contingency of the relation between discourses and contingency of the real with respect to the thought which knows it. It is this philosophy of contingency that I would like to explain. (shrink)

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is (...) likely they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias. (shrink)

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is (...) likely they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias. (shrink)

At the beginning of the ’30s—the period of lively debates on the relation between language and society—one of the main issues in linguistics was language heterogeneity. On the example of the texts by Boris Larin, Georgij Danilov and Lev Jakubinskij we shall compare two attitudes about unity and division of a language. If the studies by Larin and Danilov in various ways establish divisions in society and language at the end of the ’20s, in the ’30s there is a (...) marked tendency to recognize language unity and the cohesiveness of the proletarian society, as seen in socio-linguistic analyses by Jakubinskij. The conclusion, suggested at the end of this exposition, claims that the idea of one national language grows in importance in the discourse of the Soviet linguistics at the beginning of 1930s. Disappearance of the contemporary language heterogeneity in the discourse of Soviet linguists of the period corroborates how linguistics adapts to the political conceptions of society. (shrink)

Can citizens impact the broader discourse about an organization and its legitimacy? While social media have empowered citizens to publicly question firms through large volumes of online evaluations, the high heterogeneity of their evaluations dilutes their impact. Our empirical study applying a threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) analysis of 2.5 million tweets and 1,786 news media articles tests the condition by which the heterogeneity of online evaluations converges and influences the broader media discourse. Although social media (...) evaluations do not initially influence media legitimacy, they become influential after reaching a tipping point of refracted attention, which is created by high volume and convergence of individual evaluations around few aggregative frames. Thus, social media storms may influence the broader discourse about an organization when this discourse converges and reaches a tipping point, rather than merely through the massive participation of citizens. (shrink)

This article examines the discourse competence of high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders to participate in narrative introduction sequences with family members. The analysis illuminates the children’s own efforts to launch narratives, as well as their ability to build upon the contributions of others. Ethnographic, discourse analytic methodology is integrated with the theory of discourse organization and the weak central coherence account of autism. Introductions of both personal experience narratives as well as fictional narratives are examined. The (...) children were especially competent in the use of stable introductory practices when launching fictional narratives, pre-organized by the media of expression. Their challenge was not in the introduction, but in the narrative co-telling, which often was not globally organized over an extended course of propositions. The heterogeneity of the ASD children’s discourse competence and its implications for discourse analysis are discussed. (shrink)

We describe how the set of tools, practices, and social relations known as “precision agriculture” is defined, promoted, and debated. To do so, we perform a critical discourse analysis of popular and trade press websites. Promoters of precision agriculture champion how big data analytics, automated equipment, and decision-support software will optimize yields in the face of narrow margins and public concern about farming’s environmental impacts. At its core, however, the idea of farmers leveraging digital infrastructure in their operations is (...) not new, as agronomic research in this vein has existed for over 30 years. Contemporary discourse in precision ag tends to favour emerging digital technologies themselves over their embeddedness in longstanding precision management approaches. Following several strands of science and technology studies research, we explore what rhetorical emphasis on technical innovation achieves, and argue that this discourse of novelty is a reinvention of precision agriculture in the context of the growing “smart” agricultural economy. We overview six tensions that remain unresolved in this promotional rhetoric, concerning the definitions, history, goals, adoption, uses, and impacts of precision agriculture. We then synthesize these in a discussion of the extent to which digital tools are believed to displace farmer decision-making and whether digital agriculture addresses the biophysical heterogeneity of farm landscapes or land itself has become an “experimental technology”—a way to advance the general development of artificial intelligence. This discussion ultimately helps us name a larger dilemma: that the smart agricultural economy is perhaps less about supporting land and its stewards than promising future tech and profits. (shrink)

This essay aims at questioning different aspects of narrative and description by means of the model of discourse analysis presented in Roulet & al. . After showing the necessity of a unified approach to the structure of different discourse types and the problem of discourse heterogeneity, the author examines the following problems: the distinction between a relation and a narrative and the different modes of insertion of those two types of discourse in an exchange structure, (...) the hierarchical and argumentative structure of narrative, the distinction between narrative and deliberate discourses, the insertion of dialogues in narrative and the co-construction by the interlocutors of a narrative in dialogue. He then sets up a distinction between different types of descriptions and analyses the hierarchical and argumentative structure of description. He concludes with a recapitulation of the diverse modes of integration of narrative, relation and different types of description in discourse. (shrink)

The study provides an insight into the structural features of the famous VIII century Buddhist treatise Tattvasaṅgrāha by Śāntarakṣita with regard to the text’s main purpose ( prayojana ) as it is treated in Kamalaśīla’s commentary Pañjikā. Any text along with its referential (representational) function of conveying message - meaning to the addressee, or its expressive function, reflecting the author's attitude to what is communicated, also performs the ‘appellative’ function, encouraging the recipient of the message to act. This function which (...) could also be called praxiological was always significant in Indian text culture, since from the times of Veda-s it was embedded in its very core. This function is of paramount importance in the case of Indian religious and philosophical texts, whose main aim is to convince and transform the consciousness of their percipients. Along with linear models of message transfer, Sanskrit texts could demonstrate non-linear semantic structures, transmitting the main idea of the text indirectly. It is exactly how one should perceive the message of Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṅgrāha according to the suggested by Śāntarakṣita’s prominent student Kamalaśīla in his Pañjikā -commentary to the treatise. He proposes to consider Tattvasaṅgrāha not as a thematically heterogeneous encyclopaedic or doxographic work, whose main objective is to refute different non-Buddhist views (as it is often treated by scholars now), but as a text, which by its very design exposes one of the most important Buddhist principles - the law of the dependent origination ( pratītyasamutpāda ). The themes, discussed in a number of the chapters of Tattvasaṅgrāha, indeed, appear to have direct correlation with the characteristics of pratītyasamutpāda given to it in Śālistamba-sūtra - an early Mahāyāna text, which explains this universal law. Kamalaśīla suggests looking at Tattvasaṅgrāha as at one big unit-sentence - mahāvākya, with the exposition of pratītyasamutpāda as its unitary purpose-meaning ( abhidheya ). In this context, the treatise functions as a praxiological tool for the ‘installing’ into the consciousness of the text’s addressee the knowledge of ‘true principles’ (tattva-s) of pratītyasamutpāda. This interpretation of the main message of the text raises also a question of the adequate translation of the name of the treatise into other languages, because, according to Kamalaśīla, ‘ Tattvasaṅgrāha’ means the ‘Assembly of Principles-(tattva’-s)’ which specify precisely pratītyasamutpāda (pratītyasamutpāda-viśeṣaṇāni tattvāni). (shrink)

This article is aimed at introducing a French discourse analysis model, e.g. the ‘star model’, initiated by the LAA team led by Robert Vion in Aix-en-Provence, to English-speaking researchers. It will be argued that language activity is multi-dimensional and can be traced at various heterogeneous levels of speech productions belonging to macro as well as micro orders. Speakers achieve different varieties of positioning which result in negotiating an interactional space within a pre-given situation. The model is precisely designed to (...) offer a unified and comprehensive view of such heterogeneous phenomena in constant interconnection. In this study, we also intend to illustrate our approach through the analysis of two different corpora. Speakers’ strategies under extreme conditions will be analysed; the various sequences used were taken from a special corpus which we were asked to study as part of a national research programme. In order to illustrate interactional space shifts, we will also use the transcript of a meeting which took place between a patient and a medical investigator in a hospital in Marseilles. (shrink)

This essay explores the challenge ofarticulating ethical discourse in an age cognisant of perspective, intentionally, through Jacques Derrida’s admiration for Nelson Mandela in ‘The Laws of Reflection: Nelson Mandela, In Admiration.’ For Derrida, Mandela affirms anoriginary trace of human dignity, yet performatively reconceived through perspectival testimony and conscience, drawing from heterogeneous headings in Tribal lore and European law. Mandela exemplifies admiration for those legal traditions endorsing human rights and dignity, yet his testimony is a performance of ethical imagination invoking (...) the spectre of ‘justice to come,’ which will always contest legal conventions and implicit circumscriptions of human dignity. Using additional works from Derrida, I propose that the challenge ofarticulating ethical values with traction, while affirming difference within an age cognisant of perspective, has exemplary focus in Derrida’s Mandela, with his spectral reflection of human dignity and difference. This ‘spectral reflection’ is a haunting silhouette of what is yet to come in the law, passing through mandela as through a mirror—from invisibility to visibility and vice versa. In ‘The Laws of Reflection,’Mandela is a metonym for anethicity of ethics (Derrida) that risks imaginative responsibility for an incalculable future, which, in the name of justice, calls into question any legal or ethical convention. This may have particular significance for articulating ethics in theological discourse. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to contribute to the existing literature on continuing bonds with a deceased relative by exploration of discursive dimensions of the bonds through which the survivors construct their relationship with the person who died. The data come from five interviews with family members who survived the suicidal death of their relative. We argue that a focus upon the form and content of the survivors’ stories offers a complicated and heterogeneous picture of ‘bonding actions’. And so, (...) assuming a constructionist view of discourse, we show two kinds of bonds. First, it is a bond related to social expectations of bereaved families. Second, it is a personal bond, part of which is a bond with a reverse direction, established and maintained by the deceased person. (shrink)

Trade unions have been the object of sustained critique coming from across the political spectrum for several decades now. Based on a discourse theoretical analysis of articles in three Dutch-speaking Belgian newspapers, published in two periods of social protest in 2014 and 2016, this article identifies six strands of critique: (1) critiques that label unions as conservative anachronisms that are out of sync with the realities of our times; (2) critiques that psychologize unions as egoistic, irresponsible and child-like actors; (...) (3) critiques that criminalize unions as vandals, hostage takers or terrorists; (4) critiques that oppose unions to a homogenized general interest; (5) metadiscursive critiques of unions’ discursive practices; and (6) metapolitical critiques that problematize unions as polarizing and ‘political’ actors. These six strands of critique get articulated through discursive logics that operate within and across texts, newspapers and voices. Together they constitute a heterogenous but relatively consonant polyphonic discourse that challenges trade unions and their right to strike. This discourse has metapolitical implications for the debate on the mode(s) of politics that can legitimately be practiced by civil society actors. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the interest of multiple actors with speculations about its benefits and dangers. Despite increasing scholarly attention to the discourses of AI, there are limited insights on how different groups interpret and debate AI and shape its opportunities for action. We consider AI an issue field understood as a contested phenomenon where heterogeneous actors assert and debate the meanings and consequences of AI. Drawing on computational social science methods, we analyzed large amounts of text on how (...) politicians (parliamentarians) consultancies (high reputation firms), and lay experts (AI-forum Reddit users) articulate meanings about AI. Through topic modeling, we identified diverse and co-existing discourses: politicians predominantly articulated AI as a societal issue requiring an ethical response, consultancies stressed AI as a business opportunity pushing a transformation-oriented discourse, and lay experts expressed AI as a technical issue shaping a techno-feature discourse. Moreover, our analysis details the hopes and fears within AI discourses, revealing that sentiment varies by actor group. Based on these findings, we contribute new insights about AI as an issue field shaped by the discursive work performed by heterogeneous actors. (shrink)

Advances in research on human cerebral organoids (HCOs) call for a critical review of current research policies. A challenge for the evaluation of necessary research regulations lies in the severe uncertainty about future trajectories the currently very rudimentary stages of neural cell cultures might take as the technology progresses. To gain insights into organotypic cultures, ethicists, legal scholars, and neuroscientists rely on resemblances to the human brain. They refer to similarities in structural or functional terms that have been established in (...) scientific practice to validate organotypic cultures as models for brain research. In ethical discourse, however, such similarities are also used to justify assumptions about the potential risk to cause harm to HCOs. Ethicists assume that as the technology advances, organotypic cultures will increasingly resemble the human brain, raising more complex ethical issues. I argue that such reasoning is not justified given the heterogeneity of HCOs that have been modified to enable scientists to pursue their research goals. I then discuss the implications this line of thought has for advocates of the precautionary principle, focussing on those suggestions which propose adopting research regulations to the presence of bodily warning signs deemed worthy of protection. In doing so, I illustrate that the prevalent assumptions on similarity in ethical discourse ultimately risk disproportionately restricting research. I conclude that given the severe uncertainty about the technology’s future development, ethical discourse might benefit from narrowing the time frame for anticipation. (shrink)

Available corpora for Argument Mining differ along several axes, and one of the key differences is the presence (or absence) of discourse markers to signal argumentative content. Exploring effective ways to use discourse markers has received wide attention in various discourse parsing tasks, from which it is well-known that discourse markers are strong indicators of discourse relations. To improve the robustness of Argument Mining systems across different genres, we propose to automatically augment a given text (...) with discourse markers such that all relations are explicitly signaled. Our analysis unveils that popular language models taken out-of-the-box fail on this task; however, when fine-tuned on a new heterogeneous dataset that we construct (including synthetic and real examples), they perform considerably better. We demonstrate the impact of our approach on an Argument Mining downstream task, evaluated on different corpora, showing that language models can be trained to automatically fill in discourse markers across different corpora, improving the performance of a downstream model in some, but not all, cases. Our proposed approach can further be employed as an assistant tool for better discourse understanding. (shrink)

20 years since the negotiation of the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in 2000, the anti-trafficking field has gone from an early, almost exclusive preoccupation with sex work to addressing extreme exploitation in a range of labour sectors. While this might suggest a reduced focus on the nature of the work performed and a greater focus on the conditions under which it is performed, in reality, anti-trafficking discourse remains in the grip of polarised positions on sex work even as the (...) carceral effects of anti-trafficking law become evident and the Swedish model of criminalising the purchase of sexual services spreads. In this article, I demonstrate how despite the recent discursive shifts to ‘modern slavery’ and ‘forced labour’, the anti-trafficking transnational legal order itself reinforces, rather than diffuses cultures of sex work exceptionalism. The growing international sex workers’ movement has offered resistance, yet a closer look at the movement and the widespread support that it has garnered for decriminalisation from international organisations, while valuable, helps reveal the greatest cost yet of anti-trafficking discourse, namely, the inability of the sex workers’ movement to produce a sophisticated theory of regulation to reduce levels of exploitation within sex work, one which is commensurate with the informality and heterogeneity of sex markets the world over. Finally, to the extent that neoabolitionist projects derive legitimacy from interventions abroad, especially in the global South, I chronicle the edifice on which it rests in one such context, namely India, to demonstrate how countries in the global South are not merely conduits for the global North’s preoccupation with moral gentrification through neo-abolitionism, but rather, that the circuits of global governmentality while influential, are highly contingent, thus producing opportunities for creative forms of mobilisation by sex workers. (shrink)

Background: As genetics technology proceeds, practices of genetic testing have become more heterogeneous: many different types of tests are finding their way to the public in different settings and for a variety of purposes. This diversification is relevant to the discourse on ethical, legal and societal issues (ELSI) surrounding genetic testing, which must evolve to encompass these differences. One important development is the rise of personal genome testing on the basis of genetic profiling: the testing of multiple genetic variants (...) simultaneously for the prediction of common multifactorial diseases. Currently, an increasing number of companies are offering personal genome tests directly to consumers and are spurring ELSI-discussions, which stand in need of clarification. This paper presents a systematic approach to the ELSI-evaluation of personal genome testing for multifactorial diseases along the lines of its test characteristics.DiscussionThis paper addresses four test characteristics of personal genome testing: its being a non-targeted type of testing, its high analytical validity, low clinical validity and problematic clinical utility. These characteristics raise their own specific ELSI, for example: non-targeted genetic profiling poses serious problems for information provision and informed consent. Questions about the quantity and quality of the necessary information, as well as about moral responsibilities with regard to the provision of information are therefore becoming central themes within ELSI-discussions of personal genome testing. Further, the current low level of clinical validity of genetic profiles raises questions concerning societal risks and regulatory requirements, whereas simultaneously it causes traditional ELSI-issues of clinical genetics, such as psychological and health risks, discrimination, and stigmatization, to lose part of their relevance. Also, classic notions of clinical utility are challenged by the newer notion of 'personal utility.'SummaryConsideration of test characteristics is essential to any valuable discourse on the ELSI of personal genome testing for multifactorial diseases. Four key characteristics of the test - targeted/non-targeted testing, analytical validity, clinical validity and clinical utility - together determine the applicability and the relevance of ELSI to specific tests. The paper identifies and discusses four areas of interest for the ELSI-debate on personal genome testing: informational problems, risks, regulatory issues, and the notion of personal utility. (shrink)

Responding to a deep and universal need of philosophizing in the context of intensive intercultural interaction among all philosophical traditions in the process of globalization, this timely book offers a unique collection of excellent papers on inter-translatability, art, and ethics; subjects which are most crucial for intercultural conversations today. Instead of opting for a "comparative philosophy" that suggests the superiority of philosophy in comparison with other forms of thought, this book explores "inter-translatability" between East and West, given that any dialogue (...) between heterogeneous cultures and systems of thought has to start with translation, which constitutes the first part of this book. Art and ethics are the two areas that most obviously link philosophies of the past and the present and constitute a fundamental part of Chinese long-living and practical philosophy. The value of art and aesthetic appreciation, no less than ethics, is at the core of Chinese culture and, indeed, promises a great deal for the future world. Thus, they are dealt with here in the second and third parts. This book is also relevant to inter-culturalism in philosophy itself, as the contributors, firstly, come from several different continents and, secondly, though most of them are philosophers, all contributors are well-versed in other disciplines, such as anthropology, literature, religion, aesthetics, history of art, sinology, cognitive sciences, and social sciences. (shrink)

This paper is intended to provide a critic perspective on the definition of places authenticity as proposed in the conventional environmental discourses. It suggests that, by following a very widespread view, modernity is con- sidered responsible for the loss of authenticity and the consequent disen- chantment of the world. However, environmental discourses claiming for the defence of places authenticity and adopting a rhetoric of nostalgia for a loss primeval relation between humans and nature are liable of some critics. In particular, (...) these refer to the essentialist definition of local places and cul- tures and to the relevance of the underlying power geometries. In order to inquire the possibility for a more positive gaze on modernity an alternative account of modernity is provided, by considering some suggestions from the hybrid geography. A different perspective on places as heterogeneous and porous is proposed together with further developments for the alternative environmental commitment. (shrink)

This edited collection presents a selection of papers from the 2012 conference of the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies , an international network of scholars and practitioners who seek to understand and influence the relationships between technologies and socio-economic contexts. Like S.NET itself, the collection is heterogeneous: organized under the headings of Engagements, Regulatory Governance, Innovation, and Discourse, its sixteen chapters reflect a broad range of political, epistemological, and methodological standpoints. Thus, unlike many other conference (...) publications, this one speaks to no single disciplinary audience. Researchers interested in emerging technologies will likely find at least one chapter that resonates with their own approach, plus a host of other perspectives, some of which may challenge their views about how and why such research should be undertaken in the first place. This plurality will be familiar to readers of NanoEthi .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.3 (1999) 63-80 [Access article in PDF] The Transversality of Michel de Certeau: Foucault's Panoptic Discourse and the Cartographic Impulse Bryan Reynolds and Joseph Fitzpatrick Above all (and this is a corollary, but an important one), the phenomenological and praxiological analysis of cultural trajectories must allow to be grasped at once a composition of places and the innovation that modifies it by dint of moving and cutting (...) across them. --Michel de Certeau, Culture in the PluralThrough his rigorous examinations of the common, the quotidian, the personal, the plural practices that establish and continually transform societies, Michel de Certeau develops a conception of culture born of the perpetual transgression, however subtle or pronounced, of the boundaries imposed by all totalizing systems, whether theoretical or social. This view of culture as a "cutting across" of boundaries, which can be found in many forms throughout his work, achieves a special significance for the study of subjectification in his discussion of "Spatial Practices" that comprises the third section of The Practice of Everyday Life. In an important essay on Certeau's theory of space, Ian Buchanan argues that "our understanding of culture must commence with an understanding of the formation of the subject," and that the latter is addressed by Certeau through his essays on space [129-30]. Following this assertion, we want to argue that Certeau's analyses of spatial practices in Heterologies, "The Gaze: Nicholas of Cusa," and The Practice of Everyday Life [particularly the chapter "Walking in the City" 91-110], outline a theory that describes subjectivity as what amounts to, as Certeau puts it in Culture in the Plural, "a composition of places and the innovation that modifies it by dint of moving and cutting across them" [146]. Furthermore, by articulating the close relationship between Certeau's spatial theory and our own work on "transversal movement," we will attempt to show that the method of analysis Certeau uses in "Walking in the City" (and describes in several other works) is itself marked by the "transversal" tactics that his theory describes. 1 By focusing in particular on Certeau's methodological critique of Foucault in both The Practice of Everyday Life and Heterologies, we will demonstrate the various ways in which he moves beyond what Bryan Reynolds and James Intriligator have labeled the "dissective-cohesive mode" of analysis, an analytical [End Page 63] [Begin Page 65] approach (characteristic of most dialectical argumentation) that breaks its subject matter into constituent parts and examines those parts with the goal of reassembling them into a unified and accountable whole (such as, say, the city or the human subject in "Walking in the City"). 2 Postmodern Space: Certeau and Jameson In his essay "Heterophenomenology, or Certeau's Theory of Space," Ian Buchanan situates Certeau's writings on the production of space within the postmodern debate over the autonomy of the subject, opposing Certeau's view to Fredric Jameson's "assumption that the subject takes his or her psychic bearings from the built environment and only has certain existence so long as he or she can cognitively 'map' this environment" [Buchanan 114]. Citing the example of the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles, Jameson argues that "this latest mutation in space--postmodern hyperspace--has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world" [44]. The effect on cultural politics, according to Jameson, is that the subject "submerged" by this postmodern hyperspace is deprived of the "critical distance" that makes possible the "positioning of the cultural act outside of the massive Being of capital" [48]. Buchanan finds in "Walking in the City" the basis for a critique of this view though a conception of space stemming from "heterophe-nomenology," defined as "a phenomenology predicated by a heterogeneously constituted subject which does not take for granted the unity of the body" [112]. Focusing on Certeau's debt to Merleau-Ponty's theories of perception (which can best be seen in... (shrink)

Being concerned with conflict and its role both in providing democratic regimes with salutary forms of innovation and in enhancing the capacity of societies for self-government, this dissertation examines Machiavelli's thought on "revolution" in the Discourses. This dissertation develops three arguments: that Machiavelli's notion of conflict includes not only conflict between socioeconomic groups but conflict between political leaders; that Machiavelli's version of the mixed republic reflects not merely the channeling of contending social forces but the institutionalization of change so that (...) the quintessential virtu of a well-ordered republic is its ability to recruit responsible leaders whose individual ambition for public recognition is directed to the common good of the political community; and that although Machiavelli was aware of the power of public imagination in creating a change of regime, his vision of redemption in the Discourses remains far from a populist mode of revolution that can be identified with the emergence of one revolutionary class through indoctrination. ;Each argument appears as a heterogeneous body of thought. But this dissertation argues that there is common ground in terms of temporizing with or delaying a radical change through class upheaval. We may learn from Machiavelli's antityrannical and republican thought on revolution that the wisest policy for treating revolution is not simply avoiding impending dangers by extraordinary measures in a dire emergency but also making use of the spirit of new political actors by election, accusation, and rivalry between political leaders in normal times. And, if Machiavelli's redemptive politics is analyzed in an arena free from the simple antinomies of liberalism versus republicanism, what Machiavelli's thought on revolution in the Discourses may have to offer us is that a broad notion of revolution---one that includes the nature of hostility among human beings, the cycle of regimes, and the creation of a new political order---helps us react better to conflict and deal with its political consequences in multiple forms straightforwardly; and political solutions of social and economic questions, such as the mixed republic and the role of prudent leaders in its actualization, should be emphasized. (shrink)

Resumen: El término “utopía” ha sido empleado por diversas corrientes e instituciones, entre ellas, la vida religiosa, para dar cuenta de ideas que movilizan sus proyectos de mundo. La pesquisa humanista y teológica en el continente latinoamericano no ha abordado de manera suficiente la relación entre utopía y vida religiosa. Esta investigación busca determinar una relación textual y contextual del uso del término utopía en las publicaciones entre 1970 y 2000 de la Conferencia de religiosos. Para ello, nos servimos de (...) las propuestas del Análisis Crítico del Discurso y la lexicografía. El análisis realizado permite establecer la dificultad y heterogeneidad de las formulaciones que expresan la utopía, sea por censura institucional o por visiones teológicas y escatológicas opuestas. A pesar de ello, los religiosos expresan una utopía latinoamericana asociada a la utopía cristiana del Reinado de Dios.: The term ‘utopia’ has been used by different tendencies and institutions, also the religious life, to show some ideas that mobilize their world projects. Latin-American theologian and humanist research hasn’t developed enough the relationship between utopia and religious life. Our research tries to determine the textual and contextual relation of the use of utopia as a term, in the “Confederación Latinoamericana de Religiosas y Religiosos” journal between 1970 and 2000. We used the tools proposed by the Critical Discourse Analysis and lexicography. The results show some difficulty and heterogeneity to formulate and express utopia. Censure and profound differences in theological and eschatological issues are some of the reasons for that matter. In spite of that, Latin-American religious life tends to express the presence of utopia associated to Christian Kingdom utopia. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore connections between two disciplines not typically linked: argumentation theory and urban design. I first trace historical ties between the art of reasoned discourse and the idea of civic virtue. I next analyze discourse norms implicit in three theories of urban design: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I (...) then propose a set of ‘settlement’ issues of potential interest to both urban designers and argumentation theorists: size, density, heterogeneity, publicity, security, and identity. I conclude by suggesting that the ‘good city’ be seen as both a spatial and a discursive entity. From such a perspective, good public discourse is dependent, at least in part, on good public space; and good public space is defined, at least in part, as a context conducive to good public discourse. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to defend the following hypothesis: Foucault's definition of politics from 1979, i.e. the game between heterogeneous governmentalities, overdetermines the two other dimensions of the concept: the warlike or antagonistic relationship between subjects and the resistance of a form of subjectivation against a governmentality. To this end, I address the problem of the possible relationship between overdetermination and the Foucauldian concept of politics. In this sense, Laclau and Mouffe’s work and Althusser’s criticism delimit the field of (...) inquiry, although they do not exhaust it. This contrast will serve to bring to light the implications of a Foucauldian interpretation of overdetermination and thus describe Foucault’s critiques of the poststructuralist model for political thought. From this, I intend to state the fact that Mouffe’s latest writings seem to be oriented towards avoiding the risks that Foucault pointed out, bringing her reflection close to that of the French philosopher. (shrink)

The discovery of America was one of the major events that determined the establishment of the world-historical process. However, for a long time this large-scale and all-important phenomenon, as well as the concept itself, was interpreted strictly in accordance with the Eurocentric attitudes and assessments of history. The European outlook tended to review the ambiguous, heterogeneous in its content, and accompanied by contradictions phenomenon in narrow geographical, political, economic, and epistemological perspectives. The usual interpretation lacked the cultural-historical, philosophical, and cultural (...) meanings. The author of the article attempts to fill the lost meanings and to expand the very meaning of the concept of “the discovery of America” by changing perspectives - from the European to the American one, in which the concept reaches a new interpretative level by having defined the continent-wide culture-forming strategy, and is able to absorb many meanings of self-identification of the subject involved in the global historical process. (shrink)

A tradição bíblica tem inspirado leituras e interpretações ecológicas por parte de teólogos de vertentes cristãs diversas, dentre os quais podemos destacar: Carriker, Reimer, Schaeffer e Stott. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar alguns textos das Escrituras Sagradas judaico-cristãs e o modo como estes têm sido interpretados por teólogos cristãos vinculados à vertente reformada à luz de uma leitura ecológica. Um corte epistemológico foi feito reconhecendo nestes teólogos posições ideológicas heterogêneas a fim de preservar a re(leitura) dos textos bíblicos escolhidos (...) sob a perspectiva ecológica. White Júnior (1967), historiador americano, escreveu um artigo em que responsabilizava o Cristianismo pela crise ambiental. Este discurso tem sido confrontado ao longo das últimas décadas por várias vertentes cristãs e os teólogos escolhidos para o diálogo neste artigo defendem posições contrárias ao que foi declarado por White Júnior, à época. O caminho para o diálogo entre estes teólogos foi buscado a partir da concepção de que o discurso é uma construção social (Foucault, 2009). A partir da análise dos diálogos estabelecidos entre os teólogos escolhidos e suas re(leituras) dos textos bíblicos é possível concluir que esta nova teologia tem o papel de conscientização, como resposta à crise ambiental, no âmbito das igrejas evangélicas. Palavras-Chave : Discurso. Ecologia. Bíblia. Teologia.: The biblical tradition has inspired environmental readings and interpretations by Christian theologians of various aspects, among which we highlight: Carriker, Reimer, Schaeffer and Stott. The aim of this paper is to present a brief overview of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and how they have been interpreted by Christian theologians linked to strand reformed in the light of an ecological reading. An epistemological cut was made recognizing these theologians and their heterogeneous ideological positions in order to preserve the re(read) of the biblical texts chosen under the ecological perspective. White Jr. (1967), American historian, wrote an article that blamed Christianity for the environmental crisis. This speech has been confronted over the past several decades by the Christian spectrum and the theologians chosen for dialogue in this article advocate contrary positions to what was stated by White Jr., at the time. The path to the dialogue between these theologians was sought from the idea that speech is a social construction (Foucault, 2009). From the analysis of the dialogue established between the theologians and their chosen re(readings) biblical texts is possible to conclude that this new theology has the role of awareness in response to environmental crisis within the evangelical churches. Key-words: Speech. Ecology. Bible. Theology. (shrink)

Large companies must increasingly satisfy not only the conditions of their formal licences, but also the concerns and expectations of host communities and broader society. This has led to the emergence, particularly in the minerals industry, of the notion of “social licence”, an interdiscursive term whose meaning is rarely interrogated. We use textual analysis to critically investigate the construction of social licence discourse in minerals companies’ sustainable development reports and at a recent industry conference. We find that the texts (...) mystify the nature of agency, and privilege processes that maintain existing power relations. Through their partial accommodation of heterogeneous discourses, the texts downplay tensions and conflicts. We conclude that there is a need to reconceptualise the nature of company–stakeholder relationships through a more collaborative, dialogic and reflexive process, avoiding the binary state implied by the term licence. (shrink)

Exploring nursing expertise: nurses talk nursingIt has become increasingly important for practitioners to articulate their expertise in modern healthcare settings that demand high levels of accountability and evidence‐based practice. The material presented within this article has been interpreted drawing from discourse analysis1to help explore the discourses that shape and influence understandings of nursing practice. What we present are extracts from four of the 35 participant nurses who applied to take part in the Royal College of Nursing Institute's Expertise in (...) Practice (pilot) Project (EPP). The material presented is used to provide a starting point for exploring how nurses talk about and construct expertise in nursing practice. The four nurse participants’ clinical practice areas cover palliative care, mental health, intensive care and fertility care. The material reveals high levels of intensity in the nurse–patient relationship, ‘maverick’ nursing practices and ongoing reflexivity. All of these aspects appear to capitalize on expertise as a ‘catalyst’ that alters treatment pathways and maximizes patient‐centred outcomes. Exploring a discourse of nursing expertise exposes the tacit situated nature of professional practice that is heterogeneous and most difficult to articulate and explain. It is proposed that expertise tends to be understood from traditional and dominant discourses of medicine, management and technology. Explaining expertise in practice exposes non‐conventional practice that in itself can be isolating and challenging to the status quo of contemporary health‐care. (shrink)

Like all discourses on the ‘other’, Bataille’s heterology is faced with the problem of conceptualizing the heterogeneous (the other of thought, reason and language), while preserving its alterity, its fundamental resistance to conceptual thought. This paper interrogates the potential parallels between this aspect of Bataille’s notion and some of the prevalent concerns of contemporary and traditional aesthetics. The argument is based on the idea that theories of the aesthetic, akin to Bataille’s heterology, are always inevitably confronted with the paradoxical task (...) of conceptually framing an experience that, per definition, resists philosophical or political appropriation. In relation to this my paper traces a development in Bataille’s thinking from an initial rejection of art and the aesthetic to their later reconfiguration as manifestations of sovereignty. Here I show how Bataille’s notion of sovereign art presents an implicit attempt to overcome some of the aporias to have surfaced in his earlier account of heterology. This development in Bataille’s thought is analysed in the context of his changing relationship with Surrealism. (shrink)

Within an increasingly unequal, heterogeneous, and authoritarian Global North, a new global consumerism movement championed by activist consumers, together with academics, managers, and organizations, has emerged as the ultimate ethical management discourse for a better global future. NGC reframes Cold War official history of buycott consumerism by emancipating “passive” consumers and “insurgent” boycotts. Drawing on decolonial liberating transmodernity from Latin America, this paper shows how and why “old” and “new” dominant histories of consumerism deny the racialist/colonialist side of liberal (...) capitalism. The discussion involves transmodern and counter-transmodern mechanisms and overlooks everyday liberating boycott consumerism against the colonialism/racialism mobilized by subaltern victims of history. We problematize the re-appropriation of transmodernity as a potential path to decolonizing consumerism and management historiography from a majority perspective. (shrink)

Metaphysics, understood as the first philosophy, that is, the science of the ultimate foundations and principles of being, has long been declared an anachronism in the postmodern period.1 The pluralistic character of being, the heterogeneity of types of philosophical discourse and their mutual irreducibility, the spatiotemporal discreteness of various ontologies and epistemologies, the understanding of tradition as a given that needs to be overcome rather than continued—all these indicators point to the paradigm of new thinking within which flows (...) the mainstream of twentieth-century philosophical thought. Outside this stream stands the figure of K.-O. Apel, who is devoted to the idea of a single philosophy and continues to uphold it in the face of criticism from all sides. Apel's quixotic unwillingness to relinquish his stance is demonstrated by his new book, published in 1998, in which he continues to develop his ideas, which constitute a complete conception of transcendental pragmatism.2 Inasmuch as a theory that had apparently been relegated to books on the history of philosophy has become topical again, my task is to return to its sources and to reconstruct3 and analyze its basic propositions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 335-342 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis as a Hybrid of Religion and Science Quinton Deeley Keywords Freud, psychoanalysis, religion, science, evolution Introduction De Block's paper, "Freud as an Evolutionary Psychiatrist," discusses Freud's writ-ings—including a recently discovered paper on the evolution of psychopathology—to establish the Freudian "philosophy of man" that human beings are "ill to the core" (i.e., that mental illness is an inevitable (...) byproduct of human psychological processes). This perspective is then used as a basis for proposing a way in which psychoanalysis can be integrated with contemporary evolutionary psychology. However, this undertaking raises fundamental questions about psychoanalysis itself, which are addressed in this commentary. First, to what extent is a systematic theoretical unity imposed on, rather than discovered in, Freud's writings? Also, has De Block succeeded in grounding the Freudian philosophy of man in evolutionary theory, and how is this ambition affected by general questions about the scientific status and evidence for psychoanalytic conceptions? Further, if there is only limited experimental evidence for psychoanalytic concepts, how are claims to knowledge justified in psychoanalytic discourse, and how does this relate to the forms of epistemic justification found in religion and science? Finally, is psychoanalysis closer to religious or scientific discourse, and if it combines features of both, what kind of activity is it? The Exposition of the Freudian Philosophical Project The key claim of De Block's paper is that any evolutionary psychology faithful to Freud's account of human nature must be constrained by a fundamental premise: the psychological organization of human beings is such that "there is a quantitative, but not a structural, difference between psychiatric patients and so-called healthy or normal individuals" (2005, 323). From De Block's perspective, this reflects the Freudian perspective that the normal operation of psychological processes inevitably results in some degree of mental distress: "every repression produces symptoms, every defense mechanism produces more suffering than is strictly necessary" (2005, 321). As a result, "when Freud writes that there is only a gradual difference between neurotics and normals, he does not mean the normals are non-neurotic, but only that they suffer less under their neurosis" (2005, 318). This Freudian perspective is variously summarized throughout the paper; for example, "we think there is only one underlying motive of Freud's research, which [End Page 335] could also function as a cornerstone of a 'Freudian' philosophy. This underlying motive is the intuition that there is no substantial difference between the so-called normal human being and the mentally insane" (2005, 315).De Block's exposition of the Freudian account of human nature also emphasizes the doctrine of psychosexuality: "the Freudian philosophy of man presumes primarily that every human being has to react in some way of another to sexual problems" (2005, 317). One of the problems confronting any expositor of Freud is the fact that his voluminous writings show considerable development in his thought. This heterogeneity raises the question of the extent to which the coherence of Freudian theory as a systematic whole is imposed by expositors, rather than lying in the corpus itself. De Block's approach to this heterogeneity is to extract different kinds of relations between sexuality and psychopathology from Freud's writings (e.g., neurosis and the Oedipal instincts, psychosis and narcissism), and then to argue that they explain Freud's interest in less obviously sexual aspects of mind, behavior, and society. As De Block comments after his exegesis of different connections between sexuality and psychopathology: but probably, he [Freud] only meant that in neurosis, people wrestle first and foremost with love, in perversion with sex and violence, and in psychosis with identity and issues related to identity, such as death and "the meaning of life." At least, such an interpretation can explain why Freud—in some of his works—recognized the importance of problems like aggression, love, and death for the human psyche and human psychopathology...; he nevertheless refused to modify the primacy of sexuality in psychopathology. (2005, X) Whether all of Freud's explanations of psychological phenomena involve... (shrink)

In this contribution, we focus on teaching and assessment in school-based activities involving the oral transmission of texts at school entry in multilingual contexts. We analyze activities involving listening and oral exchanges between five-year-olds and their teacher about the comprehension of children's literature. Our analyses show that the challenge of oral interactions in the professionalization of teachers lies in the delimitation of a common, shared space for speech between the teacher and the class collective, and that the story-character system provides (...) a framework for structuring these interactions in heterogeneous, multilingual contexts. (shrink)

The concept of bias is pervasive in both popular discourse and empirical theorizing within philosophy, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. This widespread application threatens to render the concept too heterogeneous and unwieldy for systematic investigation. This article explores recent philosophical literature attempting to identify a single theoretical category—termed ‘bias’—that could be unified across different contexts. To achieve this aim, the article provides a comprehensive review of theories of bias that are significant in the fields of philosophy of mind, cognitive (...) science, machine learning, and epistemology. It focuses on key examples such as perceptual bias, implicit bias, explicit bias, and algorithmic bias, scrutinizing their similarities and differences. Although these explorations may not conclusively establish the existence of a natural theoretical kind, pursuing the possibility offers valuable insights into how bias is conceptualized and deployed across diverse domains, thus deepening our understanding of its complexities across a wide range of cognitive and computational processes. (shrink)

Unsupervised learning algorithms are widely used for many important statistical tasks with numerous applications in science and industry. Yet despite their prevalence, they have attracted remarkably little philosophical scrutiny to date. This stands in stark contrast to supervised and reinforcement learning algorithms, which have been widely studied and critically evaluated, often with an emphasis on ethical concerns. In this article, I analyze three canonical unsupervised learning problems: clustering, abstraction, and generative modeling. I argue that these methods raise unique epistemological and (...) ontological questions, providing data-driven tools for discovering natural kinds and distinguishing essence from contingency. This analysis goes some way toward filling the lacuna in contemporary philosophical discourse on unsupervised learning, as well as bringing conceptual unity to a heterogeneous field more often described by what it isnot(i.e., supervised or reinforcement learning) than by what itis. I submit that unsupervised learning is not just a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry but perhaps the most fundamental branch of all AI. However, an uncritical overreliance on unsupervised methods poses major epistemic and ethical risks. I conclude by advocating for a pragmatic, error-statistical approach that embraces the opportunities and mitigates the challenges posed by this powerful class of algorithms. (shrink)

Biobanks are precariously situated at the intersection of science, genetics, genomics, society, ethics, the law and politics. This multi-disciplinarity has given rise to a new discourse in health research involving diverse stakeholders. Each stakeholder is embedded in a unique context and articulates his/her biobanking activities differently. To researchers, biobanks carry enormous transformative potential in terms of advancing scientific discovery and knowledge. However, in the context of power asymmetries in Africa and a distrust in science born out of historical exploitation, (...) researchers must balance the scientific imperative of collecting, storing and sharing high quality biological samples with obligations to donors/participants, communities, international collaborators, regulatory and ethics authorities. To date, researcher perspectives on biobanking in South Africa have not been explored and documented. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 21 researchers – 8 in the Western Cape, 3 in Gauteng and 10 in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Interviews lasted approximately 40–60 min and were audiotaped with consent. Thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews was conducted by the co-authors. Researchers articulated serious concerns over standardised regulatory approaches that failed to consider the heterogeneity of biobanks. Given that biobanks differ considerably, guidelines and RECs need to stratify risk accordingly and governance processes and structures must be flexible. While RECs were regarded as an important component of the governance structure researchers expressed concern about their expertise in biobanking. Operational management of biobanks was regarded as an ethical imperative and a pre-requisite to building trust during consent processes. While broad general consent was preferred, tiered consent was thought to be more consistent with respect for autonomy and building trust. Material Transfer Agreements were often lacking when biosamples were exported and this was perceived to impact negatively on trust. On the other hand, researchers believed that authentic community engagement would help to build trust. Building trust will best be achieved via a system of governance structures and processes that precede the establishment of a biobank and monitor progress from the point of sample collection through to future use, including export. Such governance structures must be robust and must include comprehensive national legislation, policy and contextualised guidelines. Currently such governance infrastructure appears to be lacking in many African countries including South Africa. Capacity development of all stakeholders including REC members will enhance expeditious and efficient review of biobanking protocols which in turn will reinforce trust in the researcher-donor relationship. Science translation and community engagement in biobanking is integral to the success of biobanking in South Africa. (shrink)

The emerging field of responsible management (RM) studies the integration of sustainability, responsibility, and ethics in managerial practices. Therefore, turning to practice theories for the study of RM appears to hold great promise of conceptual and methodological contribution. We propose a posthumanist practice approach for studying RM-as-practice. Managerial practices are conceived as the agencement of heterogeneous elements (humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans, materials, and discourses) that achieve agency in their being interconnected. Thus, RM is understood as processual, relational, emergent, and sociomaterial. We (...) contribute a framework for the empirical study of RM-as-practice on the basis of three sensitizing concepts: situatedness, sociomateriality, and textures_._ We further discuss the implications of understanding responsibility as response-ability, an engaged practice for relating to the other and the RM researcher’s role as internal to the practice agencement under study, thus, opening the debate on our own response-ability. (shrink)

Many sentences can be interpreted both as a metaphor and as a literal claim, depending on the context. The aim of this paper is to show that there are discourse-based systematic constraints on the identification of an utterance as metaphorical, literal, or both (as in the case of twice-apt metaphors), from a normative point of view. We claim that the key is contextual coherence. In order to substantiate this claim, we introduce a novel notion of context as a rich (...) and heterogeneous body of information, including previous discourse, elements coming from the surroundings of the utterance, background information, and Questions Under Discussion (QUD) issued from these three sources. We then define contextual coherence as a relation between what we call the minimal paraphrase of the metaphor and the context, and argue that for an interpretation to be coherent two conditions must be met. First, the minimal paraphrase must address some question in the QUD stack. Second, it must be externally consistent, i.e. consistent with the available contextual information. Finally, we argue that an approach based on contextual coherence is better suited to deal with twice-true and twice-apt metaphors than traditional approaches based on semantic deviance or pragmatic lack of fit. (shrink)

Martin and Deutscher’s remarkable 1966 paper ‘Remembering’ still offers great riches to memory researchers across distinctive traditions, both in its methodological ambition (successfully marrying phenomenological and causal discourses) and in its content. In this short discussion, after briefly setting the paper in its context, we hone in on two live and under-explored issues which have gained attention recently under new labels – the extended mind hypothesis, and the constructive nature of memory. We suggest that Martin and Deutscher’s causal analysis of (...) memory is compatible with the idea that activities of remembering may be distributed across heterogeneous social and external resources, focussing in on their neglected example of creatures who ‘remember as we do’ as long as they carry round metal boxes which are given to them at birth. We then argue that the causal analysis is in some tension with the extent to which remembering is a constructive activity, because there may be no clear way to determine the appropriate ‘limits of accuracy’ within which a past event or experience must be represented. (shrink)

The question of the political potential possessed by the philosophies of the Vienna Circle is complex for more than one reason. It is so partly due to the politically heterogeneous membership of the Circle, partly due to the difficult if not extreme political circumstances under which they had to operate, and partly due to the variable meanings of the parameter "political," some of which are and some of which are not compatible with, in turn, variable versions of the doctrine of (...) the value-neutrality of science. For instance, philosophies of science may steadfastly be standing guard against pseudo-scientific nonsense being paraded as worthy of credence in public discourse, this concern for intellectual hygene... (shrink)