First published in 1984, Cultural Analysis is a systematic examination of the theories of culture contained in the writings of four contemporary social theorists: Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. This study of their work clarifies their contributions to the analysis of culture and shows the converging assumptions that the authors believe are laying the foundation for a new approach to the study of culture. The focus is specifically on culture, a concept that remains subject to (...) ambiguities of treatment, and concentrates on questions concerning the definition and content of culture, its construction, its relations with social conditions, and the manner in which it may be changing. The books demonstrates how these writers have made strides towards defining culture as an objective element of social interaction which can be subjected to critical investigation. (shrink)

Since Dilthey’s template study of 1890, the Prussian state’s attempt to censor Kant’s religious writings has typically been seen as the work of a reactionary politics bent on imposing religious orthodoxy as a bulwark against the spread of Aufklärung. This paper offers a revisionist interpretation, arguing that the attempted censoring was a by-product of a set of a longstanding Religionspolitik designed to achieve religious toleration through a system of regulated public confessions. Reaffirmed in the Religious Edict (1788) and the Censorship (...) Edict (1788), Prussian policy required acceptance of a plurality of public confessions whose stability was preserved through the restriction of public proselytising and the acceptance of private religious freedom. In breaking with this religious settlement, through their public advocacy of a true ‘religion of reason’, the religious rationalists of the theological Aufklärung breached the embargo on public proselytising, leading eventually to government’s attempt to censor Kant’s own ‘pure religion of reason’. (shrink)

Significant changes are proposed for the research ethics system governing the review of the conduct of medical research in the UK. This paper examines these changes and whether they will meet the aimed-for goal of improving the efficiency of the research ethics system. The author concludes that, unfortunately, they will not and thus should be rejected.

_Transcendent Teacher Learner Relationships: The Way of the Shamanic Teacher _ explores the nature of the transcendent teacher learner relationship and precisely how such relationships of warmth, safety, mutual care, mutual respect and mutual trust are developed and maintained.

A recurring objection to the exploration, development and deployment of radical new technologies is based on their implications with regards to social justice. In this article, using synthetic biology as an example, I explore this line of objection and how we ought to think about justice in the context of the development and introduction of radically new technologies. I argue that contrary to popular opinion, justice rarely provides a reason not to investigate, develop and introduce radical new technologies, although it (...) may have significant implications for how they ought to be introduced. In particular I focus on the time dependency of justice objections and argue that often these function by looking only at the implications of the introduction of the technology at the point of introduction, rather than the more important long-term impact on patterns of distribution and opportunity. (shrink)

Sensitivity to the extra-linguistic context, as exhibited by indexical and demonstrative expressions, and sensitivity to the linguistic context, as exhibited by, for example, anaphoric uses of third person pronouns, are regularly regarded as different and independent phenomena. The data on indexicals, demonstratives, and third person pronouns, however, call for a more unified notion of context and of context sensitivity. This paper aims to develop such a unified picture by generalizing the notion of anaphora to encompass extra-linguistic context dependency and generalizing (...) the notion of a structured discourse context so that contexts contain antecedents for expressions that refer to entities in the extra-linguistic context. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of a particular form of philosophical spirituality in the emergence of post-structuralist theory. Initially elaborated in the post-Kantian metaphysics of Husserl and Heidegger, and focused in recondite acts of intellectual self-transformation, this form of spirituality was transposed into a literary hermeneutics that permitted its wider dissemination in the Anglo-american humanities academy. Post-structuralist theory is the result of this historical transformation.

Feminist economists have demonstrated that interrogating hierarchies based on gender, ethnicity, class and nation results in an economics that is biased and more faithful to empirical evidence than are mainstream accounts. This rigorous and comprehensive book examines many of the central philosophical questions and themes in feminist economics including: · History of economics · Feminist science studies · Identity and agency · Caring labor · Postcolonialism and postmodernism With contributions from such leading figures as Nancy Folbre, Julie Nelson and Sandra (...) Harding, Toward a Feminist Theory of Economics looks set to become the book on feminist economics for some time to come and will be greatly appreciated by all those interested in gender studies, economic methodology and social theory. (shrink)

Summary A good deal of the late-twentieth-century commentary on Kant's ‘Perpetual Peace’ essay accepted its author's view that his conception of cosmopolitan justice had superseded the law of nations, some of whose leading exponents—Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel—Kant characterised as ‘miserable comforters’. Focusing on the case of Vattel, in this paper I begin to subject Kant's claim to an historical investigation, asking whether his ‘Perpetual Peace’ did indeed supersede Vattel's Law of Nations in terms of the actual uses of the texts (...) in a variety of historical contexts. In pointing to an array of evidence against Kant's widely accepted claim, I develop a different and more historical way of assessing the relation between the two writers. Kant, I argue, should be approached as a political metaphysician whose conception of cosmopolitan justice formed part of a factional theological and philosophical attack on the law of nations tradition. Vattel, however, was a diplomatic official whose text operates within the horizon of the European state ensemble and functioned as a summative abstraction of a wide variety of post-Westphalian public-law treaties and diplomatic rules and conventions. This accounts for the wide distribution, use, and influence of Vattel's work in a variety of Anglophone contexts from the late eighteenth century through to the end of the nineteenth, where Kant's text was marginal to discussion. (shrink)

O propósito fundamental do presente artigo consiste em examinar os termos da liberdade em Hobbes, utilizando-se do sentido liberal de liberdade, por vezes atribuído ao modo como o filósofo concebe a sua posição sobre a liberdade, mediante as discussões de Quentin Skinner acerca da concepção “neorromana” de liberdade ou a liberdade republicana. Com base nesse pressuposto, pretende evidenciar como a concepção moderna de liberdade é inteiramente dependente da construção hobbesiana da “liberdade negativa”, influenciada diretamente por um debate político ocorrido na (...) Inglaterra nos meados do século XVII. Com base nesses elementos, o cerne das discussões que serão empreendidas no presente artigo diz respeito à crítica hobbesiana à liberdade republicana como pressuposto para demonstrar o desenvolvimento da concepção moderna de liberdade. Uma vez examinada essa relação, será possível, portanto, evidenciar os aspectos marcantes do liberalismo presentes na argumentação política de Hobbes. (shrink)

I argue that entertaining a proposition is not an action. Such events do not have intentional explanations and cannot be evaluated as rational or not. In these respects they contrast with assertions and compare well with perceptual events. One can control what one thinks by doing something, most familiarly by reciting a sentence. But even then the event of entertaining the proposition is not an action, though it is an event one has caused to happen, much as one might cause (...) oneself to see a book by looking at it. I also discuss how this may support the view that thinking about the world is a source of information about it. (shrink)

In this chapter, I present some philosophical reflections on the theme of the imagination. The main inspiration for these reflections comes from two writers, both of whom are mentioned in Alain de Botton’s (2003) The Art of Travel: Joris-Karl Huysmans and Xavier de Maistre. De Botton uses both of these writers in his book as ‘guides’, people whose work prompts his own ruminations, Huysmans in the first chapter and de Maistre in the last. Speculatively, I infer from this structure that (...) de Botton has identified a similarity in the two writers’ attitudes to the relationship between travel and the imagination such that he regards it as appropriate to begin with one and to end with the other. There is a sense, I speculate, in which the wheel is meant to come full circle in de Botton’s book. Both Huysmans and de Maistre seem to be of the opinion that the nature of the imagination is such that it makes travel possible anywhere, notably and counter intuitively, in the place where travel typically both begins and ends: in the traveller’s own home. As I shall shortly suggest in more detail, Huysmans and de Maistre seem to agree that travelling in the imagination alone is preferable in certain ways to the real thing. Whether or not I am right in my speculative attribution of this observation to de Botton, I want, in this chapter, to extend it. I want to suggest that, although Huysmans and de Maistre do indeed draw similar conclusions about travel, they do so for very different reasons. I argue that Huysmans and de Maistre have radically opposing views of the nature of the relationship between the world of the imagination and the real world and therefore of the relationship between travel and the imagination. Using this contrast as a point of departure, I examine the role of the imagination in de Maistre’s travel literature and draw out its philosophical significance, articulating some philosophical insights de Maistre provides about the nature of the imagination per se and its role in human life. (shrink)

The role of gene expression in evolutionary adaptation has been a subject of debate for over 40 years.cis‐regulation of transcription has been proposed to be the primary source of morphological novelty in evolution, though this is based on only a handful of examples. Recently the first genome‐wide studies of gene expression adaptation have been published, giving us an initial global view of this process. Systematic studies such as these will allow a number of key questions currently facing the field of (...) gene expression evolution to be addressed. (shrink)

Background: Persistent healthcare emphasis on universal moral philosophy has not advantaged indigenous and marginalised groups. Centralising cultural components of care is vital to provide ethical healthcare services to indigenous people and cultural minorities internationally. Woods’ theoretical explication of how nurses can integrate cultural safety into a socioethical approach signposts ethical practice that reflects culturally congruent relational care and systemic critique. Aim: To demonstrate the empirical utility of Woods’ ethical elements of cultural safety within a socioethical model, through analysis of indigenous (...) nurses’ practice realities in Aotearoa New Zealand. Research design: The study used a qualitative indigenous narrative inquiry. Participants and research context: Participants were recruited nationally. Twelve Māori registered nurses and nurse practitioners were interviewed. All participants provided direct care in either primary or secondary health services. Ethical considerations: Research approval was gained from the Human Ethics Committee of the lead author’s tertiary institution. Participation was voluntary, and written informed consent was obtained. Findings: Analysis highlighted the following: (1) cultural needs, which for Māori were integral to care, were easily subsumed by clinical care being prioritised; (2) ethical care by non-indigenous nurses requires critical reflection about broader equity issues that impact Māori disengagement from healthcare; (3) retention of indigenous nurses was seen as essential because their advocacy and the cultural ‘fit’ for Māori contributed to positive healthcare outcomes; and (4) committed leadership ensured culturally safe care was not eroded through workplace efficiencies. Discussion: The data provide rich representation of Woods’ model. The data indicate that nurses must engage reflexively with a relational ethic of care and social justice dimensions in order to deliver culturally safe care. Conclusion: Woods’ model provides a critical lens for nurses to examine their relational practice and systemic factors that enhance or detract from culturally safe care when caring for members of any indigenous group. (shrink)

Ruth Millikan and Alvin Plantinga claim, roughly, that knowledge is true belief produced by processes in circumstances for which they are designed to yield truth. Neither offers the account as a conceptual analysis of knowledge. Instead, for Plantinga it represents the core concept of knowledge characterizing central cases, and for Millikan an empirically warranted theoretical definition of knowledge as a natural phenomenon. Counterexamples are then dismissed as appropriately called "knowledge" only in some analogically extended sense. I argue instead that a (...) definition of knowledge is better thought of, like an account of justice, as an explication, or a decision about what normative constraints to adopt. It reflects trade-offs in intuitive judgements and pragmatic concerns. and perhaps background theories, for the sake of some overall coherence. However the contentious scientific and historical claims that underwritetheir views gives us reason not to accept the design account's norms for knowledge. Further, the controversial character of these claims gives us reason not to rest an interpersonally acceptable account of knowledge on them. (shrink)

Edith Stein comes alive through these warm, totally attentive letters. She joins a deeply sensitive heart with her keen intelligence, revealing herself to be a wise mentor and a caring friend available to anyone who approached her. Here we learn what was truly important to her: the total well-being of those who treasured her letters enough to preserve them even while suffering the havoc of war and oppression. This volume offers the first English translation of the majority of her (...) surviving letters, with 4 photos and a fully linked index of recipients. (shrink)

This initial volume of the Collected Works of Edith Stein offers, for the first time in English, the unabridged biography of Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), depicting her life as a child and young adult. Her text ends abruptly because the Nazi SS arrested, then deported, her to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. Edith Stein is one of the most significant German women of the 20th century. At the age of twenty-five she became the (...) first assistant to Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology. She was much in demand as a writer and lecturer after her conversion from atheism to Catholicism. Later, as a Discalced Carmelite nun, she maintained her intellectual pursuits until she, like so many others, became a victim of the Nazi persecution that raged across Eastern Europe. By making this landmark work available in English, the Institute of Carmelite Studies provides an eye-witness account of persons and activities on the scene at the time when psychology and philosophy became separate disciplines. In addition to photographs and a map, this volume is enhanced with a preface, the foreword and afterword, notes, and a list of places associated with Edith Stein’s life. It is our aim that these, together with Edith Stein’s text, may help bring into relief the many background details of the rich autobiographical work she has left us. (shrink)

In queste pagine è delineata la vicenda esistenziale e intellettuale di Edith Stein. Donna straordinaria, è stata capace di racchiudere nella sua persona molte "possibili" vite. Le ha realizzate come ebrea e cattolica, fenomenologa e filosofa cristiana, docente e monaca carmelitana, agnostica e santa. Si tratta di un processo vitale dagli apparenti salti qualitativi, i quali si volgono all'ascolto di un medesimo nucleo identitario. Questa viva "formazione di sé" ha condotto Edith Stein a una "donazione di sé", culminata (...) nell'Olocausto. Il Diario di Edith si sovrappone ai pensieri di Angela Ales Bello, in veste di narratrice d'eccezione. Con la sentita partecipazione della narratrice, e insieme mantenendo il distacco critico della studiosa, viene scoperta la storia di un'anima. Le emozioni e le conquiste intellettuali trovano una sintesi grazie al peculiare approccio ai "fenomeni" che Edith Stein aveva appreso alla scuola di Edmund Husserl, di Tommaso d'Aquino e di Teresa D'Avila. Sintesi mirabile di pensatori che "si danno la mano" al di là dello spazio e del tempo--Front flap. (shrink)