Digital data is an increasing and continual presence across the sites, activities and relationships of everyday life. In this article we explore what data presence means for the ways that the everyday is organised, sensed, and anticipated. While digital data studies have demonstrated how data is deeply entangled with the way in which everyday life is lived out and valued, at the same time our relationships with data are riddled with anxieties or small niggles or tricky trade-offs and their use (...) is often chaotic and muddled, part of the inevitable uncertainty about what will happen next. If the presence of data is part of the environments we inhabit, this raises the question of how and why data is valuable to us and what forms of hope and trust enable this value to further develop. (shrink)

Recently the English scholar Heather McKay defended the thesis that before the third century CE the synagogue had never been a place of sabbath worship. In this article the author reviews all the material presented by her, adds some new evidence, and comes to the conclusion that the evidence points to a situation in which already before 70 CE the synagogue served as a place of sabbath worship.

Este texto es la ponencia del autor en la Conferencia sobre la humanización de la economía mundial, y debate el tema de la globalización. Afirma que ella es producto del deseo de mejorar nuestra existencia, y de decisiones a favor de una mayor apertura. Dentro de esto reconoce que la disparidad entre los países más ricos y los más pobres es mayor que nunca y que la pobreza es el desafío más apremiante en la esfera moral. Desarrolla luego más en (...) profundidad la visión y acciones del FMI en el proceso y proclama que éste y la Iglesia Católica son instituciones globales con acervos particulares e influencias valiosas, y siempre que sea posible, deben colaborar para lograr una globalización más integral y para luchar contra la pobreza mundial. (shrink)

Manipulation cases have figured prominently in philosophical debates about whether moral responsibility is in some sense deeply historical. Meanwhile, some philosophers have thought that folk thinking about manipulated agents may shed some light on the various argumentative burdens facing participants in that debate. This paper argues that folk thinking is, to some extent, historical. Across three experiments, a substantial number of participants did not attribute moral responsibility to agents with manipulation in their histories. The results of these experiments challenge previous (...) research indicating that folk thinking is not historicist. Furthermore, perceptions of reduced free will, but not of a change in personal identity of the agent, account for the attenuation of moral responsibility when the agent was manipulated. To the extent that folk thinking is relevant to philosophical debates about the nature of moral responsibility, the results helpfully illuminate the dialectical burdens facing competing conceptions of responsible agency. (shrink)

The seal of the a priori is imprinted on the reception of Kant's philosophy. Piaget's epistemological argumentation seems to ascribe knowledge a more fruitful constructiveness than Kant, seeing the a priori as rooted in unvarying reason. Yet, it seems, he failed to recognize the complexity of Kant's theory, which does not always follow a quid iuris line. Moments of experience, analysis and self-observation played more than a marginal role in his discovery of the a priori. Indeed, Kant himself raises the (...) question of ontogenetic category assimilation in a review which pre-empts Piaget, borrowing the category of `original acquisition' from the doctrine of the laws of natural right. And although Kant should not be elevated to the harbinger of the knowledge on development issues delivered thus far by the history of science and experiments, he did recognize the temporal reference of their categories in principle without resolving their validity in psychogenetic terms. Key Words: a priori • categories • genetic epistemology • Geneva School • neo-Kantianism • original acquisition • Jean Piaget • psychogenesis • self-observation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to CommentariesLauren Freeman (bio) and Heather Stewart (bio)We are grateful and humbled that this esteemed group of scholars and healthcare practitioners have dedicated the time to read and engage with our book. Their thoughtful, critical comments have given us new ways of reflecting on our own work, compelled us to develop and expand some of our claims, and have also nudged us to move in new directions (...) that we hope to explore in future research. In what follows, we reply to each of the commentaries, focusing on what we take to be the most central insights, critiques, and areas for further exploration from each contribution.Catherine Sherron (2024) offers an expansive commentary on chapter 4, "Epistemic Microaggressions," focusing on the nature of epistemic agency, situating epistemic agency within the bioethical context of the principle of autonomy, considering epistemic microaggressions and the phenomenon of silencing of patients, asking whose evidence counts when making claims within medical contexts, and questioning how we might develop a system of reward and admonishment to healthcare professionals who respectively mitigate and commit microaggressions. She presents far more content than we can adequately respond to here. We have chosen to focus on Sherron's specific point about why certain patients experience epistemic microaggressions and what they can do about it. Her line of reasoning echoes an argument found in popular articles about women's health and healthcare that, while seemingly reasonable at first glance, is fraught with problematic assumptions and implications that we would like to draw out and reflect on. Doing so helps pinpoint where the locus of our attention should be in our aim to diminish microaggressions in medical contexts, without placing that burden on the very people who experience and are harmed by them.Within the context of discussing possible contributing factors that perpetuate epistemic microaggressions for patients, Sherron mentions the reality that "patients often don't have good scientific or medical literacy, or education generally, so they might not be in a position to advocate for themselves as epistemic [End Page 169] agents" (150). We surmise that Sherron's more complete argument runs something like this. Many patients lack scientific or medical literacy, postsecondary and postgraduate education, and the language, concepts, and frameworks to be fully empowered epistemic agents and best communicate with healthcare professionals on their terms. As a consequence—and combined with other factors pertaining to their identities and the accompanying stereotypes and biases that healthcare professionals (and all of us) hold—patients who are members of marginalized groups are often not treated as epistemic equals or epistemic peers by healthcare professionals; they are also unable to best advocate for themselves or to speak up in the aftermath of experiencing microaggressions (or macroaggressions) in medical contexts. Thus, if patients were more literate, educated, and able to speak the language of healthcare professionals, they would be able to better advocate for themselves, and they would be better positioned to speak up and respond when epistemic microaggressions (and other injustices and harms) occur. As a result, their situation and relationships with healthcare professionals, their epistemic credibility, and consequently, their care (and maybe even their health outcomes) would improve. Thus, the line o argument implies that we ought to focus our attention on empowering patients: helping them learn how to better educate and advocate for themselves so that they can improve their epistemic situation and, consequently, receive better medical care.This line of argument is common in popular books and articles about women's health (see Dusenbery [2018], who criticizes the argument and Gainty [2023], Jacqueline [2024], Lichtman et al. [2015], Onque [2022], and Singh [2015] where the argument is promoted). The consensus seems to be that yes, there is a problem: women and members of marginalized groups are not getting adequate healthcare, and if only they took better control of and responsibility for their care, they could and would receive better care. We are highlighting this line of reasoning because it is commonplace, problematic, and dangerous.Such an argument is worrisome for at least two reasons. First, the suggested solution—that members of marginalized groups just need to become better advocates for themselves—is not only a form of (unintentional... (shrink)

The problem of epistemic circularity maintains that we cannot know that our central belief-forming practices (faculties) are reliable without vicious circularity. Ernest Sosa's Reflective Knowledge (2009) offers a solution to this problem. Sosa argues that epistemic circularity is virtuous rather than vicious: it is not damaging. Contra Sosa, I contend that epistemic circularity is damaging. Section 1 provides an overview of Sosa's solution. Section 2 focuses on Sosa's reply to the Crystal ballgazer Objection. Section 2 also contends that epistemic circularity (...) does not prevent us from tóng justified in (e. g.) perceptual beliefs, or from being justified in believing that (e. g.) sense perception is reliable. But, Sect. 3 argues that it does prevent us from being able to satisfactorily show that our central belief-forming practices (faculties) are reliable. That is, epistemic circularity prevents us from distinguishing between reliable and unreliable practices, from guiding ourselves to use reliable practices and avoid unreliable ones, and from defending reliable practices against skepticism. Hence, epistemic circularity is still damaging. The concluding section suggests that this has repercussions for Sosa's analysis of the value of reflective knowledge. (shrink)

The ancient world witnessed a meaningful transition in the conception of human thought and belief. What some have called the “discovery” of the mind can also be understood as a release from dependence on oracular wisdom and mythological explanation, made possible by the invention of more reliable and democratic methods for discovering and explaining truths. During roughly the same epoch, Hellenic sport distinguished itself by developing objective mechanisms for selecting single winners from varied pools of contestants. Is there a connection? (...) Following the general thesis that sport is an expression of thehuman desire to know, this paper will explore the epistemological nature of the earliest forms Hellenic athletics. I begin by interpreting the funeral games depicted in Homer’s Iliad as an unbiased, publicly monitored means for settling questions of social honor. I then consider the ancient Olympic games, arguing that their religious foundations motivated a new focus on objective and reliable methods for selecting single winners who could be symbolically sacrificed to the god. In both manifestations, athletic games are used to objectively answer important questions about merit. Eventually, competitive methods of truth‐seeking would become commonplace in Western thought. By examining early the origins of Greek sport in this light, however, Olympia may be identified as a key source of epistemological testing methods, and sport itself may be characterized fundamentally as a search for knowledge. (shrink)

This article explores contrasting strategies in feminist critical theory in order to interrogate divergent fictional representations of women's spiri tual power. The first critical strategy uses the resources of gynocriticism to present a positive view of women's authorship, agency and ability to revi sion religious forms. The second demonstrates poststructuralist concerns with the repressed other/ s of dominant cultural forms and the power these possess to provoke political change and new visions of the divine. It is argued that both strategies (...) offer positive contributions to religious femi nists as they wrestle with male-centred spiritual traditions. (shrink)

The diverse array of plants at Kew is a haven for wildlife throughout the year. In spring, enchanting wildlfowl babies appear; summer flowers attract a host of insect pollinators; come autumn, parakeets and squirrels raid chestnuts, while in winter swans court – this is Heather Angel’s Wild Kew. In all, a stunning array of photographs and advice, the result of devoting a year to capturing Kew’s wildlife.

Horst Bredekamp’s subject is the astute deployment and perennial resonance of the startling image of the body politic that dominates the frontispiece to Leviathan: a treatise on the psychology of the individual and the dynamic of the multitude, published in 1651 by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Affirming the centrality of such a figural device for this pioneering theorist of the state, Bredekamp goes on to address the art-historical dimension of the mesmerising etched title-page. In his central chapters he (...) explores the extraordinary range of sources – from socio-cultural tradition to scientific advances – on which the author and his artist-collaborator may have drawn. In conclusion, he reveals Hobbes to be no less passionate than shrewd in his belief that the constraints and amenities of a tolerable life in common attest to the potency of the visual. As appendices, two essays and catalogues explore the portraits made of Hobbes as well as illustrations that appeared in his other works, thus systematically completing the exploration of the images connected with this exceptional philosopher. (shrink)

Many hold that theoretical reasoning aims at truth. In this paper, I ask what it is for reasoning to be thus aim-directed. Standard answers to this question explain reasoning’s aim-directedness in terms of intentions, dispositions, or rule-following. I argue that, while these views contain important insights, they are not satisfactory. As an alternative, I introduce and defend a novel account: reasoning aims at truth in virtue of being the exercise of a distinctive kind of cognitive power, one that, unlike ordinary (...) dispositions, is capable of fully explaining its own exercises. I argue that this account is able to avoid the difficulties plaguing standard accounts of the relevant sort of mental teleology. (shrink)

This book presents a new theory of the relationship between vagueness, context-sensitivity, gradability, and scale structure in natural language. Heather Burnett argues that it is possible to distinguish between particular subclasses of adjectival predicatesDLrelative adjectives like tall, total adjectives like dry, partial adjectives like wet, and non-scalar adjectives like hexagonalDLon the basis of how their criteria of application vary depending on the context; how they display the characteristic properties of vague language; and what the properties of their associated orders (...) are. It has been known for a long time that there exist empirical connections between context-sensitivity, vagueness, and scale structure; however, a formal system that expresses these connections had yet to be developed. This volume sets out a new logical system, called DelTCS, that brings together insights from the Delineation Semantics framework and from the Tolerant, Classical, Strict non-classical framework, to arrive at a full theory of gradability and scale structure in the adjectival domain. The analysis is further extended to examine vagueness and gradability associated with particular classes of determiner phrases, showing that the correspondences that exist between the major adjectival scale structure classes and subclasses of determiner phrases can also be captured within the DelTCS system. (shrink)

The Human Papillomavirus vaccine burst onto the market and the legislative scene nearly simultaneously. Marketed as an amazing medical breakthrough, the vaccine GARDASIL prevents infection with four strains of Human Papillomavirus in nave populations; these four strains are responsible for 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts. Although most agreed that the vaccine was a wonderful medical advancement with the potential to save women's lives, there was strong disagreement about and a vocal public response to legislative attempts to (...) require girls to receive HPV vaccines for school attendance.The strong public response to HPV vaccine mandates partially stemmed from the sense that this vaccine is different from previously mandated vaccines because it attempts to prevent disease whose sole route of transmission is through sexual contact. Most other diseases covered by mandated vaccines are spread through the air, with little an individual can do in altering their behavior to prevent infection. (shrink)