In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Is Writing Already Quotation?A Developmental Perspective on a Postmodern QuestionRebecca Wells-Jopling (bio)IntroductionPostmodern literary-critical thinking introduced into many disciplines in the 1950s and 1960s the quite peculiar, yet intellectually engaging, idea that what is written is always already-quoted. This idea is a logical derivation from the concurrent idea that writing is "prior to history"1 ; thus, what was written and what is written were simply always there, and (...) someone wrote it long before the reader held the written document in hand. The semiotician Roland Barthes claimed that "Every text, being itself the intertext of another text, belongs to the intertextual, which must not be confused with a text's origins: to search for the 'sources of' and 'influence upon' a work is to satisfy the myth of filiation. The quotations from which a text is constructed are anonymous, irrecoverable, and yet already read: they are quotations without quotation marks."2 In a similar vein, the cognitive psychologist David Olson argues that writing may be conceived not as transcription of speech, nor as a completely different mode of expression from speech, but rather as a type of reflexive language that points to itself as language.3 Writing is thus "quotation" that calls for "a distinctive mode of interpretation."4 The purpose of this article is to offer some reasons why conceiving of what is written as always already-quoted is likely not accurate as an ontological claim, but it may hold in particular circumstances and at a particular moment in human development. The phrase "already-quoted" will refer to this postmodern notion that entire texts, and components thereof, routinely call attention to their own opacity. Sometimes this opacity is achieved through the writer's use of actual quotation marks, but sometimes the opacity is only in the reader's experience of detecting a phrase or other unit in the text that summons up rather directly a perspective or another text in a way that blocks the transparent referential power that the words might otherwise have. [End Page 59]Quotation and the Questioning of AuthorityFirst, a bit of history. Pierre de la Ramée (also known as Peter Ramus) was a French philosopher and logician whose 1543 tract Dialecticae Partitiones in Latin was the first philosophical work to appear in French (in 1555 under the title Dialectique), and, more pertinently for this discussion of quotation, was one of the first writers to use proto-quotation marks in his writings.5 The earlier Latin text "is printed entirely in roman type, except the preface, which is entirely in italics. But in his French Dialectique all citations of foreign texts are distinguished by typography: italics are used for poetry, inverted commas enclose prose."6 His motivation, according to Compagnon,7 was the desire to bypass the kind of univocal authority suggested by a text in which voices cannot be distinguished from one another, and to point out the status of quoted passages as "reasoned examples or illustrations."8 If this was in fact de la Ramée's motivation, one wonders if he would have preferred that his entire text be put in yet a different typographical face in order to suggest that his own words in the text are not authoritative, but, contrary to Barthes's belief, not anonymous, utterly recoverable, and admittedly perspectival in nature.This detour through publishing history highlights an important difficulty in viewing what is written as always already-quoted: someone has to choose the quotations and arrange them (and, in de la Ramée's case, have the courage to counter the academy and point them out as citations). Is this act of choosing quotations also a quotation of a former chooser of quotations? In de la Ramée's case, obviously not, since he was the first to use different typefaces for different authoritative voices. This is one of the reasons why we cannot conceive of an entire written text as always already derivative. And if not derivative, then, by definition, not quoted. Assembling quotations and gluing them together with argumentation or poetry, as the case may be, is a creative act. This is so even if the words... (shrink)

Philosophical counselling, Ran Lahav and others claim, helps clients deepen their philosophical self‐understanding. The counsellor's role is the minimalist one of providing the client with the philosophical tools needed for reflective self‐evaluation. Respect for the client's autonomy entails refraining from intervening with substantive moral criticism, theories, and methods; the client's ways of working out fundamental questions like ‘Who am I and what do I really want?’cannot be assessed by the counsellor in terms of their truth‐value, but only in terms of (...) whether they reflect the client's autonomous choice to express him/herself in a certain way. I argue that this view, which is informed by an anti‐realist account of self and life‐history, undermines the distinction between self‐knowledge and self‐deception. Once interpretive and criteriological free rein is given to the client, and once personal, pragmatic and aesthetic considerations take precedence over truth‐value, then the way is left open to clients to generate the most morally convenient self‐interpretation to suit their current needs. I defend the view that truth matters in philosophical counselling; more specifically, that there is a basic distinction between true and false forms of self‐understanding. To do this, I offer a broadly realist account of self and reflective self‐evaluation. If this is right, then philosophical counsellors shoulder a significant burden of responsibility in helping their clients achieve an accurate, defensible, action‐guiding and truth‐oriented self‐understanding. (shrink)

In this clear and reasoned discussion of self- knowledge and the self, the author asks whether it is really possible to know ourselves as we really are. He illuminates issues about the nature of self-identity which are of fundamental importance in moral psychology, epistemology and literary criticism. Jopling focuses on the accounts of Stuart Hampshire, Jean-Paul Sartre and Richard Rorty, and dialogical philosophical psychology and illustrates his argument with examples from literature, drama and psychology.

This paper argues that cognitive psychology's practice of explaining mental processes in terms which avoid invoking phenomenology, and the person-level self-conception with which it is associated in common sense psychology, leads to a hybrid Cartesian dualism. Because phenomenology is considered to be fundamentally irrelevant in any scientific explanation of the mind, the person-level is regarded as scientifically invisible: it is a ghost-like housing for sub-personal computational cognition. The problem of explaining how the sub-personal and sub-phenomenological machinery of mind is related (...) to person-level experience is as troublesome for cognitive psychology as the problem Descartes faced in explaining how the ghost (the non-corporeal mind) is related to the machine (the material body).This paper outlines the historical roots of cognitive dualism, showing how it has come to recapitulate a number of puzzling conceptual dichotomies that have hindered scientific and philosophical psychology since Kantian constructivism. It then defends the view that cognitive psychology's commitment to the sub-personal explanatory level leads to exaggerated deflationary claims about the explanatory significance of phenomenology, and the personlevel framework. It is argued that phenomenological description must function as a constraint upon, and guide for, theory formation in cognitive psychology (as illustrated in the work of the cognitive neuro-psychologist A.R. Luria). Phenomenology must be brought into a kind of reflective equilibrium with the cognitive and neuro-sciences. (shrink)

Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have had to defend themselves from a barrage of criticisms throughout their history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers.

In a well-known paper “Illusion and well-being”, Taylor and Brown maintain that positive illusions about the self play a significant role in the maintenance of mental health, as well as in the ability to maintain caring inter-personal relations and a sense of well-being. These illusions include unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of personal control, and unrealistic optimism about one's future. Accurate self-knowledge, they maintain, is not an indispensable ingredient of mental health and well-being. Two lines of criticism are directed against (...) the creative self-deception hypothesis, one methodological and one substantive. First, it is argued that Taylor and Brown's method of eliciting experimental subjects' self-reports and comparative self-ratings under artificial experimental conditions lacks ecological validity and phenomenological realism. Second, it is argued that positive illusions diminish the range of reactive other-regarding attitudes and emotions that people can adopt. A literary case history (Ibsen's The wild duck ) which satisfies the criteria of ecological adequacy is used to illustrate the latter point. (shrink)

This book explores the 'self-concept', its cultural, psychopathological and philosophical implications.

The similarities between the Copernican and existentialist approach to self-knowledge can be clearly summarized by the combined effect they have on the correspondence model of self-knowledge. The self-knower who holds that knowledge conforms to its object is not only wrong but deceived if his goal is the complete one-to-one correspondence between, on the one hand, objectively validated propositions, and on the other an independently existing, recalcitrant reality (the Self). Both Kant and Sartre hold that we can know ourselves in terms (...) of appearances or quasi-objects, but they both deny that we can know what we “really” are over and above the empirical, contingent and finite knowledge we have. For Kant, this is because we are, most fundamentally, something unknowable; for Sartre, it is because we are, most fundamentally, nothing. In both cases, the self we purport to know is in an important sense other than itself: in saying “I,” more is being said than we know — and less. The “I” is spoken only through and across that which is not “I.”. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the controversy concerning the advocacy of ethical values in conservation biology. First, I argue, as others have, that conservation biology is a science laden with values both ethical and non-ethical. Second, after clarifying the notion of advocacy at work, I contend that conservation biologists should advocate the preservation of biological diversity. Third, I explore what ethical grounds should be used for advocating the preservation of ecological systems by conservation biologists. I argue that conservation biologists should (...) defend their preservationist positions on instrumentalist grounds alone if the context of discussion and debate is a scientific one. (shrink)

Anyone who is accustomed to the view that contradictions cannot be true, and cannot be accepted, and who reads texts in the Buddhists traditions will be struck by the fact that they frequently contain contradictions. Just consider, for example.

Over a decade ago, John Sowa did the AI community the great service of introducing it to the Existential Graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce. EG is a formalism which lends itself well to the kinds of thing that Conceptual Graphs are aimed at. But it is far more; it is a central element in the mathematical, logical, and philosophical thought of Peirce; this thought is fruitful in ways that are seldom evident when we first encounter it. In one of his (...) major works on Existential Graphs, Peirce remarks that. (shrink)

Foot , Hursthouse , and Thompson , along with other philosophers, have argued for a metaethical position, the natural goodness approach, that claims moral judgments are, or are on a par with, teleological claims made in the biological sciences. Specifically, an organism’s flourishing is characterized by how well they function as specified by the species to which they belong. In this essay, I first sketch the Neo-Aristotelian natural goodness approach. Second, I argue that critics who claim that this sort of (...) approach is inconsistent with evolutionary biology due to its species essentialism are incorrect. Third, I contend that combining the natural goodness account of natural-historical judgments with our best account of natural normativity, the selected effects theory of function, leads to implausible moral judgments. This is so if selected effects function are understood in terms of evolution by natural selection, but also if they are characterized in terms of cultural evolution. Thus, I conclude that proponents of the natural goodness approach must either embrace non-naturalistic vitalism or troubling moral revisionism. (shrink)

The UK Government published various circulars to indicate the importance of respecting the privacy and dignity of NHS patients following the implementation of the Human Rights Act, 1998. This research used an ethnographic method to determine the extent to which health professionals had in fact upheld the philosophy of these documents. Fieldwork using nonparticipant observation, and unstructured and semistructured interviews with patients and staff, took place over six months in three acute care wards in a large district NHS trust hospital. (...) Applying the principles of phenomenology and grounded theory, the data were analysed and the contents organized into 11 key categories, leading to the formulation of a privacy model. The level of intrusion into patients’ privacy by health professionals was measured against the benchmarking of the ‘dignity and privacy’ factors contained in the Department of Health’s The essence of care document and Article 8(2) of the Human Rights Act. The findings established that patients had little privacy in the wards, and that the terms ‘privacy of the person’ and ‘dignity’ are interrelated. (shrink)

Anxiety disorders represent the most common class of mental illness. In fact, approximately one-third of adults report clinically significant symptoms of anxiety (Kessler et al., 2012), of which sy...

Explores the role of dance education both inside and outside the arts.

A modern evolutionary perspective emphasizing life history theory and behavioral ecology is brought to bear on the three core patterns of attachment that are identified in studies of infants and young children in the Strange Situation and adults using the Adult Attachment Interview. Mating and parenting correlates of secure/autonomous, avoidant/dismissing, and resistant/preoccupied attachment patterns are reviewed, and the argument is advanced that security evolved to promote mutually beneficial interpersonal relations and high investment parenting; that avoidant/dismissing attachment evolved to promote opportunistic (...) interpersonal relations and low-investment parenting; and that resistant/preoccupied attachment evolved to foster “helper-at-the-nest” behavior and indirect reproduction. (shrink)

With the emergence of quantum theory, the Newtonian idea that matter is inert, devoid of creativity and sentience, becomes questionable. Yet, physicists have by no means agreed upon an alternative understanding that can replace the Newtonian paradigm. Henry Stapp and others argue that Whitehead’s thought provides a peculiarly appropriate framework for a new understanding of matter in light ofquantum theory. The implications for a theology ofecology are manifold. No longer are matter and mind utterly discontinuous, nor is matter devoid of (...) value until assigned value by humans or by God. Even the divine reality is, in a certain sense, “material.” This calls for a new sensitivity within Western religion, in which religion itself becomes openness to, and appreciation for, physical matter. (shrink)

While the subject of women’s activity in historical and contemporary punk scenes has attracted significant attention, the presence of trans women in punk has received comparatively little research, in spite of their increasing visibility and long history in punk. This article examines the conditions for trans women’s entrance in punk and the challenges and opportunities that it offers for their self-assertion. By linking Michel Foucault’s notion of parrhesia with the way trans women in punk do their gender, an attempt is (...) made at showing how the embodied experience of a trans woman making herself heard from the punk stage can serve as a site of ‘gender pluralism’. (shrink)

This volume addresses some of the central issues of journalism today -- the nature and needs of the individual versus the nature and needs of the broader society; theories of communitarianism versus Enlightenment liberalism; independence versus interdependence (vs. co-dependency); negative versus positive freedoms; Constitutional mandates versus marketplace mandates; universal ethical issues versus situational and/or professional values; traditional values versus information age values; ethics of management versus ethics of worker bees; commitment and compassion versus detachment and professional "distance;" conflicts of interest (...) versus conflicted disinterest; and "talking to" versus "talking with." All of these issues are discussed within the framework of the frenetic field of daily journalism--a field that operates at a pace and under a set of professional standards that all but preclude careful, systematic examinations of its own rituals and practices. The explorations presented here not only advance the enterprise, but also help student and professional observers to work through some of the most perplexing dilemmas to have faced the news media and public in recent times. This lively volume showcases the differing opinions of journalistic experts on this significant contemporary issue in public life. Unlike previous books and monographs which have tended toward unbridled enthusiasm about public journalism, and trade press articles which have tended toward pessimism, this book offers strong voices on several sides of this complex debate. To help inform the debate, a series of "voices"--journalistic interviews with practitioners and critics of public journalism -- is interspersed throughout the text. At the end of each essay, a series of quotes from a wide variety of sources -- "In other words..." -- augments each chapter with ideas and insights that support and contradict the points used by each chapter author. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider three philosophical issues that arise in the environmental sciences. First, these sciences depend on mathematical models and simulations which are highly idealized and are coupled with very uncertain data. Why should we trust these models and simulations? Second, in standard hypothesis testing, the burden of proof is in favor of the null hypothesis which claims some causal factor has no effect. The alternative hypothesis is accepted only when the likelihood of the null hypothesis is very (...) low. Recently, some have argued that we should minimize Type II errors (not rejecting a false null) rather than Type I errors (rejecting a true null) given the environmental risks involved. I consider arguments for shifting this burden of proof when possible environmental harms are significant. Finally, in debates over global climate change, much is made of the apparent consensus concerning the effects of human induced greenhouse gas emissions on average surface temperatures. However, scientific methods are structured around dissent and criticism. Is consensus-based science orthogonal are even harmful to science? (shrink)

The recent, short debate over the alethic undecidability of a Liar Sentence between Stephen Barker and Mark Jago is revisited. It is argued that Jago’s objections succeed in refuting Barker’s alethic undecidability solution to the Liar Paradox, but that, nevertheless, this approach may be revived as the alethic indeterminacy solution to the Liar Paradox. According to the alethic indeterminacy solution, there is genuine metaphysical indeterminacy as to whether a Liar Sentence bears an alethic property, whether truth or falsity. While the (...) alethic indeterminacy solution is presented here, and some revenge cases are considered and addressed, the primary aim of this paper is to revive and defend this underexplored and auspicious approach to solving the Liar Paradox. (shrink)

Sahotra Sarkar’s Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy is a welcome addition to the fields of environmental philosophy and the philosophy of science. First, his book has a rigorous and careful discussion of why we should preserve biodiversity. This is all the more important since much of environmental ethics has rested on normative claims which are unclear in meaning, appear unjustified at best and unjustifiable at worst, and are politically ineffective. Second, Sarkar is at home in the science of conservation biology and (...) offers important analyses of methodological issues in both ecology and conservation biology. Third, his book does not sustain what might be thought of as a “North American bias” but takes seriously environmental issues and perspectives from many different places like Australia and India. In this commentary, I raise worries and open questions that can be divided into four sections: (a) those concerning moral philosophy, (b) those concerning ecology and in particular whether we are in an extinction crisis, (c) how biodiversity is defined as a concept, and (d) what the aim and structure of conservation biology is. Ultimately, though my analysis is critical at some junctures, its purpose is to repay and hopefully improve on Sarkar’s rewarding analysis. Let me now turn from praise to criticism. (shrink)

Discusses epistemic foundationalism. Examines the confrontation between Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the ‘Myth of the Given’ and William Alston's defence of ‘immediate knowledge’, and explores and endorses Sellars's strong epistemic internalism and the integrated normative accounts of justification, language‐mastery, concept‐possession, and perceptual experience that support it. The proceduralist thesis that the activity of justifying is prior to the state of being justified is elucidated and defended.

Can we ever truly answer the question, “Who am I?” Moderated by Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics), neuro-philosopher Elie During (University of Paris, Ouest Nanterre), cognitive scientist David Jopling (York University, Canada), social psychologist Timothy Wilson (University of Virginia),and ethicist Frances Kamm (Harvard University) examine the difficulty of achieving genuine self-knowledge and how the pursuit of self-knowledge plays a role in shaping the self.

As a philosophical scholar of phenomenology, literature, art, and philosophy of the social sciences and humanities, John O’Neill’s (1933–2022) writings are translated into Chinese. As a sociological translator of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), O’Neill’s five phenomenal bodies culminate in the communicative body as an intermingling of material and spiritual relations. I distill by own version of three phenomenal bodies that I call the East Asian communicative body. This essay traces the communicative body through horizontal and vertical phenomenology on the way to (...) Merleau-Ponty’s brief interaction with Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This paper performs a critical review of twin and adoption studies looking at possible genetic factors in criminal and antisocial behavior. While most modern researchers acknowledge that family studies are unable to separate possible genetic and environmental influences, it is argued here that twin studies are similarly unable to disentangle these influences. The twin method of monozygotic–dizygotic comparison is predicated on the assumption that both types of twins share equal environments, and it is argued here that this assumption is false. (...) Adoption studies have been promoted as a better way of separating genetic and environmental influences. However, there is good reason to believe that adoption studies of criminal and antisocial behavior were confounded by selective placement factors. In addition, these studies suffered from bias and serious methodological errors. In spite of these problems, no adoption researcher claimed to have found evidence of a genetic predisposition for violent crime. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence from family, twin, and adoption studies does not support a genetic basis for any type of criminal or antisocial behavior. The historical background of genetic theories of criminality is also discussed. (shrink)

Workplace ethics perceptions drive ethical behaviors, but our understanding of how context shapes the nature of this relationship is limited. Consequently, this article uses contingency theory to explore how perceptions of ethical priorities in the workplace—ethical work climate (EWC)—are differentially associated with ethical behavior based on the broader context. Specifically, we meta-analytically test theoretically relevant cultural values (i.e., collectivism, power distance) and work context factors (i.e., consequence of errors, job autonomy) as moderators of the connection between EWC perceptions and ethical (...) behavior. Our findings reveal that while higher power-distance societal contexts strengthen the connection between EWC perceptions and ethical behavior, work contexts with higher autonomy _weaken_ the connection. We found mixed support for collectivism as a contextual moderator, with results supporting theoretical expectations with one cultural conceptualization but not another. Contrary to expectations, the consequences of errors in work contexts did not moderate the association between EWC perceptions and ethical behavior. Taken together, this meta-analytic investigation highlights the meaningful role of the broader organizational context as a potential boundary condition for the influence of EWC perceptions on ethical behavior. (shrink)

Remarks such as 'I am in pain' and 'I think that it's raining' present opportunity for reflection and theory. Ostensibly such remarks report what one feels or thinks. But we do not in conversation treat these remarks as we do ordinary reports. If I ask you about the weather and you say, "I think it's raining," I can't complain that you told me just about your thoughts, and not about the weather. It is often held, moreover, when we do take (...) such remarks as revealing the speaker's mental states, those remarks are not subject to the kind of challenges that are in place with ordinary reports. Indeed, such remarks are often taken to exhibit some kind of epistemic privilege, and some have even maintained that one cannot be wrong when one says such things. (shrink)

Fairness is a normative ideal that runs through sports. After all, what defines our cultural evolution in general is a conception of morality, whether thought of in the context of the state, tribe, team, or individual. Human dignity is also one of the important features of sport. Sport is reality for the better part of our nature. We find inspiration for the meaning of life in sport; dignity, social contact, rising to show the “better angel” overcoming adversity, managing defeat, the (...) wondrous sense of well-earned and arduous victory, graciousness toward others in their defeat. While human dignity and solidarity are particularly expressed in the context of the Special Olympics, adaptation, well-being, and the role of sport are important elements in the context of all sporting events. Sport remains timeless while being a lifelong activity for many. (shrink)

Workplace ethics perceptions drive ethical behaviors, but our understanding of how context shapes the nature of this relationship is limited. Consequently, this article uses contingency theory to explore how perceptions of ethical priorities in the workplace—ethical work climate (EWC)—are differentially associated with ethical behavior based on the broader context. Specifically, we meta-analytically test theoretically relevant cultural values (i.e., collectivism, power distance) and work context factors (i.e., consequence of errors, job autonomy) as moderators of the connection between EWC perceptions and ethical (...) behavior. Our findings reveal that while higher power-distance societal contexts strengthen the connection between EWC perceptions and ethical behavior, work contexts with higher autonomy weaken the connection. We found mixed support for collectivism as a contextual moderator, with results supporting theoretical expectations with one cultural conceptualization but not another. Contrary to expectations, the consequences of errors in work contexts did not moderate the association between EWC perceptions and ethical behavior. Taken together, this meta-analytic investigation highlights the meaningful role of the broader organizational context as a potential boundary condition for the influence of EWC perceptions on ethical behavior. (shrink)