This book provides a new interpretation of Hegel's philosophy, arguing that his theory of reason and thinking revolve around the concept of organic life. Through a detailed analysis of Hegel's philosophy and Kant's influence, Karen Ng shows that Hegel's unique contribution is that cognitive capacities are indexed to species capacities, where embodiment and the relation to the environment are central in processes of mind.

Recent defenses of shaming as an effective tool for identifying bad practice and provoking social change appear compatible with feminism. I complicate this picture by examining two instances of online feminist shaming that resulted in shame backlashes. Shaming requires the assertion of social and epistemic authority on behalf of a larger community, and is dependent upon an audience that will be receptive to the shaming testimony. In cases where marginally situated knowers attempt to “shame up,” it presents challenges for feminist (...) uses. (shrink)

I get this error message: "This field may contain characters that are not allowed. Your summary can contain only Latin characters. Do not include emoji, arrows, hearts, stars, checkboxes, symbols, faces, or bullets. Remove these characters and click Next to continue." However, the description contains no forbidden characters. The description is in "Additional Info.".

Typically, a less fundamental theory, or structure, emerging from a more fundamental one is an example of synchronic emergence. A model emerging from a prior model upon which it nevertheless depends is an example of diachronic emergence. The case of spacetime emergent from quantum gravity and quantum cosmology challenges these two conceptions of emergence. Here, I propose two more-general conceptions of emergence, analogous to the synchronic and diachronic ones, but which are potentially applicable to the case of emergent spacetime: an (...) inter-level, hierarchical conception, and an intra-level, ‘flat’ conception. I then explore whether, and how, these ideas may be applicable in the case of several putative examples of relativistic spacetime emergent from the non-spatiotemporal structures described by different approaches to quantum gravity, and of spacetime emergent from a non-spatiotemporal ‘big bang’ state according to different examples of quantum cosmology. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine similarities and divergences between Du Châtelet and Descartes on their endorsement of the use of hypotheses in science, using the work of Condillac to locate them in his scheme of systematizers. I conclude that, while Du Châtelet is still clearly a natural philosopher, as opposed to modern scientist, her conception of hypotheses is considerably more modern than is Descartes’, a difference that finds its roots in their divergence on the nature of first principles.

The meteoric rise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology has ignited discussions of engineering agricultural animals to improve their welfare. While some have proposed enhancing animals, for instance by engineering for disease resistance, others have suggested we might diminish animals to improve their welfare. By reducing or eliminating species-typical capacities, the expression of which is frustrated under current conditions, animal diminishment could reduce or eliminate the suffering that currently accompanies industrial animal agriculture. Although diminishment could reduce animal suffering, there is a (...) widespread intuition that it would be wrong. One attempt to justify this intuition has been to claim that inhibiting the development of species-typical functions is wrong, even if it improves welfare. This has often been couched in terms of violating an animal’s dignity. I argue that the dignity objection to diminishment fails. In the first place, it fails to apply to some of the most troubling cases of diminishment, the creation of so-called animal microencepahlic lumps. In the second place, dignity views misplace the normative relevance of species norms; I argue that considerations from evolutionary biology should lead us to treat species norms - such as the possession of typical capacities - as merely a heuristic for rendering judgments about welfare. But diminishment cases are precisely the cases where the heuristic breaks down, and becomes a bias. I close my discussion with a sketch of my Historical Injustices Approach to animal ethics, and how it may help us vindicate our intuition that diminishment is wrong without appeal to species norms. (shrink)

Including empirical examples and theoretical clarifications on many of the analytical issues raised in his recently published Down to Earth, this conversation with Bruno Latour and his collaborator, Danish sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, offers key insights into Latour’s recent and ongoing work. Revolving around questions on political ecology and social theory in our ‘New Climatic Regime’, Latour argues that in order to have politics you need a land and you need a people. This interview present reflections on such politics, such (...) land and such people, and it ends with a call for a sociology that takes up the task of connecting the three by investigating what he and Schultz call ‘geo-social classes’. The interview was conducted by Jakob Stein in Paris in November 2018. (shrink)

Zygotic gene activation (ZGA) is the critical event that governs the transition from maternal to embryonic control of development. In the mouse, ZGA occurs during the 2‐cell stage and appears to be regulated by the time following fertilization, i.e. a zygotic clock, rather than by progression through the first cell cycle. The onset of ZGA must depend on maternally inherited proteins, and post‐translational modification of these maternally derived proteins is likely to play a role in ZGA. Consistent with this prediction (...) is that protein phosphorylation catalyzed by the cAMP‐dependent protein kinase is involved in ZGA and that protein synthesis is not required for ZGA. Recent results suggest that ZGA may occur earlier than previously thought, i.e. not during the 2‐cell stage, but rather in G2 of the 1‐cell embryo. Thus ZGA may comprise a period of minor gene activation in the 1‐cell embryo that is followed by a period of major gene activation in the 2‐cell embryo. Following ZGA, the expression of constitutively activated genes may require an enhancer. (shrink)

Souvenir heureux : il y a trente ans, Ida Blom et moi-même réussissions à fonder la Fédération internationale pour la recherche en histoire des femmes (FIRHF/IFRWH) puis à l’affilier au Comité international des sciences historiques (CISH), comme commission interne. Nous avions reçu l’assistance stratégique de Ruth Roach Pierson (Canada), Gisela Bock (Allemagne), Sølvi Sogner (Norvège), ainsi que celle, fondamentale, de Natalie Zemon Davis (alors présidente de l’American Historical Association...

Teachers’ social-emotional competence is considered important to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacher-student relationships. In turn, this is key to both teachers’ occupational well-being and positive student development. Nonetheless, an instrument assessing the profession-specific knowledge and skills that teachers need to master the social and emotional demands in the classroom is still lacking. Therefore, we developed the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (TRUST), which is a (...) theory-based situational judgment test measuring teachers’ knowledge about strategies for emotion regulation and relationship management in emotionally and socially challenging situations with students. Results from three studies (N = 166 in-service teachers, N = 73 in-service teachers, N = 107 pre-service teachers) showed satisfactory internal consistency for both the emotion regulation and relationship management subtests. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the two facets of social-emotional competence. Regarding convergent validity, results from Study 3 revealed a positive association between the profession-specific TRUST and pre-service teachers’ general emotional intelligence. Furthermore, small to moderate correlations with the Big Five personality traits provided evidence for the discriminant validity of TRUST. In Studies 1 and 2, we found evidence for a correlation with external criteria, that is, teachers with higher test scores reported providing more emotional support for students and having better teacher-student relationships. For teachers’ occupational well-being, we found a link with symptoms of depersonalization and job satisfaction, but none for emotional exhaustion. We will discuss the use of TRUST in research, for the evaluation of interventions, in teacher education, and professional development and will illustrate ideas for enhancing the tool. (shrink)

This paper defends the liberal arts as an effective way to acquire habits of thought (creativity, skepticism), as opposed to skills. The ability to think creatively, historically, and skeptically can only be acquired slowly, socially, and with a diverse population. While this defense of the liberal arts (as opposed to a skills-focused defense) well supports some of the hallmarks of American liberal arts education (in person, bricks and mortar, not accelerated), it also has some critical implications for how the liberal (...) arts are taught. (shrink)

The Common Core State Standards are an initiative to adopt a uniform set of kindergarten through 12th-grade mathematics and English educational standards throughout the United States. Many Christian schools are also voluntarily adopting Common Core standards. This article examines whether such a practice is truly in the best interest of students and parents by considering the compatibility of Common Core with a classical Christian philosophy of education. This article begins with an analysis of Common Core standards to identify the foundational (...) philosophy of education inherent in Common Core. This philosophy of education is then contrasted with the classical Christian philosophy of education to discern whether Common Core is compatible with the Christian core that should be at the heart of every Christian school. (shrink)

This volume brings together all the available letters between historian Catharine Macaulay and a number of eighteenth-century luminaries, including George Washington, David Hume, and Mary Wollstonecraft. It includes an extended introduction by the editor which offers unique insights into Macaulay's life and the thinking of her friends and correspondents.

Today, DIY -- do-it-yourself -- describes more than self-taught carpentry. Social media enables DIY citizens to organize and protest in new ways and to repurpose corporate content in order to offer political counternarratives. This book examines the usefulness and limits of DIY citizenship, exploring the diverse forms of political participation and "critical making" that have emerged in recent years. The authors and artists in this collection describe DIY citizens whose activities range from activist fan blogging and video production to knitting (...) and the creation of community gardens. Contributors examine DIY activism, describing new modes of civic engagement that include Harry Potter fan activism and the activities of the Yes Men. They consider DIY making in learning, culture, hacking, and the arts, including do-it-yourself media production and collaborative documentary making. They discuss DIY and design and how citizens can unlock the black box of technological infrastructures to engage and innovate open and participatory critical making. And they explore DIY and media, describing activists' efforts to remake and reimagine media and the public sphere. As these chapters make clear, DIY is characterized by its emphasis on "doing" and making rather than passive consumption. DIY citizens assume active roles as interventionists, makers, hackers, modders, and tinkerers, in pursuit of new forms of engaged and participatory democracy. _Contributors_Mike Ananny, Chris Atton, Alexandra Bal, Megan Boler, Catherine Burwell, Red Chidgey, Andrew Clement, Negin Dahya, Suzanne de Castell, Carl DiSalvo, Kevin Driscoll, Christina Dunbar-Hester, Joseph Ferenbok, Stephanie Fisher, Miki Foster, Stephen Gilbert, Henry Jenkins, Jennifer Jenson, Yasmin B. Kafai, Ann Light, Steve Mann, Joel McKim, Brenda McPhail, Owen McSwiney, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Graham Meikle, Emily Rose Michaud, Kate Milberry, Michael Murphy, Jason Nolan, Kate Orton-Johnson, Kylie A. Peppler, David J. Phillips, Karen Pollock, Matt Ratto, Ian Reilly, Rosa Reitsamer, Mandy Rose, Daniela K. Rosner, Yukari Seko, Karen Louise Smith, Lana Swartz, Alex Tichine, Jennette Weber, Elke Zobl. (shrink)

This innovative critical study reinterprets Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy for the study of modernist and contemporary literature and brings Wittgenstein into literary conversations around problems of difficulty, ethical instruction, and the yearning for transformation. Central to Karen Zumhagen-Yekple͹'s book are her critical readings of key modernist texts by Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. Throughout, Zumhagen-Yekplé brings to bear an interpretive framework that she derives from Wittgenstein's gnomic "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (first published in English in 1922, the "annus mirabilis" of (...) modernism), which she treats not as a theory of logic or metaphysics but as a complex mock-theoretical puzzle. The book's final chapter turns to recent fiction by J. M. Coetzee, a living author conscious of his debts both to Wittgenstein and his modernist literary precursors. This book will interest students of literary modernism, Wittgenstein, and the interconnections between fiction and ordinary language philosophy. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 2, pp 148 - 167 Thomas Hobbes’s attempt to resolve the problem of commanded blasphemy in _Leviathan_ results in a dilemma for his theory. According to what I call the _Authority Dilemma_, Hobbes is simultaneously committed to subjects being the authors of all that the sovereign does and commands as well as to the sovereign being the sole author of commanded blasphemy, meaning the subjects are _not_ the authors of that command. I review a variety (...) of ways Hobbes and various commentators have attempted to resolve this tension, but ultimately suggest that the tension persists. I spell out the implications of both horns of the authority dilemma: if subjects authorize all actions and commands, then the possibility of commanded blasphemy risks the stability of the commonwealth; if subjects do not authorize all actions and commands, then the commonwealth is not properly unified and thus cannot be stable. Thus, either way, Hobbes fails to establish how individuals can form a stable commonwealth. I conclude with a Hobbesian inspired solution that accepts that subjects authorize all actions and commands, including blasphemy. However, I leverage two recent lines of scholarship – one regarding the inalienable right of self-preservation and the other regarding the fear of eternal damnation – to provide a means for disobedience without the risk of instability. (shrink)

This article defends as correct and as faithful to Aquinas’s thought the tenets of “descriptivism” (sometimes called “naturalism”) in the context of criticisms that Patrick Lee has made in “Is Thomas’s Natural Law Theory Naturalist?” (American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71:4 [1997]: 567–87). “Revisiting Aquinas” argues that evaluative utterances are descriptive; so even if human goods were immediately known by practical reason (a position nonetheless rejected), their understanding would be a descriptive one, which moral objectivity requires. The arising of the prescriptivity (...) of precepts in relation to practical reason is then treated. The descriptivism articulated in this paper supports Lee’s emphasis on the primacy of love and choice; it further stresses that submission to an understood order of objective goods is essential to willing well. (shrink)

Catharine Macaulay’s The History of England challenges Hume’s interpretation of the history of the Stuarts, as developed in his The History of Great Britain, and is grounded in meta-ethical, religious, and political principles that are also fundamentally opposed to those developed by Hume, as she makes clear in her Treatise on the Immutabilty of Moral Truth. Here it is argued that the contrast between them poses a problem for a number of recent accounts of the enlightenment period, and that Macaulay’s (...) work demonstrates that one path to radical politics went via an optimistic strand of intellectualist theism. Macaulay’s ‘republican’ history, which was read on both sides of the Atlantic as justifying the overthrow of arbitrary governments, was grounded in conceptions of liberty, virtue, and sincere theistic belief, similar to those of the Cambridge Platonists. By contrast, Hume’s moral and religious scepticism led naturally to the political conservatism evident in his history. This paper offers an outline of their alternative accounts of the significance of the two English revolutions, and the opposing metaphysical and meta-ethical positions that underpin those accounts. It concludes with a discussion of the contrast between their concepts of liberty and their consequent very different evaluations of the value of liberty. (shrink)

The dominant moral philosophy of nineteenth-century Britain was utilitarianism, beginning with Bentham and ending with Sidgwick. Though once overshadowed by his immediate predecessors in that tradition, Sidgwick is now regarded as a figure of great importance in the history of moral philosophy. Indeed his masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics, has been described by John Rawls as the 'most philosophically profound' of the classical utilitarian works. In this volume a distinguished group of philosophers reassesses the full range of Sidgwick's work, not (...) simply his ethical theory, but also his contributions as a historian of philosophy, a political theorist, and a reformer. (shrink)

It is our great pleasure to announce that the recipient of the 2020 Everett Mendelsohn Prize is Daniel Liu, whose essay, “The Cell and Protoplasm as Container, Object, and Substance, 1835–1861,” appeared in the Journal of the History of Biology, Volume 50, 4 (2017), pp. 889–925.

This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, including meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness. Contemporary research in neurobiology supports the view that intentional mental actions, including meditation, have a profound impact on brain activity, neuroplasticity, and help engender emotional self-control. This impact on brain activity is confirmed via technological developments, a prime example of how technology benefits humanity. Socrates attains the balanced emotional self-control that Alcibiades describes (...) in the Symposium because of the sustained mental effort he exerts that directly impacts his brain and his emotional and philosophical life. The essay concludes that Socratic meditative practices aimed at manifesting true dignity as human beings within the complexities of a technological world offer a promising model of self-care worthy of embracing today. (shrink)

The paper introduces the communication view on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which regards CSR as communicatively constructed in dynamic interaction processes in today’s networked societies. Building on the idea that communication constitutes organizations we discuss the potentially indeterminate, disintegrative, and conflictual character of CSR. We hereby challenge established mainstream views on CSR such as the instrumental view, which regards CSR as an organizational instrument to reach organizational aims such as improved reputation and financial performance, and the political-normative view on CSR, (...) which highlights the societal conditions and role of corporations in creating norms. We argue that both the established views, by not sufficiently acknowledging communication dynamics in networked societies, remain biased in three ways: control-biased, consistency-biased, and consensus-biased. We discuss implications of these biases and propose a future research agenda for the communication view on CSR. (shrink)

This article uses Memo Akten’s art installation Learning to See to challenge the belief that machine learning and machine vision are neutral and objective technologies. Furthermore, this article follows Bernard Stiegler to contend that not only machine vision but also human vision is the result of constant training processes that rely directly on technology. From this perspective, human vision is always already technical. Likewise, in an age dominated growingly by machine learning technologies, it is possible to speak not only of (...) machine vision but also of a machinic imagination and a machinic unconscious, two notions that can be illustrated through Akten’s art installation. (shrink)

Karen von Kunes traces Milan Kundera’s creative ideas to a 1950 police report filed in Stalinist era Czechoslovakia. Demonstrating how this incident influenced Kundera’s literary trajectory and ultimately contributed to his acclaim as a writer, von Kunes interprets his work in a new way.

The Group of Seven are regarded as the forerunners of a national Canadian artistic identity. Focus of the Canadian landscape and their style of painting drew both national and international attention and is often regarded as an integral part of the emerging nationality Canada developed in the twentieth century. The question remains, however: is this veneration justified? What relationship exists between the construction of Canada and the landscapes depicted, and does the work of the Group of Seven really remonstrate the (...) people who call that landscape home? (shrink)

The standard dogmatism ignores the fact that neural coding is extremely flexible, and the degree of “coarseness” versus “locality” of representation in real brains can be different under different task conditions. The real question that should be asked is: What is the operating point of neural coding under natural behavioural conditions? Several sources of evidence suggest that under natural conditions some degree of distribution of coding pervades the nervous system.

Most psychological literature on gaslighting focuses on it as a dyadic phenomenon occurring primarily in marriage and family relationships. In my analysis, I will extend recent fruitful philosophical engagement with gaslighting by arguing that gaslighting, particularly gaslighting that occurs in more public spaces like the workplace, relies upon external reinforcement for its success. I will ground this study in an analysis of the film Gaslight, for which the phenomenon is named, and in the course of the analysis will focus on (...) a paradox of this kind of gaslighting: it wreaks significant epistemic and moral damages largely through small, often invisible actions that have power through their accumulation and reinforcement. (shrink)

The assessment of pragmatic skills in a foreign or second language (L2) is usually investigated with regard to language learners, but rarely with regard to non-native language instructors, who are simultaneously teachers and (advanced) learners of the L2. With regard to English as the target language, this is a true research gap, as nonnative English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs) constitute the majority of English teachers world-wide (Kamhi-Stein 2016). Addressing this research gap, this paper presents a modified replication of Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei’s (1998) (...) renowned study on grammatical vs. pragmatic awareness, carried out with non-NEST candidates. While the original study asked the participants for a global indication of (in)appropriateness/ (in)correctness and to rate its severity, the participants in the present study were asked to identify the nature of the violation and to suggest a repair. Inspired by Pfingsthorn and Flöck (2017), the data was analyzed by means of Signal Detection Theory with regard to Hits, Misses, False Alarms and Correct Rejections to gain more detailed insights into the participants’ metalinguistic perceptions. In addition, the study investigated the rate of successful repairs, showing that correct problem identification cannot necessarily be equated with adequate repair abilities. Implications for research, language teaching and language teacher education are derived. (shrink)

Background: The use of therapeutic untruths raises a number of ethical issues, which have begun to be explored to some extent, particularly in dementia care services, where their use has been found to be high. Little is known, however, about their use by health professionals working in learning disability services. Research question: The study aimed to explore the frequency of use of therapeutic untruths by student learning disability nurses, and by their colleagues; how effective the students perceived them to be (...) as a means of responding to behaviours that challenge; and their level of comfort with using them. Research design: A correlational design was used to gather data from an online version of the Best Interest Scale, adapted for a learning disability context. Participants were 30 learning disability student nurses studying at a university in the North-East of England. Ethical considerations: The study was reviewed and received ethical approval from the first author’s university ethics committee. Findings: Overall, 96% of participants reported using therapeutic untruths. ‘Omission’ was the most frequently used type of therapeutic untruths, the most effective and the type that the students felt most comfortable using. Frequency of use of therapeutic untruths correlated significantly and positively with perceived effectiveness and the level of comfort that the students felt when using them, for all types of therapeutic untruths. Conclusion: The use of therapeutic untruths by the student nurses was consistent with that found in research in dementia care services in the United Kingdom and abroad. Further research to explore the generalisability of the results to the wider context of learning disability services is needed. The study highlights that there may be a need for more formal guidance and educational input to student nurses in the use of therapeutic untruths with people with a learning disability. (shrink)