The main aim of this final essay is to draw on the insights gathered in the Debate “Do Referendums Enhance or Threaten Democracy” to inform future normative and empirical discussions about the design of popular vote processes. We first offer some clarifications regarding three of the concerns raised by respondents about our introductory essay. We then propose a systematic classification of the lines of variation along which the design of popular vote processes usually varies. More precisely, we highlight nine lines (...) of variation: trigger, origin of the text, legal basis, scope, trigger requirements, time, ballot, information, and decision rule. We conclude by emphasizing the relevance and necessity of debating the formal institutional design of popular vote processes. (shrink)

The method chosen here draws on concepts borrowed from sociology and anthropology. This double conceptual approach is necessary for a society divided between values inherited from medieval Christianity and precapitalist practices. Seventeenth-century France did not think of itself as a class society but as a society of orders. Since sociology is a system of knowledge whose concepts are taken from an imaginary construct, it is thus more suited to analyzing bourgeois society than societies in transition.6 In trying to measure the (...) past with the aid of tools forged in and for contemporary societies, the sociologist runs the risk of only measuring an artifact, produced by his theories in the field of history. Hence the need for the anthropological concepts, including the notion of exchange, among others, whether material , symbolic , or sexual .This approach will bring to light the contradictions underlying the society of the ancient régime. Whereas an ordinary sociohistorical approach views the reign of Louis XIV as unified under a dogmatic classicism, the socioanthropological approach stresses the tensions and oppositions running through this society. Classicism appears then as a façade covering up the change that it cannot imagine. This “spectacle”7 makes it possible to unite contradictory social practices, both those produced by consumption and which originate in the medieval economy and those belonging to the early accumulation of capital which sketch future bourgeois economic practices. 6. See Cornelius Catoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey .7. See Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, rev. English ed. . Jean-Marie Apostolidès is professor of French literature at Stanford University. His publications include Le roi-machine, Les metamorphoses de Tintin, and Le prince sacrifié. Alice Musick McLean, a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, is specializing in medieval narrative and the literature of the fantastic. (shrink)

In areas of land conflict, fear and the threat of violence work to reproduce imaginaries of land as a resource that powerful people can grab. An urgent question for agrarian scholars and activists is how people can overcome fear so that alternative imaginaries might flourish. In this article, we argue for attention to the affective dimension of imaginaries; ideas of what land is and should be are co-constituted through the material and social, imbued with powerful emotions that enable imaginaries to (...) be reproduced, to be challenged, and even to be transformed. We draw from long-term research projects in Cambodia—a country known for plantation-fuelled dispossession—where the Prime Minister’s surprise announcement of a land titling campaign in 2012 ruptured the wave of land grabbing, creating openings to imagine different outcomes that are rooted in the potential for legal recognition of smallholder claims. Although the campaign was an uncertain rupture in land imaginaries, these moments matter. Land claimants sought to create affective ties with volunteer land surveyors that embedded hopeful land imaginaries in rural areas and into the national cadastral system. The land title in this context is the material bearer of a land imaginary that centres on rural people’s connection to the land, and also reinforces rural people’s connection to the Cambodian state and the potential to gain the state’s protection. We contribute to an emerging literature that locates the formative effects of hope as an orientation and as a method by exploring the possibilities inherent in rupture. (shrink)

This book provides a fresh and bold look at how archaeologists and heritage managers may enhance their capacity to interpret and understand material culture and heritage values. Drawing on the founding principles of anthropology, Archaeologies of Listening demonstrates the value of cultural apprenticeship, an almost forgotten part of archaeological practice.

In certain cases, children can react strongly in favor of product placements inserted in movies. Scholars therefore argue that existing disclosures might be one strategy in protecting children from any negative effects. However, disclosure research indicates that viewers should both notice disclosures and, in cases of textual cues, read them. We conducted an experiment with 139 children (Mage = 8.46; SD = 1.12; girls = 53.2 %) and tested the influence of textual disclosure format on disclosure awareness as well as (...) brand-related effects. When comparing with no disclosure, results showed that exposure to an existing textual disclosure positively affects disclosure awareness while exposure to an expanded version of it (i.e., by using more textual elements) did not. Further analyses revealed that prior movie exposure positively affected brand evaluation. However, disclosure awareness reversed this effect. We conclude that children appear to be socialized with the existing textual disclosure and that disclosure awareness might be of importance in shielding children against persuasive influence. (shrink)

This article explains the connection between work and life. In order to be able to understand the concept of work and its meaning for life in detail, the design possibilities of the work must first be explained and put into context with free time. It shows that work, as the basis of food production and livelihood, is the crucial factor in the lifeworld and thus strongly influences the life forms of society, since work shapes social values. For this analysis, it (...) is therefore essential to examine the changes in the values of modern society in the course of changing forms of work. The aim of this study is to show that the more radically the forms of work undergo change, the greater the change in values. Finally, it will be discussed what significance this changed nature of work and values has for today’s society. (shrink)

School performance and cognitive competence can be conceptualized as social and relational constructs. Thus, we expect their association to vary as a function of other socially-embedded variables which have proven meaningful in the academic domain. The present study takes a critical theory approach to assess gender-related and contextual variability in the association between peer-assessed school performance and self-perceived cognitive competence. The sample consisted of 719 preadolescents living in lower- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Montreal, Canada and Barranquilla, Columbia. Multigroup comparisons revealed (...) that peer-assessed school competence was more strongly associated with self-perceived cognitive competence for upper-middle-class than lower-middle-class participants from Barranquilla, whereas the opposite pattern was observed with Montreal participants, and that the association between communal orientation and self-perceived cognitive competence was stronger for girls than for boys across the sample, especially in the upper-middle-class school in Montreal. These findings highlight the nuanced degree of gender differences in preadolescents’ perceived academic competence and emphasize the role of SES in shaping self-perceptions. (shrink)

A collection of first-person case studies that detail serious ethical problems in medical practice and research.

RésuméDans cet article, j'explore les intimités épistémiques de l'amitié, en m'inspirant à la fois de la philosophie de Steven Burns et des nouvelles d'Alice Munro. J'identifie trois formes distinctes de ce que j'appelle « l'intimité épistémique ». Les amis peuvent refléter qui nous sommes ou ils peuvent façonner qui nous sommes selon la compréhension qu'ils ont de nous. Au-delà de ces rôles miroirs et constructifs, nous vivons l'expérience d'une intimité épistémique avec des amis simplement par les manières distinctes dont (...) nous nous occupons d'eux, et dont ils s'occupent de nous. De plus, la reconnaissance des disparités entre les diverses formes d'intimités épistémiques nous permet d'expliquer pourquoi certaines amitiés perdurent alors que d'autres échouent. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 135-137 [Access article in PDF] The 2002 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Alice Keefe University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point "Religious Responses to Violence" was the theme for the program at the SBCS Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada, on November 22-23, 2002. Speaking from Christian and Jewish perspectives, the presenters in Session I were Harold Kasimow, Professor Emeritus of Grinnell College; Elaine MacInnes, O.L.M.; (...) Sarah Pinnock of Trinity University; and Rebekah Miles from the Perkins School of Theology. Responding from a Buddhist perspective was Virginia Strauss of the Boston Research Center. Session II offered reflections on Buddhist responses to violence from Gene Reeves of the International Buddhist Congregation; Christopher Ives of Stonehill College; and John Makransky, professor of Religious Studies at Boston College and a Buddhist teacher, with a Christian response from Theodore Walker of Perkins School of Theology, noted for his work in Black theology.Opening Session I, Harold Kasimow explored Jewish responses to violence, which he finds similar in many ways to responses to violence in Mahayana Buddhism. Both traditions unequivocally condemn violence. Basic to Jewish reflection on violence is the great commandment that one shall love one's neighbor as oneself, along with the principle that all humans are created in the image of God; therefore, as Rabbi Akiva taught, whoever sheds blood diminishes God's presence in the world. But like Mahayana Buddhism, the Jewish tradition admits to rare cases where violence may be legitimately used in a spirit of compassion when the lives of others are at stake. On this point, Kasimow, himself a Holocaust survivor, cited Abraham Heschel, who said that "indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself." Heschel dreamed of a world rid of evil by human effort, and he suggested that interfaith dialogue serves as a step toward this goal as it works against the evil of demonizing the "other."Sarah Pinnock, who has written on the religious journeys of Holocaust survivors, explored the themes of memory, solidarity, hope, and mystical faith as compelling Christian modes of survival and resistance in the face of evil. Logic cannot solve the problem of evil, but through memory, suffering is not forgotten; through solidarity, we identify and join with the victimized in resistance to evil; and through hope, we find the energy for resistance. Mystical faith discovers divine transcendence in all things, while abandoning egotistical demands that God be the world's puppet master; [End Page 135] in mystical faith, Christians do not look for divine intervention, but for human beings to act for God against evil.Rebekah Miles, a Christian ethicist, offered a lucid outline of three distinct Christian approaches to violence: (1) absolute pacificism, which rejects the use of violence for any reason; (2) the "crusade" perspective, which justifies war when it can be construed as a conflict between good and evil and which calls for the total eradication of evil in the form of the enemy; and (3) the "just war" perspective, which stipulates precise criteria for instances when the use of violence may be justified and places restraints on any exercise of violence. In addition to this helpful overview, she engaged arguments (put forth by Rosemary Ruether, SharonWelch, and ReginaSchwartz) that there is something inherent in the nature of Western monotheism that serves to legitimate and encourage violence, and argued for divine transcendence as undergirding the effective power of the prophetic critique against all forms of idolatry and tyranny.The final Christian presenter was Elaine MacInnes, O.L.M., a Catholic nun and Zen master who is noted for her activist work in prison ministry in the Philippines and in Canada. She reminded us that even as violence brings suffering, it is at the same time a mystery in that it carries a redeeming potential to rid us of all that is false. It is the cultivation of silence that allows the sacred inner life to do its work.Responding from a Buddhist perspective, Virginia Strauss returned to the problem of the human desire for retributory justice and looked to Buddhism... (shrink)

Wider possibilities for moral thought -- Objectivity revisited: a lesson from the work of J.L. Austin -- Ethics, inheriting from Wittgenstein -- Moral thought beyond moral judgment: the case of literature -- Reclaiming moral judgment: the case of feminist thought -- Moralism as a central moral problem.

Typically, the imagination in thought experiments has been taken to consist in mental images; we visualize the state of affairs described. A recent alternative from Fiora Salis and Roman Frigg main...

Nietzschův zájem o tématiku rétoriky dosáhl prvního pomyslného vrcholu na konci roku 1872 a v první polovině roku následujícího. Průsečíkem textů z tohoto období, tedy eseje O pravdě a lži, univerzitních přednášek a osobních skic, se stala myšlenka, podle které nelze rétorickou aktivitu subjektu redukovat pouze na prostor jazyka; ta je totiž přítomná i po celou dobu konstituce naší názorné zkušenosti. Ve snaze po vysvětlení této pro dějiny rétoriky zcela atypické představy se ovšem budu muset dotknout i několika dobových filosofických (...) tradic, na základě kterých si na konci 60. a na začátku 70. let ujasňoval svá epistemologická východiska. Na závěr se pokusím (bez hlubší kritiky) najít možné paralely mezi touto Nietzschovou představou a teoriemi konceptuálních metafor, které v mnohém předznamenal. (shrink)

Walker's essays and articles written between 1966 and 1982 discuss the concept and influence of art and the artist's life, criticisms of authors such as Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston, studies in the civil rights movement and feminist movement, and her own ideas while writing her book "The Color Purple.".

The neonatal nurse forges a unique partnership with parents of a critically ill infant who are often, unexpectedly, exposed to the bewildering and complex environment that is neonatal intensive care, helping navigate them through this unchartered territory. Our role is multifaceted, with the primary focus of providing care in the best interests of our patients.1 This is realised through the provision of high-quality evidence-based care, advocating for the needs of the baby and family, and when required acting as a linchpin (...) bridging communication channels between medical and nursing teams, other allied health professionals, and the family.1 2 Ordinarily, the birth of an extremely preterm infant is a distressing, life-changing event for parents; this is further complicated by a number of additional factors in this complex scenario3. (shrink)

This chapter provides a roadmap of ongoing conversations about cognitive disability and moral status. Its aim is to highlight the political stakes of these conversations for advocates for the cognitively disabled while at the same time bringing out how a fundamental point of divergence within the conversations has to do with what count as appropriate methods of ethics. The main divide is between thinkers who take ethical neutrality to be a regulative ideal for doing empirical justice to the lives of (...) people with cognitive disabilities and those who reject this methodological precept as unduly restrictive. What results is a debate between, on the one hand, fans of various familiar forms of moral individualism and Kantian approaches in ethics and, on the other, a range of disability scholars and activists who implicitly or explicitly make use of philosophically more radical methods. (shrink)

Legal positivists typically describe law as ‘thinly’ normative to distinguish it from the ‘thick’ normative force of moral norms have; which legal norms may lack. One popular account of thin normativity is social normativity. But a number of scholars have offered accounts of what it is to be a thin norm that are distinct from social normativity. This paper addresses these alternative accounts of what it is to be a thin norm. It also explores whether law counts as necessarily ‘thinly (...) normative’ on these accounts. I argue that some accounts of thin normativity are so generic (‘super-thin’) that they are unable to distinguish between (thin) norms and nonnormative facts and thus collapse into triviality. I also consider more metaphysically demanding accounts of thin normativity, such as the view that everything is a norm that is essentially represented by deontic modals. However, law might fail to meet the demands of these slightly thicker accounts. I thus propose a view of law as consisting in nonnormative facts (diagnostic categories) and suggest sketching accounts of thin normativity as contingent, rather than necessary, features of laws and legal systems. (shrink)

Thought experiments (TEs) are important tools in science, used to both undermine and support theories, and communicate and explain complex phenomena. Their interest within philosophy of science has been dominated by a narrow question: How do TEs increase knowledge? My aim is to push beyond this to consider their broader value in scientific practice. I do this through an investigation into the scientific imagination. Part one explores questions regarding TEs as “experiments in the imagination” via a debate concerning the epistemic (...) status of computer simulations in science. I outline how, against Hacking, TEs also have “a life of their own” and I argue against accounts that privilege experiments over simulations (and by extension TEs) in light of their capacity to surprise in a productive way. Part two develops a pluralist account of the nature of the imagination in science. At its core, my view is that when we attend to a number of examples of TEs and consider the context in which they are used, we see that TEs engage a variety of our imaginative capacities. Existing monistic views fail to recognise the richness of the imagination and its potential in science. Part three looks to the “beauty” of TEs which is currently overlooked in the aesthetics of science literature. I put forward a new account that demonstrates the epistemic value of aesthetic features in science by showing how an appropriate fit between form and content enhances the usability of a TE, and its effectiveness as a prompt for our imagination. This also enables a more nuanced take on the proposed similarities between TEs and literary fictions. In the concluding chapter, I outline ways in which the core features of my account can be extended beyond TEs to illuminate the significance of the imagination and aesthetic values in other areas of science. (shrink)

This is the second of two parts of an interview with Alice Crary conducted in a single exchange in the first weeks of January 2022, where she discusses ordinary language philosophy and feminism, Wittgenstein’s conception of mind and its relation to feminist ethics, the link between Wittgenstein and Critical Theory, and her own views about efforts to bring about social and political transformations. The first part on “Wittgenstein and Feminism” is published in the NWR Special Issue “Wittgenstein and Feminism”, (...) forthcoming later this year. (shrink)

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Obtaining consent for medical treatment in older adults raises a number of complex challenges. Despite being required by ethics and the law, consent for medical treatment is not always validly sought in this population. The dynamic nature of capacity, particularly in individuals who have dementia or other cognitive impairments, adds complexity to obtaining consent. Further challenges arise in ensuring that older people comprehend the medical treatment information provided and that consent is not vitiated by coercion or undue influence. Existing mechanisms (...) to address issues surrounding consent for older adults only address incapacity and raise further challenges. As the ageing population increases, these issues are likely to become more profound, thus action is required to address these challenges. Raising awareness, more education, engaging with people with dementia, and conducting further research would assist in beginning to overcome these challenges. (shrink)