In their paper Hortonet alargue that it is acceptable to contact an anonymous egg-donor to facilitate diagnostic genetic testing for the donor conceived child, despite the donor, ‘indicating on a historical consent form that she did not wish to take part in future research, and that she did not wish to be informed if she was found to be a carrier of a “harmful inherited condition”’. There are a number of claims embedded in Hortonet al’s position that it is acceptable (...) to contact the donor and request that she at least think about participating in genetic testing. In this response. I will go through their main claims and argue that the area of genomic medicine does not justify exceptions to general consent conditions as the authors suppose and conclude that the donor should not be contacted. I will then go on to suggest a policy change that would address Hortonet al’s concerns but would not involve over-riding any previously expressed wishes. (shrink)

Seen as contributing to human enhancement, implanted technologies have recently been receiving a lot of attention. However, reflections on these technologies have taken the shape of rather speculative ethical judgments on “hyped” technological devices. On the other hand, while science and technology studies and philosophy of technology have a long tradition of analyzing how technological artifacts and tools transform and configure our lives, they tend to focus on use configurations rather than the intimate relations brought about by implanted technologies. Even (...) the cyborg has lost some of its hermeneutic power as it has been detached from its material grounds, becoming a discursive entity. In this article, I reclaim the importance of materiality and explore how people live with spinal cord stimulation, which is a type of neuromodulation technology. Implanted in bodies and seemingly out of sight, this technology does not cease to matter. Embodiment and incorporation are crucial for people to live well with SCS. Embodying the neuromodulation technology entails groping processes in which gestures are central and an increased intimacy with one’s bodily materiality. Incorporating it is highly relational and entangled with the bodies of loved and distant ones, humans and nonhumans. (shrink)

The clonal evolution model and the cancer stem cell model are two independent models of cancers, yet recent data shows intersections between the two models. This article explores the impacts of the CSC model on the CE model. I show that CSC restriction, which depends on CSC frequency in cancer cell populations and on the probability of dedifferentiation of cancer non-stem cells into CSCs, can favor or impede some patterns of evolution and some processes of evolution. Taking CSC restriction into (...) account for the CE model thus has implications for the way in which we understand the patterns and processes of evolution, and can also provide new leads for therapeutic interventions. (shrink)

Craig Callender claims that ‘time is the great informer’, meaning that the directions in which our ‘best’ physical theories inform are temporal. This is intended to be a metaphysical claim, and as such expresses a relationship between the physical world and information-gathering systems such as ourselves. This article gives two counterexamples to this claim, illustrating the fact that time and informative strength doubly dissociate, so the claim cannot be about physical theories in general. The first is a case where physical (...) theories inform in directions that we have no reason to regard as temporal. The second is a case where our best physical theories fail to inform in directions that we have independent (pre-theoretic) reasons to regard as temporal. Taking these two cases into account suggests that the connection Callender makes between time and informativeness is perspectival. The second case demonstrates that although scientists often seek information in temporal directions, the behaviour of the physical world can present serious difficulties for finding it. In response, this article proposes a perspectival reading of Callender’s claim, according to which the connection between time and informative strength has more to do with the aims and objectives of science than the workings of the physical world. (shrink)

:Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences. For in order for certain sensations to be related to something outside me , thus in order for me to represent them as outside and next to one another, thus not merely different but as in different places, the representation of space must already be their ground. Thus the representation of space cannot be obtained from the relations of outer appearance through experience, but this outer experience is (...) itself first possible only through this representation. 1Abstract:Der Raum is kein empirischer Begriff, der von äußeren Erfahrungen abgezogen worden. Denn damit gewisse Empfindungen auf etwas außer mir bezogen werden, imgleichen damit ich sie als außer und neben einander, mithin nicht bloß verschieden, sondern als in verschiedenen Orten vorstellen können, dazu muß die Vorstellung des Raumes schon zum Grunde liegen. (shrink)

The literature on patient public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in health research has grown significantly in the last decade, with a diverse range of definitions and topologies promulgated. This has led to disputes over what the central functions and purpose of PPIE in health research is, and this in turn makes it difficult to assess and evaluate PPIE in practice. This paper argues that the most important function of PPIE is the attempt to make health research more democratic. Bringing this (...) function to the fore and locating PPIE in the wider context of changes in contemporary forms of democratic engagement provides greater conceptual clarity over what PPIE in research should be trying to achieve. Conceptualizing PPIE as a form of democratization has a number of benefits. First, theories of what are appropriate, normatively justifiable and workable criteria for PPIE practices can be developed, and this can provide tools to address the legitimacy and accountability questions that have troubled the PPIE community. Second, this work can be used to form the basis of a research agenda to investigate how PPIE in health research operates, and how it can facilitate and/or improve democratic processes in health research. (shrink)

Donepezil, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, has been widely cited in media and bioethics literature on cognitive enhancement (CE) as having the potential to improve the cognitive ability of healthy individuals. In both literatures, this claim has been repeatedly supported by the results of a small study published by Yesavage et al. in 2002 on non-demented pilots (30-70 years old). The factors contributing to this specific interpretation of this study's results are unclear.

This article is concerned with a discussion of the plausibility of the claim that GM technology has the potential to provide the hungry with sufficient food for subsistence. Following a brief outline of the potential applications of GM in this context, a history of the green revolution and its impact will be discussed in relation to the current developing world agriculture situation. Following a contemporary analysis of malnutrition, the claim that GM technology has the potential to provide the hungry with (...) sufficient nourishment will be discussed within the domain of moral philosophy to determine whether there exists a moral obligation to pursue this end if and only if the technology proves to be relatively safe and effective. By using Peter Singer’s duty of moral rescue, I argue that we have a moral duty to assist the third world through the distribution of such GM plants. I conclude the paper by demonstrating that my argument can be supported by applying a version of the Precautionary Principle on the grounds that doing nothing might be worse for the current situation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper I respond to Fricker’s paradigm-based account of forgiveness, which aims to integrate two seemingly different versions of responses to wrongdoing—conditional forgiveness (what Fricker calls ‘Moral Justice Forgiveness’) and unconditional forgiveness (what Fricker calls ‘Gifted Forgiveness’)—into one explanatory order, as well as, she argues, showing the second to be derivative and parasitic on the basic functioning of the first, and more contingent. My aim is to endorse and draw on Fricker’s paradigm-based strategy and the way it enables (...) us to present a unified account, to endorse her view that both gifted and conditional forgiveness are versions of one loosely unified phenomenon, but to argue for the reverse account of the order of conceptual priority. I will argue that gifted forgiveness is the paradigm, and that once we understand what it is and its role we can see why and how forgiveness also makes sense as something offered in response to a wrongdoer’s remorse, but that this latter form of forgiveness retains an aspect of being something essentially gifted. (shrink)

Lucy Allais presents an original interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. She argues that his distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. Kant is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he does not assert (...) the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects. On Allais's account, we cannot understand Kant's idealism without a clear account of his notion of intuition and of the role of intuition in cognition: she understands Kantian intuitions as representations that give us acquaintance with the objects of thought. This enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Health Research Council of New Zealand is the first major government funding agency to use a lottery to allocate research funding for their Explorer Grant scheme. This is a somewhat controversial approach because, despite the documented problems of peer review, many researchers believe that funding should be allocated solely using peer review, and peer review is used almost ubiquitously by funding agencies around the world. Given the rarity of alternative funding schemes, there is interest in hearing from the first (...) cohort of researchers to ever experience a lottery. Additionally, the Health Research Council of New Zealand wanted to hear from applicants about the acceptability of the randomisation process and anonymity of applicants.MethodsThis paper presents the results of a survey of Health Research Council applicants from 2013 to 2019. The survey asked about the acceptability of using a lottery and if the lottery meant researchers took a different approach to their application.ResultsThe overall response rate was 39%, with 30% from applicants in the years 2013 to 2018, and 68% for those in the year 2019 who were not aware of the funding result. There was agreement that randomisation is an acceptable method for allocating Explorer Grant funds with 63% in favour and 25% against. There was less support for allocating funds randomly for other grant types with only 40% in favour and 37% against. Support for a lottery was higher amongst those that had won funding. Multiple respondents stated that they supported a lottery when ineligible applications had been excluded and outstanding applications funded, so that the remaining applications were truly equal. Most applicants reported that the lottery did not change the time they spent preparing their application.ConclusionsThe Health Research Council’s experience through the Explorer Grant scheme supports further uptake of a modified lottery. (shrink)

How is it that we think and refer in the first-person way? For most philosophers in the analytic tradition, the problem is essentially this: how two apparently conflicting kinds of properties can be reconciled and united as properties of the same entity. What is special about the first person has to be reconciled with what is ordinary about it. The range of responses reduces to four basic options. The orthodox view is optimistic: there really is a way of reconciling these (...) apparently contradictory properties as contained within the same thing. The heretical views are pessimistic and content to be so: there is no such way, and that is because there is simply nothing to reconcile – because there is really nothing special about what is in question; or there is really nothing ordinary about it; or there is really nothing …. (shrink)

A comparison of the dialectical worldviews of Nishida and Hegel is made by developing the notion of dialectical ontology as concrete philosophy in which logic is understood to extend beyond the level of discourse to the point where knowledge and experience cease to be opposed. The differences between their dialectical methods are outlined, highlighting Hegel's emphasis on the actualization of self-consciousness and historical progress in contrast to Nishida's concepts of the dialectal universal "place," the external now, and the self as (...) expressive monad. It is argued that neither thinker is able to fulfill his own demand for a maximally concrete philosophy. However, by performing a dialectic of their dialectics, the pursuit of concrete philosophy is furthered. Takahashi Satomi's notion of "inclusive dialectics" is introduced to aid in articulating the comparative standpoint through which such a dialectic may be conceived. (shrink)

This article returns to Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical oeuvre in order to offer a way of thinking beyond contemporary feminist divisions created by ‘gender critical’ or trans-exclusionary feminists. The ‘gender critical’ feminist position returns to sex essentialism to argue for ‘abolishing’ gender, while opponents often appeal to proliferated gender self-identities. I argue that neither goes far enough and that they both circumscribe utopian visions for a world beyond both sex and gender. I chart how Beauvoir’s ontological, ethical and political positions (...) can be used to overcome the material/cultural, sex/gender bind that the contemporary divide perpetuates. I outline Beauvoir’s ‘ambiguous’ non-foundational ontology that attends to both the cultural origins, and material effects, of both sex and gender, and to the extent that humyns are fundamentally social. After outlining Beauvoir’s definition of freedom as purposive action, I then outline how the existence of the humyn-made and intersubjectively-upheld ‘situations’ of both sex and gender delimit this, urging feminists to return to the lost question of eradicating both. I use the utopian impulse in Beauvoir to argue that an ethics of reciprocity is an alternative mode of understanding the self and others. Beauvoir also calls for a political strategy that I call a ‘utopian realism’ that I apply to the contemporary divide. A way forward that is attentive to the concerns of both positions is the pragmatic use of identity politics that is nonetheless mindful of identity’s limits, alongside Beauvoir’s proto-intersectional vision of solidarity politics based not on identity but on a position of alterity and shared political strategy. Ultimately, I use this to argue that feminism would do better to unite around a shared commitment to challenging alterity, rather than further contributing to it. (shrink)

The JME editorial team selects its feature articles from the best papers accepted for publication based on their quality, novelty and capacity to move debate forward on a specific issue. Feature articles are made freely available and are published alongside reviewed and submitted commentaries. We do this partly to promote and acknowledge excellent work in medical ethics, but also to encourage authors to submit their best papers to the JME. JME feature articles have deepened the analysis of some central issues (...) for medical ethics. ‘Common morality’ is one way of underpinning general ethical principles and it is a concept that is central to the justification that Beauchamp and Childress give in their classic articulation of the four principles. 1 Rhodes’ critical discussion of common morality in her feature article 2 has been well cited since then, which is a good thing from the perspective of the author... (shrink)

The NHS in England is an organisation undergoing substantial change. The passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, consolidates and builds on previous health policies and introduces further ‘market-style’ reforms of the NHS. One of the main aspects of these reforms is to encourage private and third sector providers to deliver NHS services. The rationale for this is to foster a more competitive market in healthcare to encourage greater efficiency and innovation. This changing healthcare environment in the English (...) NHS sharpens the need for attention to be paid to the ethical operation of healthcare organisations. All healthcare organisations need to consider the ethical aspects of their operation, whether state or privately run. However, the changes in the type of organisations used to provide healthcare (such as commercial companies) can create new relationships and ethical tensions. This paper will chart the development of organisational ethics as a concern in applied ethics and how it arose in the USA largely owing to changes in the organisation of healthcare financing and provision. It will be argued that an analogous transition is happening in the NHS in England. The paper will conclude with suggestions for the development of organisational ethics programmes to address some of the possible ethical issues raised by this new healthcare environment that incorporates both private and public sector providers. (shrink)

In this paper I identify a distinctive kind of gaslighting: communicative gaslighting. Communicative gaslighters intentionally misrepresent the communicative properties of an utterance—their own or their target’s—in a way which functions to undermine the target’s confidence in her abilities as a communicator. I argue that we can gaslight people as both speakers and hearers, and about (among other properties) the locutionary, perlocutionary, and illocutionary dimensions of utterances. Communicative gaslighting is concerning because not only does it undermine targets’ communicative agency, but also (...) it can contribute to a general decay of communicative conventions. (shrink)

In different ways, Watsuji, Nishida, and Merleau-Ponty describe a self that extends beyond the skin through a sort of dialectic of internal/external space of perception and action, which has implications for understanding the relationship between art and nature in artistic creation. Through an exposition of Watsuji’s conception of human being in relation to a climatic milieu, Nishida’s theory of the expressive body as the site of the world’s own self-transformations, and certain claims made by Merleau-Ponty in his essays on painting, (...) this article provides a way of understanding how material media may become expressive when they are taken up by artists. (shrink)

Defecation has received limited attention within the social sciences and humanities. Toilets not a great deal. Urination even less. However, examining the practice of composting faeces and ‘pee[ing] on any tree’ by white, West Coast US ‘hippies’ and ‘drop-outs’ living in Hawai’i suggests that the disposal of excreta is never simple disposal. Rather, it entails engagement with the state, one’s own body and sense of placedness. Through looking at the everyday defecatory practices of hippies and drop-outs in Hawai’i, this article (...) seeks to examine the interplay of the acts of defecation and urination with the materiality of toilets themselves. Each depends on the other, and both exist in relation to various others: other toilet designs, other communities, other people. As such, it becomes possible to extend beyond Douglas’s argument that ‘dirt is matter out of place’ to explore the notion that — at least in relation to toilets — ‘dirt is relations out of place’. By placing relationships at the heart of this analysis of defecation and urination, this article provides fertile ground for the exploration of embodiment at its most base level, as site of generative action and social critique. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Both the general structure of Nozick's entitlement theory of justice and the particular arguments he directs against Rawls presuppose a conception of the person. The essay argues that this initial conception of the person is flawed and that Nozick must amend it. However, those amendments lead either to an equally flawed conception or to a conception which is substantially similar to that which Rawls invokes. On either possibility the entitlement theory is weakened. The argument has two steps. First, the (...) initial conception of the person which emerges from Anarchy, State and Utopia is stated. Second, the problems with that initial conception lead to the elucidation of subsequent conceptions, only the last of which is capable of avoiding those problems. The cost of avoidance is, however, a high one for Nozick's arguments against Rawls, in particular, and the entitlement theory in general. (shrink)

The focus of my inquiry in this article is the figure of the Human that is enacted in the design of the humanoid robot. The humanoid or anthropomorphic robot is a model (in)organism, engineered in the roboticist’s laboratory in ways that both align with and diverge from the model organisms of biology. Like other model organisms, the laboratory robot’s life is inextricably infused with its inherited materialities and with the ongoing — or truncated — labours of its affiliated humans. But (...) while animal models are rendered progressively more standardised and replicable as tools for the biological sciences, the humanoid robot is individuated and naturalised. Three stagings of human— robot encounters (with the robots Mertz, Kismet and Robota respectively) demonstrate different possibilities for conceptualising these subject objects, for the claims about humanness that they corporealise, and for the kinds of witnessing that they presuppose. (shrink)

The current “AI Summer” is marked by scientific breakthroughs and economic successes in the fields of research, development, and application of systems with artificial intelligence. But, aside from the great hopes and promises associated with artificial intelligence, there are a number of challenges, shortcomings and even limitations of the technology. For one, these challenges arise from methodological and epistemological misconceptions about the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Secondly, they result from restrictions of the social context in which the development of applications (...) of machine learning is embedded. And third, they are a consequence of current technical limitations in the development and use of artificial intelligence. The paper intends to provide an overview of current challenges which the research and development of applications in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning have to face, whereas all three mentioned areas are to be further explored in this paper. (shrink)

The use of rights based arguments to justify claims that donor offspring should have access to information identifying their gamete donor has become increasingly widespread. In this paper, I do not intend to revisit the debate about the validity of such rights. Rather, the purpose is to examine the way that such alleged rights have been implemented by those legislatures that have allowed access to identifying information. I will argue that serious inconsistencies exist between the claim that donor offspring have (...) a right to know the identity of their gamete donor and the way such a right is currently met in practice. I hope to show that in systems where non‐anonymous donation is practised, an understanding of the proclaimed right of donor offspring to know their genetic identity is one composed of two different rights – the right to know the circumstances of their conception and the right to information identifying the gamete donor – can provide important insights into this important area of public policy. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore how experiences of social belonging might emerge and be sustained in online communities, drawing from the work on rituals by Randall Collins. I argue that rather than viewing mediated interactions in terms of whether they are suitable substitutes for face-to-face interactions, we should consider mediated encounters in their own right. This allows us to recognize the creative ways that people can create rituals in a mediated setting and thus support and create a sense of belonging (...) with others online. I also highlight how some online platforms not only support online rituals but that they are well-positioned to create and circulate collective symbols (or sacred objects) of groups and, thus, can continue to scaffold and sustain on-going feelings of belonging. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 8, August 2024, Page 111-113.

Depression is an affective disorder involving a significant change in an individual’s emotional and affective experiences. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition mentions that social impairment may occur in depression, first-person reports of depression consistently name isolation from others as a key feature of depression. I present a phenomenological analysis of how certain interpersonal relations are experienced in depression. In particular, I consider whether depressed individuals are able to enter into “we-experiences” with other people. We-experiences (...) are experiences had with two or more people as a we, experiences that allow one to enter into robustly shared experiences with others. I claim that the ability to enter into we-experiences is eroded in depression due to an overwhelming feeling of being different to and misunderstood by others. As such, I suggest that depression should be conceived of as fixing an individual in their first-person singular perspective, thus inhibiting their ability to experience in the first-person plural and to feel a sense of connectedness or togetherness with others as part of a we. By attending to on-going impacts of a diminished ability to enter into we-experiences, we can provide a situated and more nuanced account of the changes of interpersonal relations in depression that captures the progressive nature of the disorder. In turn, this analysis furthers our understanding of the emergence, frustration, and erosion of actual and habitual we-experiences. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, Microcebus murinus, a small primate endemic to Madagascar, emerged as a potential animal model for the study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. This paper traces the use of the lesser mouse lemur in research on aging and associated neurodegenerative diseases, focusing on a basic material precondition that made this possible, namely, the conversion of a wild animal into an experimental organism that lives, breeds, and survives in the laboratory. It argues that the “old” mouse lemur model (...) can be considered as an eco-zootechnical acquisition. This is shown by examining how, since the early 1970s, French mouse lemur researchers have articulated colony productivity and viability with the influence of environmental factors on the demographics and physiology of the species. The appearance and maintenance of a growing number of old mouse lemurs in French research facilities are related to three developments: the application of the ecological notion of “social stress” to the understanding and management of the behavior of the captive population; the experimental demonstration that a variety of seasonal physiological changes in the species were influenced by the photoperiod; and the related attempt to accelerate aging in mouse lemurs through the manipulation of annual light conditions. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a philosophical analysis of the act of ‘liking’ a post on social media. First, I consider what it means to ‘like’ something. I argue that ‘liking’ is best understood as a phatic gesture; it signals uptake and anoints the poster’s positive face. Next, I consider how best to theorise the power that comes with amassing many ‘likes’. I suggest that ‘like’ tallies alongside posts institute and record a form of digital social capital. Finally, I consider (...) whether ‘likes’ have ultimately improved online discourse. I argue that while the ‘liking’ function itself is relatively innocuous, public ‘like’ tallies introduce a corrosive motivation to online communication. By making the prospect of increased social capital perpetually salient to us, they encourage us to prioritise high levels of engagement over meaningful engagement. (shrink)

Kant has a number of harsh-sounding things to say about beggars and giving to beggars. He describes begging as “closely akin to robbery” , and says that it exhibits self-contempt. In this paper I argue that on a particular interpretation of his political philosophy his critique of giving to beggars can be seen as part of a concern with social justice, and that his analysis makes sense of some troubling aspects of the phenomenology of being confronted with beggars. On Kant's (...) view, without absolute poverty relief, the poor persons' external freedom is subject to the arbitrary choices of those who have means. But the legitimacy of the state is based on ensuring that no one's basic freedom is subject to the arbitrary choices of another. This means that in a legitimate state public structures must ensure that there is unconditional poverty relief. Having your basic needs met through private charity wrongs you. Kant's analysis is that when you encounter someone in a public space who asks you for money to meet their basic survival needs, you are being asked to solve a public problem in a private interaction, and there is no rightful way for you to do this. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea that forgiveness requires, either for its existence or for its justification, the meeting of moral and epistemic conditions which show that resentment is no longer warranted. I argue that this idea results in over-intellectualizing and over-moralizing forgiveness, and in failing to accommodate its elective nature. I sketch an alternative account, which appeals to the differences between emotions and beliefs, and the idea that we have more rational optionality with respect to emotions.

On 17 May 2016 Lucy Welsh interviewed Annelise Riles about her work on the relationship between law and time as part of Welsh’s involvement with the AHRC Regulating Time network. Annelise Riles is the Jack G. Clarke Professor of Law in Far East Legal Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Cornell, and is Director of the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture. Her work examines the transnational dimensions of laws, markets and culture across the fields of comparative law, (...) conflict of laws, the anthropology of law, public international law and international financial regulation. Most recently Professor Riles has been examining the nature and meaning of the settlement made on the so-called Comfort Women, and what impact that has for locating events in the past. The Comfort Women were Korean women who were essentially captured and forced to work as sexual slaves for the Japanese army during World War Two. In 2015, Japanese and South Korean ministers agreed a settlement in what they regarded as an irreversible and final settlement of the issue. Welsh and Riles exchange over their mutual interests in time and routinisation in this interview as they discuss what the story of the Comfort Women has to tell us. (shrink)

In nursing, expectations of honesty and integrity are clearly stipulated throughout professional standards and codes of conduct, thus the concept of academic integrity has even more impetus in preparing students for graduate practice. However, a disparity between policy and practice misses the opportunity to instil the principles of academic integrity, and at its core honesty, a pivotal trait in the nursing profession. This study draws upon the experience of the nursing faculty to explore how academic integrity policy of deterrence operate (...) in nursing education.While participants deplored cheating behaviours, they expressed frustration in having to ‘police’ large numbers of students who had little awareness of the academic standards to meet policy requirements. In addition, they were cynical because of a perceived lack of severity in sanctions for students who repeatedly breached integrity. Participants expressed a moral obligation as educators to meet student learning needs and preferred to engage with students in a more meaningful way to uphold academic integrity. The ambivalence to detect and report breaches in integrity undermines the effectiveness of policy. Therefore, faculty must recognise the importance of their role in detecting and escalating cases of dishonesty and execute deterrence in a more consistent way. To do this, greater support at an institutional level, such as smaller class sizes, inclusion in decision making around sanctions and recognition of additional workload, will enable faculty to uphold policy. Although policing was not their preferred approach, the role of faculty in detecting and reporting cases of misconduct is crucial to increase the certainty of students getting caught, which is essential if policy is to be effective in deterring dishonest behaviour. (shrink)

We review the relationships between language, inner speech, and cognitive control in children and young adults, focusing on the domain of cognitive flexibility. We address the role that inner speech plays in flexibly shifting between tasks, addressing whether it is used to represent task rules, provide a reminder of task order, or aid in task retrieval. We also consider whether the development of inner speech in childhood serves to drive the development of cognitive flexibility. We conclude that there is a (...) close association between inner speech and cognitive flexibility in both adults and children. Experimental work has begun to specify in detail the role that inner speech might play in adult performance, suggesting that language plays a facilitative but not essential role in representing and activating the relevant task set, processes that occur on both switch and nonswitch trials. While developmental studies suggest an increase in the spontaneous use of verbal strategies with age, implying an increase in top-down control during shifting, experimental work is needed to specify more precisely the nature and precise role that inner speech plays in the development of cognitive control through childhood. (shrink)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS The context of our co-authored contribution to the ‘Aesthetic Relations’ conference-publication is a performance devised by Lucie in 2020 to which she invited Kiraṇ as a collaborator. Due to international travel restrictions however, our physical co-pres-ence in a studio and on stage remained suspended throughout that year. Our exchanges nevertheless continued in adaptive turns both before and after that performance. It is this condition of, at once, compromised yet consistent relation with each other that we (...) refer to as ‘suspension’. For us this suspension was at first admittedly a source of disruption, even anxiety of interrupting our artistic flow. Yet there came a point during the year when this swelling tension ruptured, and a strange ease set in. Nothing had changed on the surface (travel restrictions were only extended), yet something had shifted under our skins. While still physically across continents, our online presentation at the conference was a joint essay at articulating, both textually and performatively, the unassuming complexity of this thing that is suspension. By the time of this publication in 2022, we have somewhat broken this suspension by physically meeting in Switzerland in August 2021. As such we have decided not to edit the text that was performed at the conference back in January 2021, and only append it with this contextual note. Here we must add that the text in one of the sections to follow (which begins with “Please turn your head to your left..”) is intended as a score for action. Originally spoken in our voices, we now ask you to invite another person to read this section aloud to you at an unhurried pace, while you respond to the text’s suggestions. As for us, we continue our collabora-tive artistic research of working in and with suspension as artistic strategy through our ongoing exchanges and upcoming projects. (shrink)

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder characterised by self-starvation. Accounts of AN typically frame the disorder in individualistic terms: e.g., genetic predisposition, perceptual disturbances of body size and shape, experiential bodily disturbances. Without disputing the role these factors may play in developing AN, we instead draw attention to the way disordered eating practices in AN are actively supported by others. Specifically, we consider how Pro-Anorexia (ProAna) websites—which provide support and solidarity, tips, motivational content, a sense of community, and understanding (...) to individuals with AN—help drive and maintain AN practices. We use C. Thi Nguyen’s work on epistemic “echo chambers”, along with Maria Lugones’ work on “worlds” and “ease”, to explore the dynamics of these processes. Adopting this broader temporal and intersubjective perspective, we argue, not only helps to further illuminate the experiential character of AN but also has important clinical and therapeutic significance. (shrink)

While reflexivity is seen as a not-to-be-missed concept in professional training, references to design pedagogical devices to enhance actors’ reflective capacities on their professional situations and to foster their professional and personal development are scarce and embedded in a patchwork of theoretical and practical approaches. As designers of such devices in agricultural higher education, our practical experiences, theoretical background and discussions led us to build a model of reflexivity as five intertwined key dimensions. These dimensions deal with aspects of reflexivity (...) that it is possible to work on directly with learners by using appropriate scaffolding methods, which we describe and illustrate in this paper, referring to our teaching experiences. Two dimensions of the model are particularly relevant for people who are not familiar with reflexivity, and sometimes reluctant to practice it. (shrink)