This book is an introduction to and interpretation of the philosophy of language devised by Donald Davidson over the past 25 years. The guiding intuition is that Davidson's work is best understood as an ongoing attempt to purge semantics of theoretical reifications. Seen in this light the recent attack on the notion of language itself emerges as a natural development of his Quinian scepticism towards "meanings" and his rejections of reference-based semantic theories. Linguistic understanding is, for Davidson, essentially dynamic, arising (...) only through a continuous process of theory construction and reconstruction. The result is a conception of semantics in which the notion of interpretation and not the notion of knowing a language is fundamental. In the course of his book Bjorn Ramberg provides a critical discussion of reference-based semantic theories, challenging the standard accounts of the principle of charity and elucidating the notion of radical interpretation. The final chapter on incommensurability ties in with the discussions of Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science and suggests certain links between Davidson's analytic semantics and hermeneutic theory. (shrink)

With Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Richard Rorty tries to persuade us that a case for liberalism is better served by historical narrative than by philosophical theory. The liberal ironist is the complex protagonist of Rorty’s anti-foundationalist story. Why does Rorty think irony serves—rather than undermines—commitments to liberal democracy? I distinguish political from existential dimensions of irony, consider criticisms of Rorty’s ironist, and then draw on recent work by Lear to argue that Rorty’s ironist character nevertheless can be recast as an (...) image useful to the self-understanding of contemporary liberal democrats. (shrink)

Following Quine, Davidson, and Dennett, I take mental states and linguistic meaning to be individuated with reference to interpretation. The regulative principle of ideal interpretation is to maximize rationality, and this accounts for the distinctiveness and autonomy of the vocabulary of agency. This rationality-maxim can accommodate empirical cognitive-psychological investigation into the nature and limitations of human mental processing. Interpretivism is explicitly anti-reductionist, but in the context of Rorty's neo-pragmatism provides a naturalized view of agents. The interpretivist strategy affords a less (...) despondent view of constructive philosophical activity than Rorty's own. (shrink)

Black women are 3–4 times more likely to die from a pregnancy‐related complication and twice as likely to experience severe maternal morbidity when compared to white women in the United States. The risks for pregnancy‐related maternal mortality are well documented, yet Black women's experiences of life‐threatening morbidity are essentially absent in the nursing literature. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of Black women who developed severe maternal morbidity. Face‐to‐face, one‐to‐one, in‐depth conversational interviews were conducted (...) with nine Black women who experienced life‐threatening complications during childbirth or postpartum. Five essential themes emerged (1) I Only Know What I Know; (2) How You Cared for Me; (3) Race Matters; (4) Faced with Uncertainty; and (5) Still Healing. These themes illuminate the complexity of Black women's subjective interpretations of severe maternal morbidity, and reveal ways in which racism, not race, places Black women at risk for poor maternal health outcomes. The author envisions greater equity for Black mothers entrusted to nursing care, guided by nursing theories informed by these study findings. (shrink)

To approach the philosophical anthropology of Donald Davidson is to get ready for an unusually high number of laps around the hermeneutic circle. Apparently a problem-oriented philosopher, Davidson presents his views in a continuing series of dense, tightly focussed papers on narrowly circumscribed topics. The lines of the big picture are mostly implicit. Yet it is the scope and the power of this picture that has made Davidson one of the most significant philosophers of this century. Naturally, this makes Davidson's (...) work an extremely tempting—and extremely treacherous—target for the exegete with synthesizing tendencies. Until now, the sense of danger seems to have won out; secondary expositions have largely confined themselves to particular aspects of his thought. For those seeking to appreciate the cohesion and comprehensiveness of Davidson's vision, there has been no alternative but, as Ted Honderich says, to “struggle and learn,” working their way through Davidson's papers, continually calibrating and recalibrating interpretations of Davidson's detailed philosophical proposals with the emerging pattern of their interrelationships. (shrink)

This short chapter is a personal homage to Richard Rorty as mentor. Ramberg provides the reader with a very intimate portrait of Rorty, of his intellectual humility and integrity, and of how he was living by the standards of his philosophy of conversation (the editor).

Recent efforts to talk about the self in a postmodern dialect have created a dilemma: How can one conceptualize the human self as multiple, fluid, contextual, and radically relational while also maintaining that it is intentional, private, focused, and accountable? Creative Dwelling weaves elements of feminist psychology and process theology into a dynamic interdiscplinary dialogue about human subjectivity. The result brings a new coherence and vitality to our search for more inclusive and adequate ways of understanding our humanity. The theologicl (...) implications are profound: the dynamics of empathy and clarity impel the author to reframe characteristics of the divine nature, sin, salvation, and spirituality. The book culminates in a study of "dwelling" as a new, iconoclastic, and visionary metaphor for our experiences of the ever-emerging self. (shrink)

Several arguments have been put forward about the benefits of young people carrying out their own social science research in terms of empowering their voices and their participation. Much less attention has been paid to investigating the understandings young people develop about the research process itself. Seven twelve-year olds carried out self-directed social science research into a topic of their choice. Towards the end of their six months experience, we used a questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews to investigate, from a (...) sociocultural perspective, what the young people thought about being a researcher. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified three themes and eight subthemes suggesting that they were aware of: the need to demonstrate researcher/research integrity ; the need for good interpersonal skills and standards, and good self-management skills (be resilient, agentic, committed and go... (shrink)

The so-called “war on terror” launched by the United States following 9/11 is only the latest in an ongoing strategy of responding to conflict around the world with military violence and armed force. These interventions appear to be premised on a belief that there is no alternative to using violence and armed force to resolve conflicts because human beings have fixed and unchanging identities which are either “with us or against us,” “friends or enemies,” “good or evil.” In contrast, despite (...) the pervasiveness of violent conflict, suffering and human rights violations in their homelands, it is striking to note how a number of prominent Buddhist political and spiritual leaders remain optimistic about the possibilities of positive peace in the world. In exploring the reasons for these differences, I will focus on the views of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the government of Tibet in exile and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the congressional gold medal, as well as those of two other Buddhist leaders: Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma who has been held under house arrest by the ruling military junta for several years since her election in 1989, and the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, who has worked for peace in his country since the start of the Vietnam War. As I will show, their views reflect starkly different assumptions about human beings, “enemies” in particular, that provide a more constructive framework for resolving conflict situations than those evident in the seemingly automatic resort to armed violence employed by US leaders. (shrink)

This thesis challenges prevailing approaches to religiously-based or influenced laws , and proposes an alternative model that makes religious pluralism, gender, and moral identity central considerations. I focus my analysis around abortion as a case study in order to analyze the gendered dimensions of the issue in addition to other, more well-recognized problems with religious lawmaking. ;My overarching thesis is that the prevalent approaches to religious lawmaking in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, as well as in liberal and communitarian moral and (...) legal theory, are inadequate. Liberal approaches tend to protect religious pluralism at the expense of the religious identity of lawmakers, whereas communitarian proposals protect the religious morality of lawmakers at the expense of respect for religious pluralism. Both approaches are also inadequate, I contend, because they are premised upon faulty conceptions of moral identity, and fail to adequately consider the potential of religious lawmaking to perpetuate inequalities based on gender as well as religion. My arguments regarding deficiencies in these approaches are reinforced with empirical evidence regarding abortion views held by American religious groups, as well as the self-descriptions of a number of lawmakers regarding the influence of religion in their decision making. ;In developing alternative ethical and legal frameworks for addressing religious lawmaking, my analysis proceeds along both theoretical and practical lines. On the theoretical level, I propose that the conceptions of the social self and role-based morality developed by the twentieth century pragmatist philosopher George Herbert Mead, as supplemented by feminist and poststructuralist perspectives, provide the basis for a preferable ethical approach to religious lawmaking. ;On the practical level, I develop a legal framework that requires government in qualified challenges to religious lawmaking to show that the law can be fully supported on the basis of publicly accessible reasons and, in some instances, also by a compelling state interest. I explain how this proposal can accommodate the interests of religious lawmakers in relying on their religious convictions in their political and legal decision making, while insuring that the citizenship rights of their constituents are not thereby harmed. (shrink)

The debate over religious lawmaking pits respect for religious pluralism against moral identity. Peach contends that both sides of the argument are fundamentally flawed and that neither has addressed the gender-based disparities of religious lawmaking. The book offers a pragmatic solution which will respect religious pluralism, moral identity, and gender differences.

SummaryThe development of universities and technical schools in nineteenth century Switzerland is commonly assumed to be similar to the development of comparable schools in Germany. To a large extent this is correct, but there are subtle differences in the founding and organization of Swiss institutions that are reflective of the Swiss national and local cantonal contexts. In the case of Zürich, the specific local political and financial conditions underlying the formation of the University of Zürich, the Zürich Cantonal School and (...) the Swiss Federal Polytechnic resulted in a complex set of dual appointments and shared facilities that were absent at comparable chemical laboratories at German universities. This essay outlines the origins of these complex relationships under Carl Löwig and Georg Städeler and follows in more detail the complex career path of Johannes Wislicenus in Zürich from his appointment as Privatdozent in 1860 to his appointment as Director of the Polytechnic in 1871. Wislicenus’ career path illustrates the institutional context of chemistry in Zürich and shows how this context, including the roles of cantonal and federal support, and the physical constraints created by shared laboratory facilities, shaped chemical research and instruction in Zürich. (shrink)

J. H. van 't Hoff's 1874 Dutch pamphlet, in which he proposed the spatial arrangement of atoms in a molecule, is one of the most significant documents in the history of chemistry. This essay presents a new narrative of Van 't Hoff's early life and places the appearance of the pamphlet within the context of the 'second golden age' of Dutch science. We argue that the combination of the reformed educational system in The Netherlands, the emergence of graphical molecular modelling (...) within the theoretical and practical culture of chemistry during the 1860s and 1870s, as well as Van 't Hoff's own personal research trajectory, formed the background to his unprecedented attribution of spatial meaning to the traditional concept of atomic 'arrangement'. We also present a new English translation of the pamphlet, for we have found that the existing translation, published by G. M. Richardson in 1901, contains many errors, changes and omissions. The new version offers a more accurate rendition in English of Van 't Hoff's style and argument. (shrink)

In Regina v. Murray, (2000, Ont S.Ct.J.) the learned trial judge, Justice Gravely, errs in his interpretation and application of the law of mens rea in the offense of willfully attempting to obstruct justice under section 139(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada. In view of his findings of fact and law, including the determination that the accused knowingly and intentionally committed the actus reus of the offense and the absence of any suggestion that he lacked awareness of any relevant (...) facts, there is no question in law but that Kenneth Murray was liable to be, and actually should have been, convicted. Nonetheless, the trial judge concluded that Murray’s alleged belief, that his actions were required by his duty to his client, raised a reasonable doubt about his intention to obstruct justice and entitled him to be acquitted. -/- In his reasons for judgment, the trial judge analyzes mens rea as if there is a “color of right” defense to the offense of obstruction of justice. In law, however, no such defense exists to this offense. Consequently, even if Mr. Murray did “honestly believe” that he had a duty to his client not to disclose the existence of the video tapes, that belief could not provide him with an exculpatory defence. In Canada, pursuant to common law and section 19 of the Criminal Code, mistakes of law do not excuse accused persons from responsibility for criminal conduct in the absence of a statutory exception. No exception exists for the offense of obstruction of justice. Yet the Crown did not choose to appeal and thereby signaled its acceptance of the legal analysis adopted by the trial judge. By contrast, if the analysis proposed in this piece had been adopted, the Crown should have prevailed at trial and, if unsuccessful at trial, would have had a right of appeal on a question of law. -/- At least two tendencies converge as significant influences shaping the outcome in the Murray case. The central tendency, discussed in Part I of this article, is the trial judge’s treatment of the accused’s alleged mistake about his legal duty as if it were a mistake about a question of fact which therefore could give rise to a reasonable doubt about intention or culpable awareness. This approach to mistaken beliefs ignores the distinction between mistakes of law and mistakes of fact, and then characterizes all mistakes as mistakes of fact. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in the case law. In recent years however, as explained below, the judiciary has rejected that approach in a number of leading cases and ruled that mistakes which are actually mistakes about the meaning, scope, or application of the law are subject to the general rule and do not provide an accused with an exculpatory defense. The relationship between mistake of law and mens rea in Canadian criminal law has also been the subject of critical scholarly comment in Canada in recent years. The Murray decision provides evidence that, despite clarification by the Supreme Court, in some lower courts the unrefined approach to mistaken belief continues to shape the legal analysis of criminal culpability, even when the mistaken belief is overtly a belief about the law. This will not change until the proper characterization of mistaken beliefs as legal or factual becomes a deliberate and common-place aspect of case analysis at the trial court level. -/- The other tendency, discussed in Part III of this article, is one that often appears as a companion to the first - the judicial tendency to perceive and invoke analytical legal ambiguity in favour of accuseds more readily in cases in which the impugned conduct involves the discretionary exercise of authority which, when used appropriately, is fully legitimate and essential to the normal functioning of the existing socio-legal order. Of course, courts are strongly influenced by the arguments put to them by counsel. And counsel, acting on behalf of client groups with particular group interests may, consciously or unconsciously, favour the development of those lines of analysis which are protective of that interest or associated institutional interests. One of the reasons for scrutinizing the Murray case is that it provides a concrete context for discussion of those issues in relation to an actual decision made by Crown prosecutors. The case provides an occasion to examine a specific example of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, its implications for the administration of criminal justice, and its broader potential impact on the public interest. [See also errata in UNBLJ 2002 volume 52 at pp 309-310.]. (shrink)

In 1987, apprehension that “unreasonable mistakes of fact” might negative mens rea in sexual assault cases led the Canadian Parliament to enact “reasonable steps” requirements for mistakes of fact with respect to the age of complainants. The role and operation of the “reasonable steps” provisions in ss. 150.1(4) and (5) and, to a lesser extent, s. 273.2 of the Criminal Code, must be reassessed. Mistakes of fact are now largely addressed at common law by jurisprudence that has re-invigorated judicial awareness (...) of the evidentiary requirements for the availability of defences at common law and explicitly defines “honest belief” as a belief that is neither reckless nor willfully blind. As a consequence of these common law developments, the defence of mistake of fact with respect to age is rarely available as a matter of law. Properly used, these common law analytic tools afford minors and under-age sex-workers better legal protection from sexual exploitation than has often been achieved in practice over the last 25 years with the “reasonable steps” requirement under ss. 150.1(4) and (5). -/- Socio-economic inequalities ensure that aboriginal children and youth are disproportionately affected by the non-enforcement, under-enforcement, and selective enforcement of laws enacted to protect minors against sexual assault and participation in sex work. Continued reliance by prosecutors and judges on out-moded jurisprudence in the screening, prosecution, and disposition of these cases in the criminal justice system reinforces existing patterns of inequality and disadvantage and violates basic principles of human rights. (shrink)

Insights into the history of chemistry Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9482-4 Authors Peter J. Ramberg, Truman State University, 100 E. Normal, Kirksville, MO 63501, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

In this ground-breaking article submitted for publication in mid-1986, Lucinda Vandervort creates a radically new and comprehensive theory of sexual consent as the unequivocal affirmative communication of voluntary agreement. She argues that consent is a social act of communication with normative effects. To consent is to waive a personal legal right to bodily integrity and relieve another person of a correlative legal duty. If the criminal law is to protect the individual’s right of sexual self-determination and physical autonomy, rather (...) than simply to regulate the type and degree of force that may be used to obtain compliance from a victim, the point of reference must be the individual complainant, as a person who makes choices, not social norms or objective tests based on the ordinary person. To determine whether consent is voluntary, attention must be directed to the presence or absence of factors that had a coercive impact on the individual complainant, a specific person with a collection of social, cultural, and psychological experiences, needs, fears, values, and priorities. Individuals have the right to exercise self-determination in accordance with their own values and perceptions, not those of a mythical victim. Accordingly, Vandervort argues that the prosecution may show either refusal, the absence of affirmative voluntary agreement (including passivity or the absence of consent due to unconsciousness), or circumstances that invalidate any apparent consent. Any of these prove the absence of consent for the purposes of establishing the actus reus of sexual assault. -/- The definition of consent as the affirmative communication of voluntary agreement is also shown to have a variety of implications for the interpretation and application of the law of sexual assault and the handling of evidentiary issues at trial in sexual assault cases. Key among these is the pivotal significance of the legal definition of consent as a tool to bar availability of the defence of “mistaken belief in consent.” Vandervort argues that in many cases the defence of “mistaken belief in consent” is based on ignorance of the law of consent, mistake about the legal definition of consent, or a failure to appreciate the legal significance of facts that are well-known, and not on a mistaken belief in an erroneous set of facts. The broad proposition asserted here is that a statutory criminal law is enforceable only if all defences based directly or indirectly on belief in the validity of extra-legal norms that authorize infringement of rights protected by the criminal law are barred. This proposition and the characterization of some mistakes about consent as legal, not factual, are also shown to be useful to exclude rape-myths and stereotypical assumptions---the stuff of which “social” definitions of consent have long been constructed---from the decision-making process at trial. -/- . (shrink)

Scholars of color have been instrumental in advancing nursing knowledge development but find limited spaces where one can authentically share their philosophical perspective. Although there is a call for antiracism in nursing and making way for more diverse and inclusive theories and philosophies, our voices remain at the margins of nursing theory and philosophy. In nursing philosophy, there continues to be a lack of racial diversity in those who are given the platform to share their scholarship. Five nurse scholars of (...) color attended the International Nursing Philosophy Conference in August 2022. We established a collective system of support by sharing our experiences as researchers, scholars, and educators with each other. The theory of emancipatory nursing praxis informed this process. In this dialogue, we reflected on what it is like to present at and attend predominantly white nursing conferences. We shared our experiences of how we exist as nurse scholars, our philosophical views, and our thoughts on how we create spaces where scholars of color can feel welcomed and acknowledged for their contributions to advancing nursing knowledge. (shrink)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted. The (...) centerpiece of Rorty's critique is the provocative account offered in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979, hereafter PMN). In this book, and in the closely related essays collected in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982, hereafter CP), Rorty's principal target is the philosophical idea of knowledge as representation, as a mental mirroring of a mind-external world. Providing a contrasting image of philosophy, Rorty has sought to integrate and apply the milestone achievements of Dewey, Hegel and Darwin in a pragmatist synthesis of historicism and naturalism. Characterizations and illustrations of a post-epistemological intellectual culture, present in both PMN (part III) and CP (xxxvii-xliv), are more richly developed in later works, such as Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989, hereafter CIS), in the popular essays and articles collected in Philosophy and Social Hope (1999), and in the four volumes of philosophical papers, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991, hereafter ORT); Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991, hereafter EHO); Truth and Progress (1998, hereafter TP); and Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007, hereafter PCP). In these writings, ranging over an unusually wide intellectual territory, Rorty offers a highly integrated, multifaceted view of thought, culture, and politics, a view that has made him one of the most widely discussed philosophers in our time. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the character and role of stereoformulas and models of the atom that appeared in the early history of stereochemistry, including those of Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, Aemilius Wunderlich, Johannes Wislicenus, Victor Meyer, Arthur Hantzsch, Alfred Werner, and Hermann Sachse. I argue that stereochemists constructed and used stereoformulas in a pragmatic way that ignored the physical implications of the spatial distribution of valence, and that the models of the atom were created to reconcile the physically curious (...) concept of valence with known physical laws. Although such models were explanatory at a deeper level, they had little impact on the theory and practice of chemistry, and were not serious attempts to reduce chemical theory to physical laws. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the consensual model in law and argues that if substantive justice is to be the goal of law, the use of individual choice as a legal criterion for distributive and retributive purposes must be curtailed and made subject to substantive considerations. Substantive justice arguably requires that human rights to life, well-being, and the commodities essential to life and well-being, be given priority whenever a societal decision is made. If substantive justice is a collective societal (...) responsibility, the individual cannot be justly rewarded or punished for his or her choices with respect to life, well-being and essential commodities insofar as these choices are justified or excused by standards of substantive justice. Societal conditions and institutional arrangements should be recognized as grounds for justification and excuse because they may impose limits and constraints on the choices available to an individual that are as unavoidable and compelling as those imposed by chance or by another human being. (shrink)

The availability of the defence of belief in consent under section 265(4) is a question of law, subject to review on appeal. The statutory provision is based on the common law rule that applies to all defences. Consideration of the defence when it is unavailable in law and failure to consider it when it is available are both incorrect. A judge is most likely to avoid error when ruling on availability of the defence if the ruling: (1) is grounded on (...) sound analysis of the substantive basis for the defence and its relationship to the principles of criminal responsibility; and (2) uses precise legal criteria to govern practical application of section 265(4) to the evidence in specific cases. The guidelines proposed in Part I are based on analyses of the substantive defence and culpable awareness and were developed to ensure that appropriate criteria are properly used when section 265(4) is applied. When a trial judge rules that the defence is available in law, the trier of fact must determine whether the defence is available on the facts as found, based on the evidence in the case. The model jury instructions proposed in Part II are designed to ensure that deliberations by the trier of fact are also guided and shaped by appropriate legal criteria. At both stages, the objective is to ground the deliberation process on fact, not fiction, and to regulate the exculpatory effect of the defence by using legal norms to exclude excuses based on extra-legal considerations such as sexual/racial fantasy, stereotype and myth, or community attitudes and custom. (shrink)

The problem I want to raise in this paper will not be a problem for anyone who does not share both the following concerns or prejudices. The first is that we should take a materialist, extensional approach to linguistic meaning, specifically, the approach that is suggested by the work of Donald Davidson. The second is that social analysis must be emancipatory, and that this requires the conceptual possibility of postulating social structures that are in some sense hidden by discourse. The (...) problem I want to address lies in a possible conflict between these concerns, both of which I will clarify, though not justify. The problem is this: Does the methodological core of Davidson's semantics—the principle of charity—permit interpretation informed by a concept of ideological concealment?As with many of our philosophical problems, the existence of this one is quite precarious. We can avoid avoiding it only if we move along a rather specific route, which, I am afraid, will constitute a good chunk of my paper. (shrink)

What can the "Lotus Sūtra" teach us about social responsibility? This question is explored through the lens of gender by examining the specifically female-gendered images in the "Lotus Sūtra" in order to assess its messages regarding normative gender relations, and the implications of these messages for gender justice in the contemporary world. First, gender imagery in the Lotus is explored. Second, these images are compared with those found elsewhere in the Buddhist tradition in order to provide a clearer assessment of (...) how representative the "Lotus'" messages are regarding gender in Buddhism more generally. Measuring the gender imagery in the "Lotus Sūtra" against that in comparable Buddhist texts reinforces an assessment that this text reflects somewhat ambivalent and contradictory messages regarding women's capacity for Enlightenment. (shrink)

In the United States, there is a long history of racial disparities in maternal health, with Black women disproportionately representing poor maternal health outcomes. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy‐related complication and twice as likely to experience severe maternal morbidity when compared to white women. Where are nurses in the development of knowledge to improve maternal health outcomes among Black birthing people? This dialogue discusses how decolonizing nursing can occur by examining the (...) history of Black maternal health in the United States and using the works of nursing scholars of color to inform nursing education, research, and clinical practice. (shrink)

Only rarely have feminist theorists addressed the adequacy of just -war theory, a set of principles developed over hundreds of years to assess the justice of going to war and the morality of conduct in war. Recently, a few feminist scholars have found just -war theory inadequate, yet their own counterproposals are also deficient. I assess feminist contributions to just -war theorizing and suggest ways of strengthening, rather than abandoning, this moral approach to war.

This commentary on Cheryl Misak’s The American Pragmatists opens with a schematic distinction between Type I philosophers, who think of their problems in ahistorical terms, and Type II philosophers, who take the genesis of the vocabulary in which problems are stated to have philosophical import. I suggest that Misak is a moderate Type II philosopher, who constructs a successful narrative of pragmatism around the issue of objectivity. The narrative carefully traces the dialectic of convergence and conflict that shapes pragmatist thought (...) on this central topic, smoothly connecting—both historically and systematically—with central concerns in contemporary Anglophone philosophy. Misak thus achieves a main aim, namely, to open avenues of dialogical engagement across sub-disciplinary boundaries. Success has a cost, of course, and I conclude by briefly suggesting what may be left in the shadows cast by this generally illuminating story. (shrink)

In early visits to Lothlorien—which is a loosely Pagan community of environmentalists in Indiana—I was confounded by attempts to categorize either the place or the people. As one of the founders said, “I tend to run from labels so I don't know what I am. It's safer that way.” In this paper I explore four members’ narratives about the emotional high points in their lives, where they often cross the usual boundaries of self and other. At the same time the (...) subjectivity at the core of these experiences is something that is felt and that cannot be dismissed as a discursive construct. Through these narratives I attempt to understand selfhood as a process—experientially inescapable but essentially in flux. I see a strong case for anthropologists moving beyond an overly neat, overly dichotomized view of “Western” and “non-Western” senses of self. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Portraits of Buddhist WomenLucinda PeachPortraits of Buddhist Women. By Ranjini Obeyesekere. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 231 pp.This book is a translation of part of the Saddharmaratnavaliya (Jewel Garland of the True Doctrine; hereafter SR ), a thirteenth-century Sinhala translation of the Dhammapada (hereafter DA ), a fifth-century Buddhist text. Out of the entire collection of 360 stories contained in the SR, this book includes (...) twenty-six that have women as central characters.The author succeeds in part with her stated purpose to "illuminate the position of women in the early-medieval Buddhist worlds of India and Sri Lanka" as well as to "provide insights into shifting stances over time on issues of sexuality and gender" (p. 1), despite the lack of any necessary correlation between gender images and the actual status of women in a particular social location. As Obeyesekere points out, although the stories themselves are not focused on gender, their contexts in the "everyday world" of their fifth- and thirteenth-century authors do shed light on women's lives and social status. The stories she has selected for the volume portray women in a wide range of roles, including not only the ideal normative ones of wives and mothers, but also those of daughters, courtesans, servants, queens, nuns, and wandering ascetics.Obeyesekere claims that the particularities in these narratives "reflect the status, intelligence, management, and organizational skills of women that were permitted full play in the social worlds to which they belonged" (p. 11). This claim is borne out by several passages in the text, such as the narrative of Kundalakesi, which has a deity state that "it is not men who always have the best stratagems.... [In] certain situations women too know what to do" (p. 120).Furthermore, women's capabilities and talents are sometimes recognized by the men in the narratives. Visakha's grandfather chooses her to escort the Buddha and arrange accommodations for the enormous entourage that accompanied her betrothed. Samavati's adopted father, Ghosaka, unquestioningly accepts her advice on how to organize an alms-hall (to prevent quarreling) and how to deal with the King's (unreasonable) demands. After she has "shed the three evils of belief in self, doubts, and erroneous beliefs and practices," Khujjuttara preaches a sermon "exactly as the Buddha has done" (p. 63) and becomes the teacher of Samavati and her five hundred attendants.However, Obeyesekere also notes the antifeminist elements that are sprinkled throughout the text. The statements in the narrative of Visakha that "women who run are most unattractive" and will meet with criticism and ridicule for having no feminine grace and acting in a manner not befitting for a woman (pp. 84-85) reveals how restrictive gender-role norms were in thirteenth-century Sri Lanka. A woman's body is described as a polluted lump of flesh in the Udeni cycle (a collection [End Page 289] of five related narratives); here the Buddha is said to describe woman's body as a "container with its nine orifices filled with feces and urine" that "I would be disgusted even to wipe my feet on... as I would on a door mat" (p. 12; see also p. 54). Comparisons to women are used to criticize men, as when King Udeni tells King Candapajjota's guards (after the latter king has locked up the former seemingly indefinitely after capturing him) that "Your kind does what even women would not do..." (p. 48). This comparison indicates that women are not honorable and trustworthy, but willing to impose extended and unnecessary suffering on their victims.Other antifeminist elements in the SR include the backhanded compliment to Visakha that "though born a woman (and women are of limited vision), and though forced to associate with people who were of the right caste but held wrong beliefs, yet she herself did not lack vision" (pp. 14, 79). This sentiment about women in general is consistent with the widespread belief in popular Buddhism that men are more highly evolved on the cosmic chain than are women.This view is illustrated in the narrative of Soreyya, who transforms from a male to a female form when he... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Pragmatic Redescription versus Philosophy of Mind The Interpretive Strategy Vocabularies, Agency, and Nature The Mind, Psychology, and Nature Pragmatism and Science Pragmatism and the Naturalization of Philosophy.

(1993). Strategies for Radical Rorty (‘… but is it progress?’) Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 23, Supplementary Volume 19: New Essays on Metaphilosophy, pp. 223-246.

This article examines the operation of “reasonable steps” as a statutory standard for analysis of the availability of the defence of belief in consent in sexual assault cases and concludes that application of section 273.2(b) of the Criminal Code, as presently worded, often undermines the legal validity and correctness of decisions about whether the accused acted with mens rea, a guilty, blameworthy state of mind. When the conduct of an accused who is alleged to have made a mistake about whether (...) a complainant communicated consent is assessed by the hybrid subjective-objective reasonableness standard prescribed by s. 273.2, many decision-makers rely on extra-legal criteria and assumptions grounded on their personal experience and opinion about what is reasonable. In the midst of debate over what the accused knew and what steps were “reasonable” given what the accused knew, the legal definition of consent in section 273.1 is easily over-looked and decision-makers focus on facts that are legally irrelevant and prejudice rational deliberation. -/- That is precisely what we see here; the result is often failure to enforce the law. The author proposes: -/- (a) that section 273.2 be amended to reflect the significant developments achieved in sexual consent jurisprudence since enactment of the provision in 1992; and -/- (b) that, in the interim, the judiciary act with resolve to make full and proper use of the statutory and common law tools that are presently available to determine whether the accused acted with mens rea in relation to the absence of sexual consent. (shrink)