The topic of critical thinking has engaged philosophers, psychologists and educators for well over one hundred years. Amid polarized political attacks on the teaching of controversial issues, however, education in critical thinking appears to be nearing a new low, not only in the United States, but also in other countries being torn by partisan politics. This article reviews the ebb and flow of critical thinking efforts, suggests explanations for their discouraging results, and proposes a way forward that treats critical thinking (...) as an integrative process advanced by Mary Parker Follet, and more recently espoused by Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway. In the exploratory spirit of John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead, I am introducing this essay, not with analysis or theory, but with a narrative of educational events in all their richness of context. These events describe how middle school students addressed the question of whether wolves should be removed from the endangered species list in the Northern Rocky Mountains of the United States. In the course of this discussion, I wish to demonstrate that thinking critically requires moving beyond winning, losing, or compromising to resolution of conflict, and furthermore, understanding that even stable resolutions must be revisited as events change. (shrink)

Bruno Latour is not the only scholar to reflect on his earlier contributions to science studies with some regret and resolve over climate skepticism and science denialism. Given the ascendency of merchants of doubt, should those who share Latour's concerns join the scientists they study in circling the wagons, or is there a productive role still for science studies to question and critique scientists and scientific institutions? I argue for the latter, looking to postpositivist feminist philosophy as exemplified by (...) Alison Wylie and Lynn Nelson, among others, as a guide. Feminist philosophers of science who ground their analysis in a detailed understanding of scientific practice are not science's champions nor its antagonists, but they do stand in a distinct relationship to science. If not merchants of doubt, are they scientific gadflies or perhaps in scientific loyal opposition? Though these notions can underwrite useful approaches to science studies, neither captures the distinctive interdependency and interestedness of feminist philosophers and science. I suggest that we would be better served by the notion of trustworthy science criticism, building on the analyses of trust and trustworthiness by Annette Baier, among others, attendant to the dynamics of interdependency in trust relationships. (shrink)

This paper discusses the prospects of a comprehensive philosophical account of promising that relies centrally on the notion of trust. I lay out the core idea behind the Trust View, showing how it convincingly explains the normative contours and the unique value of our promissory practice. I then sketch three distinct options of how the Trust View can explain the normativity of promises. First, an effect based-view, second, a view drawing on a wider norm demanding respect to those whom one (...) has invited to something, and finally, as a new suggestion, a Normative Interest View. This view holds that promising is a normative power that serves our interest in facilitating or enabling the relationship of trust between promisor and promisee. I argue that only those embracing the third view can fully account for the distinctive obligation that results from the giving of a valid promise in all cases. (shrink)

One of the most formidable challenges to the Error Theory is the Normative Objection, according to which the Error Theory ought to be rejected because of its deeply implausible first-order normative implications. Recently, Bart Streumer has offered a novel and powerful defence of the Error Theory against this objection. Streumer argues that the Error Theory’s plausibility deficit when viewed against the background of our normative beliefs does not show the theory’s falsity. Rather, it can be explained by the fact that (...) this theory, though true, cannot be believed. In this paper, I argue that Streumer’s defence does not succeed. I show that, even if we grant Streumer that we cannot believe the Error Theory, we can still formulate what I call the Undermining Normative Objection, an argument that proceeds only from believable premises to a believable conclusion and shows that the arguments supporting the Error Theory cannot all be sound. (shrink)

What objects exist in the social world and how should we understand them? Is a specific Pizza Hut restaurant as real as the employees, tables, napkins and pizzas of which it is composed, and as real as the Pizza Hut corporation with its headquarters in Wichita, the United States, the planet Earth and the social and economic impact of the restaurant on the lives of its employees and customers? In this book the founder of object-oriented philosophy develops his approach in (...) order to shed light on the nature and status of objects in social life. While it is often assumed that an interest in objects amounts to a form of materialism, Harman rejects this view and develops instead an “immaterialist” method. By examining the work of leading contemporary thinkers such as Bruno Latour and Levi Bryant, he develops a forceful critique of ‘actor-network theory’. In an extended discussion of Leibniz’s famous example of the Dutch East India Company, Harman argues that this company qualifies for objecthood neither through ‘what it is’ or ‘what it does’, but through its irreducibility to either of these forms. The phases of its life, argues Harman, are not demarcated primarily by dramatic incidents but by moments of symbiosis, a term he draws from the biologist Lynn Margulis. This book provides a key counterpoint to the now ubiquitous social theories of constant change, holistic networks, performative identities, and the construction of things by human practice. It will appeal to anyone interested in cutting-edge debates in philosophy and social and cultural theory. (shrink)

In _Facing the Planetary_ William E. Connolly expands his influential work on the politics of pluralization, capitalism, fragility, and secularism to address the complexities of climate change and to complicate notions of the Anthropocene. Focusing on planetary processes—including the ocean conveyor, glacier flows, tectonic plates, and species evolution—he combines a critical understanding of capitalism with an appreciation of how such nonhuman systems periodically change on their own. Drawing upon scientists and intellectuals such as Lynn Margulis, Michael Benton, Alfred North (...) Whitehead, Anna Tsing, Mahatma Gandhi, Wangari Maathai, Pope Francis, Bruno Latour, and Naomi Klein, Connolly focuses on the gap between those regions creating the most climate change and those suffering most from it. He addresses the creative potential of a "politics of swarming" by which people in different regions and social positions coalesce to reshape dominant priorities. He also explores how those displaying spiritual affinities across differences in creed can energize a militant assemblage that is already underway. (shrink)

Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science brings together original essays by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science that examine issues at the intersections of feminism, science, and the philosophy of science. Contributors explore parallels and tensions between feminist approaches to science and other approaches in the philosophy of science and more general science studies. In so doing, they explore notions at the heart of the philosophy of science, including the nature of objectivity, truth, evidence, cognitive agency, scientific method, (...) and the relationship between science and values. (shrink)

Vaimufilosoofia on filosoofia haru, mis püüab mõista ja seletada elusolendite mentaalset külge. See otsib vastuseid mitmesugustele filosoofilistele mõistatustele, mis on seotud teadvuse, mõistuse, meeltetaju ja toimimisega, ning probleemidele, mis tekivad, kui vaimunähtusi üritatakse seletada teadusliku maailmapildi raames. Kogumik sisaldab valikut autori vaimufilosoofilistest tekstidest, mis on ilmunud aastatel 1996–2023. Mitmeid tekste palistab interpretivistlik positsioon ehk lähenemine vaimule tõlgenduse kaudu.

Bauch beschreibt das Substanzproblem in der griechischen Philosophie bis zur Blütezeit, Nachdruck des Originals von 1910.

Predictive genetic testing is now routinely offered to asymptomatic adults at risk for genetic disease. However, testing of minors at risk for adult-onset conditions, where no treatment or preventive intervention exists, has evoked greater controversy and inspired a debate spanning two decades. This review aims to provide a detailed longitudinal analysis and concludes by examining the debate's current status and prospects for the future. Fifty-three relevant theoretical papers published between 1990 and December 2010 were identified, and interpretative content analysis was (...) employed to catalogue discrete arguments within these papers. Novel conclusions were drawn from this review. While the debate's first voices were raised in opposition of testing and their arguments have retained currency over many years, arguments in favour of testing, which appeared sporadically at first, have gained momentum more recently. Most arguments on both sides are testable empirical claims, so far untested, rather than abstract ethical or philosophical positions. The dispute, therein, lies not so much in whether minors should be permitted to access predictive genetic testing but whether these empirical claims on the relative benefits or harms of testing should be assessed. (shrink)

Angesichts des vielfach diagnostizierten Ausmaßes der Zerstörung des Planeten Erde wird aktuell viel über die Notwendigkeit der Neuzusammensetzung des lebendigen Sozialen nachgedacht. Als Alternative zur klassischen Anrufung der Gesellschaft und den von ihr einzuleitenden Maßnahmen gegen den drohenden Untergang wird auf neu zu erschaffende Kollektive gesetzt, die sowohl menschliche als auch nichtmenschliche Akteure umfassen. Diese neuen Kollektive sollen sich durch Bündnisse, Symbiosen, Kooperationen, Assoziationen und Verträge konstituieren. Vergleichbar werden die im Detail verschiedenen, insgesamt aber posthumanistisch ausgerichteten Vorschläge, durch ihren gemeinsamen (...) Ausgangspunkt der verletzten Erde, für die Rettungsmaßnahmen in Gang gesetzt werden sollen: Bündnisse, die Gaia stiftet - im Angesicht der drohenden Gefahr! Im Mittelpunkt der Überlegungen von Lynn Margulis, Michel Serres, Bruno Latour und Donna Haraway, die im Folgenden diskutiert werden sollen, steht die Suche nach der Verbindung und Kooperation mit anderen als nur menschlichen Lebewesen. Die gesuchten Verbindungen, Verflechtungen und Versammlungen von menschlichen und nichtmenschlichen Akteuren werden jedoch, so meine These, überwiegend im Sinne eines friedlichen Miteinanders ausbuchstabiert, während andere Formen der Verbindung dagegen, etwa durch stabile Gegnerschaft, andauernden Streit, stetige Auseinandersetzungen, vernachlässigt werden. Die während der Zusammensetzung der Kollektive notwendig werdenden Grenzziehungen und mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit auftretenden Konflikte um die Frage der Zugehörigkeiten werden weitgehend ausgeblendet zugunsten eines immensen Vertrauens in die Bereitschaft zur Versammlung und die Friedfertigkeit der Kollektivbildung. Mit anderen Worten: Während Kooperation, Verschmelzungen und Vermischungen überbetont werden, geraten Grenzziehungen, Konflikte und Kämpfe ins Hintertreffen. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a growing concern that terminally illpatients are needlessly suffering in the dying process. This has ledto demands that physicians become more attentive in the assessment ofsuffering and that they treat their patients as `whole persons.'' Forthe most part, these demands have not fallen on deaf ears. It is nowwidely accepted that the relief of suffering is one of the fundamentalgoals of medicine. Without question this is a positive development.However, while the importance of treating suffering has generally (...) beenacknowledged, insufficient attention has been paid to the question ofwhether different types of terminal suffering require differnt responsesfrom health care professionals. In this paper we introduce a distinctionbetween two types of suffering likely to be present at the end of life,and we argue that physicians must distinguish between these types if theyare to respond appropriately to the suffering of their terminally illpatients. After introducing this distinction and explaining its basis,we further argue that the distinction informs a (novel) principle ofproportionality, one that should guide physicians in balancing theircompeting obligations in responding to terminal suffering. As weexplain, this principle is justified by reference to the intereststerminally ill patients have in restoration, as well as in therelief of suffering, at the end of life. (shrink)

In “Ethics Consultation in U.S. Hospitals: Opinions of Ethics Practitioners,” Fox and colleagues note that despite efforts of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities to impr...

In this paper, we defend the ethics of clinical research against the charge of paternalism. We do so not by denying that the ethics of clinical research is paternalistic, but rather by defending the legitimacy of paternalism in this context. Our aim is not to defend any particular set of paternalistic restrictions, but rather to make a general case for the permissibility of paternalistic restrictions in this context. Specifically, we argue that there is no basic liberty-right to participate in clinical (...) research and that considerations of distributive fairness justify some paternalistic protections of research subjects. (shrink)

Some commentators have recently proposed that “clinical equipoise,” although widely accepted, is not necessary for morally acceptable research on human subjects. If this concept is rejected, however, we may find that trials not in the best medical interests of their subjects—”bad deal trials”—could be justified. To avoid exploiting participants, we must find a way to distribute the risks fairly, even if it means embracing radical changes in the way clinical research is conducted.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the presence of psychoanalysis in Adorno’s ’Philosophy of the new music’. He draws on the Benjaminian scheme of understanding Baudelaire’s poetry (understood as an elaboration of the shock experiences in life in post-industrial Revolution capitalism), but uses it in music criticism. The works of Schönberg and Stravinsky, the mostimportant composers of two schools of the so-called “new or modern music”, deals with different compositional subjects and their ways of dealing with the shocks (...) of modern life. Both Benjamin and Adorno draw on Freudian theory for the understanding of this notion of shock, in particular his theory of anxiety and trauma. The works of these composers, understood as models of trauma elaboration, offer different ways of reacting to trauma: the identification with the aggressor and resistance. Therein lie elements that help to defend the hypothesis of the centrality of the notion of suffering in Adorno’swork. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question: given some theory T that we accept, is there some natural, generally applicable way of extending T to a theory S that can prove a range of things about what it itself (i.e. S) can prove, including a range of things about what it cannot prove, such as claims to the effect that it cannot prove certain particular sentences (e.g. 0 = 1), or the claim that it is consistent? Typical characterizations of Gödel’s second incompleteness (...) theorem, and its significance, would lead us to believe that the answer is ‘no’. But the present paper explores a positive answer. The general approach is to follow the lead of recent (and not so recent) approaches to truth and the Liar paradox. (shrink)

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale is an instrument designed to provide researchers with a self-report measure of spiritual experiences as an important aspect of how religiousness/spirituality is expressed in daily life for many people. The sixteen-item scale includes constructs such as awe, gratitude, mercy, sense of connection with the transcendent, compassionate love, and desire for closeness to God. It also includes measures of awareness of discernment/inspiration and transcendent sense of self. This measure was originally developed for use in health studies, (...) but has been increasingly used more widely in the social sciences, for program evaluation, and for examining changes in religious/spiritual experiences over time. It has been included on the U. S. General Social Survey , and the items have shown high prevalence in that population. The challenge of identifying items that tap the underlying constructs was addressed through qualitative methods, both in the development and testing of the instrument. Translations have been made into Spanish, Korean, Hebrew, Vietnamese, and French, and the scale has been effectively used outside the United States. Detailed discussion of item construction based on qualitative work is given to assist in use, interpretation and translation development. Options for scoring and suggestions for exploring correlations with other variables using individual items and subgroups are also presented. (shrink)

The need for foreknowledge intensifies and a prophetic promise of today’s palm readers causes us wet palms: letting the world speak for itself. Big Data comes with the promise of enabling people to listen to that speaking world and of gaining accurate foreknowledge by Big Data predictions. The uncertainty of our modern, complex world overstrains our present coping capabilities, causing a feeling of slipping off a slippery slope, which in turn causes a need for increasing our own foreknowledge. Part of (...) the Big Data promise is to grant better foreknowledge by overcoming the wrongness of scientific theory or causation assumptions. But thus, people have no other option than to believe in these results and perform their actions in good faith. This makes Big Data based outcomes a matter of faith. This article argues that Big Data based outcomes can be seen as today’s oracle, as prophecies without prophets and reflects on the consequences of that perspective. (shrink)

The juxtaposition encompassed in the phrase "feminist epistemology" strikes some feminist theorists and mainstream epistemologists as incongruous. To others, the phrase signals the view that epistemology and the philosophy of science are not what some of their practitioners and advocates have wanted or claimed them to be-but also are not "dead," as some of their critics proclaim. This essay explores the grounds for and implications of each view and recommends the second.