En suspendant la violence de ses passions et de ses désirs, l'homme se montre capable d'une relation harmonieuse et respectueuse avec lui-même, les êtres et les choses, dans un dialogue avec la douceur de la vérité et la beauté de l'art qui la recrée. On étudiera comment, à l'âge humaniste et classique, les modernes ont pensé la douceur à partir de la relecture des sources antiques et chrétiennes dans les divers champs du savoir de la poétique à l'éthique, de la (...) métaphysique à l'esthétique et dessiné un idéal difficilement définissable et aisément rompu."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

By attending to how people speak about their gender, we can find diverse answers to the question of what it is like to have a gender identity. To some, it is little more than having a body whereas others may report it as more attitudinal or dispositional—seemingly contradictory views. In this paper, I seek to reconcile these disparate answers by developing a theory of how individual gender identity comes about. In the simplest possible terms, I propose that gender identity is (...) how we make sense of our gender subjectivity, the totality of our gendered experiences of ourselves. Gender identity is constituted by gender subjectivity, but this constitutive relationship is underdetermined. While gender subjectivity may narrow the range of inhabitable gender identities, it is always compatible with more than one. To arrive at a gender identity, we arrange gender subjectivity like building materials. My theory helps us understand how different people offer seemingly incompatible accounts of their gender identity without questioning their authenticity or validity. They simply arrange similar building materials differently. (shrink)

Many contexts shape and limit moral thinking in philosophy and life. Human conditions of vulnerability and interdependency, of limited awareness and control, of imperfect insight into ourselves and others are inevitable contexts that neither moral thought nor theory should forget. To be truly reflective, moral thinking and moral philosophy must become aware of the contexts that bind our thinking about how to live. This collection of essays by Margaret Urban Walker seek to show how to do this, and why (...) it makes a difference. Contingent and changeable contexts that shape moral thinking include our individual histories, our social positions, and institutional roles, relationships, cultural settings, and social arrangements, and the specific moral idioms we pick up along the way. The paradigms and specialized language of ethical theory are contexts, too; they shape how moral theory looks and what or whom it looks at. Ethical theory and practice are meaningless without these Moral Contexts. (shrink)

Along the way, she calls upon us to recognize the mysteries that lie at the heart of our lives and the metaphysical reality that gives meaning to life.The ...

Philosophers using game-theoretical models of human interactions have, I argue, often overestimated what sheer rationality can achieve. (References are made to David Gauthier, David Lewis, and others.) In particular I argue that in coordination problems rational agents will not necessarily reach a unique outcome that is most preferred by all, nor a unique 'coordination equilibrium' (Lewis), nor a unique Nash equilibrium. Nor are things helped by the addition of a successful precedent, or by common knowledge of generally accepted personal principles. (...) Commitments like those generated by agreements may be necessary for rational expectations to arise. Social conventions, construed as group principles (following the analysis in my book On Social Facts), would suffice for this task. (shrink)

Through the use of particular pedagogies and the adoption of new modes of thinking, physical literacy promises more realistic models of physical competence and ...

Insight has been investigated under the assumption that participants solve insight problems with insight processes and/or experiences. A recent trend has involved presenting participants with the solution and analysing the resultant experience as if insight has taken place. We examined self-reports of the aha experience, a defining aspect of insight, before and after feedback, along with additional affective components of insight (e.g., pleasure, surprise, impasse). Classic insight problems, compound remote associates, and non-insight problems were randomly interleaved and presented to participants. (...) Solution feedback increased ratings of aha experience in both insight and non-insight problems, with this result being driven by responses to solutions that were initially incorrectly generated. Ratings of aha for correctly generated solutions decreased after the correct solution was presented. These findings have implications for insight research paradigms as well as informing teaching methods. (shrink)

Feminist discussions of ethics in the Western philosophical tradition range from critiques of the substance of dominant moral theories to critiques of the very practice of "doing ethics" itself. I argue that these critiques really target a certain historically specific model of ethics and moral theory-a "theoretical-juridical" one. I outline an "expressive-collaborative" conception of morality and ethics that could be a politically self-conscious and reflexively critical alternative.

ABSTRACT Engaging in sexting, such as sending or receiving of sexual words, pictures, or videos via technology, is a common behavior in minors and a rising trend. This study aimed to understand the ethical dilemmas that clinicians face when working with minors that engage in sexting under current mandated reporting standards. For this study, 178 graduate students and licensed clinicians who work with minors in the state of California completed an online survey involving vignettes concerning issues of sexting behaviors in (...) adolescents. Participants were asked to read each vignette and answer a series of questions regarding their knowledge and attitudes related to the presented issue and whether or not they would breach confidentiality in each case. Results indicated that participants, who had undergone specific training in issues of social media and technology, were significantly more likely to have more declarative knowledge of mandated reporting requirements, however, their reporting behavior was not significantly different from those, who had not previously had any training. Younger clinicians tended to report less than older clinicians. This study highlights the discrepancy that exists between the knowledge of mandated reporting standards relevant to sexting behaviors and clinicians’ reporting practice. (shrink)

Language shapes thought, and ageist language invisibly spreads ageist thinking. Observing that embodiment theory has largely neglected to theorize age (a universal intersection), the author expands that theory. Here is a first attempt to fully critique the term ‘aging’ wherever it implies ageism, and to suggest alternative language for ‘aging’ in both its adjectival and its nominative forms. The essay also historicizes the recent move in cultural studies of age toward using the term ‘age’ (as in Age Studies) instead of (...) ‘aging’. Gullette argues that wording that replaces aging and explicates ageism helps undo submission to the ideology of life-course decline, liberating observation, potentially undoing internalized ageism and lessening the widespread fear of growing older. (shrink)

David Lockwood's distinction between System Integration and Social Integration is brought together with the Morphogenetic Approach to account for the current societal fragmentation experience...

The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Fifth Conference on Collective Intentionality held at the University of Helsinki August 31 to September 2, 2006 and two additional contributions. The common aim of the papers is to explore the structure of shared intentional attitudes, and to explain how they underlie the social, cultural and institutional world. The contributions to this volume explore the phenomenology of sharedness, the concept of sharedness, and also various aspects of the structure of (...) collective intentionality in general, and of the intricate relations between sharedness and normativity in particular. Concepts of Sharedness shows how rich and lively the philosophical research focused on the analysis of collective intentionality has become, and will provide further inspiration for future work in this rapidly evolving field. (shrink)

Fostering early literacy depends in part on engaging and inspiring children’s early interest in reading. Enriching the causal content of children’s books may be one way to do so, as causal information has been empirically shown to capture children’s attention. To more directly test whether children’s book preferences might be driven by causal content, we created pairs of expository books closely matched for content and complexity, but with differing amounts of causal information embedded therein. Three and 4 years old participants (...) ( n = 48) were read both books and their interests and preferences were evaluated. When asked to choose, children preferred the highly causal over the minimally causal books. Results are discussed in terms of broader implications for creating books that optimally engage young children, as well as guiding book selections parents and educators make in their endeavors to promote interest in reading and early literacy. (shrink)

Economists study "The Economy," or so one might suppose. Yet this overarching entity is strikingly absent from mainstream theory. Since the 1950s, it has generally been described with a few mathematical propositions and not given a description that attends to institutions, power relations, or the emergent properties that form the leading indicators in macroeconomic theory. There is thus a significant divergence between folk economics and scientific economics on this theoretical entity. This article briefly addresses the history of this concept, noting (...) its heyday in the interwar years, and brings to bear some of the analytical apparatus on institutional facts devised by John Searle. Whatever is meant by "The Economy" in folk economics appears to be significantly divergent from what is posited in scientific economics. Key Words: economy • Searle • theoretical entities • macroeconomics • economic indicators • folk economics. (shrink)

This book, a collection of articles on women's contributions to the history of philosophy, can accurately be described as long-awaited. Originally conceived in, I gather, roughly its present form in 2006, it is now finally in 2019 reaching the light of day. Although unavoidable delays are always a pity, in this case the result is certainly worth the wait, and the significantly high quality of the volume has not been undercut by its belated appearance. In 2006, the editors secured contributions (...) from most of the leading contributors to the field of women in the history of philosophy, and since twelve years is not all that long a time, they remain leading contributors. Anyone interested in teaching, writing about, or... (shrink)

Despite its virtues, lay decision-making in medicine shares with professional decision-making a disturbing common feature, reflected both in formal policies prohibiting high-risk research and in informal policies favoring treatment decisions made when a crisis or change of status occurs, often late in a downhill course. By discouraging patient decision-making but requiring dedication to the patient's interests by those who make decisions on the patient's behalf, such practices tend to preclude altruistic choice on the part of the patient. This eclipse is (...) to be regretted not just because widescale altruism has the capacity to provide important social goods and correct injustices in distribution, but for intrinsic reasons as well. It is argued that preserving the possibility of altruism obliges patients – and future patients – to make decisions about dying and other medical matters in advance, thus avoiding that displacement of decision-making onto lay and professional second parties which results in altruism's eclipse. Keywords: altruism, medical decision-making, patient's interest, self-interest, autonomy, death and dying decisions, refusal of treatment, prolongation of life, allowing to die, high-risk research CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to explore new approaches to the problem of the constitution of the various aspects of sociality and to confront these with received ideas. Many of the contributions are devoted to a rather holistic and antireductionist conception of social objects, groups, joint actions, and collective knowledge. The topics that are dealt with are: (a) the question of the ontological status of social objects and their relation to physical objects; (b) collective agency; and (c) the question (...) whether there can be shared knowledge and shared beliefs, a rather new topic in the discussion of the social aspects of personal life. (shrink)