Miranda Fricker developed the concept of hermeneutic injustice as a subtype of epistemic injustice focusing on socially discriminatory obstacles to self-understanding. So, for example, before the consciousness- raising movement, women did not have the conceptual framework to understand their individual experiences as systematic sexual harassment. Fricker makes much of the ‘ah-ha’ moment (‘hermeneutical enlightenment’) that characterizes the experience of reaching greater self-understanding; feminist social epistemologists have described this in terms of achieving ‘standpoint’. While this is a fruitful and insightful (...) example, it has been carefully critiqued by Ishani Maitra. This paper considers other examples from Fricker’s work and from the literature in philosophy of psychiatry to make a fuller assessment of Fricker’s ideas: Asperger Disorder (which was short-lived, in DSM-IV only), postpartum depression, schizophrenia, and the general concept of a psychiatric disorder. In each of these cases, the newly proposed concept has mixed (positive and negative) consequences for self-understanding. ‘Hostage taking’ – an ethically problematic strategy described by Hilde Lindemann Nelson – is common. In all cases, moments of ‘hermeneutical enlightenment’ may pass after reflection on such mixed consequences and after further research on the social cat egories in question. (shrink)

Polo‐like kinase 1 (PLK1) is a serine/threonine kinase that plays multiple and essential roles during the cell division cycle. Its inhibition in cultured cells leads to severe mitotic aberrancies and cell death. Whereas previous reports suggested that Plk1 depletion in mice leads to a non‐mitotic arrest in early embryos, we show here that the bi‐allelic Plk1 depletion in mice certainly results in embryonic lethality due to extensive mitotic aberrations at the morula stage, including multi‐ and mono‐polar spindles, impaired chromosome segregation (...) and cytokinesis failure. In addition, the conditional depletion of Plk1 during mid‐gestation leads also to severe mitotic aberrancies. Our data also confirms that Plk1 is completely dispensable for mitotic entry in vivo. On the other hand, Plk1 haploinsufficient mice are viable, and Plk1‐heterozygous fibroblasts do not harbor any cell cycle alterations. Plk1 is overexpressed in many human tumors, suggesting a therapeutic benefit of inhibiting Plk1, and specific small‐molecule inhibitors for this kinase are now being evaluated in clinical trials. Therefore, the different Plk1 mouse models here presented are a valuable tool to reexamine the relevance of the mitotic kinase Plk1 during mammalian development and animal physiology. (shrink)

In her groundbreaking book, Epistemic Injustice, renowned moral philosopher and social epistemologist Miranda Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice to draw attention to the pervasive impact of epistemic oppression on marginalized social groups. Fricker’s account spurred a flurry of scholarship regarding the discriminatory impact of epistemic injustice and gave birth to a domain of philosophical inquiry that has extended far beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy. In this interview, Fricker responds to questions posed by A. C. Nikolaidis and Winston (...) C. Thompson that address the ways in which epistemic injustice intersects with education as a human endeavour and social institution. In doing so, Fricker reflects on her motivations in writing her book more than fifteen years ago and explicitly addresses some of the most significant contributions of the concept of epistemic injustice as a tool for analysing issues in education. She also offers insights on the purpose of education, outlines educational manifestations of epistemic injustice, and discusses the virtues that educators must exhibit and inculcate in their students in order for epistemic justice to obtain. (shrink)

Social Epistemology: 5 Questions is a collection of interviews with some of the world's most influential scholars working on social epistemology from a range of disciplinary perspectives. We hear their views on social epistemology; its aim, scope, use, broader intellectual environment, future direction, and how the work of the interviewees fits in these respects. Interviews with David Bloor, Cristina Bicchieri, Richard Bradley, Lorraine Code, Hans van Ditmarsch, Miranda Fricker, Steve Fuller, Sanford Goldberg, Alvin Goldman, Philip Kitcher, Martin Kusch, (...) Jennifer Lackey, Helen E. Longino, Philip Petit, Erik Olsson, Frederick Schmitt. (shrink)

El presente trabajo profundiza el estudio de los procesos de aprendizaje del niño asociados a la utilizaciónde nuevas tecnologías (tablet) en el aula. Estudios experimentales y cuasiexperimentales a nivel internacional de la última década analizan el aprendizaje como el aumento y repetición del contenido ofrecido en el dispositivo móvil, omitiendo la experiencia del aprehender o procesos de aprendizaje que permiten la apropiación de dicho conocimiento. Por esta razón se plantean las preguntas: ¿La tablet colabora o irrumpe el acto de aprehender? (...) ¿Es pertinente considerar la tablet como mediadora de los procesos de aprendizaje? Para dar respuesta a estas interrogantes se propuso una investigación cualitativa con un marco teórico psicoanalítico en seis escuelas fiscales del Ecuador. Los resultados permiten identificar al playing (juegos sin regla), concepto propuesto por Winnicott como uno de los elementos centrales en los procesos del aprehender. De ahí que los niños sobrepasan la actividad programada por el software creando figuras y formas en la pantalla, y exploran posibilidades numéricas que les permiten pensar más allá de la actividad propuesta en la tablet. También, se ha identificado que es el docente quien facilita los procesos de aprendizaje: los niños acuden a él a mostrarle los resultados, usan sus palabras y ritmos para resolver las tareas que se les solicita a través del uso de la tablet. Se concluye que el vínculo educativo en los procesos de aprendizaje frente al uso de tecnologías es significativo, ubicando al docente como mediador y a la tablet como un posible intermediario. (shrink)

Two long-standing arguments in cognitive science invoke the assumption that holistic inference is computationally infeasible. The first is Fodor’s skeptical argument toward computational modeling of ordinary inductive reasoning. The second advocates modular computational mechanisms of the kind posited by Cosmides, Tooby and Sperber. Based on advances in machine learning related to Bayes nets, as well as investigations into the structure of scientific and ordinary information, I maintain neither argument establishes its architectural conclusion. Similar considerations also undermine Fodor’s decades-long diagnosis of (...) artificial intelligence research as confounded by an inability to circumscribe the amount of information relevant to inferential processes. This diagnosis is particularly inapposite with respect to Bayes nets, since one of their strengths as machine learning systems has been their capacity to reason probabilistically about large data sets whose size overwhelms the capacities of individual human reasoners. A general moral follows from these criticisms: Insights into artificial and human cognitive systems are likely to be cultivated by focusing greater attention on the structure and density of connections among items of information that are available to them. (shrink)

Emergent phenomena are quite interesting and amazing, but they present two main scientific obstacles: to be rationally understood and to be mathematically modelled. In this paper we propose a powerful mathematical tool for modelling emergent phenomena by applying category theory. Furthermore, since great part of biological phenomena are emergent, we present an essay of how to access an emergence from observational data. In the mathematical perspective, we utilize constructs (categories whose objects are structured sets), their operations and their corresponding generalized (...) underlying functor (which are not necessarily faithful) to define emergence. From this definition, we elaborate several results concerning homomorphism between emergences, representability, pull-back, push-out, equalizer, product and co-product of emergences among other results. After we have presented such mathematical model, we utilize a hierarchical structure as example—from molecules to a flatworm—, in order to understand the relation between biological systems and its underlying emergence in a hierarchical model. (shrink)

Healthcare ethics consultation is therefore one of the most consequential, institutionally accepted, and widespread forms of public philosophy in the United States. In this chapter, the authors begin with an overview of the development of healthcare ethics and its emergence as a concrete practice embedded in healthcare settings. They then describe the core ethical principles that inform the everyday practice of ethics consultations and the generally accepted steps involved in conducting a consultation. The authors discuss the role of clinical ethicists (...) in medical education and policy development. Finally, they conclude with some remarks on the distinctive contributions made by those with philosophical training to these endeavors and the importance of continued engagement by philosophers in this important public work. (shrink)

Finn Collin has been the honest broker of social epistemology. In this article, I attempt to come clean on the nature and sources of what I have always regarded as the ‘normative’ horizon of the field. It basically turns on a social constructivist reading of Plato’s Phaedrus, the dialogue from which modern analytic epistemology also takes its inspiration. I pursue the implications of this approach in various normative fields of philosophy.

This article takes a ‘naturalistic’ look at the historically changing nature of the individual and its implications for the terms on which democracy might be realized, starting from classical Athens, moving through early debates in evolutionary theory, to contemporary moral and political thought. Generally speaking, liberal democracy sees individuality as the mark of an evolutionarily mature species, whereas socialist democracy sees it as the mark of an evolutionary immature species. Overall, the individual has been ‘de-naturalized’ over time, resulting in the (...) indeterminate figure who thrives in the post-truth condition. (shrink)

This chapter considers several dimensions of humanity’s “in-betweenness,” starting from the historical roots of the idea in Western theology, philosophy, and science. A fundamental distinction is highlighted between “human” as a continuous property and as a discrete entity. The former focuses on the human as a state of being into and out of which something might pass, whereas the latter focuses on being human as a state that something is or is not at a given moment. Both conceptualizations of the (...) human bear on the construction and significance of the Turing Test, which aims to distinguish a human from a computer simply based on responses to questions posed by a human. Usually, the Turing Test is seen as selecting the computer as non-human, but it may be redeployed to select the computer as human. This latter prospect is dubbed “Turing Test 2.0” and explored in the rest of the chapter, especially in terms of the figure of the cyborg, which has passed from cybernetics through science fiction to the lived experience of an increasing number of beings. Implied in Turing Test 2.0 is “judgement” on how a candidate might count as human. Here, foundational questions about the ontology of art are applied to understand the requisite sense of judgement involved. In the modern period, these have tended to undermine any strong connection between a work’s origin and its value. In the spirit of Turing Test 2.0, they oppose “cishumanity,” namely, the notion that one must be born human to be human. (shrink)

Bernard Williams is a sceptic about the objectivity of moral value, embracing instead a qualified moral relativism—the ‘relativism of distance’. His attitude to blame too is in part sceptical. I will argue that the relativism of distance is unconvincing, even incoherent; but also that it is detachable from the rest of Williams's moral philosophy. I will then go on to propose an entirely localized thesis I call the relativism of blame, which says that when an agent's moral shortcomings by our (...) lights are a matter of their living according to the moral thinking of their day, judgements of blame are out of order. Finally, I will propose a form of moral judgement we may sometimes quite properly direct towards historically distant agents when blame is inappropriate—moral-epistemic disappointment. Together these two proposals may help release us from the grip of the idea that moral appraisal always involves the potential applicability of blame, and so from a key source of the relativist idea that moral appraisal is inappropriate over distance. (shrink)

Architect-scientist R. Buckminster Fuller talks about the discovery of the eternal pattern that is operative in the universe.

Fricker shows that virtue epistemology provides a general epistemological idiom in which these issues can be forcefully discussed.

For many autistic performers in arts and entertainment, the stage can be an important site of self-advocacy and creative expression. Whereas everyday social interactions may be unpredictable, being onstage can allow autistic performers to work from a script and anticipate audience responses. This article explores the affordances and challenges of performance for young autistic adults in Canada through interviews with four autistic performers. While solo performance was the focus, participants discussed the creative employment of diverse media platforms, from the stage (...) to screenwriting and children’s books, and emphasized the need for autistic people to be involved in all creative realms. This research follows a Critical Disability Studies framework which challenges deficit models of autism, “supercrip” tropes, and narratives of overcoming autism. While one participant noted being uncomfortable with the sense that they were a source of inspiration for non-autistic audiences, each found it encouraging that autistic audiences relate to their work and might be motivated to participate in similar forms of self-advocacy; in particular, they noted the value of performance in building confidence. As previous CDS literature is wary of disability as spectacle, this research provides insight into how young autistic adults use their work onstage and behind the scenes to promote and perform self-advocacy. (shrink)

Propõe a expansão da classe Espiritismo na Classificação Decimal de Dewey. Justifica a proposta devido ao grande número de adeptos e à produção literária espírita. Evidencia que o Espiritismo é a oitava religião com mais praticantes no mundo e a terceira no Brasil. Apresenta a importância da doutrina espírita ao redor do mundo e no Brasil. Utiliza a teoria proposta por Vanda Brougthon para religião e acrescenta as facetas ciência, filosofia, religião e aspectos gerais da Doutrina Espírita. Analisa propostas de (...) expansão de classes existentes e elabora uma revisão de literatura acerca da história do espiritismo. Utiliza a metodologia de Barité para modificação de esquemas de classificação. Os termos foram coletados a partir do tesauro espírita e da obra de referência da Federação Espírita Brasileira e sistematiza os conceitos hierarquicamente. Propõe a expansão da classe 202 – Doutrina a partir da identificação e sistematização dos conceitos, colocando-os de forma notacional. Conclui que uma doutrina com tantos adeptos e com uma grande produção literária deve ser representada adequadamente na Classificação Decimal de Dewey e a que a mesma oferece pouco espaço de representação na classe 200 para as diversas religiões praticadas no mundo. (shrink)

I do not deny that Fuller is often right on the mark, but there comes a point when such relentless all‐round deprecation gets on one’s nerves. Roberto Torretti When as an undergraduate I first re...

I. Introduction, notes, and appendix -- II. A facsimile of the first edition, 1642, reduced in size.

Grounded in ideas about sense-making and whole-person care with a long intellectual heritage, the movement for Philosophical Health—with its specific conceptions of philosophical care and counselling—is a relatively recent addition to the ongoing debate about understanding better the perspectives of patients to improve health practice. This article locates the development of this movement within the context of broader discussions of person-centred care (PCC), arguing that the approach advocated by defenders of philosophical health can provide a straightforward method for implementing PCC (...) in actual cases. This claim is explained and defended with reference to the SMILE_PH method created by Luis de Miranda (Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health), an approach recently trialled convincingly with people living with traumatic spinal cord injury. (shrink)

When we hope to explain and perhaps vindicate a practice that is internally diverse, philosophy faces a methodological challenge. Such subject matters are likely to have explanatorily basic features that are not necessary conditions. This prompts a move away from analysis to some other kind of philosophical explanation. This paper proposes a paradigm based explanation of one such subject matter: blame. First, a paradigm form of blame is identified—‘Communicative Blame’—where this is understood as a candidate for an explanatorily basic form (...) of blame. Second, its point and purpose in our lives is investigated and found to reside in its power to increase the alignment of the blamer and the wrongdoer's moral understandings. Third, the hypothesis that Communicative Blame is an explanatorily basic form of blame is tested out by seeing how far other kinds of blame can reasonably be understood as derivative, especially in respect of blame's point and purpose. Finally, a new and quasi-political worry about blame is raised. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that legal theory has been servile to the male sex of the law. Then, we outline how that theory can be reformulated, taking into consideration new conceptual categories such as the embedded and concrete person. We then explore how this new way of conceiving legal theory is connected to the ideas of relational autonomy, equality and respect. Finally, we illustrate some of the problems examined through a case study and point out the conclusions of the (...) article. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between rational authority and social power, proceeding by way of a philosophical genealogy derived from Edward Craig's Knowledge and the State of Nature. The position advocated avoids the errors both of the 'traditionalist' (who regards the socio-political as irrelevant to epistemology) and of the 'reductivist' (who regards reason as just another form of social power). The argument is that a norm of credibility governs epistemic practice in the state of nature, which, when socially manifested, is (...) likely to imitate the structures of social power. A phenomenon of epistemic injustice is explained, and the politicizing implication for epistemology educed. (shrink)

Although The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most influential books of this century, its author, Thomas Kuhn, is notorious for disavowing most of the consequences wrought by his text. Insofar as these consequences have appeared "radical" or "antipositivist," this article argues that they are very misleading, and that Kuhn's complaints are therefore well placed. Indeed, Kuhn unwittingly succeeded where Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology tried and failed, namely, to alleviate the anxieties of alienated academics and defensive (...) policy-makers by teaching them that they could all profit from solving their own paradigmatic puzzles. The influence of tructure is traced from the philosophy of science into the social sciences and science policy. Special attention is paid to the import of the General Education in Science curriculum at Harvard, in which Kuhn taught for most of the period prior to writing tructure. Harvard President James Conant had designed this curriculum in order to keep "pure science" in the good favor of the American public, in whose eyes it suffered after the use of the atomic bomb. While Conant was keen to stress the distinctiveness of science from other social practices, Kuhn's model seemed to provide a blueprint for reconstituting any practice as a science. This enabled potentially antiscientific academics to become scientists themselves, thereby neutralizing any radical challenges to the ends of scientific inquiry. The article concludes by reconstructing some of the inchoate possibilities for radical critique that Kuhn's success preempted, and by making some suggestions for how they may be recovered in the present academic environment. (shrink)

Resumen: Esta lectura propone abordar lo que hemos denominado espacio sagrado, entendiéndolo como la representación literaria de las creencias religiosas y sus manifestaciones rituales presentes en las obras Cherrufe (2008) de Ruth Fuentealba Millaguir y Um defeito de cor [2006] (2009) de Ana María Gonçalves. Planteamos que este espacio hace emerger dentro de la narrativa afrobrasileña y mapuche una sujeto femenina que en su relación con el sistema simbólico de su comunidad entreteje las marcas de género, raza y sexualidad en (...) la constitución subjetiva. Afirmamos también que mediante el vínculo entre la mujeres y lo sagrado la subjetividad que emerge en las obras analizadas se presenta como presevadora y reproductora de la cultura y sus saberes más preciados, imprescindibles para la supervivencia individual y colectiva de sus pueblos. Abstract: This reading suggests to deal with what has been denominated as holy space, understanding it as the literary representation of beliefs and and its ritual manifestations present in the works of Ruth Fuentealba Millaguir, Cherrufe (2008) and Ana Maria Gonçalves Um defeito de cor [2006] (2009). We propose that this space emerges within the Afro-Brazilian and Mapuche narrative a female individual that related with symbolic system of its community interweave the traces of genre, race and sexuality in the subjective constitution. In addition, we claim that through the link between women and the sacred, the subjectivity that emerges in the works analyzed is presented as preserving and reproducing the culture and their most precious knowledge, indispensable for the individual and collective survival of their peoples. (shrink)