Nursing education holds a history framed in white supremacy and whiteness. Efforts to employ antiracist strategies have been hindered, largely due to an inability for faculty to acknowledge and hold accountability for racialized harms that occur within nursing educational structures. A nurse–midwifery program in the Pacific Northwest United States uncovered harm that impacted students and identified a need to respond and hold accountability. Guided by the framework of Transformative Justice, a truth and reconciliation process was implemented as a first step (...) to better address racism within nursing and nurse–midwifery education. This paper describes the process to support other institutions in their work to address harms within nursing education. (shrink)

Molly Cochran offers an account of the development of normative theory in international relations over the past two decades. In particular, she analyzes the tensions between cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches to international ethics, paying attention to differences in their treatments of a concept of the person, the moral standing of states and the scope of moral arguments. The book draws connections between this debate and the tension between foundationalist and antifoundationalist thinking and offers an argument for a pragmatic approach (...) to international ethics. (shrink)

Midnight: The Tempest Essays, the second book in Molly Nesbit's 'Pre-Occupations' series, returns the question of pragmatism to the everyday critical practice of the art historian working in the late 20th century. These essays take their cues from the work of specific artists and writers, beginning in the late 1960s, a time when critical commentary found itself in a political and philosophical crisis. Illustrated case studies on Eugène Atget, Marcel Duchamp, Jean-Luc Godard, Cindy Sherman, Louise Lawler, Rachel Whiteread, Gabriel (...) Orozco, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner, Nancy Spero, Rem Koolhaas, Martha Rosler, Gerhard Richter, Matthew Barney and Richard Serra, among others, continue the legacy of a pragmatism that has endured while debates over postmodernism and French philosophy raged. (shrink)

In this 2020 AFHVS Presidential Address, Molly Anderson suggests that we must push beyond the boundaries imposed by our training, institutional reward systems, political system and comfort zones in order to solve global challenges. She lists five challenges facing those who are trying to build more sustainable food systems: overcoming the technocratic and productivist approach of industrial agriculture, avoiding future pandemics, restoring degraded and depleted systems and resources, remaining united as a movement while creating collaborations with other movements, and (...) redistributing power across food system actors so that everyone can realize their human rights, including the right to food. She describes three ways that she has found to be effective in pushing beyond boundaries: international collaborations, interactions with global social movements, and anti-racist work. She links these “moments” of opportunity back to the five challenges, and concludes with advice to young scholars. (shrink)

According to various “harm-based” approaches to the non-identity problem, an action that brings a particular child into existence can also harm that child, even if his or her life is worth living. In the third chapter of The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People, David Boonin surveys a variety of harm-based approaches and argues that none of them are successful. In this paper I argue that his objections to these various approaches do not impugn a harm-based approach that (...) Boonin does not consider, an approach I call the “existence solution to the non-identity problem.” I also argue that the existence solution is more plausible than Boonin’s own proposed solution. (shrink)

This chapter offers a philosophical reconstruction of philosophical views on epistemic practices and the social practical basis of authority in order to make sense of Richard Rorty's anxieties about religion's role in democratic life. It shows that the philosophical views can also be used to construct an approach to religious pluralism that is far more open‐ended and dialogical than the approach that Rorty chose to pursue. The chapter reviews Rorty's call for the privatization of religion in light of his broader (...) view of epistemic practices. Rorty's two main anxieties about religion come from his view of the social practical basis of authority. His tendency to generalize about the dangers of religion in public life was shaped by the culture wars of the 1990s, the political and cultural struggle between liberal secularists and the religious right over issues such as abortion and homosexuality. (shrink)

There has been much discussion arising from Reichenbach's distinction in the philosophy of science between the context of discovery and the context of justification. More recently, some have also begun to distinguish between these and the "context of pursuit" at which point scientists are pursuing a theory or hypothesis that has been suggested as plausible, but is not yet deemed acceptable. However, there has been relatively little work done on characterizing this process by using specific scientific examples. In this talk, (...) I consider Millikan's 1916 experiment on the photoelectric effect, and its relation to Einstein's light quanta hypothesis in order to clarify the role of hypotheses in the context of theory pursuit. I argue that Millikan's results did not directly support the light quanta hypothesis, but that they did constrain the possible theories that could be subsequently developed. Thus, a hypothesis can be useful for guiding research, but we must be careful to evaluate whether the experimental results genuinely support the hypothesis or not. (shrink)

This is an extension of Dr. Miller's Sicilian Colony Dates, in which she examined the ability of the ancient Greek historians to cite dates for historical events occurring before the advent of Greek historiography in the fifth century B.C. ...

Can advances in neuroscience be harnessed to enhance human moral capacities? And if so, should they? De Grazia explores these questions in ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We Value in Moral Behaviour’.1 Here, I offer a neuroscientist's perspective on the state of the art of moral bioenhancement, and highlight some of the practical challenges facing the development of moral bioenhancement technologies.The science of moral bioenhancement is in its infancy. Laboratory studies of human morality usually employ highly simplified models aimed at (...) measuring just one facet of a cognitive process that is relevant for morality. These studies have certainly deepened our understanding of the nature of moral behaviour, but it is important to avoid overstating the conclusions of any single study. De Grazia cites several purported examples of ‘non-traditional means of moral enhancement’, including one of my own studies. According to De Grazia, we showed that ‘selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors as a means to being less inclined to assault people’. In fact, our findings are a bit more subtle and nuanced than implied in the target article, as is often the case in neuroscientific studies of complex human behaviour. In our study, we tested the effects of the selective serotonin reuptake …. (shrink)

In _The Excessive Subject: A New Theory of Social Change_, Molly Anne Rothenberg uncovers an innovative theory of social change implicit in the writings of radical social theorists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj?i?ek. Through case studies of these writers' work, Rothenberg illuminates how this new theory calls into question currently accepted views of social practices, subject formation, democratic interaction, hegemony, political solidarity, revolutionary acts, and the ethics of alterity. Finding a common (...) dissatisfaction with the dominant paradigms of social structures in the authors she discusses, Rothenberg goes on to show that each of these thinkers makes use of Lacan's investigations of the causality of subjectivity in an effort to find an alternative paradigm. Labeling this paradigm 'extimate causality', Rothenberg demonstrates how it produces a nondeterminacy, so that every subject bears some excess; paradoxically, this excess is what structures the social field itself. Whilst other theories of social change, subject formation, and political alliance invariably conceive of the elimination of this excess as necessary to their projects, the theory of extimate causality makes clear that it is ineradicable. To imagine otherwise is to be held hostage to a politics of fantasy. As she examines the importance as well as the limitations of theories that put extimate causality to work, Rothenberg reveals how the excess of the subject promises a new theory of social change. By bringing these prominent thinkers together for the first time in one volume, this landmark text will be sure to ignite debate among scholars in the field, as well as being an indispensable tool for students. (shrink)

This paper considers the importance of unification in the context of developing scientific theories. I argue that unifying hypotheses are not valuable simply because they are supported by multiple lines of evidence. Instead, they can be valuable because they guide experimental research in different domains in such a way that the results from those experiments inform the scope of the theory being developed. I support this characterization by appealing to the early development of quantum theory. I then draw some comparisons (...) with discussions of robustness reasoning. (shrink)

Abstract:The ethical principle of autonomy requires physicians to respect patient autonomy when present, and to protect the patient who lacks autonomy. Fulfilling this ethical obligation when a patient has a communication impairment presents considerable challenges. Standard methods for evaluating decision-making capacity require a semistructured interview. Some patients with communication impairments are unable to engage in a semistructured interview and are at risk of the wrongful loss of autonomy. In this article, we present a general strategy for assessing decision-making capacity in (...) patients with communication impairments. We derive this strategy by reflecting on a particular case. The strategy involves three steps: (1) determining the reliability of communication, (2) widening the bandwidth of communication, and (3) using compensatory measures of decision-making capacity. We argue that this strategy may be useful for assessing decision-making capacity and preserving autonomy in some patients with communication impairments. (shrink)

In _The Excessive Subject: A New Theory of Social Change_, Molly Anne Rothenberg uncovers an innovative theory of social change implicit in the writings of radical social theorists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj?i?ek. Through case studies of these writers' work, Rothenberg illuminates how this new theory calls into question currently accepted views of social practices, subject formation, democratic interaction, hegemony, political solidarity, revolutionary acts, and the ethics of alterity. Finding a common (...) dissatisfaction with the dominant paradigms of social structures in the authors she discusses, Rothenberg goes on to show that each of these thinkers makes use of Lacan's investigations of the causality of subjectivity in an effort to find an alternative paradigm. Labeling this paradigm 'extimate causality', Rothenberg demonstrates how it produces a nondeterminacy, so that every subject bears some excess; paradoxically, this excess is what structures the social field itself. Whilst other theories of social change, subject formation, and political alliance invariably conceive of the elimination of this excess as necessary to their projects, the theory of extimate causality makes clear that it is ineradicable. To imagine otherwise is to be held hostage to a politics of fantasy. As she examines the importance as well as the limitations of theories that put extimate causality to work, Rothenberg reveals how the excess of the subject promises a new theory of social change. By bringing these prominent thinkers together for the first time in one volume, this landmark text will be sure to ignite debate among scholars in the field, as well as being an indispensable tool for students. (shrink)

The lack of gender parity in philosophy has garnered serious attention recently. Previous empirical work that aims to quantify what has come to be called “the gender gap” in philosophy focuses mainly on the absence of women in philosophy faculty and graduate programs. Our study looks at gender representation in philosophy among undergraduate students, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and faculty. Our findings are consistent with what other studies have found about women faculty in philosophy, but we were able to add (...) two pieces of new information. First, the biggest drop in the proportion of women in philosophy occurs between students enrolled in introductory philosophy classes and philosophy majors. Second, this drop is mitigated by the presence of more women philosophy faculty. (shrink)

Incarcerated offenders are categorically high-risk patients who are disproportionately more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses than members of the general population. The conditions of confinement (e.g., overcrowding, poor nutrition, risky sexual practices) furthermore make them increasingly susceptible to acquiring an infectious disease. Past research has linked preventive care, including the early detection and treatment of such diseases, with better long-term health outcomes; however, such care is not universally provided to this population. The benefits and current availability of preventive care (...) for incarcerated offenders is discussed and several questions are raised for future discussion within a global context. In particular, these questions include whether or not incarcerated offenders should receive preventive care, the underlying reason for such provision, who should advocate for and for be responsible for their access to preventive care, and the mechanisms through which access could be attained. (shrink)

The critical commentary on Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative focuses primarily on her use of speech-act theory for political purposes. Admitting the limitations of Austin’s work, she introduces an extended supplement to her linguistically based performative theory in Excitable Speech: a discussion of embodied subjectivity presented in ways never before instanced in her work. That is, in this text, she continues to use speech-act theory articulated with Derridean iterability (her usual practice) to ground performativity, while presenting (...) a version of embodiment newly derived from psychoanalysis to establish the political efficacy of the subject. Although this shift has gone unremarked in the literature, Butler herself treats this psychoanalytic dimension as animating the entire argument. This article reviews her logic and the place that psychoanalysis holds in her theory to establish the viability of the embodied political performative and its utility for historicism. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview of the philosophy of Robert S. Sokolowski with a focus on his account of what philosophy is, how philosophy arises out of pre-philosophical life, and how it is related back to pre-philosophical life. It also situates Sokolowsk’s achievements in articulating the relationship between Husserlian phenomenology and modern and pre-modern styles of philosophizing.

Both individuals with diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and individuals high in psychopathic traits show reduced susceptibility to contagious yawning; that is, yawning after seeing or hearing another person yawn. Yet it is unclear whether the same underlying processes are responsible for the relationship between reduced contagion and these very different types of clinical traits. College Students watched videos of individuals yawning or scratching while their eye movements were tracked. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, the Psychopathy (...) Personality Inventory-Revised, and the Adolescent and Adult Sensory Processing Disorder Checklist. Both psychopathic traits and autistic traits showed an inverse relationship to contagious yawning, consistent with previous research. However, the relationship between autistic traits and contagious yawning was moderated by eye gaze. Furthermore, participants high in autistic traits showed typical levels of contagious itching whereas adults high in psychopathic traits showed diminished itch contagion. Finally, only psychopathic traits were associated with lower overall levels of empathy. The findings imply that the underlying processes contributing to the disruptions in contagious yawning amongst individuals high in autistic vs. psychopathic traits are distinct. In contrast to adults high in psychopathic traits, diminished contagion may appear amongst people with high levels of autistic traits secondary to diminished attention to the faces of others, and in the absence of a background deficit in emotional empathy. (shrink)

In this article, I consider some of the first appearances of a hypothesis of quantized energy between the years 1900 and 1913 and provide an analysis of the nature of the unificatory power of this hypothesis in a Bayesian framework. I argue that the best way to understand the unification here is in terms of informational relevance: on the assumption of the quantum hypothesis, phenomena that were previously thought to be unrelated turned out to yield information about one another on (...) the basis of agreeing measurements of the numerical value of Planck’s constant. (shrink)

We report on an unpublished and previously unknown manuscript of John von Neumann and contextualize it within the development of the theory of shock waves and detonations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Von Neumann studies bombs comprising a primary explosive charge along with explosive booster material. His goal is to calculate the minimal amount of booster needed to create a sustainable detonation, presumably because booster material is often more expensive and more volatile. In service of this goal, he formulates (...) and analyzes a partial differential equation-based model describing a moving shock wave at the interface of detonated and undetonated material. We provide a complete transcription of von Neumann’s work and give our own accompanying explanations and analyses, including the correction of two small errors in his calculations. Today, detonations are typically modeled using a combination of experimental results and numerical simulations particular to the shape and materials of the explosive, as the complex three dimensional dynamics of detonations are analytically intractable. Although von Neumann’s manuscript will not revolutionize our modern understanding of detonations, the document is a valuable historical record of the state of hydrodynamics research during and after World War II. (shrink)

Many of us agree that we ought not to wrong future people, but there remains disagreement about which of our actions can wrong them. Can we wrong individuals whose lives are worth living by taking actions that result in their very existence? The problem of justifying an answer to this question has come to be known as the non-identity problem.[1] While the literature contains an array of strategies for solving the problem,[2] in this paper I will take what I call (...) the harm-based approach, and I will defend an account of harming—which I call the existence account of harming—that can vindicate this approach. -/- Roughly put, the harm-based approach holds that, by acting in ways that result in the existence of individuals whose lives are worth living, we can harm and thereby wrong those individuals. An initially plausible way to try to justify this approach is to endorse the non-comparative account of harming, which holds that an event harms an individual just in case it causes her to be in a bad state, such that the state’s badness does not derive from a comparison between that state and some alternative state that the individual would or could have been in. However, many philosophers argue that the non-comparative account of harming is inadequate,[3] and one might be tempted to infer from this that any harm-based approach to the non-identity problem will fail. My proposal, which I call the existence account of harming, will show that this inference is faulty: we can vindicate the harm-based approach without relying on the non-comparative account of harming. (shrink)

Mollie Adams; The Concept of Physical Education II, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 3, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 23–35, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1.

One fall evening in 1880, Russian painter Ilya Repin welcomed an unexpected visitor to his home: Lev Tolstoy. The renowned realists talked for hours, and Tolstoy turned his critical eye to the sketches in Repin's studio. Tolstoy's criticisms would later prompt Repin to reflect on the question of creative expression and conclude that the path to artistic truth is relative, dependent on the mode and medium of representation. In this original study, Molly Brunson traces many such paths that converged (...) to form the tradition of nineteenth-century Russian realism, a tradition that spanned almost half a century--from the youthful projects of the Natural School and the critical realism of the age of reform to the mature masterpieces of Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the paintings of the Wanderers, Repin chief among them. By examining the classics of the tradition, Brunson explores the emergence of multiple realisms from the gaps, disruptions, and doubts that accompany the self-conscious project of representing reality. These manifestations of realism are united not by how they look or what they describe, but by their shared awareness of the fraught yet critical task of representation. By tracing the engagement of literature and painting with aesthetic debates on the sister arts, Brunson argues for a conceptualization of realism that transcends artistic media. Russian Realisms integrates the lesser-known tradition of Russian painting with the familiar masterpieces of Russia's great novelists, highlighting both the common ground in their struggles for artistic realism and their cultural autonomy and legitimacy. This erudite study will appeal to scholars interested in Russian literature and art, comparative literature, art history, and nineteenth-century realist movements. (shrink)

John Dewey was a major figure of the American cultural and intellectual landscape in the first half of the twentieth century. While not the originator of American pragmatism, he was instrumental to its articulation as a philosophy and the spread of its influence beyond philosophy to other disciplines. His prolific writings encompass metaphysics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, psychology, moral philosophy, the philosophies of religion, art, and education, and democratic political and international theory. The contributors to this Companion examine the (...) wide range of Dewey's thought and provide a critical evaluation of his philosophy and its lasting influence, both elsewhere in philosophy and on other disciplines. (shrink)

The problem of justified harm is the problem of explaining why it is permissible to inflict harm for the sake of future benefits in some cases but not in others. In this paper I first motivate the problem by comparing a case in which a lifeguard breaks a swimmer’s arm in order to save her life to a case in which Nazis imprison a man who later grows wiser as a result of the experience. I consider other philosophers’ attempts to (...) explain why the lifeguard’s action was permissible but the Nazis’ action was not. After arguing that principles having to do with consent, expected utility, and the types of harms and benefits at issue do not fully solve the problem, I argue for a causal solution to the problem. The causal solution includes both a causal account of harming and a distinction between causes and mere conditions. It then distinguishes between the lifeguard and Nazi cases with following principle: A harmful action that causes greater benefits can sometimes be justified by those benefits, but a harmful action that does not cause greater benefits cannot be justified by any subsequent benefits that the action, itself, does not cause. (shrink)

Hegel’s Social Ethics offers a fresh and accessible interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Drawing on important recent work on the social dimensions of Hegel’s theory of knowledge, Molly Farneth shows how his account of how we know rests on his account of how we ought to live. Farneth argues that Hegel views conflict as an unavoidable part of living together, and that his social ethics involves relationships and social practices that allow (...) people to cope with conflict and sustain hope for reconciliation. Communities create, contest, and transform their norms through these relationships and practices, and Hegel’s model for them are often the interactions and rituals of the members of religious communities. The book’s close readings reveal the ethical implications of Hegel’s discussions of slavery, Greek tragedy, early modern culture wars, and confession and forgiveness. The book also illuminates how contemporary democratic thought and practice can benefit from Hegelian insights. Through its sustained engagement with Hegel’s ideas about conflict and reconciliation, Hegel’s Social Ethics makes an important contribution to debates about how to live well with religious and ethical disagreement. (shrink)

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of scientific theory pursuit by providing a detailed case study on the development of early quantum theory, from roughly 1900 to 1916. I first elaborate on why this case should be considered an instance of piecemeal pursuit by presenting the historical quantum conjectures that were being used in different contexts. These conjectures gave varied interpretations of quantization. By comparing these conjectures, I identify a general quantum postulate that captures the (...) underlying assumption common to all the cases. I argue that it is possible to consider a general postulate about quantization even when its proper application is ambiguous in a given context, and that the postulate can be separated from different elements of the framework being used to investigate it. I show that the quantum postulate can be deemed promising by analysing the support it gains using a Bayesian framework. I first defend the use of such a framework by considering the purported inconsistencies in Planck's introduction of his quantum conjecture and how we should handle these. I then explicate two cases of support for the postulate. First, I show how we can use a particular solution to the Bayesian problem of old evidence to interpret the support the quantum postulate received by accounting for phenomena that had no previous explanation. Finally, I show that the quantum postulate is also supported by a unification argument, where unification is interpreted as informational relevance between the different domains of inquiry. (shrink)

The author reviews Bucking the Artworld Tide: Reflections on Art, Pseudo Art, Art Education & Theory, a collection of essays on the visual arts by Michelle Marder Kamhi. In her view, Kamhi presents a compelling case against the modernist and postmodernist inventions that have come to dominate the artworld since the early twentieth century—from abstract work to “conceptual art.” Citing countless paintings, sculptures, and works of purported art, these essays offer sparkling nuggets of insight into what art is, what it (...) is not, and why. (shrink)

Food security, health, decent livelihoods, gender equity, safe working conditions, cultural identity and participation in cultural life are basic human rights that can be achieved at least in part through the food system. But current trends in the US prevent full realization of these economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) for residents, farmers, and wageworkers in the food system. Supply chains that strive to meet the goals of social justice, economic equity, and environmental quality better than the dominant globalized food (...) value networks are gaining popularity in the US. However, achieving important human rights has become conflated with other goals of food system reform over the past decade, such as being “community-based,” local, and sustainable. This conflation confuses means, ends, and complementary goals; and it may lead activists trying to help communities to regain control of their food system choices into less productive strategies. This paper introduces a new concept, rights-based food systems (RBFS), and explores its connection with localization and sustainability. The core criteria of RBFS are democratic participation in food system choices affecting more than one sector; fair, transparent access by producers to all necessary resources for food production and marketing; multiple independent buyers; absence of human exploitation; absence of resource exploitation; and no impingement on the ability of people in other locales to meet this set of criteria. Localization and a community base can help achieve RBFS by facilitating food democracy and reducing environmental exploitation, primarily by lowering environmental costs due to long-distance transportation. Sustainability per se is an empty goal for food system reform, unless what will be sustained and for whom are specified. The RBFS concept helps to clarify what is worth sustaining and who is most susceptible to neglect in attempts to reform food systems. Localization can be a means toward sustainability if local food systems are also RBFS. (shrink)