Some of the dialogue in the Star Wars films has become deservedly iconic, instantly recognizable even to people unfamiliar with the series. Several human characters speak two or more languages. This chapter examines whether Chewbacca's noises work like a language. It considers a typical exchange between Chewbacca and Han Solo. The conclusion that these noises are not real language is so obvious as to be unnecessary: Chewbacca does not speak. The Star Wars films and Expanded Universe materials teem with processes, (...) objects, and entities that are unique to their fictional setting, are without counterparts in real life, and would need to be learned by someone encountering them for the first time. Conversely, if more and more people do start to use a word in a new way, eventually the newer usage will become its accepted meaning, either coexisting with an older meaning or superseding it. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

In _Phenomenology, Naturalism and Empirical Science_, Jack Reynolds takes the controversial position that phenomenology and naturalism are compatible, and develops a hybrid account of phenomenology and empirical science. Though phenomenology and naturalism are typically understood as philosophically opposed to one another, Reynolds argues that this resistance is based on an understanding of transcendental phenomenology that is ultimately untenable and in need of updating. Phenomenology, as Reynolds reorients it, is compatible with liberal naturalism, as well as with weak (...) forms of methodological naturalism. Chapters explore areas where scientific and phenomenological work overlap and sometimes conflict, contesting standard ways of understanding the relationship between phenomenological philosophy and empirical science. The book outlines the significance of the first-person perspective characteristic of phenomenology—both epistemically and ontologically—while according due respect to the relevant empirical sciences. This book makes a significant contribution to one of the central issues in phenomenology and argues for phenomenology’s ongoing importance for the future of philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that many of the core phenomenological insights, including the emphasis on direct perception, are a necessary but not sufficient condition for an adequate account of inter-subjectivity today. I take it that an adequate account of inter-subjectivity must involve substantial interaction with empirical studies, notwithstanding the putative methodological differences between phenomenological description and scientific explanation. As such, I will need to explicate what kind of phenomenology survives, and indeed, thrives, in a milieu that necessitates engagement with (...) the relevant sciences, albeit not necessarily deference to them. -/- There will be two central aims to this paper: 1. to defend the centrality and vitality of phenomenological treatments of inter-subjectivity via a consideration of some remarks in Sartre - which I do think possess a non-trivial unity amongst the various interlocutors - and the manner in which they in fact serve to provide the basis for a better explanation of an array of empirical data than existing inferentialist or mindreading accounts of social cognition (notably Theory Theory, Simulation Theory, and hybrid versions); 2. to offer the methodological resources for renewing phenomenology in a manner that acknowledges ostensibly non-phenomenological moments in theory production - which involve explanation, inference to the best explanation, etc. - but does not abandon phenomenology for all that, allowing it to be simply absorbed into empirical explanation or other forms of philosophical analysis without remainder. (shrink)

Standard philosophical explanations of the concept of knowledge invoke a personal goal of having true beliefs, and explain the other requirements for knowledge as indicating the best way to achieve that goal. In this highly original book, Steven L. Reynolds argues instead that the concept of knowledge functions to express a naturally developing kind of social control, a complex social norm, and that the main purpose of our practice of saying and thinking that people 'know' is to improve our (...) system for exchanging information, which is testimony. He makes illuminating comparisons of the knowledge norm of testimony with other complex social norms - such as those requiring proper clothing, respectful conversation, and the complementary virtues of tact and frankness - and shows how this account fits with our concept of knowledge as studied in recent analytic epistemology. His book will interest a range of readers in epistemology, psychology, and sociology. (shrink)

Non-propositional experiences can help justify beliefs, contrary to recent claims made by Donald Davidson and Laurence Bonjour. It is argued that a perceptual belief is justified if there are no undermining beliefs and it was arrived at in response to an experience through an adequate exercise of properly learned recognitional skills.

I critically engage Max Horkheimer’s “Art and Mass Culture” from Critical Theory. I split Horkheimer’s essay into three parts, which correspond to the three sections of my essay. The first section details the objective historical conditions that have lead up to Horkheimer’s diagnosis. The second section describes the change in consciousness that corresponds to these conditions, and the third section outlines Horkheimer’s critique of Mortimer Adler and art that belongs to “the amusement industry.” I describe the basic elements of Horkheimer’s (...) aesthetic theory, use several pieces of art as examples of the application of the theory, andprovide contemporary analogues in order to illustrate the relevance of the essay to today’s world. (shrink)

We give a sound and complete axiomatization for the full computation tree logic, CTL*, of R-generable models. This solves a long standing open problem in branching time temporal logic.

The Life Worth Living investigates the exclusion of and discrimination against disabled people across the history of Western moral philosophy. Building on decades of activism and scholarship, Reynolds shows how longstanding views of disability are misguided and unjust, and he lays out a vision for an anti-ableist moral future. The introduction and first chapter are available to download here. -/- Table of Contents: Introduction: The Ableist Conflation. Part I: Pain. 1. Theories of Pain. 2. A Phenomenology of Chronic Pain. (...) Part II: Disability. 3. Theories of Disability. 4. A Phenomenology of Multiple Sclerosis. Part III: Ability. 5. Theories of Ability. 6. A Phenomenology of Ability. Conclusion: An Anti-Ableist Future. (shrink)

This paper critically engages with Simon Glendinning’s The Idea of Continental Philosophy. Glendinning purports to show that there can be no coherent philosophical understanding of continental philosophy as comprising any sort of distinct or unified tradition. In this paper, however, I raise some questions about the largely unilateral direction in which his account of the motives for the divide is pursued: analytic philosophy is envisaged as pathologically projecting the internal and unavoidable threat of philosophical failure upon an external ‘continental’ other. (...) I also contend that Glendinning’s claims regarding the lack of thematic and methodological continuity at work in continental philosophy are overstated. Without denying that there is less of a normative consensus undergirding this polyvocal tradition than is evinced in the analytic tradition, in the second half of the paper I will argue for a ‘quasi-unity’ that revolves around the co-imbrication of methodological considerations and what I characterise as continental philosophy’s ‘temporal turn’. (shrink)

People tend to perceive ongoing continuous activity as series of discrete events. This partitioning of continuous activity may occur, in part, because events correspond to dynamic patterns that have recurred across different contexts. Recurring patterns may lead to reliable sequential dependencies in observers' experiences, which then can be used to guide perception. The current set of simulations investigated whether this statistical structure within events can be used 1) to develop stable internal representations that facilitate perception and 2) to learn when (...) to update such representations in a self-organizing manner. These simulations demonstrate that experience with recurring patterns enables a system to accurately predict upcoming stimuli within an event, to identify boundaries between such events based on transient increases in prediction error, and to use such boundaries to improve prediction about subsequent activities. (shrink)

Promoting patient autonomy has become a key imperative in health service encounters. We will examine the potential negative effects of over-promoting patient autonomy and consider the impact on patient access, their experience and the provision of equitable services by focusing on an extreme manifestation of this trend, i.e. calls for patient involvement in health care decision making to be mandatory. Advocates of mandatory autonomy hold that patients have a duty to themselves, to society and to the medical system to make (...) decisions on their health care independently. Models of mandatory autonomy may be contrasted to those of optional autonomy that seek to ascertain patients’ decisional preferences and to understand wider limitations on their freedom to choose. Where choice as decisional responsibility becomes mandatory it ceases to promote agency and where autonomous choice is understood as an individualistic practice it will contribute to the cultural dominance of Western values. Moreover, taking a view that principlist ethics needs to take account of the social and cultural contexts of individual lives, we argue that if mandatory autonomy were to be over-emphasised as part of an ongoing move towards patient choice in UK National Health Service (NHS), educated and affluent people would be more able to exercise choices at the expense of people who are experienced in asserting preferences and who have the resources to make use of choices. We will argue that the promotion of autonomy needs to be tempered by steps to enable less powerful social, cultural and economic groups to contribute to decision making and to support individuals who may feel abandoned by having decisional responsibility transferred to them. Until constraints on individual choice can be understood and addressed, we advocate the model of optional autonomy used in shared decision making and make recommendations for practice, policy, education and research. (shrink)

En Écosse (xvie-xxe siècle) Siân Reynolds Comment se fait-il qu’en Écosse, contrairement aux coutumes de l’Angleterre, une femme mariée ait pu garder son nom de naissance/de jeune fille (maiden name ou birth name) après le mariage? C’est au moment où je co-dirigeais le Dictionnaire biographique des femmes écossaises (première édition 2005) que j’ai constaté qu’en Écosse, par le passé, et jusqu’à une époque relativement récente, les femmes étaient souvent connues par leur propre nom de fami...

This article considers two of the methodological steps in a Community of Philosophical Enquiry: developing the questions and voting on the questions. Both of these practices are enacted by the 8-9 year old children who are the participants in a philosophical enquiry, which I facilitated at a government primary school in South Africa. Matthews (1994) reminds us that children as philosophical thinkers/doers have been left out of the dominant narratives about children and childhood. A question that guides this research is (...) where is the place for philosophical questions (developed by children) and the kind of philosophical thinking/drawing/creating/being for child (and adults) in schools? How do we make space for such questioning–so that the richness of these pedagogical encounters can really matter and make a difference to the teaching and learning taking place? Gandorfer in an interview with Barad (2021), suggests that critical thought “is to encounter what is unrecognizable and imperceptible, yet sensible and constructive of sense without separating it from the physical world” (p. 20). I would agree and apply this to the critical thoughts of child. This thinking is not located in the child, in their mind and does not emerge only through the thoughts, child verbalises. A critical posthumanism theory/practice analysis ensures that as researcher, I do not stand outside of the research peering in at a distance. Similarly the children, the questions, the voting and the enquiries are not separate from the world, they are all already entangled with the world. When the children are voting on the questions, this performs as a pedagogy of interruption (Michaud, 2020). As the facilitator, I do not know which question will receive the largest number of votes for the philosophical enquiry. This makes possible an emergent curriculum in its be(com)ing. Toby Rollo’s (2016) formulations about child as political agent and not just moral agent and the implications for more democratic and just schooling are theorised in this paper through the act of the children voting on the questions. I argue that children are not just excluded from participating in decisions about what and even how they are learning at school but from most pedagogical practices in classrooms and schools. I show how the children creating the questions and voting on the questions can be democratic practices with political and moral implications in a community of philosophical enquiry. (shrink)

« Premier achat de notre nouveau couple : un tandem rouge, magnifique. Je l’ai encore. » Il n’est pas étonnant que Louis-Pascal Jacquemond ait reproduit (p. 305) ce témoignage d’une femme ayant vécu 1936, ni que Michelle Zancarini-Fournel l’ait mis en exergue de sa préface à ce « panorama » sur la question des femmes à l’époque du Front populaire. Cela correspond si bien aux images de « l’embellie » célébrée par Léon Blum, ou de « l’euphorie » citée par (...) ce témoin, Marie-Françoise Spannente :... (shrink)

Any decision by a company regarding the use of profits to pay tax, remuneration or shareholder returns has ethical implications. Sharing Profits reviews high-profile ethical issues facing companies in how profits are used, and proposes a framework for understanding the ethical implications of decisions.

This chapter argues that SNL tends, with some exceptions, away from the philosophical and satirical areas of the spectrum and more towards the smart‐assical, silly side. Moreover, just like SNL sketches, Aristophanes' plays often subjected contemporary figures, celebrities, and politicians to intense ridicule. The sketch provided SNL a way of criticizing its own network by allowing the writers and actors to adopt a different persona, thus creating a safe distance between critic and target. Setting aside how accurately the scenario sketched (...) at the outset depicts typical SNL performances, it should be noted that it does paint a fair picture of staged satire in Athens, Greece, circa. As in the case of Aristophanes, most of SNL's satirical qualities revolve around political debates, issues, and, most famously, figures. (shrink)

Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics is the first book devoted to understanding Charles Sanders Peirce's (1839-1914) metaphysics from the perspective of the scientific questions that motivated his thinking. While offering a detailed account of the scientific ideas and theories essential for understanding Peirce's metaphysical system, this book is written in a manner accessible to the non-specialist.

This paper examines voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting as a form of moral discourse. It explores how alternative stakeholder perspectives lead to differing perceptions of the process and content of responsible reporting. We contrast traditional stakeholder theory, which views stakeholders as external parties having a social contract with corporations, with an emerging perspective, which views interaction among corporations and constituents as relational in nature. This moves the stakeholder from an external entity to one that is integral to corporate activity. (...) We explore how these alternative stakeholder perspectives give rise to different normative demands for stakeholder engagement, managerial processes, and communication. We discuss models of CSR reporting and accountability: EMAS, the ISO 14000 series, SA8000, AA1000, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Copenhagen Charter. We explore how these models relate to the stakeholder philosophies and find that they are largely consistent with the traditional atomistic view but fall far short of the demands for moral engagement prescribed by a relational stakeholder perspective. Adopting a relational view requires stakeholder engagement not only in prescribing reporting requirements, but also in discourse relating to core aspects of the corporation such as mission, values, and management systems. Habermas’ theory of communicative action provides guidelines for engaging stakeholders in this moral discourse. (shrink)

Drawing upon the life and work of S. Kay Toombs, I explore the impact and import of phenomenological accounts of disability for the existentialist tradition. Through the case of multiple sclerosis, a noncongenital, late-onset, and degenerative disability, I show how the general structures that emerge from its lived experience largely support a mere-difference view of disability and highlight the need for an equitably habitable world. I further argue that phenomenological accounts of disability demonstrate accessibility to be the defining feature of (...) what it means to be embodied as we are. I conclude with a discussion of the more general philosophical relationship between disability, embodiment, and existentialism. (shrink)

Various considerations are adduced toshow that we require that a testifier know hertestimony. Such a requirement apparentlyimproves testimony. It is argued that the aimof improving testimony explains why we have anduse our concept of knowledge. If we were tointroduce a term of praise for testimony, usingit at first to praise testimony that apparentlyhelped us in our practical projects, it wouldcome to be used as we now use the word``know''.

An increasing number of scholars at the intersection of feminist philosophy and critical disability studies have turned to Merleau-Ponty to develop phenomenologies of disability or of what, following Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, I call "non-normate" embodiment. These studies buck the historical trend of philosophers employing disability as an example of deficiency or harm, a mere litmus test for normative theories, or an umbrella term for aphenotypical bodily variation. While a Merleau-Pontian-inspired phenomenology is a promising starting point for thinking about embodied experiences of (...) all sorts, I here draw a cautionary tale about how ableist assumptions can easily undermine accounts of non-normate experience. I first argue that the omission or misguided treatment of disability within the history of philosophy in general and the phenomenological tradition in particular is due to the inheritance of what I call “the ableist conflation” of disability with pain, suffering, and disadvantage. I then show that Merleau-Ponty’s famous reading of the blind man’s cane is problematic insofar as it omits the social dimensions of disabled experiences, misconstrues the radicality of blindness as a world-creating disability, and operates via an able-bodied simulation that confuses object annexation or extension with incorporation. In closing, I contend that if phenomenology is to overcome the errors of traditional philosophy, as Merleau-Ponty once hoped, it must heed the insights of “crip” or non-normate phenomenology, which takes the lived experience of disability as its point of departure. [French translation forthcoming in Pour une phénoménologie critique, ed. Donald A. Landes, Quebec City, Les Presses de l'Université Laval/Paris, J.Vrin]. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the meaning of modernism across the globe, stretching beyond both the Western modernist canon and the literary-heavy scope of the field to a broader cultural consideration of global modernisms and modernity. Through the use of masks as a thematic focus, the volume challenges popular assumptions about what modernism looks like, what modernity is, and how each of these ideas are produced within a historical moment.

Cicero's De finibus, written in 45 BC, consists of three separate dialogues, dealing respectively with the ethical systems of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the `Old Academy' of Antiochus of Ascalon. This critical edition of the text, based on a fresh study and collation of the manuscripts, is the first to appear for many years and the first to reflect a clear understanding of the whole manuscript tradition. It will be the second in a series of editions of Cicero's philosophical works; the (...) first volume, the De officiis, edited by Michael Winterbottom, appeared in 1994. (shrink)

This book is an investigation of the role of creative labor and the five senses in Rainer Maria Rilke’s prose works, including his “Primal Sound” essay, the Stories of God, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, and his monograph on Auguste Rodin. It is about several protagonists’ quest to achieve creative labor by reconnecting spirit or the unconscious to the hand. There are many difficulties in the way, however, illustrated by Rilke’s essays, tales, and monographs. In the process of overcoming (...) these impediments, the five senses are expanded and refined. Rilke’s characters undergo a transformation that not only allows them to do true creative labor, but also brings them into a new relationship with themselves, the world around them and other people. (shrink)

This new edition of Sallust, the first critical text for over thirty years, is based on a fresh study and collation of the manuscripts, as well as careful consideration of the indirect tradition. Besides the well-known Catiline and Jugurtha, the volume contains more than seventy of the longer or more interesting fragments of the Histories and also the spurious Epistulae ad Caesarem and Invectivae. These inclusions will prove extremely valuable to students and scholars alike.The works of Sallust, written in the (...) latter half of the first century BC, are commonly studied not only by classicists and ancient historians, but also by students of Latin prose. This new edition should therefore prove a particularly welcome addition to the series of Oxford Classical Texts. (shrink)

Insofar as many older adults fit some definition of disability, disability studies and gerontology would seem to have common interests and goals. However, there has been little discussion between these fields. The aim of this paper is to open up the insights of disability studies as well as philosophy of disability to discussions in gerontology. In doing so, I hope to contribute to thinking about the good life in late life by more critically reflecting upon the meaning of the body, (...) ability, and the variability of each. My central argument is that we should conceptualize age‐associated bodily variations and abilities not in terms of individual capacity, but in terms of what I call “the extended body.” It is in light of the meaning of embodiment and ability in general that we must think differently and more capaciously about the meaning of late life in particular. (shrink)

Reynold Jones; A Reply to Kieran Egan, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 195–198, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1.

Phenomenology has been described as a “non-argumentocentric” way of doing philosophy, reflecting that the philosophical focus is on generating adequate descriptions of experience. But it should not be described as an argument-free zone, regardless of whether this is intended as a descriptive claim about the work of the “usual suspects” or a normative claim about how phenomenology ought to be properly practiced. If phenomenology is always at least partly in the business of arguments, then it is worth giving further attention (...) to the role and form of phenomenological argumentation, how it interacts with its more strictly descriptive component, and the status of phenomenological claims regarding conditions for various kinds of experience. I contend that different versions of phenomenological reasoning encroach upon argument forms that are commonly thought to be antithetical to phenomenology, notably abductive reasoning, understood in terms of its role in both hypothesis generation and in terms of justification. This paper identifies two main steps to making this case. The first step takes seriously the consequences of the intrinsically dialectical aspect of phenomenology in intersection with other modes of philosophy, the natural attitude, and non-philosophy. The second step focuses on transcendental reflection and arguments about the conditions/structures they contain. Together, these two steps aim to rescue phenomenology from the objection that it has an “ostrich epistemology” with regard to the ostensible purity of description, the intuition of essences, or the “conditions” ascertained through transcendental reflection. (shrink)